Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our
Speaker 2: podcast and I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2: Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3: How many are excited about this series that we're in.
Speaker 3: The series is called Maybe God. The subject is His voice,
Speaker 3: his will, his ways. How do I know if this
Speaker 3: opportunity comes from the Lord? And now have a scripture
Speaker 3: for you today that I think will be a great
Speaker 3: blessing in your life. It's in First Samuel, chapter fourteen,
Speaker 3: verse number six. The Bible says Jonathan said to his
Speaker 3: young armor bearer, Come, let's go over to the outpost
Speaker 3: of those uncircumcised men. He's talking trash about the Philistines.
Speaker 3: He calls them a derogatory name. He's talking about their uncircumcision. Wow,
Speaker 3: he must be fired up about something. He's a little belligerent.
Speaker 3: He's getting bold now again. Afford to wait around and
Speaker 3: wait for something to happen from heaven when God has
Speaker 3: already given him a certain power on the earth. So
Speaker 3: he turns to who he has available at this point
Speaker 3: and says, let's go. It's just me and you, but
Speaker 3: touch somebody, say let's go now. I want you to
Speaker 3: be a favor if you're the only one on your
Speaker 3: row who praises God today during this sermon, I want
Speaker 3: you to go and look at somebody next to you
Speaker 3: and say, well, you go with me. Amen, he said,
Speaker 3: let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf.
Speaker 3: Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many
Speaker 3: or by few. In this third installment of Maybe God,
Speaker 3: my subject and my lesson today is called fifty fifty faith.
Speaker 3: I want to teach you on this principle that has
Speaker 3: been so useful in my life as a leader, and
Speaker 3: it's useful for me as a husband, as a dad,
Speaker 3: and just as a man.
Speaker 1: Fifty fifty faith.
Speaker 3: I believe this principle is going to set you free
Speaker 3: in some of the areas where indecision has imprisoned you
Speaker 3: and you've been waiting around, and God is going to
Speaker 3: show you something today by the power and virtue of
Speaker 3: His word and spirit, that only He could show you
Speaker 3: about fifty fifty faith, praise the Lord. I celebrated my
Speaker 3: thirty ninth birthday this week. Appreciate your pity. You know
Speaker 3: that last one with the three in front of it.
Speaker 3: I'm owning it. I am so owning turning forty. I
Speaker 3: am so owning these little gray whiskers that are popping up.
Speaker 3: I'm not dying them or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell them to get a close up on
Speaker 3: these gray these great things on the camera. Just zoom
Speaker 3: right into the greyest pat you can find in this beard.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it.
Speaker 3: I don't care what my kids say about it, and
Speaker 3: when they tell me that my jokes are cringy and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. One of my kids told me that
Speaker 3: the other day, and I just asked him a question back.
Speaker 3: He said, your jokes are so cringey. And I just
Speaker 3: asked him a question. I said, how many people show
Speaker 3: up to hear you speak? Since I'm so cringey conversational
Speaker 3: parenting approach, you might want to try it sometime. But
Speaker 3: one of the things I think keeps happening to me
Speaker 3: and is really happening to me at this stage of
Speaker 3: my ministry in life, because I have been doing this
Speaker 3: as a pastor over thirteen years. Is that I feel
Speaker 3: so good saying that it felt cool. I've been doing
Speaker 3: this over thirteen years. That's a long time to do anything.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 3: I've never been less certain and I've never been more confident,
Speaker 3: all at the same time, all at the same time.
Speaker 1: And it's a.
Speaker 3: Strange thing, how when you give up your need for
Speaker 3: certainty you can gain a true confidence that is independent
Speaker 3: of circumstance. Can I preach to somebody today right here
Speaker 3: in this back left section of Valentine? The passage that
Speaker 3: I read to you is one of my favorites. If
Speaker 3: they were giving out an Academy Award for best Old
Speaker 3: Testament Narrative Scripture, I would want to nominate Jonathan is
Speaker 3: best supporting Actor because he's not as famous as David,
Speaker 3: but he's a pretty good example for me and has
Speaker 3: helped me a lot.
Speaker 1: This passage has helped me a lot through the years.
Speaker 3: Every couple of years I preach it, and when I
Speaker 3: circle back to it, I see a different dimension of faith.
Speaker 3: I see a different dimension of the kind of confidence
Speaker 3: that we can have in Christ and in his promises.
Speaker 3: But I also see all of the uncertainty and self
Speaker 3: doubt that it also entails, and that my faith is
Speaker 3: not a formula, and it can never be. The more
Speaker 3: I try to make it into a formula, the less
Speaker 3: valuable it becomes to me. When life challenges all of
Speaker 3: my presuppositions, and all of my ideas about what kind
Speaker 3: of ways God wants to work collapse under the weight
Speaker 3: of real life, under the weight of real bills, under
Speaker 3: the weight of real medical reports. And I need the
Speaker 3: kind of faith that is not dependent on my presuppositions.
Speaker 3: I need the kind of faith that can deal with
Speaker 3: some ambiguity. I need a faith, like Richard Rohre says,
Speaker 3: that can be patient with mystery. I need a kind
Speaker 3: of faith that is not dependent on my plans to prevail.
Speaker 3: I need the kind of faith that can stand up
Speaker 3: against the worst thing that happens. I need the kind
Speaker 3: of faith that can shine when God goes dark, when
Speaker 3: I don't know, when I can't say it, when I
Speaker 3: can't see it, when I don't feel like I can
Speaker 3: make it. I need a faith that can withstand these seasons.
Speaker 3: Now around the verse that I read you is a
Speaker 3: little episode, and if you've been tracking with the series,
Speaker 3: I've used a few different old Testament passages from Judges
Speaker 3: and Samuel to try to give us some sort of arc,
Speaker 3: or to give us give us some kind of context
Speaker 3: for the way that transition creates opportunity for us to
Speaker 3: trust God. In this particular transition a negative one for
Speaker 3: the nation of Israel. King Saul has really lost his
Speaker 3: way and he's abdicated his leadership because of this. The
Speaker 3: Philistines who would torment the Israelites all the way until
Speaker 3: the rule of David, remember Sampson began to deliver them.
Speaker 1: That's last week. And you need to go on and
Speaker 1: watch that message about.
Speaker 3: The parentheses and the pivot and how there's a purpose
Speaker 3: even if I have to leave it blank right now,
Speaker 3: God is going to do something in this empty space
Speaker 3: in these parentheses, And I'm gonna put the parentheses there,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna let God fill them because He's too
Speaker 3: wise to make a mistake in my life.
Speaker 1: And that message is online.
Speaker 3: It's on YouTube and Facebook and elevation app and MySpace,
Speaker 3: and if they still had my Space, we will put
Speaker 3: it up there. Roku all of it. When when I
Speaker 3: was preaching that it talked about the beginning of deliverance.
Speaker 3: Are partial deliverance, and the beginning of deliverance happened through
Speaker 3: the judges. But now Saul the King was unable to
Speaker 3: commit himself fully to the ways and the will of
Speaker 3: the Lord, rather than to engage in a relationship with
Speaker 3: the living God, he has begun to manipulate. When he
Speaker 3: begins to manipulate and treat God as some kind of
Speaker 3: mechanism to get what he wants when he wants it,
Speaker 3: he loses that unique ability that we have to hear
Speaker 3: the voice of God. When you lose the ability to
Speaker 3: hear the voice of God, you waste energy, you waste resources,
Speaker 3: you waste worry on situations that God didn't even want
Speaker 3: you to give your attention to.
Speaker 1: So that's why I need to hear his voice.
Speaker 3: Saul, having lost that ability, is now surrounded by his enemies,
Speaker 3: so much so that his people that he was responsible
Speaker 3: for leading are hiding in rocks, in caves, in thickets.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to put the word thickets in there,
Speaker 3: because I don't get to use it on an everyday basis.
Speaker 1: But we're all hiding in places.
Speaker 3: Sometimes we find ourselves talked away in mindsets, in patterns,
Speaker 3: in isolation, away from people, away from life, away from joy,
Speaker 3: away from risk, away from opportunity. And this was the
Speaker 3: situation in Fir Samuel fourteen. Pick up verse twenty three
Speaker 3: from thirteen. Now a detachment of Philistines had gone out
Speaker 3: to the pass at nick Mash. It's always helpful to
Speaker 3: point out that the enemy always attacks you at the passages.
Speaker 3: He always attacks you at the places of transition, from
Speaker 3: what you knew to what you don't know, from where
Speaker 3: you were to where you're going. And so when he
Speaker 3: can set up an ambush at the passage, he can
Speaker 3: keep you from moving forward in those transitional pivotal moments
Speaker 3: of your life.
Speaker 1: And then one day somebody shout.
Speaker 3: One day, one day, Jonathan, son of Saul said to
Speaker 3: his young armor bearer, come, let's go over to the
Speaker 3: Philistine outpost on the other side. But he did not
Speaker 3: his father. Be very careful who you talk to about
Speaker 3: what God is doing inside of you. Be very careful
Speaker 3: who you communicate with about the impressions that God is
Speaker 3: stirring inside of you. If you talk to the wrong
Speaker 3: people about the right idea, your idea will die before
Speaker 3: it has the opportunity to conceive and give birth to
Speaker 3: what God is doing.
Speaker 1: In your life? How many know I'm right about that?
Speaker 3: Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibea under a
Speaker 3: pomegranate tree, and migrant with him were about six hundred men,
Speaker 3: among whom was a Hijah who was wearing an ephod.
Speaker 3: He was a son of Ichabod. He was a son
Speaker 3: of Ichabod's brother, rather Ahita, son of Phineas, the son
Speaker 3: of Eli, the lord's priest in Shiloh. No one was
Speaker 3: aware that Jonathan had left. On each side that Jonathan
Speaker 3: intended to cross to Rea, which the Philistine outpost was
Speaker 3: a cliff, one was called Bozez, and the other Sinnat.
Speaker 3: Bozez means slippery, Sinnam means thorny. Nobody told me it
Speaker 3: would be easy. God didn't promise me that his will
Speaker 3: would be convenient. Quit thinking that proof positive that you're
Speaker 3: in the will of God is that it feels good
Speaker 3: to you. Quit thinking that proof positive that you're in
Speaker 3: the will of God is that everybody understands it. Quit
Speaker 3: thinking that proof positive that you're in the will of
Speaker 3: God is that it just falls into place. No, he
Speaker 3: had to go through a thorny place, a slippery place,
Speaker 3: an uncomfortable place, an uncertain place. And just because I'm
Speaker 3: in an uncertain place doesn't mean I don't have a
Speaker 3: certain purpose.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need somebody to shout on that right.
Speaker 3: There, right there, right there, touch somebody, say I'm in
Speaker 3: his will. And one of the proofs that you're in
Speaker 3: his will is that you are experiencing warfare. It could
Speaker 3: be in terms of an internal resistance that you feel,
Speaker 3: or even if some are going crazy.
Speaker 1: In your life. And on each side was a challenge.
Speaker 1: On each side was a challenge.
Speaker 3: One Cliff stood to the north toward Mickmash, the other
Speaker 3: to the south toward Giba.
Speaker 1: And Jonathan said to his young.
Speaker 3: Armor bearer, come let's go over to the outpost of
Speaker 3: those uncircumcised men.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf.
Speaker 3: Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many
Speaker 3: or by few. God, I love your word. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: take a moment and just talk to him about it.
Speaker 3: Thank you for putting that one little word in your word.
Speaker 3: Not the one where he said nothing can hinder the Lord,
Speaker 3: not the one where he said, come let's go over,
Speaker 3: But that one little word where he said, perhaps because
Speaker 3: that word gives me hope. It gives me hope for
Speaker 3: my insecurity. It gives me hope for my impossibilities and
Speaker 3: my uncertainty. It gives me hope to know that sometimes,
Speaker 3: even in the midst of making progress in my life,
Speaker 3: even in the midst of obeying the revealed will of God,
Speaker 3: there are going to be moments where one minute I
Speaker 3: have great faith and the next moment I'm overcome by
Speaker 3: great fear. But watch the armor bearer, he says back
Speaker 3: to Jonathan, who had a crazy idea, do all that
Speaker 3: you have in mind.
Speaker 1: Go ahead. I am with you, heart and soul.
Speaker 3: And Jonathan said, come on then, since you're talking like that,
Speaker 3: come on then, since you want to do it too,
Speaker 3: come on then, since you don't think I'm crazy for
Speaker 3: want to move toward the enemy even though we're outnumbered,
Speaker 3: come on then, since you don't have any more brain
Speaker 3: cells or common sense than I do, come on, then,
Speaker 3: sometimes you need somebody who will help you, even though
Speaker 3: your plan sounds like a bad plan, to try to
Speaker 3: find God in it, just so you don't stay stuck
Speaker 3: in standing still. Come on then, I like how he
Speaker 3: talked to him. He's like, come on then, And then
Speaker 3: the army bears like, go ahead then, and he's like, well,
Speaker 3: come on then, and.
Speaker 1: They're pumping each other up.
Speaker 3: They're chest pumping each other, you know, and they don't
Speaker 3: have anybody else because watch this. The people who should
Speaker 3: have had faith have been overtaken by fear. Now, this
Speaker 3: is the part of the passage that's going to give
Speaker 3: me the contrast as we look at together two different
Speaker 3: ways that we try to figure out God's will, and
Speaker 3: everyone has a way that you try to figure out
Speaker 3: what the will of God is, even if you don't
Speaker 3: call it trying to figure.
Speaker 1: Out what the will of God is.
Speaker 3: You have a way that you make decisions that you
Speaker 3: hope will be most advantageous. You have a way that
Speaker 3: you try to discern wisdom, and you can't always get
Speaker 3: it from a book, and you can't always get it
Speaker 3: from a class, and you can't always get it. Here's
Speaker 3: what I figured out. We're all making it up as
Speaker 3: we go. This part of my sermon is meant to
Speaker 3: encourage you. All the people that are writing parenting books
Speaker 3: about fifteen steps.
Speaker 1: To raise a perfect kid, they left.
Speaker 3: Out some footnotes and the bottom line is they just
Speaker 3: had good luck in the gene pool because God can
Speaker 3: give you a kid that can make you.
Speaker 1: Question all of your theories. I love my children.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, all of us as parents are making
Speaker 3: it up as we go, all of us, all of
Speaker 3: us are trying to figure out with each child, and
Speaker 3: they're all different. I know Hollywood's faithful to me, but
Speaker 3: sometimes I'm like, how could they all be so different
Speaker 3: if it was just a common factor of me and you?
Speaker 3: But I trust her, But sometimes they're so different, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you respond like this, and you respond
Speaker 3: like that, and watch John Nathan's plan. This is the
Speaker 3: dumbest idea that you can find in the Bible. The
Speaker 3: only one I can think of is dumber. Is Moses
Speaker 3: stretching out his stick over the Red Sea. That's pretty dumb.
Speaker 3: Or maybe David throwing a rock at a giant who
Speaker 3: has a sword.
Speaker 1: That's pretty dumb.
Speaker 3: Or maybe Jesus commanding the lunch from a little boy
Speaker 3: in the crowd and trying to feed fifteen thousand people
Speaker 3: with it. That's pretty dumb. Or maybe Mary going to
Speaker 3: Joseph and saying I'm pregnant. But it wasn't another man,
Speaker 3: it was the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: That's pretty dumb.
Speaker 3: Or maybe it was a widow going around borrowing jars
Speaker 3: from her neighbors when she didn't have any oil and
Speaker 3: thinking something. That's pretty now that I come to think
Speaker 3: of it. A lot of the stuff that God did
Speaker 3: in his word looked like a dumb decision to the
Speaker 3: people while they were doing it.
Speaker 1: Listen, how dumb this is. Listen, listen, how stupid this
Speaker 1: strategy is. Somebody say, bad idea?
Speaker 3: All right, come on, then we will cross over toward
Speaker 3: them and let them see us.
Speaker 1: I thought you were supposed to.
Speaker 3: Sneak up on somebody if you wanted to kill him.
Speaker 1: But whatever, if they say to us, and I'll watch us.
Speaker 3: He's making this up because I want you to know
Speaker 3: this one thing.
Speaker 1: About this passage.
Speaker 3: God gives Jonathan the victory. But God doesn't say a
Speaker 3: single word. The only people who speak in this passage
Speaker 3: are Jonathan, his assistant, and his enemies.
Speaker 1: God doesn't say a word.
Speaker 3: But Jonathan he makes up this this strategy.
Speaker 1: He's an innovator.
Speaker 3: He's like, all right, my dad's under the tree by
Speaker 3: the threshing floor, and the priest isn't doing anything, and
Speaker 3: so let's go over and show ourselves and expose ourselves
Speaker 3: to our enemies. And if they say, wait there until
Speaker 3: we come up to you, we will stay we are
Speaker 3: and not go up to them. But if they say
Speaker 3: come up to us, we will climb up, because that
Speaker 3: will be our sign that the Lord has given them
Speaker 3: into our hands. And just when it can't get any
Speaker 3: dumber Verse eleven, both of them showed themselves to the
Speaker 3: Philistine outpost. Look, sat the Philistines. There's two of them
Speaker 3: and dozens of us. The Hebrews are crawling out of
Speaker 3: the holes they were hiding in. The men of the
Speaker 3: outposts shouted to Jonathan and his armor bearer, come up
Speaker 3: to us, and we'll teach you a lesson. So Jonathan
Speaker 3: said to his armor bearer, climb up after me. The
Speaker 3: Lord has given them into the hand of Israel. How
Speaker 3: are you gonna speak in past tense about a battle
Speaker 3: you hadn't even fought yet?
Speaker 1: Because I know something that is greater than what I
Speaker 1: know with my mind. I know with my faith.
Speaker 3: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the
Speaker 3: evidence of things seem so way it gets dumber. Jonathan
Speaker 3: climbed up, using his hands and feet. You know how
Speaker 3: vulnerable you are climbing up something dorny or slippery, using
Speaker 3: your hands and feet. Quick thing just for you. I
Speaker 3: love y'all. Victory requires vulnerability. Victory requires vulnerability in anything.
Speaker 3: You have to make yourself vulnerable to experience a great relationship.
Speaker 3: You have to make yourself vulnerable to step into a
Speaker 3: new dimension in your business. You have to make yourself
Speaker 3: vulnerable to connect on any meaningful level with the life
Speaker 3: that God has given you. And so in this position
Speaker 3: of vulnerability, Jonathan prophesies a great victory.
Speaker 1: I feel the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 3: And it says that his armor bearer was right behind him,
Speaker 3: and the Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor bearer
Speaker 3: followed and killed behind him. In that first attack, Jonathan
Speaker 3: and his armor bearer killed some twenty men in an
Speaker 3: area of about half an acre, all because Jonathan turned
Speaker 3: to his armor bearer and said, I've.
Speaker 1: Got an idea. You know, he said like that.
Speaker 3: But I'm at the place now where I don't really
Speaker 3: think that the value is in the idea.
Speaker 1: The value is in the courage to act on the impulse.
Speaker 3: When I put it like that, you got to realize
Speaker 3: how many people say things like this every day, you know,
Speaker 3: I remember talking to somebody about Uber, and they said, well,
Speaker 3: I could have thought of that. You know, really, you
Speaker 3: think thinking of something is the key to succeed. It's
Speaker 3: something anybody can think of something. I mean today I
Speaker 3: was walking out the door and Abby turned me into
Speaker 3: a dog because of my fuzzy sweater and she said,
Speaker 3: you want your belly, rob?
Speaker 1: Do you want your belly?
Speaker 2: Rob?
Speaker 3: I licked her face and I left and came to
Speaker 3: church to preach. That's what dogs do. But she can
Speaker 3: think of stuff, I mean, thinking of it. Hollyod Wass
Speaker 3: telling me now they got like uber for photography. I
Speaker 3: really should find out the name of this and see
Speaker 3: if I could get a sponsorship.
Speaker 1: This message goes to a lot of people. But they
Speaker 1: said that.
Speaker 3: You can go on and get a photographer anywhere in
Speaker 3: the world that you are, just like you can get
Speaker 3: a car from Uber, and you can get a photographer.
Speaker 1: Anywhere you are.
Speaker 3: If you're off with your family and you want to
Speaker 3: get a family picture like that so that you don't
Speaker 3: have to ask some random stranger who apparently has never
Speaker 3: used a smartphone in their life and doesn't know the
Speaker 3: tap the.
Speaker 1: Screen to make it lighter.
Speaker 3: You can get a professional to come out and capture
Speaker 3: the memory, you know. And when she said, I was like,
Speaker 3: why didn't I think of that? Well, there's a lot
Speaker 3: more to it than thinking of it. Huh.
Speaker 1: People call me all the.
Speaker 3: Time and they'd be like, I heard this thing, there's
Speaker 3: a sermon in that somewhere, and so to that, I'm like,
Speaker 3: where like just because they could think of it, you know,
Speaker 3: I read this headline you should preach about that, you
Speaker 3: should write a song about that, and I'm like, you should.
Speaker 1: Shut up until you can write one of your own.
Speaker 3: I know you mean, well, but the hard part isn't
Speaker 3: thinking of it. The hard part isn't thinking of it.
Speaker 3: And this is why when they give you advice sometimes
Speaker 3: in marriage, like be.
Speaker 1: The first to say you're sorry. It's not the thought
Speaker 1: that counts.
Speaker 3: Can I upset conventional wisdom for a moment? One thing
Speaker 3: that was really really striking to me in the text
Speaker 3: was not what Jonathan did, but what the people who
Speaker 3: should have been leading were doing at the time when
Speaker 3: Jonathan had to act on something that was partial and imperfect.
Speaker 3: When the Bible says that Saul was staying on the
Speaker 3: outskirts of Gibea under a pomegranate tree with six hundred men.
Speaker 3: I always skipped this verse because.
Speaker 1: The names were hard to pronounce.
Speaker 3: I was preaching this passage when I was seventeen years old,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know how to pronounce these names.
Speaker 1: And I still don't.
Speaker 3: Then I figured out, you don't know how to pronounce
Speaker 3: them either, So if I just say it with enough confidence,
Speaker 3: we'll move on. But in skipping it, I missed something
Speaker 3: that became very important to me About the ephod. It
Speaker 3: says that the Lord's priest was wearing the epod under
Speaker 3: the pomegranate tree. Now, the epod was more than just
Speaker 3: an article of clothing. It was an instrument for seeking
Speaker 3: the will of God. On the ephod, the high priest
Speaker 3: would wear a breastplate. On the breastplate would be twelve
Speaker 3: stones with the names of the tribes of Israel, representing
Speaker 3: their special presence in the presence of God. When he
Speaker 3: would wear the breastplate into the most holy place to
Speaker 3: make atonement for the sins of the people so that
Speaker 3: they could be forgiven. Once a year, the instruction was
Speaker 3: given to the priest about what to make sure he
Speaker 3: kept close to his heart. It started with Erin in Exodus,
Speaker 3: chapter twenty eight, if you could give.
Speaker 1: Me this text.
Speaker 3: That he will bear the names of the sons of
Speaker 3: Israel over his heart on the breastplate of decision. In
Speaker 3: the literal translation, it's the breastplate of judgment. It was
Speaker 3: what he wore when the judgment of God was conferred
Speaker 3: on the sacrificial animal that took the sins of the
Speaker 3: people away from the camp. It was the breastplate of judgment.
Speaker 3: But here it has translated the breastplate of decision as
Speaker 3: a continual memorial for the Lord.
Speaker 1: And here's why.
Speaker 3: Next verse, please also put Urrem and Themim, which are
Speaker 3: two special stones that would go not on the breastplate,
Speaker 3: but behind the breastplate.
Speaker 1: When the priest wore the ephant, which was like a.
Speaker 3: Kitchen apron where he would keep the vestments that were
Speaker 3: appropriate for his duty. And on that ephant was the breastplate,
Speaker 3: and behind the breastplate was Eurrem and Themim.
Speaker 1: Whether these were.
Speaker 3: Stones or some other sort of special object, we are
Speaker 3: dependent on the incomplete records of archaeologists to make known
Speaker 3: to us. But one thing we know. It was one
Speaker 3: of the ways that God spoke about his will to
Speaker 3: his people. He spoke through the prophets, he spoke through dreams,
Speaker 3: and he spoke through these stones. I'm gonna call them
Speaker 3: stones because that's the closest thing we can know to
Speaker 3: what they were. One represented yes and one represented no.
Speaker 3: That was the meme. Eurreme was a little different. It
Speaker 3: was said to be a stone that would light up.
Speaker 1: And watch this.
Speaker 3: You are to put it behind the breast peace or
Speaker 3: in the breast piece, so that they may be over
Speaker 3: Aaron's heart whenever he enters the presence of the Lord.
Speaker 3: Thus Erin will always bear the means of making decisions.
Speaker 3: I love that little phrase, the means of making decisions
Speaker 3: in the presence of the Lord. Everybody has a means
Speaker 3: of making decisions. Everyone has a way that they try
Speaker 3: to figure out, where is this going?
Speaker 1: Can I trust this person?
Speaker 3: And I like this method a lot because all the
Speaker 3: priests had to do was take out the stones the
Speaker 3: meme it stands for perfection or decision, and then he
Speaker 3: would take urreem, which represents light, which always represents revelation,
Speaker 3: which always represents knowledge. And when God would speak through
Speaker 3: these stones, you would inquire of him, and if the
Speaker 3: answer was affirmative, Urrem would light up, and you would
Speaker 3: know God wants us to do it. Like when David
Speaker 3: was facing a battle at zick Lag and he had
Speaker 3: to go back and recover his family and the families
Speaker 3: of his men, and he asked the priest bring me
Speaker 3: an ephod, because I need to seek the Lord, because
Speaker 3: if I go into this battle and God doesn't want
Speaker 3: me to go in this battle, if I do this venture,
Speaker 3: if I go after this thing and God doesn't want
Speaker 3: me to do this thing.
Speaker 1: I'll be defeated.
Speaker 3: But if he says yes, no power in Hell can
Speaker 3: stand against me. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving,
Speaker 3: whether by many or by few. So David said, bring
Speaker 3: me the ephod, because if God gives me light on
Speaker 3: this situation, I can fight this battle. If God gives
Speaker 3: me light on this situation, I can stand the trial.
Speaker 3: I can stand the test, I can pass it. I
Speaker 3: can do it if God says yes. But sometimes God
Speaker 3: would say no, and then sometimes the stone would do nothing.
Speaker 3: And what that meant was God doesn't want to answer
Speaker 3: this right now. In other words, if I can take
Speaker 3: you back to middle school, I love you, Do you
Speaker 3: love me? Check yes or no? And sometimes I would
Speaker 3: put a third box called maybe and sometimes they would
Speaker 3: ask God, you know, should we go, should we stay?
Speaker 1: Should we do it? Should we not? And the son
Speaker 1: would do nothing? What do you do with them?
Speaker 3: Maybe because a lot of times in our life, don't
Speaker 3: you wish you had a urim and at the meme
Speaker 3: in your closet? Come on right next to your belts.
Speaker 3: I'd rather have a urim and at the meme than
Speaker 3: a Rolex. I mean I'd rather have I would. I
Speaker 3: would love if I could. What a what a what
Speaker 3: a blessing it would be? You know how many you know,
Speaker 3: how many staff members I never would have hired to
Speaker 3: begin with.
Speaker 1: Come on, this is a big church. Can I be
Speaker 1: real with you? Do you know how many staff members i'd.
Speaker 3: Just be if I could have just had that special
Speaker 3: stone pull it out?
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be cool?
Speaker 3: Can you imagine how many how many things would you
Speaker 3: have done differently?
Speaker 1: And how helpful.
Speaker 3: Would it be when you're making decisions if you could
Speaker 3: just have a stone just to light up and tell you, yes,
Speaker 3: this is God. You know how your kids start hanging
Speaker 3: out with friends and you're wondering, like, I don't know
Speaker 3: about these parents. They seem kind of like I don't
Speaker 3: know I smelled something on their clothes, smell like it
Speaker 3: might have been weed, or maybe it was something else,
Speaker 3: but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Lord, should I let my kids hang out with these kids?
Speaker 3: And God says yes, and you could get some sleep?
Speaker 3: Or you know, God, should I take this job? It's
Speaker 3: got more pay, but it's gonna mean more hours. I
Speaker 3: just think it would be so cool if it would.
Speaker 1: Light up and tell me.
Speaker 3: And yet God, God, God knows something about me that
Speaker 3: I don't know about me. Is that even if He
Speaker 3: gave me the light to know what to.
Speaker 1: Do, a lot of times I wouldn't have the faith
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 3: You're gonna make me preach by myself and sit there
Speaker 3: looking at me like I'm an entertainer.
Speaker 1: You know, the truth.
Speaker 3: Is that even sometimes when you know what to do,
Speaker 3: even sometimes when you know this as God. And they
Speaker 3: had these stones, They had these stones. It was behind
Speaker 3: the breastplate, and the breastplate was under the pomegranate tree,
Speaker 3: and the priest was doing.
Speaker 1: Nothing with it.
Speaker 3: They had the means of making decisions to know the
Speaker 3: will of God, but their fear had put them in
Speaker 3: a place, and their complacency had put them in a
Speaker 3: place because when you have the instruments but you don't
Speaker 3: use them. How can God speak to you when you
Speaker 3: can't find this between sundays? How can God give you
Speaker 3: his wisdom? And the important thing about it was Jonathan said,
Speaker 3: we don't have the ephod Ahijah has the ephoon.
Speaker 1: We don't have a complete clarity on this situation.
Speaker 3: But what he had that was so important he had
Speaker 3: the right person to turn to and talk about it.
Speaker 3: I need you to understand the value not only of
Speaker 3: what God says to you in your life, but about
Speaker 3: who you say it to.
Speaker 1: After God says it to.
Speaker 3: You, the right people will give you the go ahead.
Speaker 3: The right people will say, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: help you as you do this. I know the addiction
Speaker 3: has got you about three different cycles now and it
Speaker 3: looks like this one won't be any different. But whether
Speaker 3: or not you make it, I'm gonna be here with
Speaker 3: you on it. So let's go ahead and do this
Speaker 3: dumb thing, this impossible thing, this crazy thing.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes they got to turn and tell you
Speaker 1: that ain't got at all. But it's who you say
Speaker 1: it to. It's who you say it. It's a fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty.
Speaker 3: Thing, it's not just my relationship with God, it's my
Speaker 3: relationship with others. And a lot of us are suffering,
Speaker 3: and so is in our relationship with God. Because we're
Speaker 3: living in bitterness with our relationship with others.
Speaker 1: You can't hear God just like this.
Speaker 3: I guarantee you if Jonathan would have had an armor
Speaker 3: bearer who told him, you know what.
Speaker 1: Man, let me know how that turns out.
Speaker 3: I'm praying for you signed the cross. I guarantee you
Speaker 3: the battle wouldn't have moved on beyond Beth even that
Speaker 3: day like it did, and even for me.
Speaker 1: I can say this when people say, how did you
Speaker 1: know God wanted you to start a church?
Speaker 4: I read a book. I felt inspired. I got up
Speaker 4: and preached. It seemed to help people read a book.
Speaker 4: I got a wife. We were doing our thing. One
Speaker 4: day she looked at me. In the mountains of Tennessee.
Speaker 4: We're at some youth camp. Carl Cart was leading worship.
Speaker 4: We came back to the room. People say, when, how
Speaker 4: did you know? How did God speak to you it
Speaker 4: was time for you to start the church. Because I
Speaker 4: wanted to start it when I was forty. The church
Speaker 4: wouldn't even be here right now. If Holly didn't turn
Speaker 4: to me, not God. She was my yorem. God used
Speaker 4: her like that. She said, it's time for you go
Speaker 4: start this church. I said, when I'm forty. She said, no. Now, look, JJ, if.
Speaker 3: You hear me saying on this message, you know God's
Speaker 3: calling you to go. You know how many people I've
Speaker 3: seen go start coffee shops because they like coffee and
Speaker 3: they hear a message like this and abuse it and
Speaker 3: they think that the whole point of the message is
Speaker 3: just go do the dumbest thing you can think of
Speaker 3: that you have a halfway interest in, and then blame
Speaker 3: the devil when it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Work out because it was spiritual warfare.
Speaker 3: And attack and nobody believed in my dream and I'm
Speaker 3: nothing but Jesus on the cross and guard. And I
Speaker 3: guess so many squeeze the olives and the oils coming out.
Speaker 3: All of that is dumb because I'm not even talking
Speaker 3: about that. I'm talking about who you talk to, about
Speaker 3: what God is saying to you. And now now I
Speaker 3: get to return the favor. I mean the other day
Speaker 3: she she turned to me and was like, Hey, I'm
Speaker 3: about to tell you something that I think God is
Speaker 3: speaking to me because it's always a fifty to fifty thing, always,
Speaker 3: always so. So I'm confident, but I'm not certain, you know.
Speaker 3: And she was like, don't laugh at me. I'm like,
Speaker 3: why would I laugh at you?
Speaker 1: Tell me?
Speaker 3: And what she told me, I said, not only have
Speaker 3: you got to do that, but you got to do this,
Speaker 3: this and this and this and this.
Speaker 1: Because that's awesome.
Speaker 3: Then I think she was sorry that she told me
Speaker 3: because she didn't want to do this, this, this, and
Speaker 3: this and this.
Speaker 1: She just wanted to do that. But we started.
Speaker 3: Talking, and you see how important it is not only
Speaker 3: what God says to you. It's not only this being
Speaker 3: of the cross, what is this one too? So I
Speaker 3: don't have Uremn the meme. But I got Eugene.
Speaker 1: I needed a rhyme.
Speaker 3: It was it was a stretch at best, and Irene
Speaker 3: and I got people.
Speaker 1: Now this is so, this is so key. It's a
Speaker 1: fifty fifty faith. It's a fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: That means it is a divine partnership where Jonathan says,
Speaker 3: you know, there is something that God can do, and
Speaker 3: then there is something that God will not do that
Speaker 3: only we can do.
Speaker 1: Faith is fifty to fifty. James proves it clearly.
Speaker 3: Not only does Jonathan exemplify it, James explains it when
Speaker 3: he says, faith without works is it takes two? This
Speaker 3: is a fifty to fifty proposition. Why would God do
Speaker 3: for you what he gave you the strength to do
Speaker 3: for you?
Speaker 1: It is a fifty fifty faith.
Speaker 3: It is not my faith that saves me, and I'm
Speaker 3: grateful for that. How many are grateful that your faith
Speaker 3: in Christ for salvation is.
Speaker 1: Not fifty to fifty. Come on, because if it.
Speaker 3: Was, I would be in hell before Monday at three
Speaker 3: pm Eastern Standard time. But because he is my great
Speaker 3: High Priest, y'all, I'm about to get happy on this sermon.
Speaker 3: And because he took the breastplate.
Speaker 5: Of his own righteousness into the most holy place and
Speaker 5: shet his blood on the mercy seat, I don't ever
Speaker 5: have to doubt if he wants to see me, or
Speaker 5: hear me, or love me, or throw his arms around me.
Speaker 5: He is my righteousness and I am his child, and he.
Speaker 1: Is my great high Priest.
Speaker 3: Come on, shout about it like you got the good
Speaker 3: sense to know this thing doesn't depend on me. Foundational
Speaker 3: faith even that faith is the gift of God.
Speaker 1: So that no one can boast.
Speaker 3: But watch this, Jonathan say, perhaps perhaps the Lord will
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 1: Fifty to fifty. I know he can. I think he will.
Speaker 1: Fifty to fifty. I know God is with me, and
Speaker 1: I think this is where he's leading me. It's fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty. I'm a fifty to fifty leader.
Speaker 3: I pull seventy staff into this Monday and said, this
Speaker 3: is what I think God's doing.
Speaker 1: And I can't put a bow on it. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna find.
Speaker 3: Out together why Because God won't reveal truth if I.
Speaker 1: Don't move toward it ever.
Speaker 3: And the issue is this experience is the friend of wisdom,
Speaker 3: but it can be the enemy of faith.
Speaker 1: You need me to run that back.
Speaker 3: Experience is the friend of wisdom, but if you get
Speaker 3: like Saul in a Hydi and keep the e foight
Speaker 3: under the pomegranate tree, Jonathan said, we're going to have
Speaker 3: to be our own ethought. We're have to put ourselves
Speaker 3: out there and see if God will. And when Eugene Peterson,
Speaker 3: he had this idea, right, he was trying to preach
Speaker 3: the Bible. He's in heaven now, but he was trying
Speaker 3: to preach the Bible to his church He realized that
Speaker 3: they weren't really getting it, so he sat down to
Speaker 3: write a translation of the Bible in a way.
Speaker 1: They could understand.
Speaker 3: You know that little version on your Bible on your phone.
Speaker 3: I hope you got the Bible on your phone. I
Speaker 3: hope you got the Bible up above Facebook on your phone,
Speaker 3: because you need that one to start your day.
Speaker 1: You really do, you really do.
Speaker 3: You'll need to know what's going on in Russia every second,
Speaker 3: but you need to know what's happening, what God intends
Speaker 3: for your life. And if you click on it, there
Speaker 3: will be one version that says MSG and it has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with the Chinese restaurant. The message translation,
Speaker 3: and it was written by a man.
Speaker 1: Who was just seeing.
Speaker 3: He had an idea, what if I write the Bible
Speaker 3: in the language that's common to the people, And he
Speaker 3: ended up translating the whole Bible that way.
Speaker 1: The message translation.
Speaker 3: All because maybe God will use this. You know, if
Speaker 3: you act on it. If you act, it's fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: It's fifty to fifty. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Look what he said when he translated for Samuel fourteen six,
Speaker 3: My favorite verse about faith in the Old Testament. Look
Speaker 3: what he said that Jonathan said to his armor bearer,
Speaker 3: come on, now, come on, now, let's do it now.
Speaker 3: Not when the priest gets his act together, not when
Speaker 3: the government gets his act together, not when, but now,
Speaker 3: we got to do this now.
Speaker 1: Now, come on, now, let's.
Speaker 3: Go across to these uncircumcised pagans. And then he said
Speaker 3: the title of my series, maybe God will work for us.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe faith is being able to move on a maybe.
Speaker 3: And you know what that means is fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: It might not work, but God is always working. I'm
Speaker 3: confident in the second, even when I'm not certain in
Speaker 3: the first. And it takes the kind of faith church
Speaker 3: to say maybe maybe if I do this, maybe and
Speaker 3: maybe it won't and maybe God will use this thing
Speaker 3: that I think I'm supposed to do to lead to
Speaker 3: something that I was really supposed to do, so that
Speaker 3: even if the first thing fails, at least I'm not
Speaker 3: sitting still in fear.
Speaker 1: But it takes faith to move on a maybe.
Speaker 3: When Yurim has gone dark and Saul is under a
Speaker 3: tree and you don't know what to do but to
Speaker 3: move toward it. God says, move toward it. It may work,
Speaker 3: and even if it doesn't, I will It is the
Speaker 3: power to move on a maybe, to know that God
Speaker 3: is mystery, but he is revealed, his character is trustworthy.
Speaker 1: I can move on a maybe. Father.
Speaker 3: I don't want to do this, but nevertheless, not my will,
Speaker 3: but yours be done. So I'm gonna go see about
Speaker 3: this and maybe somebody shout. Maybe maybe I've got a
Speaker 3: maybe faith enough faith to do it and not know
Speaker 3: the conclusion, but trust God in the process.
Speaker 1: It's a maybe faith. I'm confident.
Speaker 3: I'm not certain, but I'm confident. And you will find
Speaker 3: yourself many times in your life in a maybe moment.
Speaker 3: Some of you are there right now. It's a maybe
Speaker 3: moment for you. Maybe you are giving yourself to a
Speaker 3: marriage that you don't know if it can live. Like
Speaker 3: Ezekiel in the Valley of Bones, you don't even know
Speaker 3: if anything's going to happen, but you're prophesying and speaking
Speaker 3: forth and believing God to send the winds, and you're living.
Speaker 1: In the maybe moment.
Speaker 3: Maybe if we start a church, maybe maybe I know
Speaker 3: who God is and I know nothing can stop him.
Speaker 1: But it's fifty to fifty. Man, you want to do
Speaker 1: it anyway? Maybe The miracle is in the maybe.
Speaker 3: I wish I could preach this to every discouraged heart today.
Speaker 1: God lives in a place called maybe.
Speaker 3: Faith lives in a place called maybe.
Speaker 1: So if you are in a maybe moment.
Speaker 3: Today, that's where God lives.
Speaker 1: Stand up when you're in that maybe moment, and if
Speaker 1: you are, you know it.
Speaker 3: And if you're not, you will need this message within
Speaker 3: the next six weeks because life is full of maybe moments.
Speaker 3: You will feel in that moment the coexistence of uncertainty
Speaker 3: and confidence, and you'll feel like.
Speaker 1: You're making it up as you go.
Speaker 3: I like that image because Jonathan said, climb up after me,
Speaker 3: climb up after me. I was thinking about how they
Speaker 3: made it up as they win. But I had to go.
Speaker 3: I had to do it.
Speaker 1: I had to I had to trust God in a
Speaker 1: in a maybe moment.
Speaker 3: Maybe moments are like the moment where you could look stupid.
Speaker 3: Maybe moments are the moments where you could be rejected.
Speaker 3: Most of us aren't facing philistines and thorny, slippery cliffs
Speaker 3: and geographical obstacles. Most of us are facing things that
Speaker 3: are on the inside of us that seem insurmountable. And
Speaker 3: God is in the maybe moment of your life when
Speaker 3: you move forward. Anyway, when I stopped by my dad's
Speaker 3: house and gave him the letter on Father's Day after
Speaker 3: we had not spoken in months because I moved him
Speaker 3: to Charlotte when his health got bad with my mom,
Speaker 3: because he asked me to, and I told him, I said, Dad,
Speaker 3: I want to do this for you.
Speaker 1: You're my dad. I want to take care of you.
Speaker 1: And we didn't know that he had als yet.
Speaker 3: We just knew that he was very sick, and because
Speaker 3: he was a self employed barber, I didn't know, you know,
Speaker 3: if he was just honestly, my dad at that point
Speaker 3: in his life was so illogical and irrational.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if it was a good idea or not.
Speaker 3: But I knew my dad was asking me for help,
Speaker 3: and I knew that something was wrong, and when he
Speaker 3: asked me to do it, I knew something inside of
Speaker 3: me knew like this could turn out really bad, you know.
Speaker 3: Like I told my dad, I said, you live three
Speaker 3: and a half hours away from me right now, and
Speaker 3: that works pretty good for us. If you come up
Speaker 3: and we're all up in each other's face, you know,
Speaker 3: it might not be good. And he said, I need
Speaker 3: you to do this for me, and I said, I'll
Speaker 3: never forget telling him. You know, I don't even think
Speaker 3: this is a good idea, but I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 3: You asked me to, and I love you. But please,
Speaker 3: when you come up here, please, when you come live
Speaker 3: in Charlotte. I knew my mom would be fine, she's great,
Speaker 3: but I was like, you, please, don't do any of
Speaker 3: this crazy stuff. And honest to God, no, sooner than
Speaker 3: I sent the moving company to give him an estimate,
Speaker 3: he chased the moving company out of the yard with
Speaker 3: his walking cane. I mean, this guy, he was a
Speaker 3: good dad for a lot of my life, but by
Speaker 3: this point his medications as well as his physical condition,
Speaker 3: he was starting to really lose his mind. But I
Speaker 3: knew I needed to move him anyway, and it didn't
Speaker 3: make sense at that point. In fact, when he got here,
Speaker 3: when he finally moved after running off the moving company,
Speaker 3: after he finally found a moving company that was fit
Speaker 3: to move him, and I went to go see him
Speaker 3: and check on him in the house that we had
Speaker 3: found for them. First thing he did when I walked
Speaker 3: in the door was complain about the house.
Speaker 1: When I tell you that, I said.
Speaker 3: Some Hebrew words and some Greek words, some monks corner words,
Speaker 3: some compound cuss words. And it was like, over the
Speaker 3: next few months, every bad thing that I thought was
Speaker 3: going to happen, if I tried to do the right,
Speaker 3: things start happening. And what was the weird contrast was
Speaker 3: my ministry was going so great and the church was growing,
Speaker 3: and my dad and the way he treated my mom,
Speaker 3: and eventually he left, he went to go live by himself.
Speaker 3: It was like culminated in this horrible thanks like the
Speaker 3: worst Thanksgiving ever.
Speaker 1: Where we went to see him.
Speaker 3: The only place he would live was in this nursing
Speaker 3: home and they had him calling Bingo in the nursing home.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Okay, you can laugh about it, because it was like
Speaker 3: how did we come to this? Like how can they
Speaker 3: not even live together? How do we spend all this
Speaker 3: money and all this time? And he raised me all
Speaker 3: this time and coach my teams and all this, and
Speaker 3: then it's going to end like this. When we would
Speaker 3: try to talk on the phone, he would end up yelling.
Speaker 3: I would end up yelling, and then I'd end up preaching.
Speaker 3: And then I go back and talk to my dad
Speaker 3: and I'd end up yelling and he would end up yelling.
Speaker 3: But when I went by his house on Father's Day,
Speaker 3: I thought, well, maybe maybe if I write down. I
Speaker 3: took a notebook and I told Holly, can you drive
Speaker 3: for me for a minute. We were coming back from
Speaker 3: a family trip, and I said, I need to do
Speaker 3: something real quick.
Speaker 1: Can you drive for me? And can we stop by
Speaker 1: my dad's house.
Speaker 3: He was living all alone at that time, by his
Speaker 3: own choice. And I sat there while Holly drove, and
Speaker 3: I wrote down a memory for every year that I
Speaker 3: had been alive of.
Speaker 1: Him being my dad.
Speaker 3: Because I knew we couldn't talk, but I thought, well,
Speaker 3: maybe if we could just communicate in writing. And when
Speaker 3: we showed up at the house and he opened the door,
Speaker 3: I kind of like threw the list at.
Speaker 1: Him, you know, like happy fucks.
Speaker 3: Made a list for you, because maybe maybe this is
Speaker 3: a dumb idea, but maybe it could open a door
Speaker 3: for us to have a relationship.
Speaker 1: It's the maybe moments, you know. If I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you about my maybe moments that.
Speaker 3: Result in starting a church that reaches the world, I
Speaker 3: think I owe it to you to tell you about
Speaker 3: my maybe moments that were messy to it's not always
Speaker 3: so clear, it's not always so perfect, it's not always
Speaker 3: so brilliant, it's not always so strategic.
Speaker 1: Life has lived in those maybe moments.
Speaker 3: And so I got to sit beside him as he
Speaker 3: breathed his last breath after three days that hospice had
Speaker 3: been in much later, after a progression where my mom
Speaker 3: graciously let him back in the house and cared for
Speaker 3: him until he died, and I got to be there,
Speaker 3: reading to him from Charles Spurgeon sermon The Peaceful Sleep
Speaker 3: of the Beloved. After I sang to him the Old
Speaker 3: Rugged Cross, and I thought he was going to pass quickly,
Speaker 3: but he stayed around like three days, and I ran
Speaker 3: out of hymns and started having to sing James Taylor
Speaker 3: and Hoodie and the Blowfish. I mean, I was there
Speaker 3: for all of it in that moment because of moving
Speaker 3: forward with a maybe, I believe God sent me with
Speaker 3: this message today and I'm overtime. I'm so overtime. It's
Speaker 3: going to be awful in the parking lot in the rain.
Speaker 3: God give me, and please smile at people on the
Speaker 3: way out and tell me it's going to be worth it.
Speaker 1: But please listen to me. Listen to me. You're in
Speaker 1: a maybe moment.
Speaker 3: You're in a maybe moment, slipper on one side, thorny on
Speaker 3: the other. Don't have everybody with you thought you'd have
Speaker 3: with you, just got a armor bearer. Father, I pray
Speaker 3: today for the faith for your people to move forward
Speaker 3: on a maybe in this moment. You're the God of
Speaker 3: all wisdom. You're the God who sees all, knows all,
Speaker 3: and can do anything. I thank you, Lord that there
Speaker 3: are miracles emerging even now as I speak, in bodies,
Speaker 3: in relationships, in careers, in families. God, I thank you
Speaker 3: that ministry is birthed out of maybe. We thank you
Speaker 3: God for giving us the Holy Spirit inside of us.
Speaker 3: We thank you for giving us the finished work of
Speaker 3: your son, to let us know that you are good,
Speaker 3: and you do good, and all things work together for
Speaker 3: the good of them that love you. Over every maybe situation.
Speaker 3: Give your people now, by your grace the kind of
Speaker 3: faith that it takes to move forward and it maybe
Speaker 3: for we believe that nothing can hinder you from saving,
Speaker 3: whether by many.
Speaker 1: Or by few. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 2: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
Speaker 2: information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 2: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 2: Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you.