Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: 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 your perspective to see God is moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2: Let's give a warm welcome to our entire church family
Speaker 2: and all of our campuses and online. Hey, welcome e fam.
Speaker 2: I haven't done an EPAM roll call in a while.
Speaker 2: Put your name and where you're watching from. Please in
Speaker 2: the chat if you're watching online, and everybody in this
Speaker 2: place today, be encouraged. The Lord has heard your prayers.
Speaker 2: The Lord has heard your prayers.
Speaker 1: Tell the person next to you he heard you. Tell him.
Speaker 2: Just because he didn't do it like you wanted him to.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean he didn't hear you. We were singing a
Speaker 1: song a moment.
Speaker 2: Ago called call God, and we said I call God,
Speaker 2: and he answered And some people were like, well you
Speaker 2: hadn't yet. You know, I wish he would. But the
Speaker 2: thing is he did so many times before, so many
Speaker 2: times before.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna preach a little bit about this today.
Speaker 2: But sometimes we adapt to our answered prayers and we
Speaker 2: cease to appreciate them. But one thing I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: very intentional about from this pulpit in this year is
Speaker 2: to not let you just walk past stuff that God
Speaker 2: did in your life without recognizing it, because that's how
Speaker 2: the enemy weakens you. So you're gonna notice me a
Speaker 2: lot more in my sermons and when I come up,
Speaker 2: just turning your attention not only to the things that
Speaker 2: God has done, but who He is, because that's what
Speaker 2: you can count on. If your wife divorces you, He'll
Speaker 2: never leave you or forsake you. If your kids go
Speaker 2: absolutely prodigal crazy, God is still going to keep you
Speaker 2: in your right mind. If everybody and your company gets
Speaker 2: together and votes you off the island, God will take
Speaker 2: care of you. He will supply your needs. So I
Speaker 2: want to connect you today through a scripture in Joshua
Speaker 2: chapter seventeen. And let's do a shout out real quick.
Speaker 2: I told the people online, Hello from Kenya, Hello from
Speaker 2: West Virginia. Now, how'd you feel for me if you
Speaker 2: had to preach a message that applied in Kenya and
Speaker 2: West Virginia all in English?
Speaker 1: Today? We're glad to have you. What a robust church
Speaker 1: we are. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2: Welcome Dayton, Ohio. Welcome California, Welcome Cape Town, Welcome Cornelias,
Speaker 2: North Carol. Well, you should be in church. You shouldn't
Speaker 2: be watching. You just told on yourself. I'm glad you're
Speaker 2: here today. Welcome settle in. God has a word for you.
Speaker 2: You Joshua, what chapter seventeen? You ever notice you don't
Speaker 2: hear many sermons passed around Joshua chapter three or four.
Speaker 2: All the exciting stuff happens kind of in the beginning
Speaker 2: of the Book of Joshua.
Speaker 1: They're taking the land.
Speaker 2: And they're you know, they're going forward in the promise
Speaker 2: of God and crossing the Jordan, and so we usually
Speaker 2: preach from that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going all the way to Joshua seventeen today.
Speaker 1: See what happens after that.
Speaker 2: Now, listen to this because this is where we live
Speaker 2: in our everyday life. Everyday life is not always exciting
Speaker 2: new adventures and explorations on the opportunities that all wait you.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just three advil and a prayer and sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm five minutes late, but I'm here anyway, And we're
Speaker 2: trying to deal with that. This year because I preached
Speaker 2: you last week that there will always be wheat and
Speaker 2: there will always be weeds in the garden of.
Speaker 1: Your life with God. And I was trying to get
Speaker 1: you to watch the.
Speaker 2: Wheat, not the weeds, Not just looking at the things
Speaker 2: you can't control and wishing they weren't there, but realizing
Speaker 2: that what God planted in you is significant in every
Speaker 2: season of your life, whether you can see the growth
Speaker 2: or not. Now, in Joshua chapter seventeen, something interesting happens,
Speaker 2: and I'll read it and then we'll back into the context.
Speaker 1: But listen to this.
Speaker 2: The people of Joseph said to Joshua, why have you
Speaker 2: given us only one allotment and one.
Speaker 1: Portion for an inheritance?
Speaker 2: Remember, they possessed the land that God swore to Abraham
Speaker 2: and Isaac and Jacob, and they got in the land
Speaker 2: and they won the victory. And the people of Joseph,
Speaker 2: one of the groups from the nation, comes to Joshua
Speaker 2: the leader, and says, why did you only give us
Speaker 2: one allotment? Look, we are a numerous people and the
Speaker 2: Lord has blessed us abundantly.
Speaker 1: Now watch Joshua's response.
Speaker 2: If you are so numerous, Joshua answered, since you're so
Speaker 2: blessed like you say you are. And if the hill
Speaker 2: country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up
Speaker 2: into the forest and clear land for yourselves.
Speaker 1: There in the land of the.
Speaker 2: Perizites and the Rephites, those are their enemies. And the
Speaker 2: people of Joseph replied, the hill country is not enough
Speaker 2: for us. And all the Canaanites who live in the
Speaker 2: plain have chariots fitted with iron, both those in beth
Speaker 2: Shahan and its settlements, and those in the valley of Jezreel.
Speaker 2: But Joshua said to the tribes of Joseph, to Ephraim
Speaker 2: and Manassa. To Ephraim and Manassa, you are numerous and
Speaker 2: very powerful.
Speaker 1: You will have not only one.
Speaker 2: Allotment, but the forested hill country as well. Now lean
Speaker 2: into this clear it and its farthest limits will be yours.
Speaker 2: Though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron, and though
Speaker 2: they are strong, you can drive them. Ah, thank the
Speaker 2: Lord for his word one time. Would you come on
Speaker 2: right there? Thank him for his word. My message today
Speaker 2: is called don't forget where you come from. Look at
Speaker 2: three people say, don't forget where you come from.
Speaker 1: And man, you may be seated.
Speaker 2: Don't forget where you come from, Kenya or West Virginia,
Speaker 2: or like me, maybe you came from Monk's Corner, South Carolina. Boy,
Speaker 2: somebody said something to me the other day. I never
Speaker 2: thought i'd hear. They said, the traffic is terrible in
Speaker 2: Monk's Corner. It's changed a lot since I was there.
Speaker 2: Bad traffic in Monk's Corner when I was a boy
Speaker 2: meant you had to wait through the red light once
Speaker 2: at rush hour. My guess is growing, you know, is
Speaker 2: really expanding, And it is, it is, it is.
Speaker 1: It's all the population that's pushed.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I won't tell you the geography of Charleston in
Speaker 2: the low country of South Carolina. By the way, welcome
Speaker 2: our newest campus in Somerville, South Carolina. And y'all know
Speaker 2: I love Jesus because Somerville was our rival in high school.
Speaker 2: We were the Berkeley Stags and we hated the Somerville
Speaker 2: Green Wave. And now God has prepared a table in
Speaker 2: the presence of my enemies in Somerville, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: But we love you, no.
Speaker 2: No. The reason I bring up where you come from
Speaker 2: is because everybody in here has a point of reference
Speaker 2: for what you think is successful in your life.
Speaker 1: You have a point of reference.
Speaker 2: If you never had five hundred dollars in your bank
Speaker 2: account before, the first five hundred feels amazing. It's a
Speaker 2: point of reference if you're seventy three years old and
Speaker 2: hoping to retire next year five hundred dollars. There's not
Speaker 2: a prayer warrior in the world that can turn five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars into a retirement account, but it's your point
Speaker 2: of reference. I remember the first bonus that I got
Speaker 2: when I was working at a church in Shelby, North Carolina,
Speaker 2: and Rick Bowling told me, by the way, we're giving
Speaker 2: a five hundred dollars bonus to all of our employees
Speaker 2: this Christmas.
Speaker 1: And I literally cried.
Speaker 2: Twenty two year old, twenty three year old men just
Speaker 2: crying over.
Speaker 1: Five hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I wish I could still cry that easy, because
Speaker 2: there was something about that stage in my life where
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting a bonus. I remember when he first
Speaker 2: sat me down and explained my salary package to me.
Speaker 2: He was like, this is how much we're going to
Speaker 2: pay you this year, and of course that doesn't include
Speaker 2: the benefits.
Speaker 1: And I said, the what he said, the benefits. And
Speaker 1: this is how when school I was because my dad
Speaker 1: was self employed. I didn't even know what benefits were.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that that's something that you could negotiate
Speaker 2: into a I wasn't negotiating. I was just thankful. I
Speaker 2: was like benefits. He's like, yeah, that's going to be
Speaker 2: additional to this amount. You know, it's been a while
Speaker 2: since I praise God for my health insurance.
Speaker 1: Because I had it too long. I had it too long.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I let three days go by and don't tell
Speaker 2: Holly how pretty she is. But that's wrong, because she's
Speaker 2: pretty every day and she deserves to be told that
Speaker 2: every day. And plus I spend too much on those
Speaker 2: clothes she's wearing, not to compliment how she looks at
Speaker 2: her and that two hundred and eighty dollars makeup that's
Speaker 2: in her bathroom, whatever I'm spending over there at Sephora.
Speaker 2: I feel like she she deserves to hear it. When
Speaker 2: we were dating, it was just constantly every day. But
Speaker 2: one thing I noticed in the text that we read
Speaker 2: is that when you forget how far you've come from
Speaker 2: a certain point, it makes how far you have to go.
Speaker 1: The only thing that you're focused on.
Speaker 2: And when you forget the gifts that God has given you,
Speaker 2: it makes it impossible for you to access the power
Speaker 2: that He put inside of you.
Speaker 1: Don't forget where you come from.
Speaker 2: Don't forget that there was a time that a five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars Christmas bonus.
Speaker 1: Made you cry.
Speaker 2: Don't forget that there was a time when you prayed
Speaker 2: that God would give you these children that you're praying
Speaker 2: for Him to help you not to eliminate from the
Speaker 2: face of the earth at this very moment.
Speaker 1: Don't forget where you come from.
Speaker 2: We see an interesting dynamic in Joshua chapter seventeen in
Speaker 2: that these tribes the people of Joseph, it's actually two tribes.
Speaker 1: One is called Manassa and one is called Ephraim. Those
Speaker 1: were Joseph's boys.
Speaker 2: Manassa was his first born, Ephram was his second, and
Speaker 2: both of them were born in Egypt, in the place
Speaker 2: where he suffered, in the place where he was falsely accused,
Speaker 2: in the place where he was thrown into prison, in
Speaker 2: the place where God also raised him to prominence in Egypt.
Speaker 2: He had two boys, Manassa and Ephraim, and those boys
Speaker 2: have now several generations later turned into tribes, and these
Speaker 2: tribes have taken territory in the land of Canaan, And
Speaker 2: not only have they settled into the land, but they've
Speaker 2: started to grow and do what people do. You know,
Speaker 2: when two people love each other very much, so they've grown.
Speaker 1: I have to talk with you later.
Speaker 2: It's just that they're blessed so much that they are
Speaker 2: experiencing the pressure of blessing. Many times in church we
Speaker 2: only speak to the desperation of failure, but there is
Speaker 2: a need to preach to the pressure of blessings because
Speaker 2: blessings are heavy in your life. Sometimes when you're going
Speaker 2: through all of the things that you're worried about, it's
Speaker 2: not even so much that you're complaining about them or
Speaker 2: that you don't appreciate them. It's that pressure has kept
Speaker 2: your perspective from seeing the bigger picture of what's happening,
Speaker 2: so you get zoned in on only one thing and
Speaker 2: you forget, like the tribes of Ephram and Manassa, that
Speaker 2: just a few years ago you were wandering in the wilderness.
Speaker 2: That's kind of why when I read this scripture it
Speaker 2: stood out to me because when I read it, I
Speaker 2: wanted to say to them.
Speaker 1: You just left the.
Speaker 2: Wilderness, and now you're complaining that there's not enough room
Speaker 2: for you. Did you notice what they said to Joshua.
Speaker 1: Why did you only give us one allotment? We're too
Speaker 1: big for this place.
Speaker 2: We need more elbow room, we need new countertops, we
Speaker 2: need hardwood floors, we need more space. We need a minivan.
Speaker 2: You know, we're a growing nation. We are. It's getting bigger.
Speaker 2: In Monk's corner. The traffic is terrible. In Monk's corner.
Speaker 2: Everything in the text is growing. And while everything is growing,
Speaker 2: their perspective is narrowing, and all they can see is
Speaker 2: the space that they don't have. And so they come
Speaker 2: to Joshua and the people of Joseph in Genesis or
Speaker 2: excuse me in Yashawa, chapter seventeen, verse fourteen, say why
Speaker 2: have you only given us one allotment? We're a numerous people,
Speaker 2: and the Lord has blessed us abundantly. But just because
Speaker 2: he blessed us doesn't mean we don't have pressure. Just
Speaker 2: because I have money doesn't mean I know how to
Speaker 2: manage it.
Speaker 1: Just because God gave me.
Speaker 2: A job doesn't mean I don't get tired. Just because
Speaker 2: God sent people to my ministry doesn't mean I always
Speaker 2: have a message to give them when they show up.
Speaker 1: Blessings create pressure. If pressure is.
Speaker 2: Not dealt with, pressure can create self pity.
Speaker 1: Self pity, if not.
Speaker 2: Dealt with, can create a situation where you are in
Speaker 2: this state of watch this. Too much and not enough.
Speaker 2: That's what they said in verse sixteen. They said, we
Speaker 2: do not have enough land. The land that you gave
Speaker 2: us is not enough for us, and the people are
Speaker 2: too much for the land that is not enough. I
Speaker 2: felt like when I I'd be preaching to somebody today
Speaker 2: who would understand this tension of too much and not enough,
Speaker 2: Too much and not enough. This is why we toss
Speaker 2: in turn, because it's too much and not enough. Too
Speaker 2: much to do and not enough in my tank to
Speaker 2: do it. That's called burnout. Too much of people calling
Speaker 2: me and not enough patience to listen to their problems.
Speaker 2: Too much bills and not enough income to answer the
Speaker 2: bills when they knock at the door.
Speaker 1: Too much on my mind and not enough in.
Speaker 2: My life that makes me feel happy and recharged. Too
Speaker 2: much demand, not enough supply. Too many people sucking energy
Speaker 2: out of me and not enough people supplying it. Too
Speaker 2: many people asking and not enough people offering too many
Speaker 2: things wrong and not enough things working out too much
Speaker 2: and not enough. That's what they said. Look at verse sixteen.
Speaker 2: It's in the Bible. They said, the land you gave
Speaker 2: us verse sixteen.
Speaker 1: Is not enough. It's not enough. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about that for a minute. It's not enough.
Speaker 2: I'm not gifted enough, I'm not talented enough, I'm not
Speaker 2: experienced enough. I told you during the Same Lives, New
Speaker 2: Loop series that the devil only has two lives that
Speaker 2: he puts on a loop in your mind, and one
Speaker 2: is I'm not loved, and one is not enough. So
Speaker 2: that's why you wake up in the morning feeling like, well,
Speaker 2: whats on my agenda for today? Is too much? And
Speaker 2: the time I have to do it and is not enough.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm using this land to represent. If you
Speaker 2: thought I was going to teach a real estate seminar
Speaker 2: off of Joshua chapter seventeen, that's not my expertise. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to teach a real life seminar about why you're
Speaker 2: snapping at the wrong people. I'm trying to teach a
Speaker 2: real life seminar about why you don't look forward to
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that God actually gave you through
Speaker 2: his favor. I'm trying to teach a real life seminar
Speaker 2: about how you could be so blessed. Did you notice
Speaker 2: the tribes they said, we're so blessed, And I dare
Speaker 2: somebody to just say it by faith, Say I'm so blessed,
Speaker 2: I'm so blessed. Say with the headshakes, say I am
Speaker 2: so blessed, matter of fact. Do this at every campus,
Speaker 2: and especially at Valentine. Look at the person on either
Speaker 2: side of you and say you are so blessed. Tell
Speaker 2: him I am so blessed, you are so blessed.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact.
Speaker 2: Start doing like this because I'm so blessed. I need
Speaker 2: some elbow room. I'm so blessed. I need you to
Speaker 2: scoot over a little bit. I'm so blessed. You better
Speaker 2: get out of my way. I'm so blessed because if
Speaker 2: I think for a minute about that five hundred dollars
Speaker 2: bonus and how much God has done for me since, then,
Speaker 2: if I think for a minute about how He kept
Speaker 2: me upright on my feet and in my right mind,
Speaker 2: you better give.
Speaker 1: Me some room.
Speaker 2: Because if I think for one minute about how I
Speaker 2: called and he answered, and he came through like only
Speaker 2: he could, just not. Your neighbors say, we're so blessed,
Speaker 2: getting more blessed every day.
Speaker 1: I'm spreading out my tent in this season.
Speaker 2: I'm driving down my stakes in this season because I'm
Speaker 2: so blessed. That's why I'm tired.
Speaker 1: Because God bless me. What a perspective. And now the
Speaker 1: land I have is not enough?
Speaker 2: And so now your prayer request is about all your
Speaker 2: praise reports? Did that make sense? I prayed for it,
Speaker 2: I got it. It's a blessing. It creates pressure, and
Speaker 2: the decision in this season of your life.
Speaker 1: Is this What do I do with the pressure? What
Speaker 1: do I do about them? Not enough? Why do I
Speaker 1: feel like it's not enough?
Speaker 2: Why when God sends an opportunity into my life do
Speaker 2: I reject it and send it away because I think
Speaker 2: I can't do it? Why do I send people who
Speaker 2: love me away and push people who care about me
Speaker 2: away and reach for things that destroy me?
Speaker 1: Why am I still in this season.
Speaker 2: Of my life struggling with something that I prayed about
Speaker 2: since I was a teenager?
Speaker 1: Is there not enough of God's power to deliver me?
Speaker 1: Do I have not enough faith to receive it.
Speaker 2: What's the problem here, Well, Joshua. Joshua gets a real
Speaker 2: I call this a dad energy with these tribes, and
Speaker 2: me and Holly are totally different in our parenting approach,
Speaker 2: totally different.
Speaker 1: I told you.
Speaker 2: Last week, if my kids run out the house without
Speaker 2: a coat.
Speaker 1: I'm like, cool. She's like, You're going to freeze. I'm like,
Speaker 1: they're not going to freeze.
Speaker 2: Like, first of all, first of all, they're not going
Speaker 2: to freeze. Secondly, if they do, it will be a
Speaker 2: memory in their life that will create maturity for their future.
Speaker 1: So I'm just building memories.
Speaker 2: I'm building memories of the time that your dumb self
Speaker 2: left without your coat and almost froze to death. And
Speaker 2: then maybe one day you'll give money to somebody who
Speaker 2: doesn't have a coat so they can buy one. So
Speaker 2: I'm promoting generosity. I'm teaching you good stewardship and responsibility
Speaker 2: all by just letting you be an idiot. The other day,
Speaker 2: Holly was telling me her schedule for the day. I said,
Speaker 2: what do you have the rest of the day. She said, well,
Speaker 2: all three kids have a dentist appointment. I said, what
Speaker 2: does that have to do with you? I understand abby,
Speaker 2: she can't drive yet. But Graham's eighteen, Elijah's about to
Speaker 2: be twenty one years old of age in the United
Speaker 2: States of America. What does his dentist appointment have to
Speaker 2: do with you at this stage in your life? And
Speaker 2: she's like, if I don't remind them, they'll forget. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, and then what well? And then the dentist
Speaker 2: has to charge me. And I'm like, but can't you
Speaker 2: take it out of their account? And she's like, well, yeah, maybe,
Speaker 2: I guess. So I didn't think about it like that.
Speaker 2: And then I thought, well, if their teeth start falling out,
Speaker 2: I want you to let enough teeth fall out of
Speaker 2: their mouth that they don't need you to follow them
Speaker 2: to the dentist when they're forty seven years old.
Speaker 1: This is not a good.
Speaker 2: Path because if I got a sit of the dentist
Speaker 2: office to make sure you're here, you got a beard,
Speaker 2: and I'm taking you to the dentist. Help me, Praise
Speaker 2: the Lord. All the dad's in that house. Joshua was like.
Speaker 1: So you want more land, now, listen, how you to
Speaker 1: tell you something? I forgot to tell you this.
Speaker 2: The land that they had it was the second biggest
Speaker 2: piece given to all of the tribes, the only one
Speaker 2: bigger was Judah. So when they come to Joshua and
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, we don't have enough land, Joshua was like,
Speaker 2: it's interesting you should say that, because I noticed that
Speaker 2: when I gave you the land, there were some parts.
Speaker 1: Of the land that you did not occupy.
Speaker 2: I noticed that when I assigned you the acreage, you
Speaker 2: had the second biggest plot of land of any of
Speaker 2: the tribes. So if you want more room, if you
Speaker 2: really need more space, instead of asking me for more
Speaker 2: land when you've already been given the second largest piece
Speaker 2: of land, can I stop for a moment. Somebody else
Speaker 2: would die to trade places with you in your life.
Speaker 2: Somebody else would give all the money in their bank
Speaker 2: account to have the peace that you have in your home.
Speaker 2: Somebody else would give their entire career just to have
Speaker 2: the relationship that you have. And it is true that
Speaker 2: when we are under pressure, we lose perspective. And it
Speaker 2: is also true that God has given us a lot
Speaker 2: more than we have occupied. So Joshua says, if you
Speaker 2: are so numerous verse fifteen, and if the hill country
Speaker 2: of e from the place where you are is too
Speaker 2: small for you because when they settled in, some of
Speaker 2: the land was already developed because Canaanites were living there.
Speaker 1: So when they moved in, they were like, cool, this
Speaker 1: is great, this is great.
Speaker 2: But then after a while, all the land that was
Speaker 2: producing because it was a very fertile piece of land.
Speaker 2: Don't get it twisted. They didn't get any land that
Speaker 2: was like second rate. This was not scraps. This was
Speaker 2: good land. But they got in there and they eventually
Speaker 2: started to outgrow it, and then they eventually began to
Speaker 2: grumble because they had grown, and so they started to
Speaker 2: grumble about their growth, and they started to grumble about
Speaker 2: the gift that God had given.
Speaker 3: And you just want to slap them real quick, just
Speaker 3: slap them real quick, like, really, you came from the wilderness. Really,
Speaker 3: God gave you the second largest piece of land, and
Speaker 3: all you can think of to say is I want more. Really,
Speaker 3: sometimes I want to slap myself when I hear the.
Speaker 2: Things that I complain about. And here's what I've noticed.
Speaker 2: Without a constant focus on the goodness of God, Without
Speaker 2: a constant focus on the goodness of God, it is
Speaker 2: easy for me to go from inheritance to entitlement inheritance
Speaker 2: to entitlement. Look at this that Paul prayed in Ephesians
Speaker 2: chapter one.
Speaker 1: Put it on the screen, please.
Speaker 2: He said, I pray that the eyes of your heart
Speaker 2: may be enlightened in order that you may know the
Speaker 2: hope to which He has called you, the riches of
Speaker 2: his glorious inheritance in his holy people. So Ephesians is
Speaker 2: telling us spiritually what Joshua is showing us physically, that
Speaker 2: you have an inheritance. But notice the verse again. Put
Speaker 2: it on the screen for another moment, where he says,
Speaker 2: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be
Speaker 2: enlightened to know the riches of the inheritance you already have.
Speaker 2: Here is what Paul did not pray. Check the scripture.
Speaker 2: He did not pray that God would give you an inheritance,
Speaker 2: because you already have one.
Speaker 1: What he prayed instead was so specific.
Speaker 2: He said, I pray that you would be able to
Speaker 2: see clearly what God has already given you freely.
Speaker 1: So this is the shift. Inheritance says God gave me this.
Speaker 2: God gave me this responsibility to preach today.
Speaker 1: I get to do it.
Speaker 2: Entitlement says I've got to do it. Inheritance says, God
Speaker 2: has given me the privilege to minister to these precious people.
Speaker 2: Y'all don't even know how much I love doing this.
Speaker 2: Y'all don't even know how much it matters to me.
Speaker 2: Y'all don't even know how much. I wake up at
Speaker 2: two thirty on Sundays and say, go back to sleep,
Speaker 2: You're gonna.
Speaker 1: Need your energy.
Speaker 2: And then it's two forty five, and it's three, and
Speaker 2: it's three point fifteen, and it's three thirty and finally
Speaker 2: say I can't sleep. I might as well get up
Speaker 2: and start thinking about it. And then by about three
Speaker 2: forty five, I'm appreciating it out loud. So I know
Speaker 2: the kids think that's going crazy downstairs again, but I
Speaker 2: don't care, because God gave me this mantle.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you something else.
Speaker 2: I prayed hard for this, and I sacrificed for this,
Speaker 2: but it was my sacrifice. It was his sovereignty that
Speaker 2: gave it to me, because I could.
Speaker 1: Not earn this.
Speaker 2: And some of us know that it was not by Mike,
Speaker 2: and not by power, and not by intelligence, and not
Speaker 2: by connections and not by networking, and not by pedigree,
Speaker 2: and not by GPA, and not by your skill, but
Speaker 2: by his grace that I am what I am. Thank you, Lord,
Speaker 2: thank you God, thank you. I've got kids to worry about,
Speaker 2: thank you. I've got a spouse to fight with, Thank you.
Speaker 2: I've got clothes to get dirty.
Speaker 1: And have to wash them again.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I've got dishes to yell at somebody for
Speaker 2: leaving in the sink. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you. I've got a toilet to get clogged up.
Speaker 2: I remember where I came from. Slap yourself and say, really,
Speaker 2: you're fussing about this. You forgot where you came from.
Speaker 2: You were in a wilderness, you were in your sin,
Speaker 2: you were in chains. You beg God, God, if you'll
Speaker 2: take me, if you'll.
Speaker 1: Use me, I'll do anything for you.
Speaker 2: And has inheritance mentality become entitlement mentality in your life?
Speaker 2: Fussing cause the coffee's cold, fuss and because it buffered
Speaker 2: for twenty three seconds. Boy, you better remember that card
Speaker 2: catalog you used to have to go through to find
Speaker 2: out information. And now you're mad because chat GPT took
Speaker 2: twelve seconds to think. Don't forget where you come from.
Speaker 2: I come from Monks Corner, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: That's why I cannot.
Speaker 2: Be discouraged when I stand up in front of large crowds.
Speaker 1: To preach, because when I look at the.
Speaker 2: Size of the crowd and realize the town I came from,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, it was you, guy, it was you.
Speaker 2: I mean, this makes no sense. This is just absolutely stupid,
Speaker 2: and I'm so grateful that you use the foolish things
Speaker 2: of the world to confound the wise. Now I need
Speaker 2: to rush past this point because.
Speaker 1: I have another point to make.
Speaker 2: But maybe this would be a good challenge for you
Speaker 2: to put in front of your family this week. Have
Speaker 2: we allowed inheritance what God gave us to be replaced with.
Speaker 1: Entitlement because it's not enough and too much. Not enough.
Speaker 1: You got the blood of Jesus.
Speaker 2: One drop of his blood is enough to cleanse you
Speaker 2: from what you did Thursday. One drop of his blood
Speaker 2: can erase the shame of how you spent the years
Speaker 2: between twenty twenty and twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: One drop of his blood.
Speaker 2: Holly said, they've been sending pictures around online of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: She said, you need.
Speaker 2: To know there's a trend all over Instagram, at least
Speaker 2: for middle aged white women that everybody's sending around pictures
Speaker 2: of twenty sixteen, and something like twenty six is the
Speaker 2: new twenty.
Speaker 1: Sixteen or something. And then she was right.
Speaker 2: Everybody started sending me pictures of where they were in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. I started getting them randomly on my phone.
Speaker 2: People are sending me. I'm not even on Instagram and
Speaker 2: I'm getting pictures on my phone twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen, and I thought that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Where was I twenty sixteen. I pulled something up.
Speaker 2: This is the first Sunday grand opening in our Ballantine
Speaker 2: building in twenty sixteen, and it was supposed to happen
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, but it was on a two year delay.
Speaker 2: The building I preached from, By the way, if you're
Speaker 2: in Kenya, you probably don't know what talking about when
Speaker 2: I say Valentine. The building that I broadcast from, where
Speaker 2: we reach into your home, and where we reach into prisons,
Speaker 2: and where we send messages into rehabs, and where we
Speaker 2: send messages into hospital rooms, and where we send podcasts
Speaker 2: into cars of parents driving their kids around all day
Speaker 2: and athletes that are getting all the ministry.
Speaker 1: It comes from right here.
Speaker 2: Valentine to all of our other campuses, and we were
Speaker 2: opening it twenty sixteen and.
Speaker 1: We were having the best time kind of. But show
Speaker 1: them the other picture.
Speaker 2: This is the one that was next to it on
Speaker 2: my phone, and there's me and Holly and she looks
Speaker 2: like blessing.
Speaker 1: And I look like pressure. Ain't that right? Would you say?
Speaker 1: I captioned that correctly.
Speaker 2: Because for me, I was jet lagged that Sunday morning,
Speaker 2: and for me, I had just gotten back from Australia,
Speaker 2: and for me, the headlines were all about a potential
Speaker 2: place of civil unrest in our nation. And for me,
Speaker 2: my best friend was getting fired from pastoring his church,
Speaker 2: and so between the nine thirty and the eleven thirty
Speaker 2: I was talking to him on the phone before I
Speaker 2: came out to preach again because I was scared about
Speaker 2: whether he was in a safe place emotionally or not.
Speaker 1: So now you understand, put the picture back up again.
Speaker 1: Why she's uh.
Speaker 2: Smiling and I'm like, she's like, God is good all
Speaker 2: the time, and I'm like, she's.
Speaker 1: Like, this is an amazing day. Now. Obviously that's just
Speaker 1: a really unfortunate capture of my face in that moment.
Speaker 1: I don't know I was.
Speaker 2: Really thinking and we fired that photographer, by the way.
Speaker 1: Capture that moment.
Speaker 2: I'm kidding, but I just want to give you a
Speaker 2: visual for a moment here as we talk about Joseph
Speaker 2: and Ephraim and Manassa, and as we talk about your life,
Speaker 2: and as we talk about forgetting where you come from,
Speaker 2: and when we talk about your past, and when we
Speaker 2: talk about the things that you remember, and when we talk.
Speaker 1: About the challenge that you're facing.
Speaker 2: Remember, the people of Joseph, the tribes of Ephraim and Manassa,
Speaker 2: came to Joshua and said it's too much and it's
Speaker 2: not enough.
Speaker 1: And Joshua said, it is enough.
Speaker 2: There is all of this territory that you were given,
Speaker 2: but it's forest territory, and it's covered not only in trees,
Speaker 2: but there are canaanites that are there, which represent the
Speaker 2: enemies that you did not drive out of the land yet.
Speaker 2: And so God has given you an inheritance. But to
Speaker 2: develop in that it's going to take two things, work
Speaker 2: and war. It's going to take work and it's going
Speaker 2: to take war. I heard an old self motivation talk
Speaker 2: parable about a farmer who had a beautiful piece of
Speaker 2: property and it was so lush man The gardens were
Speaker 2: just beautiful and flourishing, and the cows were fat, and
Speaker 2: the white gravel driveway was lined with the prettiest trees
Speaker 2: you ever saw.
Speaker 1: And it didn't look like a.
Speaker 2: New farm, but it looked like a love farm, a
Speaker 2: farm that had received a lot of attention. And a
Speaker 2: preacher drove by the farm one day and he was
Speaker 2: so absolutely enchanted with the farm that he had to
Speaker 2: meet the farmer. And the farmer came over on the
Speaker 2: tractor and turned off the tractor for a moment and
Speaker 2: said to the preacher, can I help you? And the
Speaker 2: preacher said, I was just admiring your property. What a
Speaker 2: beautiful piece of property the Lord gave you. And the
Speaker 2: farmer said, yes, it is very beautiful, and we're grateful.
Speaker 2: But Preacher, you should have seen this place when the
Speaker 2: Lord had it all to himself.
Speaker 1: In other words, I worked this thing.
Speaker 2: In other words, the people that you're driving by and
Speaker 2: envying their life, they.
Speaker 4: Didn't just get that marriage. They didn't just get that body.
Speaker 4: They didn't just get that financial situation. They didn't just
Speaker 4: get that influence.
Speaker 2: They were in the field keeping sheep before Goliath ever
Speaker 2: showed up.
Speaker 1: They were developing it.
Speaker 2: And the question is are you investing into what you
Speaker 2: inherited in your life? If it's a gift, are you
Speaker 2: investing in it? If it's a relationship, are you maintaining it?
Speaker 2: Are are you working with what God gave you or
Speaker 2: simply complaining how it's not enough. Because I'm gonna tell
Speaker 2: you it is enough. It is enough. It just hasn't
Speaker 2: had the time yet in your life to develop into
Speaker 2: what it needs to be. So I came to declare
Speaker 2: a message today it is enough, but it is going
Speaker 2: to take faith on your part. God is not simply
Speaker 2: going to drive out every enemy in your life. God
Speaker 2: is not simply going to chop down every tree in
Speaker 2: your life. God is not simply going to disrupt every
Speaker 2: bad habit in your life.
Speaker 1: We pray for deliverance.
Speaker 2: I believe in deliverance, but I also believe in support groups.
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 2: I also believe in AA.
Speaker 1: I said. I also believe in accountability. I said. I
Speaker 1: also believe in Christian counseling.
Speaker 2: I said, I also believe in starting to exercise. I said,
Speaker 2: I also believe in app deletion. See the thing about
Speaker 2: some of us is we are praying for peace in
Speaker 2: areas where we are unwilling to clear out trees. How
Speaker 2: can it grow? How can it grow? It has nowhere
Speaker 2: to grow. And the problem is.
Speaker 1: Not that I need more time.
Speaker 2: The problem is that I need more priorities. Because God
Speaker 2: gave me enough time for what he called me to do.
Speaker 2: So I declare, in this year of my life, it's
Speaker 2: the year that I do what Joshua told the people
Speaker 2: of Joseph to do. Listen to this. He said, you
Speaker 2: have enough doesn't feel like enough. You have enough doesn't
Speaker 2: look like another. There's all these trees, there's all these enemies.
Speaker 2: There's all these things that you have not confronted yet.
Speaker 2: But behind what you have been unwilling to confront is
Speaker 2: the answer to the prayer that you see. I am
Speaker 2: preaching prophetically to somebody give me Verse seventeen. Joshua was
Speaker 2: said to the people to eat from in Manassa. You
Speaker 2: are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only
Speaker 2: one a lot meant your two tribes, but you can
Speaker 2: have the forested country too. There is more for you
Speaker 2: to enjoy. There is more for you to experience in God.
Speaker 2: There is more. You can be happy again. You can
Speaker 2: rejoice again. You can have meaning in your day again.
Speaker 2: You can have it if you clear it. Somebody shall
Speaker 2: clear it. Speak that over your mind this year.
Speaker 1: Clear it.
Speaker 2: I gotta clear it. I'm praying for peace, but I'm
Speaker 2: not clear in my mind. How can I stuff my
Speaker 2: mind full of and then ask Jesus to fill the
Speaker 2: space that's already filled with jump Somebody shall clear it.
Speaker 2: It might have to be cleared in your life of
Speaker 2: some unproductive.
Speaker 1: Relationships this year.
Speaker 2: There are so many roots that can drink water in
Speaker 2: your yard. But any more than those roots and you
Speaker 2: are not going to have the rain you need for
Speaker 2: what God is planting. Somebody shall clear it. And don't
Speaker 2: even apologize to people. If you have to cut off
Speaker 2: some communication this year, that's all right. It's not rude,
Speaker 2: it's righteous because I gotta clear it this year because
Speaker 2: God has more for me. Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't
Speaker 2: get back with you. I gotta get clear this year.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I didn't snap you back. I gotta get
Speaker 2: clear this year because what God gave me, what God
Speaker 2: is doing through me, what God promised me. Clear it,
Speaker 2: clear it, clear it, clear it. Clear your mind this year.
Speaker 2: This may be the season for you to stop focusing
Speaker 2: on what would have been. You are so full of
Speaker 2: regret that you cannot see what is right in front
Speaker 2: of you. Oh, yes, Lord, thank you for reminding me
Speaker 2: the word of the Lord. He says, you still can.
Speaker 2: You still can because the lie that starts to clutter
Speaker 2: up your mind is it's too late. Oh look at
Speaker 2: the mistakes you may look if you would, how many
Speaker 2: of you had that.
Speaker 1: Going on in your mind in an area right now,
Speaker 1: like if.
Speaker 2: I would have just given it more attention. That may
Speaker 2: be true. You may have missed the opportunity. You may
Speaker 2: not have done it when you should have done it.
Speaker 2: But you still can. Yeah, you still can. I wish
Speaker 2: I would have lived for God in college. Well you
Speaker 2: are seventy nine. Now you still can live for God
Speaker 2: and leave the legacy.
Speaker 1: Somebody shout, I still can. You can if you get clear.
Speaker 2: But if you stay in what it was in the
Speaker 2: previous season of your life, you will have more available
Speaker 2: to you and you will die for the lack of
Speaker 2: what Jesus died to put in your life. Clear it
Speaker 2: clear it tell the devil we are not having this
Speaker 2: conversation again.
Speaker 1: Clear it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm talking about your calendar.
Speaker 1: You need to clear it up a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's got a little too much stuff on it that
Speaker 2: you're doing to impress.
Speaker 1: People, and it's not making an impact. Clear it. Clear it.
Speaker 2: Let me talk to a leader, because pastors watched me
Speaker 2: preach some of the people that you are running around
Speaker 2: trying to please by preaching the sermons that they want
Speaker 2: so bad. They're not supposed to be a part of
Speaker 2: your church in this season. And if you don't stop
Speaker 2: preaching to the people who are threatening to leave, you
Speaker 2: cannot reach the people that God has called you.
Speaker 5: To reach, and they need Jesus. Clear it, you hear me,
Speaker 5: clear it? Clearing this might be.
Speaker 2: A prophetic word about your shopping cart on Amazon.
Speaker 1: Clear it. You ain't buying none of it this year.
Speaker 1: We're getting out of debt this year.
Speaker 2: We're gonna use okay, lost all the shouts, ljay, no
Speaker 2: organ necessary on that point.
Speaker 1: And if you can clear it, you can conquer it.
Speaker 2: You remember I said we were two years late getting
Speaker 2: in this building. One of the reasons that we were
Speaker 2: so far behind getting in on this building was because
Speaker 2: the Environmental Protection Agency told us that there was a
Speaker 2: possibility that a Carolina heel splitter clam was on the property,
Speaker 2: and they said that this clam or muscle I think
Speaker 2: it was, but I'm gonna call it a clam because
Speaker 2: it sounds better what I'm trying to say. One little
Speaker 2: clam kept us from building this whole big church.
Speaker 1: For six months.
Speaker 2: We could not clear the land because of a clam.
Speaker 2: You realize how many times a little thing in your
Speaker 2: life keeps you from building.
Speaker 1: A little thing.
Speaker 2: One person you don't want to make mad, one thing
Speaker 2: you don't want to be judged about, one uncomfortable moment
Speaker 2: you don't want to push through, one phone call you.
Speaker 1: Don't want to make.
Speaker 2: So you're just gonna let dread eat you up like
Speaker 2: cancer for six months because of a clam. The devil
Speaker 2: doesn't even really have to put a clam on your land.
Speaker 2: He can just tell you there may be a clam.
Speaker 2: They may laugh at you, it may not work, you
Speaker 2: may look stupid, this may backfire, your kid may end up,
Speaker 2: your mom may it's not even there.
Speaker 1: But you're not building.
Speaker 2: And so we get to the heart of the issue.
Speaker 2: At this moment in the text tribes of Ephraim and Manassa.
Speaker 2: Ephram and Manassa, let's look at the moment that these
Speaker 2: boys were born. Now remember, just to be clear, it's
Speaker 2: been generations since Ephram and Manassa were born to Joseph,
Speaker 2: So these people didn't know Joseph.
Speaker 1: They were Joseph's great great great great great great great.
Speaker 2: Great grandchildren, and Ram and Manassa were his children.
Speaker 1: Now look in Genesis forty one, verse fifty.
Speaker 2: It's going back in time to when Joseph was in
Speaker 2: Egypt and he was starting to serve as an administrator
Speaker 2: in Pharaoh's palace. The Bible says he wrote in the
Speaker 2: Second Chariot in command of Pharaoh. But it says before
Speaker 2: the years of Famine came, after everything Joseph had been through, imprisonment, accusation, abandonment,
Speaker 2: the people who were supposed to remember him forgetting him.
Speaker 2: The Bible says, before the years of famine came, two
Speaker 2: sons were born to Joseph by asa Out, daughter of Potiferah,
Speaker 2: priest of Aughn. Joseph named his firstborn Nassa Nassa, and
Speaker 2: he said, it's because God has made me.
Speaker 1: Forget all my trouble.
Speaker 2: Everybody say forget, say it out loud, forget, put it
Speaker 2: in the comments, forget forget forget the title of this messages,
Speaker 2: don't forget where you come from. And when Joseph had
Speaker 2: his first baby, after all the suffering, after all the hardship,
Speaker 2: after all the misdirection, after all the delay, after all
Speaker 2: of the things that went wrong in his life, and
Speaker 2: finally God gave him an opportunity.
Speaker 1: In a child. He looked at the child, and he
Speaker 1: held the.
Speaker 2: Child in a place that he never intended to be,
Speaker 2: in a place that he never planned to be, and
Speaker 2: that may be you right now.
Speaker 1: I didn't plan to be here.
Speaker 2: But he looked at the baby, and in deciding what
Speaker 2: to name the baby, he named the baby Manassa, which
Speaker 2: means to forget.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm naming this baby manassa.
Speaker 2: Because God has made me forget all my trouble and
Speaker 2: all my father's households stop right there. He named the
Speaker 2: baby manassa, which means forget. Not because the memory left
Speaker 2: him of the pain that he went through. It's just
Speaker 2: that in that moment, what God was doing in his
Speaker 2: life was so significant that it made what he had been.
Speaker 1: Through small in comparison.
Speaker 2: So he says, I'm gonna name this child forget, not
Speaker 2: because the memory left me. But because I'm choosing to
Speaker 2: remember it different, I'm going to remember it different what
Speaker 2: I've been.
Speaker 1: Through, what I suffered from.
Speaker 2: I no longer see it as being sold into slavery.
Speaker 2: I see it as God sending me here, and I
Speaker 2: am forgetting what is behind me so I can press
Speaker 2: toward what is ahead.
Speaker 1: The name Manassa means forget. How many of.
Speaker 2: You have ever heard of something called the man Mandela effect?
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you heard of this.
Speaker 2: It's named after Nelson Mandela, of course, who was the
Speaker 2: president of South Africa. But it's named because a group
Speaker 2: of people collectively were documented as remembering Nelson Mandela dying
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: So check this out. A woman did research and she
Speaker 1: found out.
Speaker 2: That there were large groups of people in the thousands
Speaker 2: who remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: The problem with that was he didn't die until the
Speaker 2: year twenty thirteen, but they remembered it as if he did.
Speaker 2: They remembered somehow, some fragmented misinformation and they remembered Nelson
Speaker 2: Mandela died in prison in the eighties. There were so
Speaker 2: many people who remembered that wrong that they named an
Speaker 2: entire phenomenon psychologically, the Mandela effect and now the phrase
Speaker 2: the Mandela effect is used to describe many things, some
Speaker 2: not as significant as the death.
Speaker 1: Of a leader.
Speaker 2: For instance, how many of you remember the line from
Speaker 2: the movie Star Wars when Darth Vader revealed his real identity?
Speaker 1: What did he say? What did he say? Now?
Speaker 2: Thousands of you remember, Luke, I am your father. But
Speaker 2: if you check the DVD Old school, if you check
Speaker 2: the movie, he doesn't say Luke, I am your father.
Speaker 2: He says, no, I am your father. That freaked me
Speaker 2: out when I heard that. I thought, all these years,
Speaker 2: I thought he said.
Speaker 1: Luke, I am your father. He didn't say Luke, he
Speaker 1: said no.
Speaker 2: On how did I remember it so different than it
Speaker 2: actually happened. It's the Mandela effect, or the peanut.
Speaker 1: Butter that starts with the letter J. What's it called?
Speaker 2: No, there's no why on it. It's just jiff It's
Speaker 2: not Jiffy. You remember Jeffy. Don't I remember Jeffy too.
Speaker 2: I thought it was Jiffy all my life. I thought
Speaker 2: it was Jeffy. It's not Jiffy. It wasn't Jiffy. It
Speaker 2: never has been Jiffy. Somebody just called it jeffy, like
Speaker 2: they call it Walmart Arts and revelations, and we all
Speaker 2: run around calling it jiffy, but it was never jiffy.
Speaker 2: It's the Mandela effect. I remember it different than it
Speaker 2: actually happened. I came to preach today about the Manassa effect. Now,
Speaker 2: the Manassa effect is when you've been through hell, and
Speaker 2: you've gone through some trouble and some people have let
Speaker 2: you down, and life has put you in a crowded
Speaker 2: space and you feel like not enough and you don't
Speaker 2: know what's next, but you decide in your mind, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna remember it different, and rather than focusing on how
Speaker 2: they forgot me, I'm gonna focus on how I have
Speaker 2: a father.
Speaker 1: Who never did.
Speaker 2: Who never fails, who never can.
Speaker 1: Shove.
Speaker 2: Your neighbors say, remember it different. Bless the Lord, oh
Speaker 2: my soul, and all that is within me. Bless the Lord,
Speaker 2: oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Speaker 1: I'm choosing to.
Speaker 2: Forget some things so I can clear out some space,
Speaker 2: so I can receive some things that God has given me.
Speaker 1: Clear it out, clear it out, clear it out, clear
Speaker 1: it out. It's the Manassa that here. It is.
Speaker 2: God can do one thing in your life. God can
Speaker 2: send one person in your life. God can send one
Speaker 2: opportunity in your life that will make you forget everything
Speaker 2: you went through to be in this place. Make you
Speaker 2: forget about how bad it hurt, every time they said no,
Speaker 2: make you forget about all the years you thought it
Speaker 2: was never going to happen. It'll make you thank him
Speaker 2: for all the things that didn't come to pass, because
Speaker 2: you'll say, if I wasn't here, I couldn't have had this.
Speaker 2: God is working in your life. His word does not return.
Speaker 2: He has given you more than enough. This is the
Speaker 2: Monassa effect. When you say, I remember when we open
Speaker 2: this building, and I remember that we were late, But
Speaker 2: I choose to remember that even though we were late
Speaker 2: getting in, God did it. I choose to remember that
Speaker 2: even though it didn't unfold according to my schedule, it
Speaker 2: unfolded according to his sovereign purpose.
Speaker 1: And I am preaching about.
Speaker 2: The Nassa effect because now, generations later, the tribe that
Speaker 2: is named after the boy who made Joseph.
Speaker 1: Forget has forgotten. They have forgotten.
Speaker 2: Joseph forgot his pain, but they forgot their power. And
Speaker 2: Joshua had to remind them. He said, you are very powerful,
Speaker 2: and I have to remind you of that every week
Speaker 2: that the Holy Spirit lives in you, and you are
Speaker 2: very powerful. I have to remind you that every week
Speaker 2: that Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead, lives
Speaker 2: in you, and that power works in you. And because
Speaker 2: of that, you are very powerful. Don't give me all
Speaker 2: this self empowerment stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't need any of it. I got the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: I got the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: You don't have to hype me up to believe I'm worthy.
Speaker 2: Jesus died for me. He's worthy. I'm very powerful. And
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful thing when you remember where you came from. Right,
Speaker 2: Because see they were complaining about the chariots. Right, they said,
Speaker 2: we can't go into that land. They have chariots. Everybody
Speaker 2: say chariots. Come on, work with me, say chariots. This
Speaker 2: is the manassa effect. They have misremembered things because they
Speaker 2: are scared of chariots. But I seem to remember a
Speaker 2: time in the Bible where God dealt with some chariots.
Speaker 2: I seem to remember a time in the Bible when
Speaker 2: God's people were coming out of Egypt and a red
Speaker 2: sea stood between them and their freedom. And I seem
Speaker 2: to remember that the chariots of Pharaoh were coming up
Speaker 2: back behind them. And I seem to remember that, just
Speaker 2: at the moment when it looked like the chariots were
Speaker 2: going to overtake them, what's that, God closed the sea
Speaker 2: over the chariots. So God sent me to remind you,
Speaker 2: this is not your first time calling on his name.
Speaker 2: This is not your first time needing his help. Remember
Speaker 2: where you come from. You come from a God who
Speaker 2: opens red seas. You come from a faith where a
Speaker 2: stick can split a body of water. You come from
Speaker 2: a lineage of believers that can climb over walls and
Speaker 2: shout and they fall down. So let me remind you
Speaker 2: something about you today. You are very powerful, You are
Speaker 2: very capable, You are very strong.
Speaker 1: You defy the odds. You are not one of them.
Speaker 1: You are not like them. You are not subject to this.
Speaker 2: And don't let what you are facing make you forget
Speaker 2: who you are. High five three people say, don't forget
Speaker 2: where you come from. Don't forget where you come from.
Speaker 2: The tribe of Manassa stood before Joshua, and verse eighteen.
Speaker 2: He said something that I've been declaring over our church
Speaker 2: all week.
Speaker 1: He said, if you clear it, you can claim it.
Speaker 6: That was for you, dude.
Speaker 1: If you clear it, you can claim it.
Speaker 2: Even though they have chariots, God says, I am an
Speaker 2: expert in overpowering chariots.
Speaker 1: Holly, do you hear.
Speaker 2: What I'm preaching, baby, Because I'm trying to say, after
Speaker 2: all God did for us up to this point in
Speaker 2: our ministry, how can we ever doubt him again. You're
Speaker 2: talking about chariots. God doesn't care about chariots. God drowns chariots.
Speaker 2: God will jam the wheels of a chariot. You're talking
Speaker 2: about chariots. You're talking about the economy. God will make
Speaker 2: it rain. If it's not raining anywhere else, he'll make
Speaker 2: it rain in Goshen.
Speaker 1: You're talking about chariots.
Speaker 2: God will make a way through the sea. And if
Speaker 2: you'll clear it, you can claim him. I came to
Speaker 2: tell you today you can drive them out.
Speaker 1: Verse eighteen.
Speaker 2: You can drive them.
Speaker 1: Stand to your feet and give.
Speaker 2: God a praise today.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jesus. Let me talk to you for a moment.
Speaker 1: You still can? You still can?
Speaker 2: They said, we're in this land, We're crowded, We're surrounded
Speaker 2: by enemies. And Joshua said, you still can't drive them out.
Speaker 2: You know, it's important for me to remember that every
Speaker 2: promise that God gives me comes with enemies still living
Speaker 2: in it. All of the wheat that God gives me
Speaker 2: guarantees that there will be weeds all around it.
Speaker 1: But I came with the message from.
Speaker 2: The word of the Lord that you can do all
Speaker 2: things through Christ to strengthens you, and you can drive
Speaker 2: them out. Make a different decision. You can reach for
Speaker 2: something other than that bottle. You can drive them out
Speaker 2: because greater is He that is in you than he
Speaker 2: that is in the world.
Speaker 1: You can drive them out.
Speaker 2: Now, what's happened to a lot of us is we've
Speaker 2: gotten too comfortable with the Canaanites, so we've gotten in
Speaker 2: small places. But you can drive them out. You can
Speaker 2: forgive that person who hurt you. You can drive them out.
Speaker 2: You can It's going to be a process, but you
Speaker 2: can drive them out. You can absolutely repair that relationship
Speaker 2: if God means for that relationship to be in your life.
Speaker 1: You can drive them out.
Speaker 2: You can get this health issue under control. You can
Speaker 2: drive them out. You can't apologize. You can drive them out.
Speaker 2: But the problem with us becomes that we forget that
Speaker 2: we have a God who specializes in defeating chariots. The
Speaker 2: chariots won't stop you. They won't stop God. You can
Speaker 2: drive them out.
Speaker 1: Now. The challenge of this message, only you know what
Speaker 1: you're them is I don't.
Speaker 2: All I can tell you is I know a God
Speaker 2: who is greater than any of them that.
Speaker 6: You can name. And this is the Manassa effect.
Speaker 2: I'm praying that rather than misremembering something, I'm praying that
Speaker 2: you would remember it right today and remember how much
Speaker 2: God has done to bring you to this point and
Speaker 2: take that forward with you into your future. Because honestly,
Speaker 2: I don't just want to preach another sermon and then
Speaker 2: you go live among Canaanites all week and don't believe
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 1: Drive them out.
Speaker 2: I want something for Monday, when that anxiety comes strong,
Speaker 2: you hear the voice of God in your heart saying
Speaker 2: you can drive that out. You can breathe through that,
Speaker 2: you can move through that, you have other options for that.
Speaker 2: You can drive them out the next time you want
Speaker 2: to explode and go off and just freak out. I
Speaker 2: don't have to be a slave to anger. You can
Speaker 2: drive them.
Speaker 1: Out because you're not in this by yourself.
Speaker 2: And I want to pray for you right now because
Speaker 2: I know there are some things in your land and
Speaker 2: in your life where you have either become entitled or
Speaker 2: you have allowed your insecurity to keep you from being
Speaker 2: what God has called you to be.
Speaker 1: And you know what I can.
Speaker 2: Always tell where I get to a point in a
Speaker 2: message where you have a decision to make. Are you
Speaker 2: really going to believe what God is saying to you
Speaker 2: or are you going to go back home and talk
Speaker 2: to him about the chariots? For the rest of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six, I want to pray for you. There is
Speaker 2: so much that Jesus Christ saved you for. There is
Speaker 2: so much that He sees in you, so much that
Speaker 2: you can't see in yourself, but if you can clear it.
Speaker 1: It's yours.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: I'm praying that your mind would.
Speaker 2: Get peaceful right about now. Just the peace of God
Speaker 2: fill your heart and your mind, heads bowed, eyes closed. Father,
Speaker 2: thank you for the word that you gave us today.
Speaker 2: Don't forget where you come from. Thank you for reminding
Speaker 2: us to be grateful. Thank you for encouraging us to
Speaker 2: be strong.
Speaker 1: Lord.
Speaker 2: If there's anything I've learned in my walk with you.
Speaker 2: It's that we can't drive it out without your help.
Speaker 2: And we try so hard, and we try everything but you.
Speaker 2: But right now, in the name of Jesusus, I joined
Speaker 2: my faith with each and every man, woman, boy and
Speaker 2: girl who is living in a place today, and let's
Speaker 2: confess it together. We all have something. But God, you
Speaker 2: are greater than whatever it is. So Father, in Jesus' name,
Speaker 2: I pray that there would be a remembrance in your
Speaker 2: presence today, not only of what you've done, but of
Speaker 2: who you are.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 2: I thank you for every way that you have made
Speaker 2: for us. I thank you for all the times that
Speaker 2: you have shown yourself strong. And now God, I.
Speaker 1: Declare over your people. They are very powerful. In your name,
Speaker 1: they are very strong. God.
Speaker 2: I thank you for how you've blessed them and how
Speaker 2: you will continue to bless them.
Speaker 1: 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 information,
Speaker 2: 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.