Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
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 you perspective to see God is moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2: When I was praying about how to start the year
Speaker 2: and the theme we should start the year with, I
Speaker 2: was led to Second Samuel nineteen, a scripture that originally
Speaker 2: I was attracted to from a leadership perspective, but I
Speaker 2: think it has implications for our church. As I set
Speaker 2: this image before you, I invite your attention to Second Samuel,
Speaker 2: chapter eighteen. Let's go eighteen, verse thirty three and get
Speaker 2: the context and read down to chapter nineteen, verse eight
Speaker 2: And so I know we were done with David because
Speaker 2: we preached a whole series about him last year called
Speaker 2: Bars and Battles. But last him when he come over
Speaker 2: to twenty eighteen and help us start the year, and
Speaker 2: so he said that he would. But there's going to
Speaker 2: be a real dramatic difference between the David we saw
Speaker 2: in First Sammuel nineteen and the David we see in
Speaker 2: Second Samuel nineteen, because when we saw him in First
Speaker 2: Samuel nineteen, he was on the come up and God
Speaker 2: was really blessing him, and he had a lot of courage.
Speaker 2: But now we're going to see him at a place
Speaker 2: that is very unfamiliar to someone of his caliber, and
Speaker 2: David's confidence is shaken. And so this would be a
Speaker 2: very strange thing if you just picked up the Bible
Speaker 2: and you heard about David from Sunday School and he
Speaker 2: was killing Goliath and ripping off the heads of Philistines
Speaker 2: and driving back the enemies of Israel. But now the
Speaker 2: scripture says in Tewod Samuel eighteen thirty three, the king
Speaker 2: was shook. I put it in a little bit of
Speaker 2: a modernized translation. He was shook, and he went up
Speaker 2: to the room over the gateway, and wept as he went.
Speaker 2: He said, Oh, my son, Absalom, Oh my son, my son, Absalom.
Speaker 2: If only I had died instead of you, Oh, Absalom,
Speaker 2: my son, my son. Way to pick out an inspirational
Speaker 2: scripture to start the year with Verdick, Chapter nineteen, verse one,
Speaker 2: Joebb was told the king is weeping and mourning for
Speaker 2: Absolom for the whole army. The victory that day was
Speaker 2: turned into mourning, which is exactly the opposite of what
Speaker 2: God does. God turns a day of mourning into a
Speaker 2: day of victory.
Speaker 1: Don't believe me, Just.
Speaker 2: Ask those disciples who were gathered together in sorrow and
Speaker 2: shame one Sunday, only to get the news that what
Speaker 2: looked like Hell's final defeat of Heaven was actually the
Speaker 2: starting point of salvation. God specializes in turning your day
Speaker 2: of mourning into a day of victory. The enemy, however,
Speaker 2: with desire to turn your day of victory, or your
Speaker 2: position of strength into weakness and sorrow, and that's exactly
Speaker 2: what has happened here. The whole army is experiencing mourning
Speaker 2: in a time of victory. You know that you can
Speaker 2: experience mourning in a time of victory.
Speaker 1: You can experience.
Speaker 2: Depression in a place of provision. You can experience what
Speaker 2: feels like failure in a season of success. So much
Speaker 2: of life is determined not by the event, but by
Speaker 2: our ability to process the event on the correct level
Speaker 2: as to be blind to our own blessings. We have
Speaker 2: many instances, but here David has lost so much in
Speaker 2: the course of the battle that he cannot celebrate the victory.
Speaker 2: He lost his own son, and we'll see how that
Speaker 2: affects him. Now. The troops had heard it, said the
Speaker 2: king is grieving for his son. And so the men
Speaker 2: stole into the city that day as men steal in,
Speaker 2: who are ashamed when they flee from battle. They actually
Speaker 2: had defeated the enemy, but their heads were hung in shame.
Speaker 2: There would be no parade this day for the king.
Speaker 2: Verse four covered his face and cried aloud, Oh, my son, absalom,
Speaker 2: oh absalom, my son, my son.
Speaker 1: His focus is so narrowed.
Speaker 2: To what he has lost that he is about to
Speaker 2: lose what he has left. He cannot get over what's gone,
Speaker 2: and he is about to step right over what is
Speaker 2: and miss it because waiting for his support are all
Speaker 2: of the troops and the resources for him to reclaim
Speaker 2: his throne and get back where he belongs. But he's
Speaker 2: not ready yet. He's weeping in isolation over the gate.
Speaker 2: And then verse five says that Joe ab his general,
Speaker 2: had the guts to go into the house and say
Speaker 2: something to the king that nobody else had the guts
Speaker 2: to say. Sometimes you need to thank God for the
Speaker 2: people in your life. Who say stuff that you don't
Speaker 2: like to hear. Those are the ones who often really
Speaker 2: love you. Sometimes I see every parent in this room
Speaker 2: looking at their teenager. I caught you look at somebody
Speaker 2: and say, tell me the truth. You are not my
Speaker 2: friend if you don't tell me the truth. God uses
Speaker 2: Joe Ab to give David. Watch this the gift of confrontation.
Speaker 2: You see how nobody said amen. If I would have
Speaker 2: said the gift of comfort, you would have gotten it.
Speaker 2: But sometimes the gift of confrontation is greater than the
Speaker 2: gift of comfort. And Joe Ab challenges David, who goes
Speaker 2: in a house the king, and says, today you have
Speaker 2: humiliated all your men who have just saved your life,
Speaker 2: and the lives of your sons and daughters, and the
Speaker 2: lives of your.
Speaker 1: Wives and concubines.
Speaker 2: You love those who hate you, and hate those who
Speaker 2: love you.
Speaker 1: Why do you keep.
Speaker 2: Attaching yourself the stuff that is doing you no good?
Speaker 2: Why do you keep running back to things that hurt you?
Speaker 2: You love those who hate you and hate those who
Speaker 2: love you. Why do you keep chasing that which is
Speaker 2: trying to walk away at the expense of that which
Speaker 2: God has given you? Or as David asked Samuel about saw,
Speaker 2: how long will you mourn over what God has rejected?
Speaker 2: You made it clear today that the commanders and their
Speaker 2: men mean nothing to you. I see that you would
Speaker 2: be pleased if Absalom were alive today and all of
Speaker 2: us were dead.
Speaker 1: Now go out and encourage your men. I swear by
Speaker 1: the Lord.
Speaker 2: If you don't go out, not a man will be
Speaker 2: loved with you by nightfall.
Speaker 1: This would be worse for you than all the calamities
Speaker 1: that have come on you, from your you to mouth.
Speaker 2: So the king got up and took his seat in
Speaker 2: the gateway. The king gotta and took his seat in
Speaker 2: the gateway. That's our theme as we begin the year.
Speaker 2: So look at your neighbor and say neighbor, and force
Speaker 2: them to make eye contact with you before you go
Speaker 2: any further. Tell him get back in the gate. Get
Speaker 2: back in the gate. If they're looking at you crazy,
Speaker 2: it was the wrong neighbor. Turned to the other one
Speaker 2: and say get back in the gate. Get back in
Speaker 2: the gate. And so we could understand why David is shook,
Speaker 2: because we are seeing here the inextricable connection between character
Speaker 2: and confidence. It is impossible to sustain your confidence. With
Speaker 2: a faulty character, you can hype yourself up, just bump
Speaker 2: yourself in the mirror. You can even get abs and
Speaker 2: feel good about those. But without the deep seated core
Speaker 2: of character to sustain you in life, it is impossible
Speaker 2: to maintain a sense of real confidence.
Speaker 1: He shook.
Speaker 2: He's allowed some things into his life that are now
Speaker 2: overpowering him. He lets some things in little by little,
Speaker 2: and now it's been years and years of dysfunction. It
Speaker 2: wasn't so much the dysfunction that brought trouble to David.
Speaker 1: It was the way he dealt with the dysfunction.
Speaker 2: God knew he was dysfunctional when he picked him out,
Speaker 2: and he knew that he had father issues when he
Speaker 2: picked him out, and he knew that he was quite
Speaker 2: lustful when he picked him out. None of those things
Speaker 2: stopped God from choosing him, and so they couldn't stop
Speaker 2: God from using him. It is never your dysfunction that
Speaker 2: stops God from using you. It is how you choose
Speaker 2: to deal with the dysfunction. When David fought Goliath, he
Speaker 2: fought him from a distance, which was a strategic thing
Speaker 2: because if he came close to him, he would die
Speaker 2: by his sword. Goliath was skilled in hand to hand combat,
Speaker 2: but David was a slinger. That was the way he
Speaker 2: fought Goliath, and it was the way that he had
Speaker 2: tried to live his life, and in certain situations it
Speaker 2: worked for him until it came to the point when
Speaker 2: you may remember this story. It's not told in vacation
Speaker 2: Bible school because because it's rated in a it's more
Speaker 2: like a Game of Thrones episode really than a Bible story.
Speaker 2: When David should have been a war and he wasn't,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't where he was. It was where he
Speaker 2: wasn't that got him in trouble. It wasn't what he did,
Speaker 2: It was what he didn't do that brought him to
Speaker 2: a place. Until he had enough freedom of capacity to
Speaker 2: entertain thoughts.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have thought if.
Speaker 2: He'd been doing what he should have done, wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been tempted to do what he did.
Speaker 1: But since he did what he did and.
Speaker 2: Ended up sleeping with a lady who has taken a
Speaker 2: bath named Bathsheba, the Bible was full of these happy coincidences.
Speaker 2: Where he messed up wasn't necessarily his sin which was wrong,
Speaker 2: but it was the way that he compounded his sin
Speaker 2: because he responded to his shame rather than receiving God's grace,
Speaker 2: and so rather than deal with the dysfunction and the
Speaker 2: decision of his disobedience, he piled several layers of shame
Speaker 2: on top of his sin and ended up having her
Speaker 2: husband killed. Well. When Nathan the Prophet came to David,
Speaker 2: he said, because of the way you've acted, because of
Speaker 2: the decisions that you've made, God is going to forgive you,
Speaker 2: but you're going to.
Speaker 1: Experience some consequences.
Speaker 2: Please write this down if you're under the age of eighteen.
Speaker 2: You can pick your decisions, but you can't pick your consequences.
Speaker 2: And he received grace, but it left a residue, and
Speaker 2: the aftermath of david Sinn would play out through the
Speaker 2: course of his family line. When his son Amnen raped
Speaker 2: his half sister Tamar, and you thought your family was dysfunctional,
Speaker 2: you could write a parenting book compared to David. I mean,
Speaker 2: David's son raped one of David's daughters from another wife.
Speaker 1: Are you following this? Do you feel like you left church.
Speaker 2: And went to Jerry Springer nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: Hello and Absalom had.
Speaker 2: To do what David wouldn't do because David wanted to
Speaker 2: deal with it from a distance rather than confront the dysfunction.
Speaker 2: He kept it out here. But you can only keep
Speaker 2: it out here so long, just like he did with Bathsheba.
Speaker 2: He kept it out here, but only for so long.
Speaker 2: It's just a matter of time before the dysfunction shows
Speaker 2: up on your doorstep once you let it through the gate.
Speaker 2: And so now it's working his way through his family.
Speaker 2: And because David will not stand in his place and
Speaker 2: make a decision on how to deal with it, even
Speaker 2: if it's the wrong one, he makes the greatest mistake
Speaker 2: to become passive. The greatest trouble in David's life came
Speaker 2: when he became passive, or you might say disengaged disengaged.
Speaker 2: I have an Instagram account, and every month our social
Speaker 2: media team brings me reports for the engagement on our Facebook,
Speaker 2: the engagement on Twitter. The engagement on social media is
Speaker 2: how we measure effectiveness.
Speaker 1: How many people.
Speaker 2: Are commenting and liking and looking and sharing Engagement. Even
Speaker 2: our evam online what's up epam? Maybe you got here
Speaker 2: because somebody shared the link with you is called engagement.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's ever been a time in the
Speaker 2: world where we've been more engaged on the surface and
Speaker 2: more disengaged in our souls because we got all these
Speaker 2: fake can and fake friendships and fake sexuality and fake
Speaker 2: relationships and stuff that won't do you any real good
Speaker 2: when the devil fights you in your life because you
Speaker 2: are not engaged. Now, Absolom has taken matters into his
Speaker 2: own hands. Years ago he killed him and on himself.
Speaker 2: He went running, he wanted to come back. David wouldn't
Speaker 2: see him. He kept him at a distance. And now
Speaker 2: the battle has arrived on his doorstep because he would
Speaker 2: not deal with it at the gate. He would not
Speaker 2: deal with it when it showed up. So now it
Speaker 2: has gained power, and Absolom has actually tried to overturn
Speaker 2: his own father as king.
Speaker 1: Absolom was pretty smart.
Speaker 2: Bible says he was real good looking, had a lot
Speaker 2: in common with Rick Parker except one thing. He had
Speaker 2: so much hair. The Bible said his hair was so long.
Speaker 2: When he would cut it off every spring, it would
Speaker 2: weigh two pounds. So he would stand by the gate
Speaker 2: with his luxurious locks, and when people would come to
Speaker 2: see David, he'd say, oh, Dad's busy.
Speaker 1: If I were king, I'd help you out.
Speaker 2: I would hear your matter if I were king, but
Speaker 2: I'm not. With four years of that, and he won
Speaker 2: their hearts. Be very careful who you let stand at
Speaker 2: the gates. You got to be real careful who you
Speaker 2: let represent you. And over the course of time, the
Speaker 2: Bible says that the hearts of the people were with Absolom.
Speaker 2: It ended in a bloody result in the woods of Ephraim,
Speaker 2: where Absolom was riding through the forest with his militia
Speaker 2: trying to overtake David's men. Now David has crossed the
Speaker 2: Kidrin Valley, he has left the throne. He is on
Speaker 2: the run, just to survive. Absolom's men catch up with him.
Speaker 2: There's only one problem. Absalom's hair gets caught in a tree,
Speaker 2: snatches him right off of his horse. Why because the
Speaker 2: thing that makes you great outwardly makes vulnerable inwardly. He
Speaker 2: gets caught up in the thing that made him so attractive.
Speaker 2: And as he is hanging there, Joe ab decides to
Speaker 2: end his life. Three knives in him, calls ten men
Speaker 2: to slice him up. They send the nudes to David
Speaker 2: and he is shaken. He's shaken like any father would
Speaker 2: be who lost a son, but perhaps even more deeply
Speaker 2: because he feels responsible for it. I kind of wish
Speaker 2: sometimes I could talk to my dad just one more conversation.
Speaker 2: And I know he's probably listening to this sermon on Heaven.
Speaker 2: I know he's part of the Epham Eternal fam But
Speaker 2: I wish I could sit down with him for real,
Speaker 2: and I would only tell him one thing. This would
Speaker 2: be the whole conversation. I thought about a lot because
Speaker 2: now I'm raising my own kids, and there are ways
Speaker 2: that I judged him when he was raising me that
Speaker 2: I would love to go back and say to him
Speaker 2: one thing.
Speaker 1: This is what I would say.
Speaker 2: The title of our talk would be, I get it now,
Speaker 2: because when I became a teenager, my dad went from
Speaker 2: coaching my teams to going out drinking, and I didn't
Speaker 2: see him much over those years, and I really thought
Speaker 2: he was, to be honest with you, a pretty poor
Speaker 2: father during those years.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the fact that he
Speaker 2: did not have a dad to show him how to
Speaker 2: do it. His father committed suicide, and so on his
Speaker 2: ninth birthday, he found his father dead. So without any
Speaker 2: frame of reference. He stayed around to raise me. But
Speaker 2: what I would tell him now is I get it now.
Speaker 2: Because even as much as I love my wife, which
Speaker 2: is more than you can possibly imagine, and I love
Speaker 2: my kids and I am grateful for them, and we
Speaker 2: enjoy some wonderful times together, but there have been times
Speaker 2: that I have pulled into my garage, gotten out of
Speaker 2: my Nissan Maxima, walked into my house, and fantasized about
Speaker 2: getting back into my Nissan Maxima and going back to
Speaker 2: work so I could get some rest.
Speaker 1: I get it now.
Speaker 2: There are times when the challenge of responsibility will make
Speaker 2: you walk away from something that you actually love, and
Speaker 2: people will judge you in that moment, and they will
Speaker 2: think you're walking away because you're lazy. But you're not
Speaker 2: walking away because you're lazy. You're walking away because deep
Speaker 2: down inside, I don't know if I have what it takes.
Speaker 2: And this is the danger of disengagement.
Speaker 1: It is when you find.
Speaker 2: Yourself in a state of shame or fear, or trauma
Speaker 2: or exhaustion and you walk away from what God gave
Speaker 2: you because you don't know how to manage it. It
Speaker 2: is the danger of this engagement. It is the danger
Speaker 2: of showing up in body and not in mind. I've
Speaker 2: learned that there's a big difference between coming to church
Speaker 2: and being in church. I've learned that there is a
Speaker 2: big difference between coming home and being home. Y'all ain't
Speaker 2: gonna say nothing to me all year? Is that how
Speaker 2: it's gonna be. You're gonna look at me crazy all year?
Speaker 2: Like that? There is a big difference between having a
Speaker 2: child and being a mom. And sometimes the temptation is
Speaker 2: not to exactly run away, but to just disengage.
Speaker 1: I'm disengaged, not.
Speaker 2: Because I don't care, but just because I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I have what it takes. David,
Speaker 1: with shaking, the.
Speaker 2: Death of Absalom represented.
Speaker 1: His own failure. If only did you hear him?
Speaker 2: If only I had died instead of.
Speaker 1: You, It's my fault. I didn't give you what.
Speaker 2: You needed, And it's my fault you're dead. And now
Speaker 2: it's caught up with him, and he's shaken, and he's disengaged.
Speaker 2: He's not defeated, he's disengaged. He has the victory, but
Speaker 2: he's not acting like it. He's the king, but he's
Speaker 2: not where the king is supposed to be. See he's
Speaker 2: lost his sense of passion because he's moved from his position.
Speaker 2: In ancient times, the cities were well guarded by gates.
Speaker 2: Now David is in Mahanaim, which is not Jerusalem, the
Speaker 2: capital city, Absolom is there, and he's going to drive
Speaker 2: him out, but not yet. The first thing he has
Speaker 2: to do is relocate himself around the city. Are two gates,
Speaker 2: everybody say, two gates. Our theme for the new year
Speaker 2: is gates. I want you to pay great attention right now.
Speaker 2: This is very important. In each city there would be
Speaker 2: an outer gate that everybody saw. We all have one
Speaker 2: of those. We all have the outer gate that people see.
Speaker 2: It's our personality that we project into the world, so
Speaker 2: people won't judge us, so we will appear successful. Then
Speaker 2: there is the inner gate. It's the second line of defense.
Speaker 2: We all have one of those two. It's our actions.
Speaker 3: Two gates, two gates, two gates, two dates, two gates, and.
Speaker 2: The action happens. Watch this between the gates. The Bible
Speaker 2: does not say, put my verse up again, it's my
Speaker 2: theme verse that David took his seat. As verse eight
Speaker 2: at the gate, it says that he got up and
Speaker 2: took his seat what where now. Up until this point,
Speaker 2: he's been near the gate, but he wasn't in it.
Speaker 1: He was in isolation.
Speaker 2: Above the gate, like a lot of us live our lives,
Speaker 2: watching events unfold, but not taking responsibility for our outcomes.
Speaker 1: When we live online in an.
Speaker 2: Ecosystem of pretension and narcissism and opinions, but don't really
Speaker 2: make a commitment to make a difference in the world,
Speaker 2: and we show up in the places that are most
Speaker 2: convenient to our ego, but refuse to confront the issues
Speaker 2: that sabotage our soul.
Speaker 1: The action happened between the gates.
Speaker 2: Not outside and not inside, but often between the gates,
Speaker 2: transactions would be made. It was like a marketplace of
Speaker 2: the day. Between the gates of the city. There would
Speaker 2: be buying and selling, a negotiation between the gates. Profits
Speaker 2: like Amos would prophesy to maintain justice in the gates.
Speaker 1: In the gates when Ruth, if you remember the Old Testament.
Speaker 2: Story was claimed by Boass her kinsman redeemer, he did
Speaker 2: the deal in the presence of ten witnesses in the gate.
Speaker 2: When Abraham bought the burial ground for Sarah and the
Speaker 2: Old Testament, he bought it in the presence of witnesses
Speaker 2: in the gate. It's where the witnesses were, It's where
Speaker 2: the judges would sit, It's where negotiations happened. It's where
Speaker 2: the conscience of the nation was developed. It's where Absalom
Speaker 2: would stand at the gate and before people could go through.
Speaker 1: Turn them back.
Speaker 2: After he had promoted his own agenda, and everything changed
Speaker 2: for David when he did something so simple. The Bible
Speaker 2: says that after all he had lost, and after all
Speaker 2: the tears he had cried, and after all the mistakes
Speaker 2: he had made, he did something so simple and so profound,
Speaker 2: the king got up, left his chamber.
Speaker 1: And took his seat in the gate.
Speaker 2: In other words, I hear David saying, like Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 2: I'm back. My heart is broken, but i'm back. I
Speaker 2: made some mistakes, but i'm back. I wish I could
Speaker 2: go back and change some things, but I can't.
Speaker 1: But I'm back.
Speaker 2: I'm devastated about what happened, but I'm back. I'm uncertain
Speaker 2: about the future.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it's going to go from here.
Speaker 1: I'm a long way from home, but i'm back. Now.
Speaker 2: What I picture in my mind is today, thousands of
Speaker 2: people who have gathered to hear this message online or
Speaker 2: in person at every location. And I see you getting
Speaker 2: up from the failure and the shame and the regret
Speaker 2: that has kept you paralyzed, and taking your stand in
Speaker 2: the gate of praise and entering His caates with thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: I wish seventy people would sup up on your feet
Speaker 2: right now and shout at the top of your lungs,
Speaker 2: I'm back.
Speaker 1: I'm back. Let the devil know I'm back. Let condemnation no,
Speaker 1: I'm back. Let my past know I'm back. I'm not perfect,
Speaker 1: but i'm back. I don't have a plan down again,
Speaker 1: but I'm back.
Speaker 2: I don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring, but I'm back.
Speaker 1: I'm fine. Everybody you can reach. Hell, I'm bad. I'm
Speaker 1: back in it. I'm back in it.
Speaker 2: Not gonna stand over my life blaming people for the
Speaker 2: next twenty.
Speaker 1: Years because of the last twenty. Get they behind me, Satan,
Speaker 1: I'm bad.
Speaker 2: And with the enemy comes, with his accusation and his excuses.
Speaker 1: I want you to look.
Speaker 2: Him square in the eye before the year even gets started,
Speaker 2: good and tell him, Tell them this seat is taken.
Speaker 2: I set this seat is taken. No room for you
Speaker 2: to run my life because I am seated in heavenly
Speaker 2: places with Christ.
Speaker 1: Ap back. I'm back in position, I'm back in purpose.
Speaker 4: Get back in the gate. Get back in the gate.
Speaker 4: You cannot change what you tolerate. Get back in the gate.
Speaker 4: You cannot change what you won't fail. Get back in
Speaker 4: the gate. You can't change it by complaining. You can't
Speaker 4: change it by if only, but now, if you will
Speaker 4: take your seat. God has prepared.
Speaker 1: A place for you in the presence of your enemies.
Speaker 2: He might not rid you of your problems, but he
Speaker 2: has given you his fresness.
Speaker 1: Get that. So I'm back. I'm back.
Speaker 2: I'm back, and I'm broken, and I'm better because I
Speaker 2: was broken, because I learned how to fight. The battle
Speaker 2: in between is not what happens to you, is not
Speaker 2: what they say about you. It is what happens between
Speaker 2: the gates. That's what I want to study with you
Speaker 2: for the next four weeks. I want you to invite
Speaker 2: every jacked up person that you know, because we're going
Speaker 2: to get our gates back. We have been too flooded
Speaker 2: with images and points of view that to do not
Speaker 2: promote peace in our lives, and we are practicing the
Speaker 2: habits of worry, and we are living in the state
Speaker 2: of anxiety. The place of power is when you take
Speaker 2: your seat. Watch this. David got up, took his seat
Speaker 2: in the gate. He wasn't healed yet, but he's here.
Speaker 2: I'm hurting, but I'm here. It's going to be hard,
Speaker 2: but I'm here. You know what's cool. You already got
Speaker 2: perfect attendance for the year in church. Celebrate yourself and
Speaker 2: to get everything he needed. All he had to do
Speaker 2: is what Kendrick said. All he had to do.
Speaker 1: Was sit down. When he sat down, all of his
Speaker 1: men came to him.
Speaker 2: Your weapons are waiting for you to take your place.
Speaker 2: Your weapons. You're waiting for your weapons to come. Your
Speaker 2: weapons will not come until you take your place. This
Speaker 2: is the place of responsibility. This is the place of
Speaker 2: owning your story. This is the place of dealing with
Speaker 2: your dysfunctions, not from a distance.
Speaker 1: This is the place of power.
Speaker 2: We fight the enemy in the wrong place, and we
Speaker 2: wait for things to appear that are waiting for us
Speaker 2: in our assignment. And I feel the spirit of God
Speaker 2: on me this year to teach this message on the
Speaker 2: gates of change.
Speaker 1: Each of us is standing at a gate of change.
Speaker 2: And there are four gates that I want to teach
Speaker 2: you about over the next four weeks.
Speaker 1: Here's the key.
Speaker 2: This gate only opens from the inside. It only opens
Speaker 2: from the inside. This battle has to be fought at
Speaker 2: the gate. Keep that camera shot on me real quick.
Speaker 2: I want to show them. Just keep that tight shot. Ryah,
Speaker 2: the tight shot right there. Do not move that camera,
Speaker 2: no matter what I do, or no matter what you
Speaker 2: are trained to do. I am overriding your training right now.
Speaker 1: Do not move that camera.
Speaker 2: Not.
Speaker 1: The only way.
Speaker 2: For us to get the back of his head off
Speaker 2: the bottom of that screen is for me to get back.
Speaker 1: Where I belong. Watch this.
Speaker 2: The camera is not broke. I'm just out of place.
Speaker 2: Oh no, let's get a new camera. No, you need
Speaker 2: to get a new attitude. You don't need a new wife.
Speaker 2: You need a new mindset. You need to get back
Speaker 2: in the gate. You got a good wife, that's why
Speaker 2: you married her. If you would get in the game, maybe.
Speaker 1: I don't want to run them off. Week one. They
Speaker 1: just got back. Somebody sat up back.
Speaker 2: And when he got back in the gate, everything he
Speaker 2: needed came to him.
Speaker 1: You don't have to chase it. Goodness and mercy will follow.
Speaker 2: Get back, get back, get back, get back.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be perfect, just be present.
Speaker 2: And Isaiah said, I want us to think about this,
Speaker 2: and I'll start here next week. You're coming next week.
Speaker 2: Tell somebody get back, get back, get back, get back,
Speaker 2: do what you gotta do to get back. You should
Speaker 2: cancel some stuff just to let the devil know this
Speaker 2: year that God is your priority.
Speaker 1: And be in church. Set six alarms if you have to,
Speaker 1: and be here because the word you need might be here.
Speaker 2: Hold the camera shot tight, hold the camera shot tight,
Speaker 2: and if you're over here, you will miss the word
Speaker 2: that was waiting for you. So I got to be
Speaker 2: here because Isaiah says, stand I'm closing. I'm closing. I'm closing.
Speaker 2: Isaiah said that God will be Oh, I got so
Speaker 2: much to teach you. I can't wait. This is just
Speaker 2: a syllabus. Now, this isn't even the class. Tell somebody,
Speaker 2: I'm coming back. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. He
Speaker 2: will be Listen to what the Lord Almighty is Isaiah,
Speaker 2: who prophesied so eloquently of Jesus Christ. He will be
Speaker 2: a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment.
Speaker 2: He gives justice when you are in the seat of judgment,
Speaker 2: and he will be a source of strength to those
Speaker 2: who turn back the battle at the gate. A lot
Speaker 2: of the defeats that you have been suffering have been
Speaker 2: because you've been fighting them on the wrong level. You've
Speaker 2: been fighting them in the wrong place. But this is
Speaker 2: our year to stop it. At the source. He will
Speaker 2: be a source of strength. Starts with God, not with me.
Speaker 2: This is not self help. This is the overflowing, abundant
Speaker 2: spirit of God that empowers believers, the spirit of justice,
Speaker 2: the holy spirit of God. He will be a source
Speaker 2: of strength to him who sits in judgment and turns
Speaker 2: back the battle at the gate. If David had dealt
Speaker 2: with Absalom at the gate, Absolom wouldn't have had to
Speaker 2: die in the forest. And sometimes we let the devil
Speaker 2: come all the way in, and then we pray to
Speaker 2: God to get him off of our backs.
Speaker 1: But the time to turn the devil back is at
Speaker 1: the gate.
Speaker 2: The time to turn depression back.
Speaker 1: Is at the gate.
Speaker 2: And there is a word from God that will push
Speaker 2: back the.
Speaker 1: Darkness, but it has to happen at the gate.
Speaker 2: We're gonna learn about these gates for the next four weeks,
Speaker 2: But it begins with the decision for you to take
Speaker 2: your place in the gate, and we're gonna start getting
Speaker 2: intentional about our thoughts so that we win the battle between.
Speaker 1: The gates.
Speaker 2: We're gonna put Christ back on the throne, and then
Speaker 2: we're gonna sit right there by him and guard our gates.
Speaker 2: I am seeded in heavenly places. If you're hearing this
Speaker 2: word right now, rejoice where you are.
Speaker 1: Rejoice in your kitchen.
Speaker 2: Come on, when you enter his gates with pray, you
Speaker 2: drive back the devil before he ever gets a chance
Speaker 2: to sit down at your kitchen table.
Speaker 1: We're gonna turn back the devil, and we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna make some decisions early this year. We're gonna set
Speaker 2: up some areas of our life where we're not gonna
Speaker 2: negotiate anymore. We're getting back in the gate. And the
Speaker 2: promise of God is this, that the gates of hell
Speaker 2: will not prevail against it. There is so much revelation
Speaker 2: that God wants to release, But this gate of change
Speaker 2: opens from the inside. So I want you to lift
Speaker 2: your hands now. If you feel comfortable, stand to your feet.
Speaker 2: Some people think that lifting your hands is some sort
Speaker 2: of denominational thing for exuberant emotional people, but really is
Speaker 2: just for people who know they need God.
Speaker 1: I get it now, Dad.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's easier to run than to take responsibility. And
Speaker 2: sometimes you don't run because you don't care.
Speaker 1: You run because you're scared.
Speaker 2: You run because you're a shamed You run because you've
Speaker 2: tried to change before. And so you live your life
Speaker 2: in a chamber of isolation. But God is calling you
Speaker 2: back in the gate. And I know you've been embarrassed
Speaker 2: about some things, and I know you don't really believe
Speaker 2: in yourself anymore, and you haven't kept some promises to yourself,
Speaker 2: so you don't feel like making anymore. And I know
Speaker 2: some people around you have kind of boxed you in.
Speaker 2: They think they know how you are and you're not
Speaker 2: going to be any different. But Jesus said, I am
Speaker 2: the gate, not what people did, not even what you
Speaker 2: think of yourself. I am the gate. Well, we come
Speaker 2: before you this year, some of us with heavy hearts,
Speaker 2: but all of us with expectation.
Speaker 1: You didn't leave us here for nothing.
Speaker 2: You didn't bring us into twenty eighteen just to drop
Speaker 2: us at the gate.
Speaker 1: So we're going in.
Speaker 2: We're going in, We're going to enter in your gates
Speaker 2: with thanksgiving and your courts with praise God. We're also
Speaker 2: bringing some baggage. We're bringing some pain, and we're bringing
Speaker 2: some questions. We're bringing some anxieties. We're bringing some ith onlies.
Speaker 2: We're dropping them off at the gate, and we are
Speaker 2: entering into your joy. Thank you, Lord for the revelation
Speaker 2: that you've given us today. It has been so sweet
Speaker 2: and meaningful.
Speaker 1: I thank you.
Speaker 2: The change have fallen now because of the sound of
Speaker 2: your word echoing forth from the portals of heaven and
Speaker 2: doing what only you can do in the hearts of people.
Speaker 2: I believe this is just the beginning, and so I
Speaker 2: pray that this series would be unlike any that we've
Speaker 2: ever known. The gates of change open from the inside.
Speaker 2: You're a mighty God, and as we praise you today,
Speaker 2: we expect the best of Heaven to empower us in
Speaker 2: broken places. Have your way, God, 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 now,
Speaker 2: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
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Speaker 2: for listening. God bless you.