Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: My name is Dustin Stradley and I'm the campus pastor
Speaker 1: of Elevation Church in rowing Up, Virginia, and I have
Speaker 1: the great honor and privilege of sharing the Word of
Speaker 1: God today. And I think Pastor Stephen for this opportunity.
Speaker 1: In fact, he wrote me a handwritten letter this past
Speaker 1: week just telling me that he believed in me and
Speaker 1: that he loves me. And that's the same pastor that
Speaker 1: we get to see pour his heart out on this
Speaker 1: stage every single weekend. He's the same man off the stage.
Speaker 1: But if I can share with you real quick, as
Speaker 1: we were singing that last song thinking about God moving mountains,
Speaker 1: we were not just singing lyrics and going through the
Speaker 1: motions of singing another song, but I started to think
Speaker 1: about the mountains that God has moved in my life
Speaker 1: even over the past couple of weeks. What it took
Speaker 1: for me to get here to this stage today. It
Speaker 1: wasn't any big life circumstance or anything that happened, but
Speaker 1: the battles that I faced over the past couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: the resistance that I faced to get here today. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a battle in front of me or a battle
Speaker 1: around me. It was a battle inside of me. And
Speaker 1: oftentimes those are the hardest battles to fight. But I
Speaker 1: thought about what Pastor preached last weekend as he was
Speaker 1: laying right here on this stage, and he said, if
Speaker 1: the battle is too big for you, it's not yours.
Speaker 1: The battle is the Lord's. And on Wednesday, I was
Speaker 1: laying face down on a couch in tears and infrustration,
Speaker 1: just all of these insecurities in my mind, just out
Speaker 1: of control. But in that moment, I vividly remember that
Speaker 1: picture of surrender the Pastor Stevens showed us last weekend,
Speaker 1: and that our battles are not gonna be won by
Speaker 1: fighting and working as hard as we can in our
Speaker 1: own effort, but it's gonna come through surrender. It's gonna
Speaker 1: come through worship. And that's what I've been hearing today already.
Speaker 1: It's people who came ready to surrender people who came
Speaker 1: ready to worship. That's how we see victory. That's how
Speaker 1: we fight our battles. And it's an honor to continue
Speaker 1: in the flow today to see what God wants to
Speaker 1: speak through me. I have nothing to lose at this point.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm here and I'm ready to open
Speaker 1: my mouth and allow God to speak through me into you.
Speaker 1: I feel like I am here on an assignment, but
Speaker 1: I believe that you are also here on an assignment.
Speaker 1: And if you open your heart and open your mind,
Speaker 1: God's gonna deposit into you exactly what you need. So Valentine,
Speaker 1: I need you to help me welcome all of our locations,
Speaker 1: all of our campuses, tuning in Blakeney Campus, Lake Norman.
Speaker 1: You see my favorite campus, Roanoke, Virginia. It's my family
Speaker 1: are E fam tuning in online in living rooms, coffee
Speaker 1: shops around the world. It's amazing what we get to
Speaker 1: be a part of. I hope that we never take
Speaker 1: that for granted. But I want to go ahead and
Speaker 1: dive into the Word of God. Thank you, choir. Were
Speaker 1: they not incredible? By the way. I believe that wherever
Speaker 1: you are, God's going to speak something into you today,
Speaker 1: we're going to dive into the Book of Luke chapter five.
Speaker 1: If you have your Bible, you can pull it out.
Speaker 1: If not, you can cheat off your neighbor. I don't
Speaker 1: condone cheating in school, but you can cheat off your
Speaker 1: neighbor in this instance, I'm gonna dive in right now.
Speaker 1: So one day, as Jesus was standing by the lake
Speaker 1: of Gannessera, the people were crowding around him and listening
Speaker 1: to the word of God. He sow at the water's
Speaker 1: edge two boats left there by fishermen who were washing
Speaker 1: their nets. He got into one of the boats, the
Speaker 1: one belonging to Simon, also known as Peter, and asked
Speaker 1: him to put out a little from the shore. Then
Speaker 1: sat down and taught the people from the boat. When
Speaker 1: he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out
Speaker 1: into deep water let down the nets for a catch.
Speaker 1: Simon answered, but, Master, we've worked hard all night and
Speaker 1: haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will
Speaker 1: elbow your neighbor. And said, because he said so, I
Speaker 1: will let down the nets. And when they had done so,
Speaker 1: they caught such a large number of fish that their
Speaker 1: nets begin to break. I love the word of God,
Speaker 1: he is so faithful. So they signaled their partners in
Speaker 1: the other boat to come and help them, and they
Speaker 1: came and filled both boats so full that they begin
Speaker 1: to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at
Speaker 1: Jesus's knees and said, go away from me. Lord, I
Speaker 1: am a sinful man. For he and all his companions
Speaker 1: were astonished at the catch a fish they had taken,
Speaker 1: and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
Speaker 1: Simon's partners. Then Jesus set to assignmon, don't be afraid.
Speaker 1: From now on you will fish for people. You will
Speaker 1: fish for people. So they pulled their boats up on shore,
Speaker 1: left everything and followed him. I need you to turn
Speaker 1: to your neighbor and look at them with the most
Speaker 1: confused look on your face, and help announce my titles.
Speaker 1: Say this doesn't make sense. Now turn to your second option,
Speaker 1: not going to get into why, with a confused look
Speaker 1: on your face, and say this doesn't make sense. Jesus,
Speaker 1: we are honored to be in your presence. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense God that you would choose someone like us.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense God that you would send your
Speaker 1: son into this world for our freedom God. But we're
Speaker 1: thankful you did. We're thankful that we get to be
Speaker 1: in your presence to send Jesus name that everybody said, amen,
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and take a seat. I'm just
Speaker 1: learning in life that there are many things that don't
Speaker 1: make sense. Mattie and I have been married for three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty eight days, twenty two hours, thirty seven minutes,
Speaker 1: fourteen seconds, but who's counting? And I remember last July
Speaker 1: when I saw this beautiful woman of God coming down
Speaker 1: the aisle, and this white boy jumped as high as
Speaker 1: he could jump, which is not too high, and yelled Hallelujah,
Speaker 1: true story as she was coming down the aisle. Because
Speaker 1: in my mind, it did not make sense that a
Speaker 1: woman like this, a thoughtful, encouraging, intentional, anointed, empathetic woman
Speaker 1: of God like this, would want to marry someone like me,
Speaker 1: with all of my issues and all of my imperfections.
Speaker 1: And four months into marriage, we were having coffee one
Speaker 1: morning and Maddie said, hey, Babe, I've been listening to
Speaker 1: this new album. I think you'd really like it. I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: who's it? Bye? And she said, sir, mix a lot.
Speaker 1: I said, like, sir, Mix a Lot from the eighties
Speaker 1: nineties rapper producer Sir mix a Lot. She said yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, babe, I didn't know you rolled like that.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Like, what's the name of this album? She said, Well,
Speaker 1: you were singing it all night last night. It's called
Speaker 1: Sir Snores a Lot. Now, my wife can call me
Speaker 1: whatever she wants. But with all of my habits and
Speaker 1: all of my annoyances, like she wants to be married
Speaker 1: to someone like me, doesn't make sense. There's something else
Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense. Mathematics. I hated math growing up,
Speaker 1: still do to this day. In college, I had a
Speaker 1: full semester of math classes except for one class. That semester,
Speaker 1: I got a zero point four GPA. The only reason
Speaker 1: I didn't completely fail was because I had volleyball and
Speaker 1: that resurrected my GPA slightly. The following semester improved. I
Speaker 1: got a zero point five GPA. Almost flunked out of college.
Speaker 1: But my dad, who is six foot for two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy pound country boy from Thomasville, North Carolina, where
Speaker 1: I grew up, he's brilliant when it comes to math.
Speaker 1: So we would sit down at the dinner table, and
Speaker 1: he would teach me long division, mathematics, you know, one
Speaker 1: oh one, multiplication and all the things. And I remember
Speaker 1: my dad just telling me like, hey boy, man, if
Speaker 1: you just take this and you can divide that number
Speaker 1: right there, boy, and you carry the two over here,
Speaker 1: and you just add sixteen right there, boy. You know,
Speaker 1: take that right there. If you meet my dad, it's
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like. And I said, Dad, this
Speaker 1: does not make sense. Shut up, boy. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to make sense to work. And I realized more and
Speaker 1: more that it doesn't have to make sense to work.
Speaker 1: That's what I love about our church is unashamed when
Speaker 1: we talk about tithing. It doesn't make sense for me
Speaker 1: to take my heart earned money and just bring it
Speaker 1: and give it back to God. But God said, when
Speaker 1: we trust him with what he's placed in our hands,
Speaker 1: that he will open the floodgates far beyond anything we
Speaker 1: can imagine. It doesn't have to make sense to work.
Speaker 1: And obeying God's word doesn't always make sense, but it
Speaker 1: always works. And as I was looking at this passage,
Speaker 1: there's so many things about Peter, and specifically in this
Speaker 1: story that just don't make sense. Like Peter, who is
Speaker 1: a pro fisherman and doesn't catch any fish at all.
Speaker 1: Peter bro You've got one job. This is all you
Speaker 1: do to provide for your family and catch the fish.
Speaker 1: It didn't make sense for Peter. He was fishing all
Speaker 1: night long, couldn't catch a thing. And how many of
Speaker 1: you have been working so hard in this season yet
Speaker 1: it's still not working. You're going to the gym six
Speaker 1: days a week, sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, all
Speaker 1: the freeze, yet you still don't have a six pack,
Speaker 1: while Philip here eats McDonald's all day long, drinks Coca
Speaker 1: Cola and has a twelve pack. Doesn't make sense. Not
Speaker 1: bitter about it. Promise you've applied for twenty jobs over
Speaker 1: the past two months, yet you're still unemployed. Doesn't make sense. God,
Speaker 1: I'm pouring everything I have into my kids, yet they're
Speaker 1: still running wild. Doesn't make sense. It also didn't make
Speaker 1: sense that Jesus shows up after Peter had been fishing
Speaker 1: all night, didn't catch a thing, tells him to throw
Speaker 1: the nets right back into the same empty waters that
Speaker 1: he had been fishing in out. Peter responded very politely,
Speaker 1: very honoring, very obedient. I would like to think that
Speaker 1: I would do the same, but maybe not like Jesus.
Speaker 1: Bro You're really good at what you do, the whole
Speaker 1: healing thing, changing the world. It's amazing. But stay in
Speaker 1: your lane. I'm good at this fishing thing. I've been
Speaker 1: fishing these waters all night long and there's nothing in
Speaker 1: the water. But then he responded, and he said, but
Speaker 1: because you say so, I will. And then Peter began
Speaker 1: to pull in so many fish that the nets begin
Speaker 1: to break, the boats begin to sink. Come on, boys,
Speaker 1: we don't even have enough room in our boats. So
Speaker 1: much blessing, more than he even thought possible. It was
Speaker 1: Peter's obedience that prompted God's provision. Breakthrough is always on
Speaker 1: the other side of obedience, but obeying God's word it
Speaker 1: doesn't always make sense, but it always works. And there's
Speaker 1: something interesting about Peter that also didn't make sense. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense that Jesus would choose someone like Peter
Speaker 1: to be his right hand man, his disciple. Peter doesn't
Speaker 1: have a religious background. He's an interesting guy and maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit all over the place. And I feel
Speaker 1: like I'll relate to Peter in some ways. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense that God would choose someone like Peter.
Speaker 1: And as we look at Peter's life, I think that
Speaker 1: you're gonna find yourself saying some of the same things
Speaker 1: that Peter might be saying. You and I both it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense that God would choose someone like you
Speaker 1: or choose someone like me. And so I want to
Speaker 1: go through a few things from the life of Peter
Speaker 1: that I think that you and I are both going
Speaker 1: to connect with if you're honest with yourself, because first,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense for God to choose you because
Speaker 1: of your failures. Because of your failures, I want you
Speaker 1: to write that down, Peter said, Master, We've been working
Speaker 1: our butts off all night long, haven't caught a thing.
Speaker 1: Peter was staring at failure. It would have made more
Speaker 1: sense for Jesus to choose someone who is actually good
Speaker 1: at their job. I mean, if I'm an NBA scout
Speaker 1: for the Charlotte Hornets, probably gonna pick the guy who's
Speaker 1: making the shots. If you're not making any shots, not
Speaker 1: gonna pick you. It would have made more sense for
Speaker 1: Jesus to choose someone who was succeeding. In this moment,
Speaker 1: and Peter was standing in the middle of an empty
Speaker 1: boat looking at failure. The empty boat to Peter represented failure,
Speaker 1: and many of you in this season, you're standing in
Speaker 1: the midst of a failure. Three weeks ago, you lost
Speaker 1: your job. You have no idea how you're going to
Speaker 1: provide for your family. You failed that class. You don't
Speaker 1: even know if you're going to graduate now. And now
Speaker 1: you're telling yourself you're so dumb and you don't know
Speaker 1: if you'll ever amount to anything. You felt someone that
Speaker 1: you love so much, You felt at that opportunity that
Speaker 1: was given to you. Your failures, the failures that we
Speaker 1: have in our life. It doesn't make sense that God
Speaker 1: could use someone like us because of our failures. A
Speaker 1: couple of months ago, Maddie and I and now that
Speaker 1: we're married, I'm going to share lots of stories from
Speaker 1: my marriage. Are you good with that? Good? Because I'm
Speaker 1: going too. But we were at the dinner table. It
Speaker 1: was one night after we had had a long week,
Speaker 1: a lot of travel that week, a lot of events,
Speaker 1: and we were tired. And this is our designated date
Speaker 1: night d d N. Just made that up and we
Speaker 1: were gonna we were gonna have some good conversation and
Speaker 1: just you know, look into each other's eyes and express
Speaker 1: our love for one another. And but I happened to
Speaker 1: have my phone out at this date night, And don't
Speaker 1: judge me, like you have these little sit down dinners
Speaker 1: with your family technology free. Maybe you do, but we didn't.
Speaker 1: So I'm on my phone answering a couple of emails,
Speaker 1: answering a couple of text messages. Then I end up
Speaker 1: mindlessly scrolling on Facebook, just telling someone happy birthday that
Speaker 1: I haven't seen in fifteen years, very important things. Then
Speaker 1: Mattie just so gently and encouragingly I don't even know
Speaker 1: if that's a word, just slid her hand over and
Speaker 1: placed it on mine and said, hey, babe, is that urgent?
Speaker 1: Because I would love just to have a date night
Speaker 1: right now. And I got so defensive in that moment.
Speaker 1: I'm not proud of how I responded. I got a
Speaker 1: little bit upset. I said, well, if you need kind
Speaker 1: of pressure, you know, going through now, I just she said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but were you not just like on Facebook as I
Speaker 1: gotta go. Yeah, but you know, I had to respond
Speaker 1: to this message I got. I tried to even just
Speaker 1: I'm just making stuff up at that point, and in
Speaker 1: that moment, what she didn't realize is that I already
Speaker 1: felt like a failure as a pastor, as a leader,
Speaker 1: and now I feel like I'm failing her as her husband.
Speaker 1: It's nothing she did. I chose to feel that way.
Speaker 1: But we all have these moments where we're standing in
Speaker 1: an empty boat, like Peter, looking at her failure, trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of it all. But because Peter's boat
Speaker 1: was empty, there was just enough room for Jesus to
Speaker 1: step in. If Peter had a full boat, there wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been any room for Jesus to step in. And
Speaker 1: if you've got some space in your life right now,
Speaker 1: some emptiness that you're looking at, some dreams that have died,
Speaker 1: some expectations that didn't align with your experience, maybe there's
Speaker 1: just enough space in your life for God to step in.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're exactly where God needs you for you to
Speaker 1: rely on him. But I know for me, I like
Speaker 1: to fill my boat up with all kinds of stuff, busyness.
Speaker 1: I like to put busyness in my boat. We all
Speaker 1: have our boats filled up so many times, the money
Speaker 1: and success and likes and follows and accolades, and our
Speaker 1: boats are so full that we don't even have room
Speaker 1: for God. But I wonder if that empty boat represents
Speaker 1: that maybe God can step in and do something for you.
Speaker 1: But even then, I still like to come up with
Speaker 1: these excuses on why God can't use me because of
Speaker 1: my failures. But not only my failures. It's my imperfections, imperfections.
Speaker 1: I want you to write that down. See Peter, he
Speaker 1: had many imperfections. He was a highly emotional guy. At
Speaker 1: one point, Peter's bitterly crying. At another point, Peter's passionately
Speaker 1: jumping up and down, cutting people's ears off. And even
Speaker 1: Jesus is like, yo, calm down, Peter, let us put
Speaker 1: that back on. Man little out of control. Oh, Peter
Speaker 1: was all over the place, constantly putting his foot in
Speaker 1: his mouth. And we all have things about ourselfs, these weaknesses,
Speaker 1: these imperfections. We don't like the way that we look,
Speaker 1: we don't like the way that we talk, we don't
Speaker 1: like these gifts or those strengths. But we all have
Speaker 1: these things. And I know that oftentimes for me, my
Speaker 1: imperfections are magnified the most when I'm scrolling and looking
Speaker 1: at everyone else's perfect life, or, as Pastor Stephen would
Speaker 1: brilliantly say, I'm comparing my behind the scenes to everyone
Speaker 1: else's highlight reel, and we think that God only sees
Speaker 1: our imperfections, even Moses. God calls Moses to deliver the Israelites,
Speaker 1: but Moses is like, no, no no, no, God, you can't
Speaker 1: use someone like me. I can't speak well, I've got
Speaker 1: a speech impediment. God, my perfections. God, you can't use
Speaker 1: someone like me. But God said, no, I want to
Speaker 1: use exactly someone like you, Moses. God doesn't see your imperfections.
Speaker 1: He sees pasture imperfections into who he created you to be.
Speaker 1: God created you and his image, his perfect image. He
Speaker 1: sees you through the lens of grace, He sees you
Speaker 1: through the lens of love. He sees you for who
Speaker 1: you are, created by Him. But I still tell myself,
Speaker 1: but you still can't use me because of my imperfections.
Speaker 1: But if it's not my imperfections, it's my sin, my sin.
Speaker 1: I want you to write that down because in verse eight,
Speaker 1: Peter responded, after he saw this miraculous catch of fish,
Speaker 1: he fell at Jesus' knees and he said, go away
Speaker 1: from me, Lord, I am a sinful man. What did
Speaker 1: Peter do that was so horrible that he turned his
Speaker 1: head in shame. What sin did he have in his
Speaker 1: life that he didn't feel worthy to be in the
Speaker 1: presence of God? Because sin will either make us run
Speaker 1: to word shame or run towards salvation. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: think our sin is so much bigger than the person
Speaker 1: sitting next to us on our road right now. And
Speaker 1: if they knew what I did, and if they knew
Speaker 1: the kind of things that I thought about, what would
Speaker 1: they think of me? Or what would they say about me?
Speaker 1: Or if God knew? Well, God does know, and he
Speaker 1: loves you. Anyway, Jesus came for the very reason that
Speaker 1: he knew we all would sin and fall short of
Speaker 1: the glory of God. But he died of death that
Speaker 1: you and I should have died. Then he rose again
Speaker 1: so that you and I could be set free from
Speaker 1: our sin. But I still justify why my sin disqualifies
Speaker 1: me from being used by someone like God. Peter said,
Speaker 1: turn away from me, Lord, my sin is too bad.
Speaker 1: You can't use someone like me. But if it's not
Speaker 1: my sin, it's my history, my history. I want you
Speaker 1: to write that down. Peter had an interesting history. Peter
Speaker 1: at one point said that he wouldn't deny Jesus, but
Speaker 1: then he denied him three times. Then he broke down
Speaker 1: and he felt bad about it. Then at one point
Speaker 1: Jesus looks at Peter and says, get behind me, Satan,
Speaker 1: you're being a distraction. I mean, if God said that
Speaker 1: to me, I'd be like, oh, snap, does that disqualify?
Speaker 1: Am I done? Here? Like I think I'm fired from
Speaker 1: the job. I don't think you can use me at
Speaker 1: this point. And we all have a history experiences, we're
Speaker 1: all predisposed as well. And I wonder for even Peter
Speaker 1: what was passed down to him from previous generations. Maybe
Speaker 1: your grandfather struggled with alcoholism, Therefore your father struggled with alcoholism,
Speaker 1: and now you're destined in your mind to struggle with alcoholism.
Speaker 1: There's no other way. The history says that's the way
Speaker 1: it's got to be. Or your grandmother struggled with abuse,
Speaker 1: and now your mother struggled with abuse. So now you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who you are in the midst
Speaker 1: of this cycle and can you break the cycle? And
Speaker 1: is this what your history has determined for you as well?
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're just you're cynical because everyone around you
Speaker 1: is cynical, and that's the history, and that's what it's
Speaker 1: always looked like, and that's what it's always been like.
Speaker 1: And maybe you're criticizing all of these other people not
Speaker 1: because of anything that's wrong with them, but really you're
Speaker 1: just not pleased with yourself. We all have a history,
Speaker 1: a background, experiences things that we disqualify ourselves to be
Speaker 1: used by God. A few years ago, before Maddie and
Speaker 1: I met one another, I was in another relationship and
Speaker 1: we got engaged, and this was obviously a significant decision
Speaker 1: for anyone in life to commit to something for a
Speaker 1: lifelong journey. And from the outside, we had this picture
Speaker 1: perfect relationship where everyone would think to themselves it together,
Speaker 1: but on the inside not so much. And I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but how many of you realized just
Speaker 1: because someone has it together on the outside doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they have it together on the inside. And I'm pretty
Speaker 1: good at putting a game face on and projecting outwardly confidence,
Speaker 1: and yeah, man, you look like you have it together,
Speaker 1: only if you knew the battles I fight, the insecurities
Speaker 1: I wrestle with. And I remember waking up on a
Speaker 1: Thursday morning coming to this realization that this engagement was
Speaker 1: coming to an end, and nothing bad happened or immoral happened,
Speaker 1: but we realized that as hard as we tried to
Speaker 1: make this thing work, it wasn't gonna work, and we
Speaker 1: needed to go our separate ways. And I remember that
Speaker 1: day so vividly because I was driving a box truck
Speaker 1: from North Carolina to Virginia. I was I was taking
Speaker 1: some church supplies back to Roanoke. And as I'm driving
Speaker 1: that box truck, I just had this rage and this frustration,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in the front seat driving and I
Speaker 1: just started to sob uncontrollably and to the point that
Speaker 1: I could barely even see the road anymore. And I
Speaker 1: pulled over into this abandoned parking lot and I set
Speaker 1: in the box truck for the next two and a
Speaker 1: half hours, yelling at God, God, why would you allow
Speaker 1: me to go through something like this? God, this doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. After everything, God, I believe that you had
Speaker 1: your hand on this. I'm walking in obedience with you,
Speaker 1: Yet my expectation in my experience are not aligning. God.
Speaker 1: Why And I started just throwing things around the box
Speaker 1: truck and it just didn't make sense. Why I would
Speaker 1: go through something of this nature. And I began to
Speaker 1: have these overwhelming thoughts that this is the thing, this
Speaker 1: is the thing. If I can't even leave one person
Speaker 1: going to lead a staff, how am I going to
Speaker 1: lead thousands of people at our church back in Roanoke, Virginia.
Speaker 1: God can't continue to use someone like me. It's embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I've failed all of my imperfections. Nah, he's going to
Speaker 1: give up on me after after this one. And you
Speaker 1: never know in the moment why you're going through something
Speaker 1: like that. Of course, looking back, I see that God
Speaker 1: was closing one door to open the best door of
Speaker 1: my life. But at the same time, God started to
Speaker 1: show me some things over the past few years. And
Speaker 1: God started to even show me something through this text
Speaker 1: that I found interesting. And I've read this and you've
Speaker 1: probably heard the story many many times. If you haven't,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to see what God does in the story.
Speaker 1: It's a miracle. But when I read verse ten, which
Speaker 1: I've read so many times, Jesus said to Simon, don't
Speaker 1: be afraid. Easier said than done, God, don't be afraid.
Speaker 1: From now on, you will fish for people, fish for people,
Speaker 1: fish for people. I felt like God was connecting me
Speaker 1: back to that experience years ago. And then I couldn't
Speaker 1: shake this phrase and I felt like there was a
Speaker 1: connection between the two, but it just didn't make sense. Okay, God,
Speaker 1: I hear you fish for people. It's great, it's awesome, Like,
Speaker 1: let's reach people for you. And Yep, that's what we're
Speaker 1: called to do. This's while we're on this earth. That's
Speaker 1: what this church has always been about. But then God
Speaker 1: took me back to the moment that I came to
Speaker 1: this church for the first time ten years ago. At
Speaker 1: this point, I shared my story many times, but I
Speaker 1: was so broken and I was in a messed up place,
Speaker 1: trying to find my identity and drugs and alcohol, been
Speaker 1: to jail multiple times, and somebody cared enough about me
Speaker 1: to bring me into the presence of Jesus right here
Speaker 1: Elevation Church. And it was through this church that I
Speaker 1: got saved and I experienced the tangible love of Jesus
Speaker 1: for the first time. That's what this church has always
Speaker 1: been about. Thirteen years ago when Pastor Stephen Holly, these
Speaker 1: core families started this entire church that God had called
Speaker 1: them to was always about reaching people far from God.
Speaker 1: That's the mission of this church, so that people far
Speaker 1: from God will be raised to life in Christ. I
Speaker 1: was that person far from God. We're all far from God.
Speaker 1: They were relentless about bringing their friends and their family
Speaker 1: into the presence of Jesus so they could experience the
Speaker 1: same grace that you and I have experienced. And it's
Speaker 1: not about you and I not being far from God.
Speaker 1: And then we're gonna go reach the people who are
Speaker 1: far from God. We're all far from God. We all
Speaker 1: need this, by the way, but that mission carries on
Speaker 1: today even in Ronoke, Virginia, because in twenty twelve, it
Speaker 1: started with a handful of people. Philip knows the story
Speaker 1: very well because he was from Roanoke. It started with
Speaker 1: a handful of people. But as of this year, we've
Speaker 1: now seen five five hundred people make decisions to follow
Speaker 1: Jesus in a city of ninety nine thousand people. And
Speaker 1: we're on a mission to reach every single person in
Speaker 1: the entire city of Rowano. That's what has always been about.
Speaker 1: Maybe someone brought you into the presence of God. I
Speaker 1: believe you're gonna bring somebody back with you next week
Speaker 1: so that you can see what God wants to do
Speaker 1: through you in someone else's life. God reminded me in
Speaker 1: that moment that if I brought you through all of
Speaker 1: that back then I'm gonna bring you back through this.
Speaker 1: But it didn't stop there. I still couldn't shake that phrase.
Speaker 1: Fish for people, fish for people? What are you trying
Speaker 1: to tell me? Fish for people? And then I read
Speaker 1: verse ten, and God made it so clear. In verse
Speaker 1: actually eleven, not ten. It said, so they pulled their
Speaker 1: boats up on shore, and all the fish they caught,
Speaker 1: everything they had worked for, they just left it there.
Speaker 1: They just left it all there, Jesus, fish for people.
Speaker 1: I got everything that I worked for God, but I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna leave it here. Fish for people, fish for people,
Speaker 1: Fish for people. What are you telling me? God? Fish
Speaker 1: for people? Show me fish for people. Stay with me,
Speaker 1: fish for people. A little bit louder, fish for people.
Speaker 1: One more time, fish for people. I wonder if Peter
Speaker 1: in that moment, realized that the fish they were never
Speaker 1: meant for Peter, the fish were for the people. All
Speaker 1: the fish. Can I see my fish? All the fish
Speaker 1: that Peter caught up until that point? There were a
Speaker 1: few more in here A second ago. I think you
Speaker 1: had some all the fish, everything he had worked towards
Speaker 1: up until that point, just left it all behind. The
Speaker 1: fish were never meant for Peter. The fish were for
Speaker 1: the people. Philip, take my fish. I'm gonna come down,
Speaker 1: because sometimes we think our failures, all the things that
Speaker 1: happened in our life. I know you lost the job,
Speaker 1: I know you messed up the opportunity. But what if
Speaker 1: you went through that not just for you, but what
Speaker 1: if you went through that to help someone else who's
Speaker 1: been through the same thing. The fish wasn't for me,
Speaker 1: It was for the people. You're imperfections, the things that
Speaker 1: you think are weird about you, the things that other
Speaker 1: people are saying about you, the things that you don't
Speaker 1: like about yourself, the things that you think that disqualify
Speaker 1: you from being used by God. What if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for you, But what if all of that God wanted
Speaker 1: to use to help someone else who has the same imperfections.
Speaker 1: Your sin, the things that you've been hiding from in shame.
Speaker 1: I know you had the affair and you thought that
Speaker 1: was the end. I know you're wrestling with looking at
Speaker 1: things on your phone that you know you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: looking at, and you're afraid to tell your spouse. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not even big things, it's the little things.
Speaker 1: It's the way we talk about people, things we had
Speaker 1: never say to their face, but how we like to
Speaker 1: talk about them behind their back. All of that sin.
Speaker 1: We think God can't use someone like us. But what
Speaker 1: if God said, no, that's not for you. Everything you did,
Speaker 1: everything you've been through, Now I'm gonna use it to
Speaker 1: help somebody else. It wasn't for me. It was for
Speaker 1: somebody else else. Your history. I know the addiction is
Speaker 1: trying to make its way into your life, and if
Speaker 1: not already, I believe that God's gonna help you, through
Speaker 1: the power of Jesus, to break the addiction, but not
Speaker 1: just to set you free from him, but to also
Speaker 1: help someone else who's going through the same thing. It
Speaker 1: wasn't meant for me, It was for someone else. The
Speaker 1: fish are not for me, They're for the people. And
Speaker 1: God will work all things together for the good of
Speaker 1: those who love Him, the good and the bad, the
Speaker 1: pretty and the ugly, the clean and the messy, the
Speaker 1: success and the failure. God works all things together for
Speaker 1: the good are those who love Him, according to his purpose,
Speaker 1: according to his plan. Every thing you've been through thus far,
Speaker 1: it's not wasted. The fish aren't for me, they're for
Speaker 1: the people. The fish can be thrown back up real quick.
Speaker 1: The fish our failures, our imperfections, our sin, our history.
Speaker 1: God works all of these things together for a purpose.
Speaker 1: There is purpose behind your pain. You may not have
Speaker 1: seen it in the moment. You may not see it
Speaker 1: right now as you're standing in the middle of it,
Speaker 1: but God wants to use it to help someone else.
Speaker 1: And just a few months ago, I was sharing the
Speaker 1: same story that I just shared with you about this
Speaker 1: engagement me to an end with someone else who was
Speaker 1: going through the same exact thing. And oftentimes you can't
Speaker 1: say anything when someone's standing in the middle of it
Speaker 1: to help them. And it's sometimes the worst when someone
Speaker 1: tries to slap a Christian cliche on your pain and
Speaker 1: dustin You're going to get through this, yeah, whatever, man,
Speaker 1: I know God is good, but it doesn't feel good
Speaker 1: right now. But I said, hey, I know you're hurting.
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't make sense. I know that you're
Speaker 1: frustrated and you're mad at God and mad at yourself.
Speaker 1: But I believe that at some point you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to look back and see that there was
Speaker 1: purpose behind this, that God was with you, that he
Speaker 1: never left you. Then he reached out to me a
Speaker 1: few weeks later. I said, the very thing you just
Speaker 1: shared with me, all of that stuff. He said, that's
Speaker 1: the very thing I've been clinging to to get through
Speaker 1: one of the worst seasons of my life. The fish
Speaker 1: were not for me. It was for somebody else years
Speaker 1: before I saw the purpose behind it. But God is
Speaker 1: using it to help someone else. I believe God wants
Speaker 1: to use you, even though it doesn't make sense because
Speaker 1: of your failures and your imperfections. It doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: that God could use you in your workplace. There's somebody
Speaker 1: in your workplace who needs the love of Jesus like
Speaker 1: you've experienced the love of Jesus. I believe God's going
Speaker 1: to use you to reach them. There's somebody in your
Speaker 1: school who needs to know and see what you've seen,
Speaker 1: and your story is going to be the very thing
Speaker 1: that God uses to set them free, like God has
Speaker 1: set you free. What if Peter would have said, because
Speaker 1: you say so, God, I will, and threw the nets
Speaker 1: out into the water, but didn't bring any fish back.
Speaker 1: In what if Jesus was telling him to get rid
Speaker 1: of the nets because he had his identity in what
Speaker 1: he did and never actually saw the blessing on the
Speaker 1: other side. What a breakthrough, oftentimes is never about what
Speaker 1: we get. It's about God breaking us so that we
Speaker 1: fall more in love with Jesus. What if it was
Speaker 1: about Jesus all along. Because you say so, God, I
Speaker 1: will even when it doesn't make sense God, even if
Speaker 1: I don't see the blessing on the other side, even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't show up the way I thought it
Speaker 1: would God, even when it doesn't align with my expectations. God,
Speaker 1: because you say so, I will, I'll take that step.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us special thanks to those of
Speaker 1: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 1: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 1: link in the description to give now, or visit Elevationchurch
Speaker 1: dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it
Speaker 1: with your friends. You can click the share button, take
Speaker 1: a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
Speaker 1: tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
Speaker 1: bless you