Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: Be sure to subscribe so we can get you these
Speaker 2: new sermons every week. I hope you're blessed today.
Speaker 3: So good to be with you guys today. My name
Speaker 3: is Jonathan. Everyone calls me JJ. I get to serve
Speaker 3: here as our Valentine campus pastor, and I'm grateful to
Speaker 3: be able to share God's word with you today.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm so we're just sinking God.
Speaker 3: I'm just grateful for you, and I feel so grateful
Speaker 3: this week, not only grateful for the opportunity to share
Speaker 3: God's word.
Speaker 1: But I was just thinking too.
Speaker 3: In just a couple of weeks, we'll celebrate ten years
Speaker 3: since this Valentine location opened.
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? Ten years already?
Speaker 3: And even as I look around this room, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 3: I see people who have, you know, come at different
Speaker 3: points along the journey, but so many OG's in the room.
Speaker 3: Katrina and Antonio all ten years you've been serving with
Speaker 3: us here. Yeah, and whoel Tom and Lisa are on
Speaker 3: the floor and Craig name you've been here all ten too? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: And Anna said in the car, She's like, can you
Speaker 3: believe that you were just twenty nine years old when
Speaker 3: Pastor Steven asked you to come help launch this Valentine campus.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what he was thinking, but I'm
Speaker 3: so glad that he saw something in me and believed.
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful for a pastor who would let me
Speaker 3: grow with the ministry, and these last ten years, being
Speaker 3: able to be a part of so many of your
Speaker 3: lives has been such a privilege, and I want to
Speaker 3: thank Pastor Stephen for the opportunity to preach today. And
Speaker 3: even as I look back over the ten years, I've
Speaker 3: been a part of the church longer than that, but
Speaker 3: so many moments where the messages that God gave him
Speaker 3: hit me exactly in the place that I needed the most.
Speaker 3: Even on this Father's Day weekend, I was getting teary
Speaker 3: thinking about how my firstborn, when I first became a dad.
Speaker 3: Just a week later, we ended up back in the
Speaker 3: hospital with him. Remember turning on ugh, oh man, excuse me,
Speaker 3: but turn it on the stream in that hospital room,
Speaker 3: watching Pastor preach in the series called How to Be Brave,
Speaker 3: And at a moment where I needed courage. How his
Speaker 3: words gave me courage and so many other moments along
Speaker 3: the way when I wanted to give up and he
Speaker 3: preached moments sermons like staying power, or where I felt
Speaker 3: lonely and he preached lonely places.
Speaker 1: All these amazing messages that.
Speaker 3: Have just carried me through season to season, glory to glory,
Speaker 3: strength to strength.
Speaker 1: Or He's so grateful for our pastors.
Speaker 3: Can we thank the Lord for them? And this whole
Speaker 3: summer has been amazing so far. I mean, we've had
Speaker 3: so many great people bringing the Word of God to us.
Speaker 3: Pastor Jabon preached a powerful word for us last week,
Speaker 3: and Pastor Robert mcdou what was that mess?
Speaker 1: Unbelievable?
Speaker 3: And who else I'll be preached one weekend. I'll be
Speaker 3: at a great word for us and Forriscilla Shire, like
Speaker 3: what was Oh my.
Speaker 1: Goodness, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: So but I have a scripture I'm excited to share
Speaker 3: with you today. I've never preached on a psalm, and
Speaker 3: I just came across the Psalm in my daily reading
Speaker 3: and administered to me so much that I thought I
Speaker 3: want to preach that. And as I begin to study
Speaker 3: this passage, the Lord begin to reveal more and more
Speaker 3: to me through it, and really challenged me in a
Speaker 3: way that was pretty profound and personal. It's a long
Speaker 3: passage of scripture. You good to stand for a little
Speaker 3: bit while we read this together. I want to read
Speaker 3: Psalm one thirty nine, and it's so rich. I don't
Speaker 3: know what the sermon will bless you today, but I
Speaker 3: know this passage of scripture will bless you today. Let's
Speaker 3: read this together. The Psalmist said, you have searched me, Lord,
Speaker 3: and you know me. You know when I sit and
Speaker 3: when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You
Speaker 3: discern my going out and.
Speaker 1: My laying down.
Speaker 3: You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word
Speaker 3: is on my tongue, you Lord know it completely. You
Speaker 3: hem me in behind, and before you lay your hand
Speaker 3: upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too
Speaker 3: lofty for me to obtain. Where can I go from
Speaker 3: your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? When
Speaker 3: I go up to the heavens, you are there. If
Speaker 3: I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
Speaker 3: If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if
Speaker 3: I settle on the far side of the sea, even there,
Speaker 3: Your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold
Speaker 3: me fast. If I say surely, the darkness will hide me,
Speaker 3: and the light become night around me. Even the darkness
Speaker 3: will not be dark to you. The night will shine
Speaker 3: like the day, For darkness is as light to you.
Speaker 3: For you created my inmost being. You knit me together
Speaker 3: in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am
Speaker 3: fearfully and wonderfully made.
Speaker 1: Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My
Speaker 1: frame was not hidden from you when I was made
Speaker 1: in the secret place.
Speaker 3: When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Speaker 3: your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained
Speaker 3: for me were written in your book before one of
Speaker 3: them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts? God,
Speaker 3: How vast is the sum of them. Where I had
Speaker 3: to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
Speaker 3: When I awake still I am with you. Search me, God,
Speaker 3: and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Speaker 3: See if there is any offensive way in me, and
Speaker 3: lead me in the way everlasting. Before I give you
Speaker 3: my title, would you just make David's words your prayer
Speaker 3: this morning? Would you just say search me God. Now
Speaker 3: say it to your father in heaven, say search me God.
Speaker 3: The title of my message today is I left that out.
Speaker 1: I left that out. You may be seated.
Speaker 3: This is always a big week in our household. Two
Speaker 3: of my kids had birthdays this week and of course
Speaker 3: Father's Day, and then just a week ago, me and
Speaker 3: Anna celebrated sixteen years of marriage. Praise the Lord. They
Speaker 3: said we wouldn't make it look at us. One of
Speaker 3: the things we've really made a priority in our marriage
Speaker 3: and our life over the last several years now is
Speaker 3: doing a marriage counseling together.
Speaker 1: So helpful. Every time I say that, people go like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: what's wrong, But for.
Speaker 3: Us, it was, you know, we just saw, wouldn't it
Speaker 3: be good to talk with someone regularly, get perspective, get
Speaker 3: healthy before something goes wrong, you know, especially as life
Speaker 3: becomes more complex, is we're trying to raise kids and
Speaker 3: all that, and so we've been doing this for a
Speaker 3: few years now and it's been so helpful for us.
Speaker 3: Ninety nine percent of our time with the counselor is
Speaker 3: Anna working through things. But now and then there's something
Speaker 3: that comes up that pertains to me and anyone who
Speaker 3: knows this knows that's very far from the truth, okay.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that the counselor's been really
Speaker 3: trying to work with me on that I can tell
Speaker 3: she keeps nudging and it's taken me a while to
Speaker 3: get the hint, is just being more open and being
Speaker 3: a little bit more vulnerable. I can be a pretty
Speaker 3: guarded person. I'm a nice person, but I can be
Speaker 3: a pretty guarded person. And I can tell the counselor's
Speaker 3: been working with me, trying to work with me on that,
Speaker 3: because even in mine and Anna's relationship, it's like I'll
Speaker 3: come home from work and I'm so interested in her
Speaker 3: day and what the kids are up to, and we'll
Speaker 3: listen to her stories from throughout the day, and when
Speaker 3: she asked me, how was your day, I normally give
Speaker 3: her this answer it was good, it was good, and
Speaker 3: it's not a lie, it's just limited. That's kind of
Speaker 3: all I give her. And then I'm realizing something's wrong
Speaker 3: with me when I see her using little tricks on
Speaker 3: me that she uses on our boys, Like she'll ask
Speaker 3: them around the dinner table, what were your.
Speaker 1: Highs and lows?
Speaker 3: And they seemed to talk a little bit more so
Speaker 3: when she started asking me what was your highs and lows?
Speaker 3: I go, oh, my goodness, I need to grow. God
Speaker 3: help me. And so the counselor's been she's been trying
Speaker 3: to help me in this. And I had a friend
Speaker 3: this week he said it this way. He said, full
Speaker 3: intimacy requires full access. Full intimacy requires full access.
Speaker 1: And even as I.
Speaker 3: Think about it in my relationship with Anna and other
Speaker 3: relationships in my life, I'm realizing more and more that
Speaker 3: even when it comes to my relationship with God, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of things that I leave out when it
Speaker 3: comes to my prime.
Speaker 1: And prayer with Him, my walk with him.
Speaker 3: Thing is that I think, oh, that's just too small
Speaker 3: for God to care about. Other people are going through
Speaker 3: way harder things than that. Why would God care about this?
Speaker 3: I'll just leave that out. Or things that I feel
Speaker 3: are too messy, too shameful to bring to God, so
Speaker 3: I just leave that out. But more and more I'm
Speaker 3: realizing that to have an intimate relationship with God, to
Speaker 3: really know him, it requires that I give him full
Speaker 3: access to my life. This time last year, I'm father's
Speaker 3: dad preached a message called All I Know. It was
Speaker 3: about personally experiencing the power of God, the testimonies we
Speaker 3: build through. That really is such a theme of my
Speaker 3: life because I think that deep down I have such
Speaker 3: a desire to know the Lord. One of my favorite
Speaker 3: scriptures my life Versus Philippians three ten, where Paul says,
Speaker 3: my one purpose is that I would know Christ.
Speaker 1: It resonates with me. That really resonates with me.
Speaker 3: And yet I think, as deeply as I desire to
Speaker 3: know the Lord, there's a part of me that really
Speaker 3: hesitates to let the Lord know me. But full intimacy
Speaker 3: requires full access. This psalm is so beautiful because David
Speaker 3: is laying forth a theology that tells us so much
Speaker 3: about God. There's a simple structure to this. It goes
Speaker 3: six verses, six verses, six verses. For the first six verses,
Speaker 3: he's talking about this simple idea that God knows everything.
Speaker 3: The theological term for that is God is omniscient. It
Speaker 3: means there's nothing that he doesn't know. David says, you know,
Speaker 3: you know when I lie, You know the words I
Speaker 3: speak before they even come out of my mouth. Let
Speaker 3: your neighbors say, God knows everything. God knows everything. So
Speaker 3: he spends six verses talking about how God knows every
Speaker 3: single detail of your life. And then the next six
Speaker 3: verses he talks about the how God is everywhere. The
Speaker 3: word for that is He's omnipresent. Everyone say, God is everywhere.
Speaker 3: He says, Even if I go to the darkness, you're there.
Speaker 1: God. It becomes light to you. If I go to
Speaker 1: the heavens, You're there.
Speaker 3: If I go to that, there's nowhere I can go
Speaker 3: that your presence doesn't go with me.
Speaker 1: And then for the next six.
Speaker 3: Verses, David begins to talk about the power of God.
Speaker 3: He's omnipotent. He says, God, you're the one who made
Speaker 3: me in the depths. Only you can for me and
Speaker 3: declare over me that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Speaker 3: David gives this beautiful structure. God knows everything. God's the
Speaker 3: one who created me. God is everywhere. And yet so
Speaker 3: I read through this psalm as beautiful as it was.
Speaker 3: You know, every single one of these lines you could
Speaker 3: put on a T shirt and sell them, and sell
Speaker 3: them and sell a coffee mug, sell a T shirt.
Speaker 3: It's filled with so many amazing verses. And yet as
Speaker 3: I was reading this Psalm, I don't know if you notice,
Speaker 3: But there is a part that I left out when
Speaker 3: I read it to you. I left it out because
Speaker 3: it was dark. I left it out because it gets messy.
Speaker 1: I left it out.
Speaker 3: Because, honestly, as I read through this psalm, I thought,
Speaker 3: I don't know how that'll work on a Sunday morning.
Speaker 3: I left it out because it almost feels so random,
Speaker 3: like David goes just right off track in the midst
Speaker 3: of all these beautiful words that David is saying, you know,
Speaker 3: he ends in verse eighteen, where where I had to
Speaker 3: count them, they would outnumber the grains of the sand.
Speaker 3: When I awake, I am still with you. And then
Speaker 3: here's what I left out. If only you God would
Speaker 3: slay the wicked away from me, You who are blood thirsty.
Speaker 3: They speak of you with evil intent, Your adversaries misuse
Speaker 3: your name.
Speaker 1: Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord?
Speaker 3: And abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
Speaker 1: I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them
Speaker 1: my enemies.
Speaker 3: Search me, Oh God, and know my heart, Test me
Speaker 3: and see you're like whoa David once gets aphrendic them, David,
Speaker 3: where did that?
Speaker 1: Where did that come from?
Speaker 3: All this amazing scripture telling us about who God is,
Speaker 3: how God knows everything, the intricate details of my life.
Speaker 3: There's nowhere I can go, know where I can run
Speaker 3: that God isn't with me. And then you're going into
Speaker 3: I hate my enemies. I wish you would kill them, David,
Speaker 3: Where did that come from? And yet I'm so thankful
Speaker 3: that God.
Speaker 1: Didn't leave that part out.
Speaker 3: So I was thinking through, how do I preach this message.
Speaker 3: I'll just have to leave that part out. God began
Speaker 3: to speak to me more and more he goes, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: I left that in for a reason. I'm so glad
Speaker 3: he left that part in because it teaches me something
Speaker 3: about how I relate to God. I wonder if, when
Speaker 3: God was putting together the scriptures through the inspiration of
Speaker 3: his spirit, whether they were the ones writing it or
Speaker 3: whether someone was writing it. How many times some of
Speaker 3: these Bible characters are like, hey, God, can you leave
Speaker 3: that part out? Like I wonder if Moses was like cool,
Speaker 3: tell them about how I.
Speaker 1: Was rescued out of the basket.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool, and how I split the Red Sea,
Speaker 3: that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But the part where I got angry and just killed
Speaker 1: the guy. Do you think we could leave that out?
Speaker 3: Or Abraham, the father of our faith, do you think
Speaker 3: he was ever like, hey, do you think you could
Speaker 3: leave the part out where I've mistreated Hagar and or
Speaker 3: when I conceived I was too impatient to wait with Sarah,
Speaker 3: so I conceived the child with Hagar, Or how I
Speaker 3: lied about who my wife was a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Tell them the good things about how you know I.
Speaker 3: Left the city I knew in faith believing God for
Speaker 3: some tell him that part, but the parts about my mistakes?
Speaker 3: Could you leave that out? Or if Rehab was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: tell them about how I helped rescue the spies, how
Speaker 3: I helped save them, but about my career choices, do
Speaker 3: you think you could leave that out? Or even saw,
Speaker 3: Oh Paul, the guy who planted so many churches and
Speaker 3: reached the gentile world with the gospel, do you think
Speaker 3: he was like, hey, yeah, tell them about the leaders
Speaker 3: I raised up and the churches I planted, But God,
Speaker 3: maybe don't tell them about how I was the one
Speaker 3: standing there when they stone Stephen. All these moments in
Speaker 3: the scripture that people we read about. I'm so grateful
Speaker 3: that God left those details in because it tells me
Speaker 3: about tells me something about the way God wants to
Speaker 3: relate to us. I'm so glad that David left this
Speaker 3: part of the Psalmen in the midst of all his
Speaker 3: language about who God is and the characteristics of God.
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful that he got to a moment of
Speaker 3: vulnerability and honesty where he said, God, I want to
Speaker 3: tell you where I really am right now. It's so
Speaker 3: deeply personal that it almost feels like uncomfortable for us
Speaker 3: on a Sunday morning. I hate the bloodthirsty people. I
Speaker 3: wish you would kill them. God, You're like, what What
Speaker 3: you have to remember is this is David's personal diaries
Speaker 3: that they turned into songs that the whole nation would sing.
Speaker 1: That's wild, y'all.
Speaker 3: Imagine coming to church on a Sunday morning and tif
Speaker 3: gets done singing, God, You've been so so good to me,
Speaker 3: and then we go.
Speaker 1: Next song and I grab Eric.
Speaker 3: Eric's journal would be too messing, Okay, I grab Deanna's journal.
Speaker 3: I say, all right, I throw these up on the screens.
Speaker 3: We're all gonna sing it together, y'all. The whole nation
Speaker 3: would sing this psalm And I'm so glad that David
Speaker 3: left it in He left in the parts that we
Speaker 3: want to leave out. And I wonder sometimes if the
Speaker 3: reason we come into God's presence, the reason we come
Speaker 3: to church sometimes and hear a powerful word and leave unchanged.
Speaker 3: I wonder if the reason we leave unchanged is because
Speaker 3: we're leaving out some of the things that we're meant
Speaker 3: to bring to God. There's things that we left in
Speaker 3: the car this morning. There's issues you're going through that
Speaker 3: you left at home. And I wonder what it would
Speaker 3: look like for us to bring those things into God's
Speaker 3: presence in prayer and submission and worship. What would it
Speaker 3: look like to bring the parts to God that were
Speaker 3: so tempted to leave out time and time again because
Speaker 3: we think they don't belong, because we think God can't
Speaker 3: handle it, because we think they're too messy, too dark,
Speaker 3: too ugly. What would it look like to bring those
Speaker 3: very things into the presence of God and lay them
Speaker 3: down at the altar and say, God, would you meet
Speaker 3: me in this place where I need a touch of
Speaker 3: your presence right now, where I need your healing power,
Speaker 3: where I need your hand to deliver me. And yet
Speaker 3: the enemy will fight so hard to keep us stuck,
Speaker 3: running and running and running and hiding, and hiding and hiding,
Speaker 3: so we never bring those things into the presence of God.
Speaker 3: And like I said earlier, though, but full intimacy requires
Speaker 3: full access.
Speaker 1: What does it look like to say, God, here, I
Speaker 1: am have everything.
Speaker 3: I want to relook at this scripture together through that
Speaker 3: lens of some of the things that we do, because
Speaker 3: one by one David is giving us a theology that
Speaker 3: leads us to a place of honesty.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 3: I read those verses and I thought those are too random,
Speaker 3: And yet I realize everything David is laying out from
Speaker 3: verses one through eighteen, He is laying a belief about
Speaker 3: God that actually leads him to the place where he
Speaker 3: can say those things.
Speaker 1: Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 3: His theology, his view of who God was, let him
Speaker 3: to the place where he says, God, I can trust
Speaker 3: you with all this. I can tell you how I
Speaker 3: really feel, I can tell you what I'm going through
Speaker 3: right now. And so one by one he dismantles it.
Speaker 3: And the first point that I want to talk to
Speaker 3: you about from those.
Speaker 1: First six verses is this.
Speaker 3: He says, Essentially, what's the point in hiding? If God
Speaker 3: knows everything? What's the point of hiding. If God knows everything,
Speaker 3: One of our tendencies in our relationship with God is
Speaker 3: to hide, And David keeps going, why would you hide
Speaker 3: from God?
Speaker 1: If he knows when you sit, he knows when you stand,
Speaker 1: If he.
Speaker 3: Knows every word that comes out of your mouth before
Speaker 3: you even speak it, what's the point in hiding? If
Speaker 3: God knows everything? When I read these verses to my
Speaker 3: oldest son on the porchrain day, I read those verses, said,
Speaker 3: and what do you think this means? He goes, God
Speaker 3: sees everything I do. And he said it like that,
Speaker 3: and he said, I don't know a way that I
Speaker 3: think a lot of us feel. When we think about
Speaker 3: the omniscience of God, how he knows everything, we still
Speaker 3: think that God is like the Nessay, just surveilling us,
Speaker 3: waiting for us to mess up. Where he's Santa Claus.
Speaker 3: He knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're away,
Speaker 3: he knows if you've been bad or good. And we
Speaker 3: think God is out to catch us, and so we
Speaker 3: keep trying to hide, hide, hide from God because we
Speaker 3: think he's a father waiting for us to mess up
Speaker 3: so he can strike us.
Speaker 1: But that's not what David is saying.
Speaker 3: He's saying God knows every God is so intimately connected
Speaker 3: to our lives. When it says that you hen me
Speaker 3: in before and behind, some of us view that like
Speaker 3: a prison, But David wants you to see this as
Speaker 3: an embrace. He's saying, God's right there with you. Whatever
Speaker 3: you're walking through, whatever you're going through, He's right in
Speaker 3: it with you. He knows everything already, So what's the
Speaker 3: point in hiding. If God knows everything, you can tell
Speaker 3: him the truth. He already knows everything you've been through,
Speaker 3: everything you're going through, everything you're feeling. You can bring
Speaker 3: it to God. There's a story in John chapter four
Speaker 3: where Jesus goes. He sits down at a well in
Speaker 3: an area called Samaria, and at noon, in the heat
Speaker 3: of the sun, a woman comes up to catch walk
Speaker 3: kid to get some water. She's coming at noon because
Speaker 3: she's hiding. She's hiding from people. She doesn't want to
Speaker 3: be seen by anybody else, so she goes to the
Speaker 3: well at a time when she knows nobody else will
Speaker 3: be there. She's hiding from her mistakes, she's hiding from
Speaker 3: her past. And yet when she gets to this well,
Speaker 3: Jesus is there waiting for her, and Jesus asks her
Speaker 3: a simple question, he says, as they're interacting, he says,
Speaker 3: where's your husband?
Speaker 1: And she says, ah.
Speaker 3: He doesn't ask her that question because he needs information.
Speaker 3: He's asking her that question because he wants access.
Speaker 1: Access.
Speaker 3: Full intimacy requires full access. Where's your husband? She says, Oh,
Speaker 3: I don't have a husband. He says, you're right, You've
Speaker 3: had five and the man you're living with isn't your husband.
Speaker 3: He didn't bring all this up to condemn her, but
Speaker 3: he brought it up so he could offer her something better.
Speaker 3: He offers her living water so that she wouldn't have
Speaker 3: to keep running to other people to find satisfaction.
Speaker 1: He brings it up to say, already know everything you've done.
Speaker 3: I already know everything you're going through, so why don't
Speaker 3: you just be honest about it so I can give
Speaker 3: you the solution to what you've been going through. And
Speaker 3: something so powerful happens in this story because after Jesus
Speaker 3: brings up everything she's done, it says in John chapter four,
Speaker 3: verse twenty eight. Then leaving the water jar, the woman
Speaker 3: went back to the town and said to the people, well,
Speaker 3: what people, the very people she was hiding from.
Speaker 1: She's now running too, and she.
Speaker 3: Says, come, come and see a man who told me
Speaker 3: everything I ever did, the very things.
Speaker 1: That she was trying to hide.
Speaker 3: She says, come see a man who told me all
Speaker 3: about the things I was trying to keep hidden. He
Speaker 3: already knew at all, She said, Could this be the Messiah?
Speaker 3: And this woman who was hiding in shame became an
Speaker 3: evangelist for the goodness of God? Is it possible today
Speaker 3: that the things that we're trying to leave out are
Speaker 3: actually the places that not only does God want to heal,
Speaker 3: but that God wants to use in our lives to
Speaker 3: impact and reach other people. What does it look like
Speaker 3: to bring the things that we've been hiding to God
Speaker 3: and lay them out at his feet? But the enemy
Speaker 3: will tempt us to view God the wrong way, so
Speaker 3: that we keep things hidden because he knows that what
Speaker 3: goes in the dark grows in the dark. And God
Speaker 3: cannot heal what you keep hidden. So what does it
Speaker 3: look like to bring everything to God? Because David says,
Speaker 3: he already knows. He knows everything. Before a word ever
Speaker 3: came out of your mouth, he knew about it. The
Speaker 3: next thing David wants to confront is our tendency to run,
Speaker 3: and for six verses he talks about how God is everywhere,
Speaker 3: Touch your neighbor against say, God is everywhere, and what's
Speaker 3: the point in running?
Speaker 1: If God is everywhere?
Speaker 3: All of us have a tendency to run, whether that's
Speaker 3: from God, whether that's from our reality, whether that's from
Speaker 3: our emotions or situations in our lives that get heavy.
Speaker 3: But what's the point in running if God is everywhere?
Speaker 3: You know, running only where if there's a place that
Speaker 3: God can't go, And the Psalma says there isn't even
Speaker 3: if I go into the depths, You're there, even darkness.
Speaker 1: If you show up, it just becomes light.
Speaker 3: There's nowhere I can't go that His presence hasn't already gone.
Speaker 3: So what's the point in trying to run if His
Speaker 3: presence goes with me?
Speaker 1: As I was reading this passage, I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I think it was the Holy Spirit, but it brought
Speaker 3: to mind a memory of a woman I already mentioned,
Speaker 3: a woman named Hagar. Her story in Genesis is so powerful.
Speaker 3: Hagar was Abraham's Egyptian slave.
Speaker 1: She's an Egyptian.
Speaker 3: She's outside of the Covenant, and Abraham and his wife
Speaker 3: Sarah really mistreated her. And there's a moment in the
Speaker 3: scriptures where she starts running to escape her situation. See,
Speaker 3: sometimes we're hiding from the things that we've done. Other
Speaker 3: times we're running because of the things that have been
Speaker 3: done to us. She's running from the mistreatment, the betrayal,
Speaker 3: the abuse, and she's on the run in the wilderness.
Speaker 3: And even in her running it's so beautiful. God meets
Speaker 3: her there and he calls her in the wilderness and
Speaker 3: he says, Hagar, where are you coming from?
Speaker 1: And where are you going again.
Speaker 3: He's not asking because he needs the information. He's asking
Speaker 3: because he wants access, and he encounters her in her running.
Speaker 3: He encounters her in the wilderness, her trying to escape
Speaker 3: everything that she's going through. God meets her there and
Speaker 3: calls her by name, and she becomes the first person
Speaker 3: in all of Scripture to give God a personal name.
Speaker 3: She calls him el Roy, the God who sees me.
Speaker 3: Not a priest, not a patriarch, not someone not a Hebrew.
Speaker 3: The first person in all of Scripture to give God
Speaker 3: a personal name is an Egyptian slave who on the
Speaker 3: run encounters the Lord and says, I found the God.
Speaker 1: Who sees me. How beautiful is that?
Speaker 3: And later she ends up going back to Abraham's household,
Speaker 3: and fast forward a little bit. She has a son
Speaker 3: with Abraham and they're on the run. Abraham and Sarah
Speaker 3: eventually kick her out of the house. And this ministered
Speaker 3: to me so much when I saw it, because she's
Speaker 3: back in the wilderness again, running, running, not because it
Speaker 3: was her own fault, but just the realcy of her
Speaker 3: life caused her to run, and she's running out of water,
Speaker 3: and she realizes her son is about to die, and
Speaker 3: so she places him under a bush and walks away.
Speaker 3: She wants to be at a distance because she doesn't
Speaker 3: want to watch her son take his last breath. And
Speaker 3: once again, the Lord shows up for her in the
Speaker 3: middle of the wilderness, because remember, friends, there's nowhere you
Speaker 3: can go that his presence can't find you.
Speaker 1: And she says that look at this.
Speaker 3: In Genesis twenty one seventeen, it says, and God heard
Speaker 3: the voice of the boy, and the Angel of the
Speaker 3: Lord called the hagar from heaven and said to her,
Speaker 3: what troubles you, hagar?
Speaker 1: Fear not look at this?
Speaker 3: For God has heard the boy's cry from where he is,
Speaker 3: from where he is. That blessed me to know that
Speaker 3: God will hear you from where you are, not where
Speaker 3: you pretend to be, not where you think you should be,
Speaker 3: not with all your polished words that you clean up
Speaker 3: for church. God will hear you from where you are.
Speaker 3: Henry now, and he said it this way, I hope
Speaker 3: I can find it in. He says, crying out to
Speaker 3: God is not a sign of weakness, It's a sign
Speaker 3: of faith. Cries out to God. I have heard the
Speaker 3: boys cry from where he is. Just the other day,
Speaker 3: it was such a God moment. I'd been reading this
Speaker 3: psalm just personally, not knowing if I was going to
Speaker 3: preach it, and I decided to reach out to a
Speaker 3: friend of mine who lives in the UK. She used
Speaker 3: to work for us here at the church. A few
Speaker 3: years ago, while she was still here, her mom had
Speaker 3: a brain aneurism and passed pretty quickly, so tragic. And
Speaker 3: I texted her the other day just to check in,
Speaker 3: and she said, I'm so glad you've reached out.
Speaker 1: I've been meaning to text you.
Speaker 3: She said, my dad just got diagnosed with brain cancer
Speaker 3: and had surgery on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: He just got out of the hospital today.
Speaker 3: She said, they're giving them twelve months to live. So
Speaker 3: I pick up the phone, I call her. Parents were amazing,
Speaker 3: They've served their life, served God their whole life.
Speaker 1: Their pastors over there, and I pick up the phone
Speaker 1: and I call her, and she's.
Speaker 3: Just talking me through all the details, and she said,
Speaker 3: you know, my dad's so amazing. He's so full of
Speaker 3: faith right now, believing that God is fully going to
Speaker 3: heal him. And she said, but I'm really struggling, she said,
Speaker 3: I don't feel like I have the faith he does.
Speaker 3: She said, because when my mom got sick, I prayed
Speaker 3: and believed for her healing and God didn't heal her.
Speaker 3: So she said, So, if I'm being honest right now,
Speaker 3: I don't know if I believe God can heal my dad.
Speaker 3: And I said, Dear, she said that I know that
Speaker 3: kind of sounds like weak faith at faith. I said, Gabby,
Speaker 3: that's not weak faith, that's honest faith. And it blessed
Speaker 3: me to know that God will hear you from where
Speaker 3: you are, not where you think you should be. See,
Speaker 3: sometimes when we come to God, we think we have
Speaker 3: to have it all cleaned up. But God will hear
Speaker 3: your cry from the realest place. God will hear your
Speaker 3: cry when you say, God, I don't know how to
Speaker 3: believe you for this right now because last time you
Speaker 3: left me disappointed. How powerful is that to think that
Speaker 3: faith isn't just certainty and his promises, It can be both.
Speaker 3: You can say, God, I believe you have the power
Speaker 3: to heal. God, I believe you have the power to deliver.
Speaker 3: But if God is big enough to do all those things,
Speaker 3: what does it look like to trust his character and
Speaker 3: believe that he's big enough to handle our doubts, handle
Speaker 3: our fears, handle our questions, handle our concerns. Do you
Speaker 3: think God is big enough to handle all that?
Speaker 1: And so I loved her.
Speaker 3: Honesty because she says, God, last time I believed you
Speaker 3: for it, and you didn't do it. So I'm struggling
Speaker 3: to trust you right now. That's the type of faith
Speaker 3: that God responds to. She gave him access. And God
Speaker 3: will always hear your honest prayer. God will hear you
Speaker 3: church from where you are. And David says, you don't
Speaker 3: have to keep running. You don't have to keep running
Speaker 3: away from everything that you're facing. Just bring it to
Speaker 3: God and he will meet you in that place.
Speaker 1: Amen. Amen.
Speaker 3: That really ministered to me because I think sometimes in
Speaker 3: church we can be come so conditioned to always bring
Speaker 3: God the right answer.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like maybe there's someone in this room who time
Speaker 3: and time again, it's been your fourth time going to
Speaker 3: the fertility doctor and they said not this time, and
Speaker 3: your tendency is just to go God, I trust your timing,
Speaker 3: And it's okay to say, God, I do trust your timing,
Speaker 3: but I'm also really disappointed right now.
Speaker 1: It's okay to say, and God.
Speaker 3: It's really hard for me to be happy for other
Speaker 3: people while we're going through this ourselves.
Speaker 1: God can handle all that.
Speaker 3: Some of us come to church and we can't even
Speaker 3: lift our hands because we're white knuckling our way through
Speaker 3: in an addiction. And God is saying, you don't have
Speaker 3: to hide all that. You can say it over and
Speaker 3: over again. God, I believe you for deliverance and it
Speaker 3: didn't happen and I relapsed again. You can bring all
Speaker 3: that to God, and I want you to know that
Speaker 3: He will hear you from where you are. David says,
Speaker 3: there's nowhere I can go that God isn't with me,
Speaker 3: And then perhaps most powerfully David. In the next few verses,
Speaker 3: he addresses our tendency to pretend, and he says, what's
Speaker 3: the point in pretending?
Speaker 1: If God's the one who made me?
Speaker 3: You created my inmost being, You knit me together in
Speaker 3: my mother's womb. Every day of my life was ordained
Speaker 3: and written in your book of life. He's saying, God
Speaker 3: already knows everything about you. He's the one who made you,
Speaker 3: So what's the point in pretending? You know, pretending is
Speaker 3: some in some ways one of the most sophisticated ways
Speaker 3: that we leave things out from God's presence. You know,
Speaker 3: running running can be exhausting. The thing about running is
Speaker 3: that we end up circling the same issues and running
Speaker 3: away from the very person who can heal.
Speaker 1: See. I don't know a lot about running.
Speaker 3: The one thing I know is and the most important
Speaker 3: thing is that it's exhausting.
Speaker 2: We run.
Speaker 1: We run.
Speaker 3: Someone just testified over there, Okay, can run, we can run.
Speaker 3: We can try to hide. But maybe one of the
Speaker 3: most sophisticated things we do is we try to pretend.
Speaker 3: And I think we do it to preemptively avoid rejection.
Speaker 3: Sometime there's a belief that if people really knew who
Speaker 3: we were, they would reject us. And maybe we built
Speaker 3: that defense mechanism because it's true, maybe people have rejected you.
Speaker 3: But what David wants you to know is God will
Speaker 3: never reject you. He's the one who made you, and
Speaker 3: when He created you with all your quirks, he declared
Speaker 3: over you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. So
Speaker 3: when it comes to God, you don't need to pretend.
Speaker 3: You don't need to act like you have it all together.
Speaker 3: You don't need to act like you don't have hang ups,
Speaker 3: you don't need to act like there's things that you're
Speaker 3: not ashamed of. You can bring it all to him
Speaker 3: because he created you. He kniche you together by his
Speaker 3: power and by his will. He designed you, He placed
Speaker 3: you here and every single thing you've gone through and
Speaker 3: every single day of your life, he says it was
Speaker 3: written in his book. His sovereign hand has been guiding
Speaker 3: you the whole time. And so David's saying, you don't
Speaker 3: have to pretend. This is the God who created you.
Speaker 3: And yet I think so often, and maybe I'm just
Speaker 3: speaking for myself, I come into church and I feel
Speaker 3: like I need to pretend with God.
Speaker 1: Anybody else that I need to act like I have
Speaker 1: it all together.
Speaker 3: There's a parable that Jesus gives in Luke chapter eighteen.
Speaker 3: He says two men went up onto the temple to pray,
Speaker 3: one a pharisee and the other the tax collector. He's
Speaker 3: talking about the best and the worst. Right here, he's
Speaker 3: given a contrast, and the pharisee good by himself and
Speaker 3: prayed God. I thank you that I'm not like other
Speaker 3: people robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
Speaker 1: How awkward is this?
Speaker 3: The guy can probably hear him. God, I thank you
Speaker 3: so much that I'm not an adulterer. I thank you
Speaker 3: that I'm not a tax collector. I thank you that
Speaker 3: I'm not a pharisee. God, I thank you so much
Speaker 3: that I'm not like Chris sitting over there. God, I
Speaker 3: just I don't know if I have a lot to
Speaker 3: praise you for, but I'm just glad I'm not like
Speaker 3: that guy.
Speaker 1: That's what he's doing. It's so arrogant, it's crazy. He says.
Speaker 3: I'm thank you that I'm not like this tax collector.
Speaker 1: I fast twice a.
Speaker 3: Week, and I give a tenth of all I get y'all.
Speaker 3: He's treating his prayer time like a performance review. He's
Speaker 3: coming to God and he's listing all the things. Do
Speaker 3: you ever do that? Sometimes negotiating with God. Hey, God, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm here, just checking in. I want to let you
Speaker 3: know I've been doing I've been doing really good lately.
Speaker 3: And God, I've been going to church a lot more regularly.
Speaker 3: I even started tyed. I signed up for an e team.
Speaker 3: I'm going to start serving at the church. And God
Speaker 3: just want to let you know. See what the pharisees
Speaker 3: say is.
Speaker 1: Not a lie. It's just limited.
Speaker 3: He probably did fast, he probably did tithe. The question
Speaker 3: is not what he did. The question is what is
Speaker 3: he leaving out? What were the secret things that he
Speaker 3: was struggling with that he didn't bring before God? What
Speaker 3: about the pride he was carrying? You notice he left
Speaker 3: that out? He says, God, I just think you that
Speaker 3: I'm not like these other people. Look at all the
Speaker 3: things I do. And then Jesus, by contrast, shows us
Speaker 3: the tax collector says he wouldn't even look up to heaven,
Speaker 3: but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me.
Speaker 3: A sinner. Jesus says, I tell you that this is
Speaker 3: the man who will walk away justified? Why because he
Speaker 3: was honest. One man came before God saying, Hey, God,
Speaker 3: this is what I've done.
Speaker 1: Look at me. But he left the lot out.
Speaker 3: The other came before God and said, God, I just
Speaker 3: got to be real with you. I need your mercy.
Speaker 3: I need you God. I'm a sinner. I don't deserve this,
Speaker 3: but this is who I am, and.
Speaker 1: You know me.
Speaker 3: Would you meet me in this place just as I am?
Speaker 1: One man walked away justified?
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes in our walk with God, we
Speaker 3: do the same thing where we come before him and
Speaker 3: we feel like we need to pretend to earn his love.
Speaker 3: We feel like we need to pretend to convince them
Speaker 3: that we're worth blessing. We feel like we need to
Speaker 3: pretend to convince them that we have it all together.
Speaker 3: And David saying, are you joking me? He knitch you
Speaker 3: together in your mother's womb. He knows everything about you.
Speaker 3: He saw when you stood up, he saw when you
Speaker 3: laid down. He knows everything already. So what are we
Speaker 3: pretending for? And I wonder what encounter would look like?
Speaker 3: What kind of encounters with God we would have? What
Speaker 3: kind of intimacy with the Father we would experience if
Speaker 3: we came to God and refuse to pretend. It's wild.
Speaker 3: It's wild. There's a story back to Genesis. You know
Speaker 3: I've mentioned Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac
Speaker 3: had a son named Jacob. Tracking with me. Jacob was
Speaker 3: the second born, but he wanted the firstborn blessing, and
Speaker 3: there's a story in Genesis thirty two where he goes
Speaker 3: to his father, or sorry in Genesis twenty seven, where
Speaker 3: he goes to his father and he wants the firstborn blessing,
Speaker 3: and to get that he has to pretend to be
Speaker 3: his older brother, Esau. So he puts fur on his
Speaker 3: back because his.
Speaker 1: Brother was Harry.
Speaker 3: Abraham's gone blind at this point, but he goes, if
Speaker 3: my dad touches me out, he'll feel the fur, He'll
Speaker 3: think I'm Esau. And he changes his voice, and so
Speaker 3: he goes to his father and he asks, and Jacob
Speaker 3: asks his father Isaac for the blessing, and Isaac.
Speaker 1: Go, what's your name? Who are you?
Speaker 3: That's the question he asked, and he answered, I'm Esau.
Speaker 3: He was pretending to be someone else, and in his
Speaker 3: pretending he's got his blind father's blessing. But the rest
Speaker 3: of it, I don't know if it was really a blessing,
Speaker 3: because he would spend from that four point forward having
Speaker 3: to outrun and live in the consequences of his deceit,
Speaker 3: living in the consequence.
Speaker 1: See the thing about pretending.
Speaker 3: Is you got to keep up that image time and
Speaker 3: time of goet day after day. He had to keep
Speaker 3: it up. He spends his life on the run. But
Speaker 3: there's this beautiful moment of redemption that happens in Genesis
Speaker 3: thirty two, because remember when he went to his father
Speaker 3: with fur on his back, with his voice change, pretending
Speaker 3: to be something else. His father asked him a simple question,
Speaker 3: who are you?
Speaker 1: And he said, my name is Esau. But later in.
Speaker 3: Genesis thirty two, God shows up with him and is
Speaker 3: running and meets with him and they begin to wrestle
Speaker 3: in the wilderness. And as they wrestle, as an angel
Speaker 3: of the Lord wrestles with Jacob, he asks them the
Speaker 3: same question that his father asked him. He says, what's
Speaker 3: your name? And this time Jacob. This time he answers Jacob.
Speaker 3: The last time he was asked this question, he said Esau.
Speaker 3: This time he's done pretending. He says, my name is Jacob,
Speaker 3: and the scripture says that God blessed him there. Because
Speaker 3: there is a blessing that you can only receive through
Speaker 3: being honest. There's a blessing that you can only receive
Speaker 3: when you decide to be who God really created you
Speaker 3: to be. Sae, I want you to know today that
Speaker 3: God does not love the version of you that you created.
Speaker 3: He loves the version he created. That's the version God
Speaker 3: wants to counter. And Jacob says, my name is Jacob,
Speaker 3: and the Lord bless them there. What a beautiful moment
Speaker 3: of redemption to know that at any moment we can
Speaker 3: come before God and be completely honest. God, I've been pretending.
Speaker 3: I've been trying to have it all together. I've I've
Speaker 3: been wearing a mask. I've been showing up time and
Speaker 3: time again, trying to be something I'm not.
Speaker 1: But God, you created me.
Speaker 3: You know me, You know exactly who I am, and
Speaker 3: you love that version of me. So God, when you
Speaker 3: ask me you're my name, I'm gonna tell you my name. See,
Speaker 3: you might be able to fool your kids, you might
Speaker 3: be able to fool your spouse, You might be able
Speaker 3: to fool your blind father, but you can't fool the
Speaker 3: father who created your eyes. He knows exactly who you are.
Speaker 3: And David says, if he knows you, what's the point
Speaker 3: of pretending?
Speaker 1: You see?
Speaker 3: I think Dad's and maybe I'm stereotyping, but I think
Speaker 3: sometimes as.
Speaker 1: Men, we have a tendency to do this more.
Speaker 3: And I want you to know, even on this Fire's
Speaker 3: Day weekend, that your kids don't need you to pretend.
Speaker 3: We're so wired to pretend to be strong, to pretend
Speaker 3: we have it all together, to pretend.
Speaker 1: Like we have all the answers, and then.
Speaker 3: Our kids start to grow up and they start to
Speaker 3: see through all those cracks, don't they They see it anyway.
Speaker 3: And I've been really challenged because my kids don't need
Speaker 3: to see my strength. Why am I trying to build
Speaker 3: their confidence around my strength, my perfection, my ability. I
Speaker 3: want to be honest and show them my doubts, and
Speaker 3: show them my fears and show them my struggles, so
Speaker 3: that their confidence isn't in.
Speaker 1: My strength, but in God's strength.
Speaker 3: That's what it means to stop pretending and to just
Speaker 3: be honest and allow them to experience the blessing of
Speaker 3: the Lord that comes from only from his hand. When
Speaker 3: we get real with him, David says, you search me,
Speaker 3: you know me, you know my heart, you know when
Speaker 3: I sit, you know when I lie down.
Speaker 1: Says, if I go to the heavens, you're there. If
Speaker 1: I go to the depths, you're there. If I go
Speaker 1: to the edge of the sea, you're there.
Speaker 3: You created me in the depths, you knit me together
Speaker 3: in the secret place.
Speaker 1: God. That was all you, That was all you. And
Speaker 1: then he gets to the point where he says, and so.
Speaker 3: If all that's true, if all that's true about you, God,
Speaker 3: I might as well be honest. And he says, can
Speaker 3: I tell you where I am right now? Because it's
Speaker 3: likely that David is writing the Psalm while he was
Speaker 3: hiding in a cave from people who are trying to
Speaker 3: kill him. But even though he was hiding from people,
Speaker 3: I love that he refused to hide from God. And
Speaker 3: David begins to say, I hate these people who hate you, Lord.
Speaker 3: He starts processing what he's going through with the Lord.
Speaker 3: You see, David's trying to say, I don't want the
Speaker 3: evil that's happening to me to become evil within me,
Speaker 3: So I need to bring this to you Lord, and
Speaker 3: he starts laying it all out there. He's being honesty.
Speaker 3: I love that the Bible says that David was a
Speaker 3: man after God's own heart. I always wrestled with what
Speaker 3: that meant, because David had a lot of mistakes in
Speaker 3: his life, the infidelity, a lot of poor decisions that
Speaker 3: David made in his life, and yet Scripture says he
Speaker 3: was a man after God's own heart.
Speaker 1: And I think, as I read this passage, I'm.
Speaker 3: Starting to realize more and more that what made David
Speaker 3: a man after God's own heart is that he was
Speaker 3: a man who is willing to let God into his.
Speaker 1: And I want to be like that.
Speaker 3: I want to be the type of person who says, God,
Speaker 3: come on in and have all of me. So David
Speaker 3: starts saying, God, I'm just gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I hate them. I wish you would kill them. That's
Speaker 1: where I am right now.
Speaker 3: But this is not a message about authenticity because David
Speaker 3: doesn't say all that to stay there. He brings it
Speaker 3: to God so God can lead him somewhere else. And
Speaker 3: he moves on from that place and he ends with
Speaker 3: search me, God, and know my heart, Test me and know.
Speaker 1: My anxious thoughts.
Speaker 3: See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead
Speaker 3: me in the way everlasting God, in my running? Would
Speaker 3: you find me in my search, in my pretending God?
Speaker 3: Would you see me in my hiding?
Speaker 1: God? Would you know me? And God, would you lead me?
Speaker 3: It's interesting this psalm ends similar to the way it begins.
Speaker 3: At the beginning of the psalm, David says, you have
Speaker 3: searched me, and you know me. Now he ends the
Speaker 3: psalm with saying, so search me, God, and know my heart.
Speaker 1: I wondered if.
Speaker 3: David was saying it that way, because really, when it
Speaker 3: comes to being honest with God, is not a one
Speaker 3: time thing.
Speaker 1: It's a cycle.
Speaker 3: You search me once before, God, you knew me once before.
Speaker 3: I need you to seach me once, search me once again,
Speaker 3: know me once again. I wonder if that's the reason
Speaker 3: he ended the psalm the same way he started it,
Speaker 3: or or isn't it interesting that what he first declared
Speaker 3: as a fact about God, you have searched me, you
Speaker 3: know me God, he now turns into an invitation. So
Speaker 3: search me, God, So search me God and know my heart.
Speaker 1: Test me, see lead me God, he says, God, I
Speaker 1: want to invite you in.
Speaker 3: I want to give you full access because I want
Speaker 3: to experience full intimacy with you. What does that look
Speaker 3: like for us to approach God differently, not out of
Speaker 3: fear of what He might do when he sees us,
Speaker 3: catches us, not trying to run, not trying to hide,
Speaker 3: not trying to pretend, but to come before God and say, God,
Speaker 3: you already know, you, already see, You're already with me.
Speaker 3: So here I am, and lay those things down at
Speaker 3: the altar. Would you stand to your feet as I close?
Speaker 3: And I know we started this way, but one more time?
Speaker 3: Would you make it a prayer? Would you say, search
Speaker 3: me God, Search me God?
Speaker 1: Tim Keller. He said, to be loved.
Speaker 3: But not known, it's comforting, but superficial.
Speaker 1: You catch up.
Speaker 3: To be loved but not known, it's comforting but superficial.
Speaker 3: To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.
Speaker 3: But to be fully known and truly love, well, that's
Speaker 3: a lot like being loved by God. What do you
Speaker 3: need to bring to the Lord today? What have you
Speaker 3: been leaving out that you need to surrender in His
Speaker 3: presence today? What have you been trying to keep out
Speaker 3: of the story because it was too dark? Too messy,
Speaker 3: too shameful. Maybe it felt too small, Maybe it's too
Speaker 3: hard to pray. What were the things that you've been
Speaker 3: leaving out that you need to bring into God's prices
Speaker 3: today so that he can touch it, so that he
Speaker 3: can heal it, so that he can redeem it, so
Speaker 3: that he can set you free. Just with your hands
Speaker 3: out where you are right now, just bring that thing
Speaker 3: to mine. Not going to make you tell your neighbor
Speaker 3: right now, it's not for them to know. But you
Speaker 3: can let your father know. Can't you Just lay that
Speaker 3: thing before him and say, God, I trust you, I
Speaker 3: trust your character. The things I believe about you lead
Speaker 3: me to the place where I can be confident God
Speaker 3: that you are compassionate enough and big enough and merciful
Speaker 3: enough that I can be real with you and bring
Speaker 3: these things to you. There's someone in the room it's
Speaker 3: so hard to show up to your married e group
Speaker 3: and have conversations because you and your spouse haven't talked
Speaker 3: for three weeks. There's someone in the room who feels
Speaker 3: like they can't be used by God because you keep
Speaker 3: going back to the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 3: What's that thing that you've been trying to leave out.
Speaker 3: Would you bring it to the Father today? So, Father,
Speaker 3: we want to give you full access to our lives,
Speaker 3: full access to our hearts.
Speaker 1: You're the one who made us. You're the one who.
Speaker 3: Knows us, and you declared over us that we're fearfully
Speaker 3: and wonderfully made. You love us, Lord, You love us, Lord,
Speaker 3: So we don't have to hide, and we don't have
Speaker 3: to be ashamed.
Speaker 1: We don't have to keep pretending to be something that
Speaker 1: we're not. God.
Speaker 3: But Lord, we know that you bless us when we
Speaker 3: come before you just as we are.
Speaker 1: God. I want to know your heart, and.
Speaker 3: So today I invite you to know mine. Hmmm, bring
Speaker 3: these things before you God. I refuse to keep putting
Speaker 3: fur on my back. I refuse to keep trying to
Speaker 3: trick other people. God, Lord, I want to come to
Speaker 3: you just as I am and ask that you would
Speaker 3: meet the real me, the version of me that you
Speaker 3: made in this place today. I don't know what's coming
Speaker 3: to mind for people in this room, God, but with
Speaker 3: our hands out, we just lay them at the altar
Speaker 3: before you, and we ask God that these would be
Speaker 3: the places that you would touch, that you heal, that
Speaker 3: you administer to in your perfect presence today.
Speaker 1: Thank you Lord.
Speaker 3: Right now, I want to give an invitation to someone
Speaker 3: who's been running from God. You've never made a decision
Speaker 3: to place your faith in Him, And maybe the message
Speaker 3: today was simply to let you know that you have
Speaker 3: a father in heaven who's never left your side. Maybe
Speaker 3: you thought you were too far gone. Maybe you thought
Speaker 3: the things that you've been through, the mistakes that you've made,
Speaker 3: made you unlovable, and that God couldn't find you there.
Speaker 3: But the word of the Lord for you today is
Speaker 3: that God's been there the whole time. And I want
Speaker 3: to give you an invitation to make a decision to
Speaker 3: surrender your life to Him. When you give your life
Speaker 3: to Jesus because of what He did for us on
Speaker 3: the cross, when he died for the forgiveness of our sin,
Speaker 3: It wiped the slate clean his His death on the
Speaker 3: cross is what makes you righteous because of what he did.
Speaker 1: And the Bible says that.
Speaker 3: If you are in Christ, one day, you're going to
Speaker 3: get the heaven up and you're going to stand before God,
Speaker 3: and God's not going to bring up all the mistakes
Speaker 3: you made. He's gonna look at you and say, well done,
Speaker 3: good and faithful servant.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be like God.
Speaker 3: You left some things out and he said no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: Well done, good and faithful servant. Not because of anything
Speaker 3: we've done, but because of His grace, his mercy, and
Speaker 3: the work of Jesus on the cross. If you've been
Speaker 3: far from God, you've been running, you've been hiding, you've
Speaker 3: been pretending. But today is your day to come into
Speaker 3: a relationship with your heavenly Father, who knows you, created you,
Speaker 3: and loved you.
Speaker 1: I want to give you.
Speaker 3: An invitation to receive the gift of His grace and mercy.
Speaker 3: We're gonna pray out loud together as a church family
Speaker 3: today for the benefit of those who are making the
Speaker 3: decision to come to Christ. Can we pray together with
Speaker 3: heads bowed and eyes closed, repeat out there me say,
Speaker 3: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
Speaker 3: and the savior of the world.
Speaker 1: I believe he died and rose again to forgive my.
Speaker 3: Sin and give me life. I receive your grace by faith,
Speaker 3: Come into my life and make me new.
Speaker 1: Head still bowed, eyes still close.
Speaker 3: If you just made that decision today, when I count
Speaker 3: the three, would you throw your hand up in the air.
Speaker 3: I want to celebrate the work the Lord has done
Speaker 3: in your life today.
Speaker 1: Don't hesitate even online.
Speaker 3: Let us know in the chat at other campuses. Shoot
Speaker 3: your hand up in the air there too, one, two, three.
Speaker 3: If that was for you today, hands up in the air, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Praise the Lord.
Speaker 3: God bless you, God bless you. Yeah, keep your hand up,
Speaker 3: God bless you. Us are awesome coming around with the
Speaker 3: gifts for you.
Speaker 2: Hey, I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and if you did,
Speaker 2: make sure to share it and subscribe so we can
Speaker 2: get you all of these new messages as soon as
Speaker 2: they're available. I also want to take a moment and
Speaker 2: thank all of you who are a part of Elevation.
Speaker 2: Whether you support us financially, or serve with us, or
Speaker 2: just share these messages, it's because of you that we're
Speaker 2: able to reach people all around the world. And if
Speaker 2: you want more information on how to be a part
Speaker 2: of Elevation, click the link in the description. Thanks again
Speaker 2: for listening. Make sure to leave a review, share the message,
Speaker 2: and subscribe. God bless you.