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: In Romans chapter one, verse twenty five. There's a scripture
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about for quite a while now, and
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to the opportunity to preach it,
Speaker 1: and this weekend Live as the appropriate time. And God
Speaker 1: has really been using it this weekend. You're not the
Speaker 1: first group that I've seen this weekend, and yet I
Speaker 1: believe that God has saved the best for last and
Speaker 1: that He desires the minister to you in a specific
Speaker 1: way today. And I'll read this verse and this will
Speaker 1: give you the premise for our message. And it's found
Speaker 1: in Romans chapter one, verse twenty five. It says that
Speaker 1: they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and
Speaker 1: worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator who
Speaker 1: is forever praised Amen. They exchanged the truth about God
Speaker 1: for a lie. And as people say that the Bible
Speaker 1: is not relevant to today's culture. But let me read
Speaker 1: this again. It sounds like it was written on Twitter
Speaker 1: last night. They exchanged the truth about God for a
Speaker 1: lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.
Speaker 1: Have you ever got your priorities mixed up and started
Speaker 1: serving something that God gave to you and forgotten about
Speaker 1: the God who gave it. And that's what happened. They
Speaker 1: exchanged the truth of God for a lie and began
Speaker 1: to serve created things rather than the Creator who is
Speaker 1: forever praised. Amen. The subject heading I want to use
Speaker 1: today is trading truth, and I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you on this topic Trading truth. Lord, I thank you
Speaker 1: that your word is truth. Illuminate it now and help
Speaker 1: us to receive it with courage to obey it. In Jesus' name, Amen,
Speaker 1: you may be seated, God bless you. I lie to
Speaker 1: my kids sometimes you have to do it. Sometimes, you
Speaker 1: know what we're all doing in there were taking a nap.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just for their own while it was the
Speaker 1: door locked safety dangerous criminals. You have to do it sometimes.
Speaker 1: Don't look at me judgmentally. If you never lied to
Speaker 1: your kids, you haven't had them yet. But sometimes it's
Speaker 1: really a matter of survival. And even a few days ago,
Speaker 1: we were at the beach for the kid's spring break
Speaker 1: and they had talked me out into the ocean. They
Speaker 1: talked me out of the hot tub into the ocean.
Speaker 1: I'm too old for this crap. It was a fifty
Speaker 1: one degrees outside. But I'm hey, hey, I'm Dad of
Speaker 1: the year. Don't worry about it. Already got the title.
Speaker 1: I'm Dad of the Year. I went out in that
Speaker 1: cold ocean with all three kids, and Abby was hanging
Speaker 1: onto my arm the whole time, just every time. It
Speaker 1: was really it was a really rough ocean, but it
Speaker 1: made it kind of fun until until it wasn't fun anymore.
Speaker 1: You know how it is when you're kind of playing out,
Speaker 1: you're kind of stepping further and further out, and you
Speaker 1: don't even know how far, how far out you've gotten,
Speaker 1: and then you kind of get carried away, and you
Speaker 1: don't really realize how far you've been carried away until
Speaker 1: you're looking and kind of look at the original point
Speaker 1: where you were, which would be a whole sermon in itself,
Speaker 1: but that's not what I want to preach about. What
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell you is we're kind of getting
Speaker 1: carried away, and then the undercurrent got really strong and
Speaker 1: started just pulling all of us, all four of us.
Speaker 1: The only one who had good enough sense to be
Speaker 1: in the house was Holly. She's not as committed to
Speaker 1: parenting and making memories as I am. She was on
Speaker 1: her phone, and I'm out there realizing in this moment, wait,
Speaker 1: nobody else is in the ocean. It's just us. Everybody
Speaker 1: who knows anything about safety in the water is inside.
Speaker 1: Right now, this is dangerous. And then it really got scary.
Speaker 1: I couldn't touch the bottom, and Abby's on my arm,
Speaker 1: and her being on my arm and is a problem.
Speaker 1: I can curl her all day long. She's very well
Speaker 1: below my curling maximum weight ability, trust me. But when
Speaker 1: she's on my arm and I can't touch, and then
Speaker 1: Graham jumps on my back and we're all simultaneously being pulled,
Speaker 1: and I realized, like, well, we're way further out than
Speaker 1: I intended us to be. And Abbey's on my arm
Speaker 1: and Graham's on my back, and I'm like, Graham, I
Speaker 1: love you, dude, but you got to swim right now.
Speaker 1: It's every verdict for himself right now. I need to
Speaker 1: take at least two of us back in the house
Speaker 1: for your mom. We start swimming back in. Abby's on
Speaker 1: my arm and Graham's swimming. Now Elijah's the bravest one.
Speaker 1: He's out way past all of us, and he's screaming
Speaker 1: at me to come get him or something, and I
Speaker 1: can't come get him. His sister's on my arm and
Speaker 1: she's my favorite. And so I was kidding, I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: but this calmness came over me, or at least I
Speaker 1: pretended that it did. I said, Elijah, it's fine, son,
Speaker 1: And secretly I'm looking at him, thinking this is our
Speaker 1: last time talking together, you know, But I knew I
Speaker 1: had to keep him swimming. It was just a leadership
Speaker 1: instinct that came over me. I'm like, it's fine, just
Speaker 1: swim You'll be fine. It's not that bad here where
Speaker 1: we are, if you can just get here. Meanwhile, I'm dying,
Speaker 1: you know. And so we made it. We made it
Speaker 1: back to the shore, aren't you glad? Thank you for
Speaker 1: praying me through. And then Elijah said something really funny
Speaker 1: to me. I thought this was really really profound. He's like,
Speaker 1: you didn't even seem scared. Were you not worried? About me.
Speaker 1: Were you were you just gonna let me stay out there?
Speaker 1: You know, of course I was. Your sisters only had
Speaker 1: eight years to live, You've had thirteen. And it was
Speaker 1: just but but I I think he was. I think
Speaker 1: he was amazed. He was like you, you just didn't
Speaker 1: even seem worried about it, And to which I told him, well, son,
Speaker 1: I was lying. I was lying for your own good.
Speaker 1: I knew if you knew how bad it was, you'd
Speaker 1: stop swimming. And so the best thing I could do
Speaker 1: for your survival was to lie to you. It's like
Speaker 1: a rahab lie. It's a lie for the purposes of God.
Speaker 1: Don't judge me. Don't judge me. But sometimes I lie
Speaker 1: to myself. It's a survival instinct. It's just that sometimes
Speaker 1: my feet can't find the bottom, and life gets a
Speaker 1: little bit turbulent, and I find myself drifting and in
Speaker 1: the new reality that I'm trying to embrace according to
Speaker 1: what God says, I am, sometimes what I used to
Speaker 1: be feels more solid, more stable, and more comfortable. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it's easier for me to lie to myself and
Speaker 1: tell myself a story. I got good at it, even
Speaker 1: as a little boy. It wasn't that my childhood was
Speaker 1: bad or anything like that. But all of us experience
Speaker 1: things in life that teach us to lie to ourselves.
Speaker 1: When we read a scripture like Romans chapter one, verse
Speaker 1: twenty five that says they exchange the truth about God
Speaker 1: for a lie, a part of us says, who would
Speaker 1: do that? Who would trade a perfectly good truth for
Speaker 1: a lie? And yet the fact is, there are some
Speaker 1: lies that we have learned so well that they feel
Speaker 1: true even more than the truth does. Can I preach
Speaker 1: like I've been out of the pulpit for three weeks
Speaker 1: and I've got something to say. I want to show
Speaker 1: you today an illustration from the life of Jesus, and
Speaker 1: I want to show you how sometimes the enemy doesn't
Speaker 1: sabotage your life with a lie. He tells you a
Speaker 1: truth and he twists it just enough. And I believe
Speaker 1: that the Lord desires to set us free today. But
Speaker 1: only by the truth can we be set free. You know,
Speaker 1: Jesus knew the truth because he was the truth. He
Speaker 1: knew the word of God because he was the word
Speaker 1: of God. And when the enemy came to Jesus and
Speaker 1: Matthew chapter four in the Wilderness to timptim. He made
Speaker 1: the crucial mistake with the son of God of debating
Speaker 1: the word of God. And it's a bad idea to
Speaker 1: debate the word of God with the word of God.
Speaker 1: John chapter one says, in the beginning was the Word,
Speaker 1: and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Speaker 1: He's not arguing with someone who knows about the Word
Speaker 1: of God. He is arguing with the embodiment of the
Speaker 1: Word of God. And it gives us a pure picture
Speaker 1: of the principle that is illustrated in Romans one twenty five,
Speaker 1: but only in reverse in Matthew chapter four, verse one.
Speaker 1: Our perspective is immediately challenged because it says that Jesus
Speaker 1: was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be
Speaker 1: tempted by the devil. And that is a strange construct,
Speaker 1: that Jesus was led by God to be tempted by
Speaker 1: the devil. If you've been told that God won't lead
Speaker 1: you into difficult situations, you've been lied to. If you've
Speaker 1: ever been told, or it's ever been implied or inferred,
Speaker 1: that the will of God will always lead to the
Speaker 1: path of least resistance, you've been lied to. If you've
Speaker 1: ever been told that The proof of the favor of
Speaker 1: God on your life is that situations become less difficult
Speaker 1: and more agreeable. You've been lied to because Jesus, before
Speaker 1: his ministry was fully announced, was led into the wilderness
Speaker 1: to be tempted by the devil. And yet I want
Speaker 1: us to see that this passage is as much about
Speaker 1: trust as it is about temptation. Now let me say
Speaker 1: this real quickly. It's not the truth that you can quote,
Speaker 1: it's not the truth that you know mentally, but it
Speaker 1: is the truth that you do that guides your life
Speaker 1: to its ultimate outcome. I will never forget watching y'all
Speaker 1: when I was a kid with the Jane fond to
Speaker 1: work Out DVDs, eating a bowl of ice cream watching
Speaker 1: the Jane Fond to work Out DVDs. And when I asked,
Speaker 1: why aren't you doing the DVDs? I'm only like eight
Speaker 1: years old and my mom and dad are eating briars
Speaker 1: watching Jane Fonda. They said, well, we've got to know
Speaker 1: what to do before we can do it. But sometimes
Speaker 1: if you would do what you knew, I might kid
Speaker 1: at work after fasting forty days and forty nights, he
Speaker 1: was hungry. I nominate this for most obvious verse in
Speaker 1: the Bible. The Tempter came to him at his weakest moment.
Speaker 1: The tempter came to him in the area of his appetite.
Speaker 1: The tempter came to him at a place of great
Speaker 1: vulnerability and said, if you are the son of God,
Speaker 1: tell these stones to become bred. And how many times
Speaker 1: in my life have I been tempted in this exact way.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing Jesus knew the truth. It's a
Speaker 1: good thing. Jesus had just been baptized by John and
Speaker 1: the Jordan River. It's just it's a good thing that
Speaker 1: Jesus had just heard his father say, this is my
Speaker 1: beloved son, and whom I am well pleased. It's a
Speaker 1: good thing he had just been told the truth, because
Speaker 1: when you just encountered truth, when when you know who
Speaker 1: you are, when you have a full understanding of who
Speaker 1: you are in God's eyes, you don't have to prove
Speaker 1: it in anybody else's how many times have I been
Speaker 1: susceptible to the temptation to prove who I am by
Speaker 1: what I do? But when you know that who you
Speaker 1: are is not dependent on what you do, your value
Speaker 1: is not assessed by others, then you don't have to
Speaker 1: post stuff to prove stuff. You're going to set somebody
Speaker 1: free today. You don't have to post stuff to prove
Speaker 1: stuff when you know the truth about it. And Jesus answered,
Speaker 1: it is written men shall not live on bread alone,
Speaker 1: but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Speaker 1: One of the hardest years of my life was twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: My dad was dying, our church was under heavy criticism
Speaker 1: in the media, and I was going through so many
Speaker 1: things at once. I felt like Rocky when he said,
Speaker 1: I don't know which one to hit. I see three
Speaker 1: of them out there, and they said hit the one
Speaker 1: in the middle. And there were so many things going
Speaker 1: on around me. I didn't know what to do. But
Speaker 1: it was really comforting to me that the things I
Speaker 1: had preached to you I was able to live off of.
Speaker 1: For me, the proof that something is true in your
Speaker 1: life is not that you can understand it or say
Speaker 1: amen to it, but that you can live on it.
Speaker 1: That you can live on it. Sometimes we're too impressed
Speaker 1: with cliches, and sometimes we think something is true just
Speaker 1: because it rhymes. You know. I found out in preaching
Speaker 1: sometimes you can make something rhyme and it can be
Speaker 1: totally totally opposite. You know, you can make something start
Speaker 1: with the same letter, curiosity killed the cat. That's good,
Speaker 1: meow amen. Actually, the original saying wasn't curiosity killed the cat.
Speaker 1: It was care killed the cat. And it was used
Speaker 1: to mean that they fed the cat too much and
Speaker 1: he died because he was too fat. They cared too much.
Speaker 1: And then they changed it from care meaning they over
Speaker 1: fed him to care he was too worried. So now
Speaker 1: it means that worry killed the cat. But then one
Speaker 1: day it just became curiosity killed the cat. Now there
Speaker 1: are no statistical evidences of dead felines based on inquisitive natures.
Speaker 1: But it just sounds good, And some stuff sounds good,
Speaker 1: but it ain't true. Just because it sounds good doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it is. Just because it rhymes, just because it
Speaker 1: is aligned with your life experience up to this point
Speaker 1: doesn't make it true. Just because it's the way it's
Speaker 1: always been for you and your mom and it doesn't
Speaker 1: make it true. And so then we get really bad
Speaker 1: advice and we say really bad things that it sounds
Speaker 1: good on the surface, but beneath them, they they're really
Speaker 1: bad belief systems. I thought about calling this message. What's
Speaker 1: your BS for belief system? What's your belief system? And
Speaker 1: I wanted to call it that because that's what's driving
Speaker 1: your life. They they say live your truth. I heard
Speaker 1: that before. Live your truth. That's the important thing. Just
Speaker 1: live your truth. And it sounds good. But what if
Speaker 1: my truth is a trap? What if your truth isn't
Speaker 1: the truth? Do you have to stay stuck in a
Speaker 1: story and call it the truth. Let me go back
Speaker 1: to Matthew four. Jesus said it is written men shall
Speaker 1: not live on bread alone, but on every word that
Speaker 1: comes from the mouth of God. So then the devil
Speaker 1: he does something that I was very interested to study
Speaker 1: this out. And if I've preached on this passage ten
Speaker 1: times before, I apologize to the other ten that I
Speaker 1: never pointed this out because I never saw it. We
Speaker 1: always assume that the enemy comes to us with lies,
Speaker 1: and then we quote the word of God, which is
Speaker 1: the truth, and then the lies go away. Okay, fine, whatever,
Speaker 1: But many of us love God too much to just
Speaker 1: believe a lie if we see it as a lie,
Speaker 1: and so then what the enemy does is he presents
Speaker 1: you not with a lie, but with a truth. The
Speaker 1: next thing the enemy does to Jesus. Remember he's hungry.
Speaker 1: He's in a week in physical state. He's on the
Speaker 1: verge of three years of ministry that will shake the
Speaker 1: world and overturn the Roman Empire. He's in a period
Speaker 1: of preparation. He knows who he is. He not only
Speaker 1: knows truth, but he is truth. And so the enemy
Speaker 1: knows that the only way that he can fight truth
Speaker 1: is with truth. And I promise you I'm not just
Speaker 1: trying to be confusing. A lot of times, what the
Speaker 1: enemy will attack you with is a truth, a truth.
Speaker 1: And in this particular instance, the devil took him to
Speaker 1: the Holy City verse five and had him stand on
Speaker 1: the highest point of the temple. If you are the
Speaker 1: son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written.
Speaker 1: The enemy doesn't attack Jesus with a lie. He attacks
Speaker 1: him with a Bible. Verse he quotes to Jesus Psalm
Speaker 1: ninety one, verse eleven and twelve. He quotes the Word
Speaker 1: of God to the Word of God, for it is written.
Speaker 1: He will command his angels concerning you, and they will
Speaker 1: lift you up in their hands, so that you will
Speaker 1: not strike your foot against a stone. That's true, That's
Speaker 1: actually true. This is not made up. This is not imaginary.
Speaker 1: It is it is, It is the word of God,
Speaker 1: it is the truth. So here's what I'm realizing in
Speaker 1: my life. A lot of times I'm not deciding between
Speaker 1: a lie and the truth. A lot of times I'm
Speaker 1: stuck between two truths. One is the truth of my
Speaker 1: situation and one is the truth of my revelation. I
Speaker 1: told you, Holly, this was gonna be the best. One
Speaker 1: is the truth of what I'm going through, and the
Speaker 1: other is the truth of who's standing with me in
Speaker 1: the fire as I go through it. So I've got
Speaker 1: two truths. I've got two truths. And what Jesus said
Speaker 1: was so powerful. When the enemy tried to get him
Speaker 1: to turn the stones into bread, he said, it is
Speaker 1: written because he knew the temptation to turn something into
Speaker 1: something that it's not. A lot of times we try
Speaker 1: to do this with relationships. We try to turn them
Speaker 1: into something that they're not. We turn people into our God,
Speaker 1: and we need their approval more than we need God's approval.
Speaker 1: And then when they disappoint us, we lose our hope
Speaker 1: because we tried to turn stones into bread. You know,
Speaker 1: some of us try to turn money into security, but
Speaker 1: Your trust was never supposed to be in resources. Your
Speaker 1: trust was supposed to be in the one. Your help
Speaker 1: comes from the source. You were supposed to lift your
Speaker 1: eyes to him. Your trust was never supposed to be
Speaker 1: in the stuff. Your trust was supposed to be in
Speaker 1: the source. But when you don't know the truth of
Speaker 1: who you are, you will try to turn stones into bread,
Speaker 1: and you will try to live off of people's compliments.
Speaker 1: And then so you die by their criticism because you
Speaker 1: tried to turn it into what it was not. And
Speaker 1: you trade the truth for a lie, and you trade
Speaker 1: the truth of God's assessment of you for someone else's
Speaker 1: opinion of you, serving created things rather than the creator
Speaker 1: who has forever blessed a man. Roman's Won twenty five.
Speaker 1: I love what Jesus said. I never saw it before.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see this before? I appreciate it. In
Speaker 1: nine thirty I never saw it because first time he
Speaker 1: said it is written, But this time he said something different.
Speaker 1: He said, verse seven, it is also written. What's your
Speaker 1: just said? It's true, but I know something truer. It's
Speaker 1: true I made some mistakes in my life. But it's
Speaker 1: also true that my greatest mistake has the potential to
Speaker 1: become my greatest miracle. It's true, but it's also true.
Speaker 1: Somebody's shout it's also true. Come on, shout it from
Speaker 1: river Walk to Roanoke. It's also true, Paul said, I'm pressed.
Speaker 1: It's true, but I'm not crushed. See, I know how
Speaker 1: to stand between two truths. One is what I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: One is what I'm feeling. One is what the doctor said.
Speaker 1: One is what I'm experiencing. But it is also true. Crushed,
Speaker 1: I'm persecuted. It's true, but I'm not abandoned. It's also true.
Speaker 1: I'm struck down for a minute, but it's also true.
Speaker 1: I'm not destroyed. I'm lonely, but I'm not alone. I'm
Speaker 1: weak but he's strong. I'm poor but he's rich. I'm
Speaker 1: it is also written, I've got a better word on
Speaker 1: the situation. I did it, but I'm not it. I
Speaker 1: got a new truth. I got a new truth. I've
Speaker 1: got a new truth. That means I know the difference
Speaker 1: between my truth and my story. So when Jesus was
Speaker 1: fronted by the Jews, he had a conversation with them
Speaker 1: about truth, and it says that many of the Jews
Speaker 1: had believed in him because of what he did, but
Speaker 1: they didn't fully understand who he was, and they were
Speaker 1: putting their faith in him, but they were still attached
Speaker 1: to the old story. The old story. You know, the
Speaker 1: old story, the one you tell yourself about why people
Speaker 1: reject you. And you did it as a means of survival,
Speaker 1: because it is sometimes easier for you to reject yourself
Speaker 1: in advance than to put yourself out there and risk
Speaker 1: rejection again. So when you can't touch the bottom, you
Speaker 1: tell yourself a story for survival. It's called prejection. It's
Speaker 1: when instead of dealing with the reality of rejection and
Speaker 1: healing from it, you begin to tell yourself a story
Speaker 1: about how worthless you are. And now you stay alone,
Speaker 1: because to really be loved requires vulnerability for the sake
Speaker 1: of connection. So you would rather stay stuck in an
Speaker 1: old story then embrace a new truth. And Jesus said
Speaker 1: to the Jews who believed in him, watch this In
Speaker 1: John eight thirty two. He said, you will know the truth,
Speaker 1: and the truth will set you free. Now see the
Speaker 1: second part of that does not work without the first.
Speaker 1: You will know the truth. This is not a propositional statement.
Speaker 1: This doesn't mean you will be able to quote the truth.
Speaker 1: To know the truth is not to quote the truth.
Speaker 1: It's to trust in it. It's to trust in the truth.
Speaker 1: And what you trust in is what is true to you.
Speaker 1: What you trust in is what is true to you.
Speaker 1: That's why he wouldn't turn the stone to bread. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been a sin for him to do it.
Speaker 1: It would have been substitute. I don't live by that.
Speaker 1: I don't trust in that. That's not my truth. And
Speaker 1: when you know the truth, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: we think we know the truth better than we do.
Speaker 1: We think we know what other people are like because
Speaker 1: we've never traded truth with them. We think we know.
Speaker 1: We think we know what we would do if we
Speaker 1: were them. Sit down with a single mom. You know
Speaker 1: what you would do if you were them, You would
Speaker 1: have a pill addiction. You wouldn't make it out of
Speaker 1: bed in the morning. You wouldn't you wouldn't be strong
Speaker 1: enough to do it. Well, if I were them, well,
Speaker 1: i'll tell you what, right now, if I was running
Speaker 1: that elevation church, i'd do a few things differently. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll say that right now. So this is trading truth. Oh,
Speaker 1: it is written. It is also written Okay, I'm accepting it,
Speaker 1: but it's not It's not my truth. It's just my story.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can live in a story so long that
Speaker 1: you become a slave to it. Have you become a
Speaker 1: slave to your own story to the extent that you
Speaker 1: now think it's the truth? The Jews had Jesus said,
Speaker 1: you will know the truth, and the truth will set
Speaker 1: you free. And the next thing they said, the response
Speaker 1: that they had to that shows us just how embedded
Speaker 1: their identity had become in their story. Because you gotta remember,
Speaker 1: these are people who had spent four hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: years in Egypt as slaves making bricks without straw under Pharaoh.
Speaker 1: They had been taken captive by the Babylonians the Assyrians
Speaker 1: multiple times before Jesus came onto the sea, and when
Speaker 1: he said you will know the truth, and the truth
Speaker 1: will set you free, it offended them. So they looked
Speaker 1: back at him in verse thirty three and said, we
Speaker 1: are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.
Speaker 1: The same people who had spent centuries as slaves had
Speaker 1: told themselves a story that had become so true to
Speaker 1: them they no longer knew the difference a lot of
Speaker 1: times in my life, I've lied to myself so much
Speaker 1: that my lies became truer than my truth. It is
Speaker 1: pretty good. I don't willingly exchange the truth for a lie.
Speaker 1: It's just that certain lies I tell myself. I've learned
Speaker 1: a love. I like self pity. It's comfortable. It's my
Speaker 1: snuggie for my soul to feel sorry for myself. No
Speaker 1: one's checking on me, No one cares about me. You
Speaker 1: know why, because I don't want to check on anybody.
Speaker 1: So rather than face the fact of the truth that
Speaker 1: I'm not checking on anybody, I would rather tell myself
Speaker 1: the story that nobody's checking on me. I've never seen
Speaker 1: every collective head nod in the church like it just
Speaker 1: happened at Valentine. When you become a slave to your story,
Speaker 1: you die a death between two truths. I'm preaching to
Speaker 1: somebody today who's standing between two truths. One is the
Speaker 1: old story, the way you always saw yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: if David had stayed stuck in his old story, he
Speaker 1: never would have thrown that stone at Glide's forehead, because
Speaker 1: the way his brothers saw him was, you're just down
Speaker 1: here to me, trouble and you didn't even get anybody
Speaker 1: to keep the sheep. There comes a time when you
Speaker 1: have to challenge your old stories so that the truth
Speaker 1: can set you free. They used to train us in
Speaker 1: evangelism that we would ask people, how do you know
Speaker 1: if you're going to heaven when you die? And when
Speaker 1: they said their answer, you were to ask them the
Speaker 1: follow up question, if you were wrong, would you want
Speaker 1: to know? What? A powerful question if the story you've
Speaker 1: been telling yourself about where you are and why you are,
Speaker 1: and what you can and what you can't remember the
Speaker 1: Israelites stayed stuck in the wilderness, not for forty days
Speaker 1: like Jesus was tempted forty days. They were there forty years,
Speaker 1: all because of the story they told themselves. They're bigger
Speaker 1: than us, They're stronger than us, they're greater than us.
Speaker 1: None of it was true. But when it becomes true
Speaker 1: to you, it will keep you stuck in you. You
Speaker 1: are not stuck in your reality, you're stuck in your story.
Speaker 1: But if the sun sets, you free. If you get
Speaker 1: this truth, you will be free. Indeed, so I want
Speaker 1: you to stand up on your feet right now, because
Speaker 1: the spirit of the Lord is in this place and
Speaker 1: where the Spirit is, there is freedom. Where the spirit
Speaker 1: of the Lord is, there is freedom. And the Spirit
Speaker 1: of the Lord is leading you today into the wilderness
Speaker 1: to set you free from the story you've been telling yourself,
Speaker 1: perhaps your whole life long. And I realize sometimes it's
Speaker 1: easier to tell yourself a story of why you fail,
Speaker 1: and tell yourself a story that you're a disappointment, because
Speaker 1: then you don't have to actually step out and try,
Speaker 1: because you've already told yourself a story that I'm a disappointment.
Speaker 1: But that's why Jesus went into the wildlderness, not only
Speaker 1: to be tempted by the devil, but to rewrite a story.
Speaker 1: What Moses couldn't do in forty years, Jesus did in
Speaker 1: forty days. He wasn't just fasting, he was directing a
Speaker 1: new story. The Gospel is a new story. The Cross
Speaker 1: is a new ending. And you don't have to turn
Speaker 1: stones into bread, and you don't have to trade truth
Speaker 1: for lies, and you don't have to own the story
Speaker 1: that you were handed if it does not match the
Speaker 1: reality of what God has spoken. Not another day, and
Speaker 1: we say things that locate us and let us know
Speaker 1: that we've embraced our story and turned it into truth.
Speaker 1: And something happens and we say us the story of
Speaker 1: my life. This is the story of my life. This
Speaker 1: is the story of my life. You need a new editor.
Speaker 1: You've been letting the enemy edit the story of your life.
Speaker 1: But it is also written. It is also written, this
Speaker 1: tension between two truths. What I feel in, what I know,
Speaker 1: what I was, and what I'm becoming. This tension between
Speaker 1: two truths is exactly how faith grows. I've been waiting
Speaker 1: to preach this message for a year and a half,
Speaker 1: and today was the day that God wanted me to
Speaker 1: preach it, perhaps so that you could hear it and
Speaker 1: be set free from your old story. Are you trapped
Speaker 1: in an old truth when God has given you a
Speaker 1: new one, a higher one, a greater one. You know
Speaker 1: the Law was true, all of sin and fall in
Speaker 1: short of the glory of God. But in Jesus was
Speaker 1: given grace and truth. Both are true. I don't deserve
Speaker 1: the blessings of God. Nothing I could do could earn it.
Speaker 1: But it is also written that I am the righteousness
Speaker 1: of God in Christ, through faith and helm. God brought
Speaker 1: you here today to give you a new truth and
Speaker 1: to receive your new truth, You're going to have to
Speaker 1: let go of your old story. You let go of
Speaker 1: that old story, you will know the truth, and the
Speaker 1: truth will set you free. With your head bowt and
Speaker 1: your eyes closed at every location, no one moving and
Speaker 1: disturbing this moment. What is the story that God needs
Speaker 1: to set you free from today? The key is your
Speaker 1: belief that it is also written and that the blood
Speaker 1: of Jesus has spoken a better word. There's a new covenant,
Speaker 1: a new baptism, a new reality. Father. I thank you
Speaker 1: for each person who you brought here today, whether they're
Speaker 1: physically in a church building or watching on their phone,
Speaker 1: whether tears are streaming down the face because they're facing
Speaker 1: a situation right now that's too great for them, or
Speaker 1: whether they're in a place in their life where they've
Speaker 1: actually accepted the lie and no longer even feels like
Speaker 1: a lie anymore. I pray that you would disturb those
Speaker 1: places of disbelief and dysfunction in our lives so that
Speaker 1: we can know the truth and be set free. We
Speaker 1: choose the unpredictability of freedom over the comfort and the
Speaker 1: certainty of slavery. Today we want to be set free.
Speaker 1: Thank you for telling us the truth. Thank you for
Speaker 1: speaking over our lives a true identity. I ask now
Speaker 1: Lord that in this moment, that you will speak your
Speaker 1: word in that personal way, whether it's an area of
Speaker 1: bitterness or resentment, or maybe it's something much more subtle
Speaker 1: than that, that we've been telling ourselves to keep ourselves
Speaker 1: in a cycle of failure. We believe that you have
Speaker 1: called us overcomers, and we will only overcome as we
Speaker 1: embrace that truth. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to those of you who give generously to this ministry.
Speaker 1: Is because of you that this ministry is possible. You
Speaker 1: can click the link in the description to give now
Speaker 1: or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
Speaker 1: and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You
Speaker 1: can share it with your friends. You can click the
Speaker 1: share button, take a screenshot and share it on your
Speaker 1: social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. God bless you.