Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast and I wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you.
Speaker 1: Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective
Speaker 1: to see God has moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Welcome to all of our locations, and we trust that
Speaker 1: God's presence will be powerful wherever you are. And I
Speaker 1: really mean that, and that's kind of what my sermon's
Speaker 1: about today as well. So listen to this. In Genesis
Speaker 1: chapter thirty four, verse thirty then Jacob said to Simeon
Speaker 1: and LEVI, you have brought trouble on me by making
Speaker 1: me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Parisites, the people living
Speaker 1: in this land. We are few in number, and if
Speaker 1: they join forces against me and attack me, I and
Speaker 1: my household will be destroyed. Now go to Genesis thirty five,
Speaker 1: verse eleven, and God said to him, I am God Almighty,
Speaker 1: be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a
Speaker 1: community of nations will come from you, and kings will
Speaker 1: be among your descendants. The n IV eighty four says
Speaker 1: kings will come from your body. So I want to
Speaker 1: preach for a moment, and God told me to tell
Speaker 1: you this. It's always been in you. It's always been
Speaker 1: in you. God, what you showed me was so amazing,
Speaker 1: and I asked for your help now that I could
Speaker 1: share it with them, these people that you love, this
Speaker 1: church that you're building. I pray, Lord, not that I
Speaker 1: might just preach good, but that they would hear good.
Speaker 1: Don't just annoint me to preach, anoint them to listen
Speaker 1: with their heart. You have our attention, and we are
Speaker 1: excited to see what the outcome will be. For the
Speaker 1: grass withers and the flower fades, but your word, Lord
Speaker 1: stands forever, and we thank you that the ingrafted word
Speaker 1: is able to save our souls. And as the rainfalls
Speaker 1: from the heaven and waters the earth and causes it
Speaker 1: to butd and flourish, so shall your word be that
Speaker 1: proceeds from your mouth, It will not return to you void.
Speaker 1: This time will not be wasted. It will accomplish the
Speaker 1: purpose for which you scent it. And we agree together
Speaker 1: in Jesus' name, everybody say amen, Amen, may be seated.
Speaker 1: I'd like to show you something before we get into
Speaker 1: all this deep theological stuff from my oldest son's YouTube channel. Now.
Speaker 1: One reason I'm doing this, it just makes me the
Speaker 1: coolest dat in the world to be able to give
Speaker 1: my son a YouTube shout out for thousands of people.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take advantage of that. But he has
Speaker 1: this YouTube channel, do the dash. He's a beat maker,
Speaker 1: a producer. He's good. He's good. One of my friends,
Speaker 1: who is a producer, said, you need to know his
Speaker 1: beats actually slap because I grew up on rock music,
Speaker 1: and I said they do. He said, they actually do.
Speaker 1: And I was proud of him because recently he decided
Speaker 1: he didn't just want to make beats, but he wanted
Speaker 1: to do some tutorials. I thought that's cool, and you
Speaker 1: kind of wonder will he do it or not, and
Speaker 1: he's been doing it. I'm so proud of you. Man,
Speaker 1: he's got He's done two tutorials now and I'm proud
Speaker 1: of me. Check it out. I'll show you just a
Speaker 1: little snippet of one of his tutorials. Copy that over
Speaker 1: command be to do that. I'm gonna aut an open
Speaker 1: eye real quick to give it a little bit more
Speaker 1: bounce pan. It fixed the panting a little bit. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pull up the classic z A eight O eight
Speaker 1: for my kid. All right, so I'm gonna reverse the polarity,
Speaker 1: turn the EQ up, and then turn the out knob
Speaker 1: up a little bit. Amazing. Let's do the dash on YouTube.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what any of that that he
Speaker 1: said meant. And I'm a musical guy, but different generation.
Speaker 1: We did find something the other day. We had the
Speaker 1: best time for this YouTube channel that we didn't know existed.
Speaker 1: We're Holly ten years ago. I used to post videos
Speaker 1: of the kids, and I don't know why we thought
Speaker 1: that was a good idea for her to post some
Speaker 1: of these because some of them are really just kind
Speaker 1: of private. I mean not, it's just stuff that I'm like.
Speaker 1: We posted this publicly, but we had the best time
Speaker 1: watching it with the kids, just to show them stuff.
Speaker 1: And here's here's one that we found. I want to
Speaker 1: show you this from ten years ago. But job, I
Speaker 1: went back to beat for a measure. I know you
Speaker 1: figure and I went back into the beat for another measure.
Speaker 1: He was making tutorials. It's always been in you. It
Speaker 1: was with you on that trash drum set, just like
Speaker 1: it's with you on these trap beats. And the same kid.
Speaker 1: That's the same kid that's wailing on this symbol and
Speaker 1: now he's reverse polarizing a high hat or whatever the
Speaker 1: crap he said about the eight oh eights. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's always been in you. And I joke a lot
Speaker 1: about having kids, you know, and it's so hard, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to kill them, and if when they're
Speaker 1: old they will not depart from it. But if that
Speaker 1: only happens if I don't kill him first Lord, you know,
Speaker 1: I joke. I love it. It's my main job. I'm
Speaker 1: a better I'm a way better dad than I am
Speaker 1: a pastor. I promise you that's my number one job.
Speaker 1: But I showed you that because what often happens that
Speaker 1: I think is one of my primary responsibilities as a
Speaker 1: parent is to make sure that what's in him that
Speaker 1: God put there gets out and that nobody puts anything
Speaker 1: on him that causes him to forget or diminish what
Speaker 1: God put in him. The rhythm has always been in you,
Speaker 1: and what you do with it is up to you.
Speaker 1: What you do with it is up to you. Getting
Speaker 1: to watch Jacob grow up, the Bible character Jacob, you
Speaker 1: get to see this is a rare thing, the sonogram
Speaker 1: of the patriarch through which the whole nation of Israel came.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a real gift that we get
Speaker 1: to see that Jacob was even wrestling in his mother's womb.
Speaker 1: And then we get to see him at age seventy
Speaker 1: seven running from his brother Esau, who he had been
Speaker 1: in competition with his whole life. We get to see
Speaker 1: him reconcile with Esau at age ninety seven after twenty
Speaker 1: years of hiding with his uncle Laybin, having a family.
Speaker 1: It's a lot that we get to see. And he
Speaker 1: has finally made it to Canaan. Let's clap for Jacob that,
Speaker 1: after all he went through, he finally made it to Canaan. Oh,
Speaker 1: come on, you clap better for somebody who lost five pounds.
Speaker 1: He made it to Canaan. He made it to Canaan.
Speaker 1: He made it to the Promised Land, that's what Canaan
Speaker 1: has called. He made it all the way to Canaan,
Speaker 1: which is really remarkable because of the fact that along
Speaker 1: the way to Canaan, where God was bringing him back to,
Speaker 1: he had to deal with so many I mean, Jacob
Speaker 1: talk about pressure. Jacob is the grandson of Abraham, not
Speaker 1: like the son of a pastor, the son of the
Speaker 1: progenitor of the faith of multiple religions. Make something of
Speaker 1: your self, kid. And from the time that he comes
Speaker 1: out of the womb, named Jacob, because Jacob means to
Speaker 1: grasp or to supplant, and he's trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that he gets out ahead of his hairy brother Esau,
Speaker 1: his red brother Esau, this beat red beast of a man, Esau,
Speaker 1: who is trained in the ways of warfare, but he
Speaker 1: can't quite do it, so he comes out second, but
Speaker 1: he tricks his way into being first. And I was
Speaker 1: watching Tim last night. He's preaching a remix of some
Speaker 1: sermons I did about Jacob back in twenty thirteen. Is
Speaker 1: so fun watching you preach him. I love it because
Speaker 1: he's going to through all the stuff right. How Jacob
Speaker 1: got Esau to give him is his birthright for a
Speaker 1: bowl of stew. There are no beans in the world
Speaker 1: that delicious. There's no beans in the world, but you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised what you'll trade when you're tired. And Esau, famished,
Speaker 1: came in from the field one day and as we
Speaker 1: like to say in preaching terms, he gave up what
Speaker 1: he wanted most for what he wanted. Now. The only
Speaker 1: problem with Jacob's plan was that Esau was good with weapons,
Speaker 1: and Jacob was good with an apron. The Bible says
Speaker 1: that he was a good cook, but Esau was a killer.
Speaker 1: So let's do a paper rock, scissors, sword beat spatula
Speaker 1: every time. And and Jacob's mother said to him, you've
Speaker 1: got to get up and go to Padana Ram and
Speaker 1: stay with my uncle. When Esau finds out what you'd
Speaker 1: he's gonna kill you. Now, this is not the bowl
Speaker 1: of beans. This this is the blessing that Jacob stole.
Speaker 1: Because Jacob went into his father Isaac dressed up pretending
Speaker 1: to be Esau, and he got a blessing from his father.
Speaker 1: And when he got the blessing from his father pretending
Speaker 1: to be Esau, it was the kind of blessing that
Speaker 1: can come from people. But it leads something internal unsettled
Speaker 1: and had sent him in the direction of running. For
Speaker 1: twenty years of his life. While he was with his
Speaker 1: uncle Laban, some interesting things happen. He tried to marry
Speaker 1: a girl named Rachel, but Laban did a I guess
Speaker 1: you would call it a switcher root and put Leah.
Speaker 1: Now Leah is the sister of Rachel. She's the older one,
Speaker 1: and she's the one with the good personality, as we
Speaker 1: say in the sequels, and Rachel is beautiful and he marries.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to preach on this because I've already
Speaker 1: preached on this before, but I'm just trying to give
Speaker 1: you some background of all that Jacob has been through
Speaker 1: to get to this point, because he worked seven years
Speaker 1: to have Rachel in marriage, ended up with Leah on
Speaker 1: his wedding night, and then had to work seven more
Speaker 1: years for Rachel and he did it. And then he
Speaker 1: stayed six more years, So that's twenty years at his
Speaker 1: uncle's house. And now God has called him back to
Speaker 1: the land of Canaan, and against all odds, he made it.
Speaker 1: He made it. Not only did he make it to Canaan,
Speaker 1: but check this out, he has reconciled with his brother Esau.
Speaker 1: In Genesis thirty two, Jacob realizes that before he can
Speaker 1: go back to Canaan and really settle, he has to reconcile,
Speaker 1: or in his mind, he has to pacified his brother Esau.
Speaker 1: But it's the craziest thing because when he finally meets
Speaker 1: up with Esau. Esau isn't even mad about it anymore.
Speaker 1: Esau's like, come on, bring it in, let's hug it out. Jacob,
Speaker 1: it's good to see you. Look how blessed I am.
Speaker 1: Look how blessed you are. Because the real struggle of
Speaker 1: Jacob's life was never with his brother. Now let's put
Speaker 1: everything in context. He escaped from Laban, who was chasing
Speaker 1: him because Laban was upset about Jacob outwitting him. He's
Speaker 1: reconciled with Esau, and now he's finally made it to Canaan.
Speaker 1: And he arrives at this place called shake him. Everybody says,
Speaker 1: sheck them. And when he gets there, he takes one
Speaker 1: hundred pieces of silver and pays for a plot of
Speaker 1: ground and puts up a tent so he can stay
Speaker 1: in Schhem. And no sooner can he make it to Canaan.
Speaker 1: Then a tragedy strikes in his own family when day
Speaker 1: his daughter Dinah, the one that he had with Leah,
Speaker 1: goes out exploring in the town of Shechem, and one
Speaker 1: of the men of the town, it was actually the
Speaker 1: son of the leader. His name was Haymoor. This young
Speaker 1: man's name was Shechem. He took her and raped her.
Speaker 1: And when the news of this reaches Jacob, he doesn't
Speaker 1: know what to do because he's in a strange place.
Speaker 1: He's in a strange place, and I feel for him
Speaker 1: in this moment because he's had to run from so
Speaker 1: much to get here, and the Bible says he makes
Speaker 1: it safely to Canaan, the place of the promise, only
Speaker 1: to be struck by what I call a promised land problem.
Speaker 1: The reason I call it that is because when he
Speaker 1: arrives in Canaan, where God had ask him, something so
Speaker 1: terrible happens within his own family. And this is where
Speaker 1: I want to break away from the narrative and preach
Speaker 1: to somebody, because often you get to a place, a
Speaker 1: place that you imagined in your mind. Maybe it's an age,
Speaker 1: a stage of life, a certain type of success, a
Speaker 1: certain accomplishment, a certain achievement, something that you got to
Speaker 1: that you worked really hard for. And no sooner can
Speaker 1: you pay for it with a hundred pieces of silver
Speaker 1: and put your tent up, than disaster strikes your very
Speaker 1: own family and threatens to destroy what means the most
Speaker 1: to you. Now, when Jacob's sons heard about it, particularly
Speaker 1: his sons, Reuben and Levi, or Simeon and Levi. They
Speaker 1: both decided to take matters into their own hands. Because
Speaker 1: their sister had been defiled and because they were greatly outnumbered,
Speaker 1: they decided that the only way for them to defeat
Speaker 1: their enemy was to make their enemy vulnerable. So they
Speaker 1: used something that was a part of their own covenant
Speaker 1: with God called circumcision against their enemy. And they told
Speaker 1: the men of the city, Okay, look, you can keep
Speaker 1: Dinah and we'll settle with you, and we'll intermarry with you.
Speaker 1: They were lying, and we'll share with you all the
Speaker 1: sheep and all the flocks and all the herds, and
Speaker 1: you can marry our women. But first you got to
Speaker 1: do the thing that our people do to signify our
Speaker 1: covenant with God, and be circumcised. And they did it
Speaker 1: all the men of the city. I mean, Shechem must
Speaker 1: have been very convincing because he got all the males
Speaker 1: in the town to go through this procedure. Come on, y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all wouldn't even join the church if I made you
Speaker 1: take a class. They got circumcised, and on the third day,
Speaker 1: during their recovery, Simeon and Levi snuck in and killed
Speaker 1: all the males of the city. And so now Jacob
Speaker 1: is in Canaan, but he's still in danger. It's a
Speaker 1: tricky thing because he's where God was leading him all along,
Speaker 1: but he's not safe anymore. Or maybe we would say
Speaker 1: this for our context. He's an adult, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: feel very adultish. He's a leader, but he doesn't feel
Speaker 1: very certain of his own direction. He's in the place
Speaker 1: where God had promised not only him, but his father
Speaker 1: and his father's father, and he's in great danger. So
Speaker 1: then he says something to his sons. I want to
Speaker 1: read it to you again, now that you know the
Speaker 1: context what he said. Jacob said to Simeon and Levi,
Speaker 1: verse thirty, you have brought trouble on me. On top
Speaker 1: of all of the pressure that Jacob has to be
Speaker 1: the father of the tribes of Israel, to be the
Speaker 1: one through which God would continue the seed of his
Speaker 1: promise to bless the entire earth, on top of all
Speaker 1: of that, now he is dealing with the consequences of
Speaker 1: somebody else's decision. He's got a lot on him. In fact,
Speaker 1: he says, you have put all this trouble on me.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had somebody download their drama on you.
Speaker 1: And this is tricky because did his sons do the
Speaker 1: right thing? Did his sons do the wrong thing? Were
Speaker 1: they right to fight back? Or were they dumb to
Speaker 1: attack somebody they didn't have to strength to defend against.
Speaker 1: And Jacob doesn't know. And he's in Canaan, but he's
Speaker 1: not safe. And he's in the place God promised him,
Speaker 1: but he's now in the greatest danger of his life,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't know what to do, and he's got
Speaker 1: a lot on him. Not only is it the fear
Speaker 1: of the Canaanites that they might hear about him and
Speaker 1: attack him, but it is the decision of what to
Speaker 1: do next. And I want you to see what God
Speaker 1: told him to do in Genesis thirty five to one.
Speaker 1: And I really want to start preaching my sermon now
Speaker 1: because this is what God said to do. Then God
Speaker 1: said to Jacob, go up to Bethel and settle there
Speaker 1: and build an altar there to God who appeared to
Speaker 1: you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau. So
Speaker 1: Jacob said to his household and to all who were
Speaker 1: with him, get rid of the foreign gods you have
Speaker 1: with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come,
Speaker 1: let us go to Bethel, where I will build an
Speaker 1: altar to God, who answered me in the day of
Speaker 1: my distress, and who has been with me wherever I
Speaker 1: have gone. So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods
Speaker 1: they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob
Speaker 1: buried them under the oak at Shechem. And they set out,
Speaker 1: and the terror of God fell on the towns all
Speaker 1: around them, so that no one pursued them. Jacob and
Speaker 1: all the people with him came to us, that is Bethel,
Speaker 1: in the land of Canaan, and there he built an altar,
Speaker 1: and he called the place El Bethel. This means the
Speaker 1: house of God, because it was there that God revealed
Speaker 1: himself when he was fleeing from his brother. Now Deborah,
Speaker 1: Rebecca's nurse, died and was buried under the oak outside Bethel,
Speaker 1: so it was named Alan Bakouth. And after Jacob returned
Speaker 1: from Padanna Ram God appeared to him again and blessed him.
Speaker 1: God said to him, your name's Jacob, but you will
Speaker 1: no longer be called Jacob. Your name will be Israel.
Speaker 1: So he named him Israel. God said to him, I
Speaker 1: am God Almighty, be fruitful and increase in number. A
Speaker 1: nation and a community of nations will come from you,
Speaker 1: and kings will come from your body. What confused me
Speaker 1: about this passage was that Jacob has been to Bethel before.
Speaker 1: The First time he went to Bethel, he was running
Speaker 1: from his brother. This time he's going back to Bethel
Speaker 1: at the instruction of God. So it's different this time.
Speaker 1: It's different this time. You know, we encourage you as
Speaker 1: a pastor, when you're in an uncertain situation, go back
Speaker 1: and revisit all the things that God already did for
Speaker 1: you in previous seasons of your life. Maybe God brings
Speaker 1: you back to Bethel sometimes just to remind you of
Speaker 1: when you killed it when you're struggling, and maybe God
Speaker 1: brings you back to Bethel sometimes to remind you of
Speaker 1: things that you accomplished that really defy your educational background
Speaker 1: or your pedigree, or anything that you were taught or
Speaker 1: trained to do. Maybe God brings you back to Bethel
Speaker 1: sometimes to remember all the ways that you even surprised yourself. Wow,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that I could do that. But
Speaker 1: see the more I meditated on it, I realized that
Speaker 1: that wasn't really what Bethel meant to Jacob because the
Speaker 1: first time he went to Bethel, he was scared to death.
Speaker 1: So now Jacob is in a place in his life
Speaker 1: where he's never been more uncertain, and God leads him
Speaker 1: back to a place where he had never been more uncertain.
Speaker 1: And when he is in need of the greatest faith,
Speaker 1: God takes him back to the place of his greatest fear.
Speaker 1: The first time that Jacob went to Bethel, he had
Speaker 1: no idea what would happen next. His brother wants to
Speaker 1: kill him. His uncle is someone that he has never
Speaker 1: been exposed to. He's only heard about. Jacob is seventy
Speaker 1: seven years old the first time that he goes to
Speaker 1: Padonna Rahm and stops through a place called Bethel. Bethel
Speaker 1: was not a place where Jacob shouted and danced. Jacob
Speaker 1: was not in Bethel feeling goosebumps. Jacob was not in
Speaker 1: Bethel singing praise songs. Jacob was in Bethel wondering will
Speaker 1: I make it? And so now God says, in the
Speaker 1: season of your life, and I'm appreaciing to somebody where
Speaker 1: you have no idea how you have enough to defend
Speaker 1: yourself from the attack. That's happening, cause you've got a
Speaker 1: lot on you right now. You've got a lot on you.
Speaker 1: Some of it is your fault, some of it is
Speaker 1: decisions that others have made, and none of it is
Speaker 1: anything that you have ever experienced. Because you are the
Speaker 1: oldest that you've ever been, and you have never progressed
Speaker 1: through this season of your life, this stage of your development.
Speaker 1: You have never been through this emotional place before. So
Speaker 1: now what does God do? He doesn't call you back
Speaker 1: to the place where you felt the greatest faith. He
Speaker 1: calls you back to the place where you felt the
Speaker 1: greatest fear. But you made it anyway to remind you
Speaker 1: what it really felt like when God revealed himself to you,
Speaker 1: because we whitewash our understanding of what it means to
Speaker 1: remember what God did you know? I wonder, do you
Speaker 1: remember how it really felt at certain stages in your life,
Speaker 1: like close your eyes, let's go to Bethel, because we
Speaker 1: can't go to a place. We're not going to load
Speaker 1: up the church vans or anything like that. There's too
Speaker 1: many of y'all in your two spread out, so close
Speaker 1: your eyes. We got to go to Bethel, but we
Speaker 1: got to go in our imagination remember the time, anytime
Speaker 1: you want. I got enough to choose from. I've got
Speaker 1: an entire cafeteria of times to choose from. When you
Speaker 1: thought you wouldn't make it, I'm not gonna make it
Speaker 1: another day, I'm not gonna I'm not There's no way
Speaker 1: forward for this. Okay. Remember, I'm not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make it. I'm not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: Like to me, I'm not going to make it. Up
Speaker 1: to the pulpit, I have nothing left to say. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna make it through this. Uh, through what I
Speaker 1: feel right now, I think i'm losing. Okay, right, you
Speaker 1: got it. You got it. And I know that for
Speaker 1: some of us it's a hard place to visit, But
Speaker 1: I want you to go there for just a moment.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make it. That's how Jacob felt the
Speaker 1: first time in Bethel, and he saw a vision while
Speaker 1: he was asleep, and he saw a ladder resting on
Speaker 1: the earth and reaching to the heaven, and the angels
Speaker 1: of God ascending and descending. Twenty years later, God calls
Speaker 1: him back to that same place called Bethel where he
Speaker 1: thought he wouldn't make it. And you thought you wouldn't
Speaker 1: make it. On the inside, everything was telling you you're
Speaker 1: not going to make it. You're not going to make it.
Speaker 1: Open your eyes. You did. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you did. And Jacob is now instructed to build an
Speaker 1: altar in the place of his greatest fear. And that's
Speaker 1: where God calls you to build an altar and to
Speaker 1: believe him, to believe him in Bethel. In fact, one
Speaker 1: time the scripture calls God the God of Bethel. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if I like that, because Bethel is scary.
Speaker 1: Bethel is when you don't though. Bethel is the place
Speaker 1: where you can't figure it out and all you have
Speaker 1: is faith. God said, I'm the God of Bethel. That's
Speaker 1: where my house is. That's where my habitation is. That's
Speaker 1: where I live, That's where I reveal, that's where I
Speaker 1: show myself. That's where you get to know me. I'm
Speaker 1: the God of Bethel. And Jacob is afraid, and God says,
Speaker 1: I want you to go back to the place you
Speaker 1: were most afraid and build and alter there because if
Speaker 1: you don't, what's on you is going to cause you
Speaker 1: to forget what's in you. So I need you to go.
Speaker 1: Somebody say it's always been in me. It's always been
Speaker 1: in me. I need you to go to the place
Speaker 1: where you didn't think you would make it. I want
Speaker 1: you to go to the place where you didn't know
Speaker 1: what was next. I need you to go to the
Speaker 1: place where you realized where. And this is the crazy
Speaker 1: thing about Bethel, right like, this might be your Bethel
Speaker 1: right now. What you are going through right now might
Speaker 1: be the place that you go back to in the
Speaker 1: future when your family needs to know that God is
Speaker 1: a promise keeper and that God is a waymaker. So
Speaker 1: I need to teach you about a concept. This is
Speaker 1: not a pop culture concept. It's the concept of covenant.
Speaker 1: Everybody say covenant. Jacob isn't just going off of a
Speaker 1: good feeling. Jacob isn't just going off of a track record.
Speaker 1: Jacob isn't going off of a fortune cookie. Jacob isn't
Speaker 1: going off off of an emotional hive. Jacob isn't going
Speaker 1: off of something that he got from a you know,
Speaker 1: Jacob's not going off of something that he read on
Speaker 1: one Bible verse of the day. He's a covenant. Say covenant. Now,
Speaker 1: in the Bible, a covenant can be first of all,
Speaker 1: it can be with another person. It can it can be.
Speaker 1: In the Bible, the context of marriage was not convenience.
Speaker 1: It was covenant. In the Bible, the context of my
Speaker 1: relationship with God was not my behavior, It was my
Speaker 1: covenant with him, covenant covenant. Jacob, Jacob is moving, not
Speaker 1: in certainty, he's moving in covenant with God. You know
Speaker 1: that the relationship that I have with God is not
Speaker 1: based on the same covenant that Jacob had. Jacob had
Speaker 1: a covenant with God that God will be with me,
Speaker 1: And that's awesome. How many thanks God that he's with you.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. But look what what happens on our end
Speaker 1: of the bargain. We can't keep that up. Oh, so
Speaker 1: you followed God perfectly through every season of your life.
Speaker 1: Of course, in the valley you faint. Of course, in
Speaker 1: the hard times you get led astray. Of course, your
Speaker 1: heart is drawn to other gods, to worship things that
Speaker 1: you can see instead of the God that you can't
Speaker 1: see or figure out. So God said in Jeremiah thirty one,
Speaker 1: this is what he said. In Jeremiah thirty one. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a different covenant. These days are coming,
Speaker 1: declares the Lord. When I will make a new covenant
Speaker 1: with the people of Israel and the people of Judah.
Speaker 1: I will be. It will not be like the covenant
Speaker 1: I made with their ancestors as Jacob, when I took
Speaker 1: them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt,
Speaker 1: because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband
Speaker 1: to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I
Speaker 1: will make with the people of Israel. At that time,
Speaker 1: declares the Lord. I will put my law in their
Speaker 1: minds and write it on their hearts. That's the inside
Speaker 1: for what the Law was powerless to do, in that
Speaker 1: it was weakened by the sinful nature. God did by
Speaker 1: sending his son Jesus in the like of sinful man.
Speaker 1: I don't have the Jacob covenant. I have the Jesus covenant.
Speaker 1: I have a covenant that whatever you put on me,
Speaker 1: God puts something in me that is greater than what
Speaker 1: you put on me. So I know you got a
Speaker 1: lot on you, But I came to preach there's something
Speaker 1: in you that has always been greater. Are you getting
Speaker 1: this revelation it's in me. When Jacob said God has
Speaker 1: always been with me, I know why he's been with you,
Speaker 1: because he's in you. So going back to the place
Speaker 1: means not allowing anything that someone puts on you. Do
Speaker 1: you know what Jacob had them do before they went
Speaker 1: back to Bethel. It's a very small detail, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if we caught it, but it's in Genesis
Speaker 1: thirty five three. First of all, he said, bring me
Speaker 1: everything that you picked up in Schechem that can't go
Speaker 1: with us into Bethel. All the idols, all right, And
Speaker 1: then I want you to bring me all the things
Speaker 1: that all even even down to the gold hearings. I
Speaker 1: don't even want you having gold that you'll be tempted
Speaker 1: to melt into an idol that will remind you of
Speaker 1: what you depended on that wasn't God. Down to the jewelry,
Speaker 1: and let's bury that. But before we go to Bethel,
Speaker 1: look at verse three. This is thirty five to three,
Speaker 1: and this is this is what he said. No, it
Speaker 1: must not be three, it must be something else. What
Speaker 1: is it? Two? I'll find it. I'll find it. I'll
Speaker 1: find it. I'll find it. I'll find it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in verse two. It's in verse two. He said, change
Speaker 1: your clothes. Don't worry. This is as far down as
Speaker 1: I'm going to go. It's just a limited illustration. Now
Speaker 1: put that on this camera. Yeah, there you go. I
Speaker 1: want that off you. I want that off you because
Speaker 1: if you go back to Bethel dressed like Shechem, and
Speaker 1: this is what has to happen for you to realize
Speaker 1: it and really fulfill purpose God has put in you,
Speaker 1: that everything that has been put on you, remember for
Speaker 1: Jacob's family, Schem represented shame, the shame of what had
Speaker 1: been done to Dinah, the shame of what they had
Speaker 1: done in response. And if you go into what God
Speaker 1: has for you wearing the shame of what was done
Speaker 1: to you, you got to get it off you. I
Speaker 1: realized a couple of years ago that what the enemy
Speaker 1: would do to shut down my gift that he gave
Speaker 1: me was to try to put layers of guilt on me,
Speaker 1: and he would want to use things that were imperfect
Speaker 1: about me or others to keep me from ministering freely.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about one thing Holly leaned over to
Speaker 1: me one night. I was struggling with feelings of resentment,
Speaker 1: and people were criticizing our ministry a lot in this
Speaker 1: particular season. I'm sure they still do now. I just
Speaker 1: don't look as much because I'm not as stupid as
Speaker 1: I was back in the day, thinking that God had
Speaker 1: profits in the comments section. But now, listen what happened.
Speaker 1: I began to think that everybody was like that, right,
Speaker 1: and I took it on me, and I took it
Speaker 1: on me. Well, she looked at me one night and
Speaker 1: she said, you can't keep preaching out of anger, and
Speaker 1: you can't keep leading this defensively because you love people. Well,
Speaker 1: when she said that, it contradicted exactly how I felt
Speaker 1: about this species that she mentioned called people. So I
Speaker 1: you know, even even the look on my face. I
Speaker 1: remember her like rubbing my eyebrows a little bit because
Speaker 1: they were so furrowed. And you know, sometimes I have
Speaker 1: that RBF is like wrestling believer face, but a resentful
Speaker 1: believer face. And she was rubbing my eyebrows, and she goes,
Speaker 1: she goes, You've always loved people, she said. You remember
Speaker 1: in college, how everybody on that campus we couldn't even
Speaker 1: go when we were dating. We went to the strict school,
Speaker 1: this Baptist school. They wouldn't let you go in each
Speaker 1: other's dorms. And that was probably a good thing. Co
Speaker 1: ed dorms. They didn't do that. So we'd be trying
Speaker 1: to sit outside on a bench or something, and she'd say,
Speaker 1: there was always a receiving line of people who wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to you, not because you had a title,
Speaker 1: just because of what was in you. You've always loved people,
Speaker 1: she said. I was scared to go outside with you
Speaker 1: because I didn't feel like talking to them, because I
Speaker 1: don't love people like you love people. But there was
Speaker 1: a lot on me. Like I said, you put a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble on me. Put a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: on me, and I was allowing what was on me
Speaker 1: to make me forget what was in me. Have you
Speaker 1: ever done it before? She said, you love people. She said,
Speaker 1: you had a secret handshake with everybody on that campus,
Speaker 1: and it's really true. And then I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: you don't even know the half of it. When my
Speaker 1: high school class was two hundred and eighty people at
Speaker 1: Berkeley High School, I hugged every one of them on
Speaker 1: our graduation night, I hugged every one of them. I
Speaker 1: mean every down to the last one of them. The people.
Speaker 1: I couldn't stand in all of them, but that was
Speaker 1: in me. But now I realize that the pressures in
Speaker 1: the problems of what life puts on you. Things like
Speaker 1: a fence and bitterness can keep you from remembering what's
Speaker 1: in you. But if you really go back to Bethel
Speaker 1: and remember, it's always been in you. It's always been
Speaker 1: in you. Tony. I had my friend Eric, my best friend,
Speaker 1: come with me to the recording that we did in January,
Speaker 1: because he was with me at the college when we
Speaker 1: had a choir and my choir was not good, but
Speaker 1: we it was in me then and then through what
Speaker 1: God has given you. It was amazing because Eric said,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is what you were trying to
Speaker 1: do in college, but you sucked at it, and that
Speaker 1: guy did it, and now you that part. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always been in me. It's always been in you.
Speaker 1: You were beating on that high. It sounded like a
Speaker 1: trash can, but it was in you. The rhythm was
Speaker 1: in you. It's in you, and what you got to
Speaker 1: be so careful about is not to let people put
Speaker 1: anything on you. And I'm not just talking about failure.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about success. Jacob's biggest issue is that he
Speaker 1: always identified himself by something external. So when it came
Speaker 1: time to make peace with Esau, he sent gifts ahead
Speaker 1: of him because he thought, maybe my gift will bring
Speaker 1: me peace. And some of us are like that. We
Speaker 1: always think we have to make a good impression. We're
Speaker 1: always living in an avatar, We're always living in some
Speaker 1: version of ourselves that seems presentable, or we're always identified.
Speaker 1: I talked to you about this last week, about what
Speaker 1: we can do, and so in doing what we can do,
Speaker 1: other people will identify you by what you can do,
Speaker 1: and then they will limit you by what you can do,
Speaker 1: and then you will begin to think that you are
Speaker 1: what you do, and then you will lose yourself and
Speaker 1: gain the world. And Jesus said, what good is it?
Speaker 1: Don't let anybody put anything on you that will cause
Speaker 1: you to forget what God put in you that goes
Speaker 1: for your struggles. See I think Jacob, I think Jacob,
Speaker 1: his name means supplanter, but his new name Israel, is
Speaker 1: almost just as bad. It means struggles with God. So
Speaker 1: he's trying to get him to see, you've never been
Speaker 1: fighting with Laban, You've never been fighting with Esau. The
Speaker 1: fight that you have to win for your life has
Speaker 1: not been with them. It's always been in you. Because
Speaker 1: if you believe it's in you. There's nothing anybody can
Speaker 1: put on you that can cancel what I put in
Speaker 1: you before you were bored. I appointed you a prophet
Speaker 1: to the nations. It's always been in you. It's always
Speaker 1: been in you. That teaching gift has always been in you.
Speaker 1: You just had to get past what you would put
Speaker 1: on yourself, the idea that I'm not a preacher. I'm
Speaker 1: just a little girl. I don't have anything to say.
Speaker 1: That was always in you. It was in you when
Speaker 1: you were sitting in Life Action Revival, listening to Steve
Speaker 1: Canfield six nights a week, and God was filling you
Speaker 1: with this word. It just took the right rein to
Speaker 1: bring the seed out of the soil for what God
Speaker 1: put in you when you were just a little girl.
Speaker 1: It's always been in you. And there's nobody that can
Speaker 1: leave my life that can keep God from keeping his
Speaker 1: covenant with me. I'm not in covenant with a person.
Speaker 1: I'm not in covenant with a political party. I've been
Speaker 1: covenant with God, Almighty. I am gone, all light. Get
Speaker 1: that off you. That's not your name, that's not your station,
Speaker 1: that's not our is. It's in me. It's in me.
Speaker 1: It's in me. It is God that working at you.
Speaker 1: It's always been in you. The struggle has never been
Speaker 1: with someone else. The struggle has been within yourself. And
Speaker 1: God gave Jacob a new name, Israel, but he still
Speaker 1: has to struggle. Oh, are y'all confused? I'm confused. God
Speaker 1: already gave him his new name in Genesis thirty two.
Speaker 1: I'll show you, and I'll get out of this vocal register. Now.
Speaker 1: This is right before Jacob made peace with Esau, and
Speaker 1: Esau had already made peace with Jacob. Jacob had to
Speaker 1: make peace with Jacob. It's in you. And uh, this
Speaker 1: is what the Lord said. Your name will no longer
Speaker 1: be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with
Speaker 1: God and with humans and have overcome. So no, hold on.
Speaker 1: Why is he telling him again? In Genesis five, I'll
Speaker 1: tell y'all next week. Goodbye. If y'all want to know, now,
Speaker 1: call me back. Because already I thought, well, God must
Speaker 1: have told him something extra the second time that he
Speaker 1: didn't tell him the first time, and so I compared
Speaker 1: the two. In Genesis thirty five to ten, he says,
Speaker 1: your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be
Speaker 1: called Jacob, your name will be Israel. So God actually
Speaker 1: said less the second time than he did the first time.
Speaker 1: Then I thought, maybe it wasn't what God said, it
Speaker 1: was what he didn't say that would show me what
Speaker 1: we needed to know about the struggle that we find
Speaker 1: ourselves in right now. See, the first time God focused
Speaker 1: on Jacob's struggle, I'll call you Israel because you've struggled
Speaker 1: with God and men and have overcome. The second time,
Speaker 1: God didn't mention his struggle. He mentioned his seed because
Speaker 1: Israel was more than a name. Look at verse eleven,
Speaker 1: I am God Almighty, be fruitful and increase in number
Speaker 1: a nation. Did you catch it? A nation? Israel wasn't
Speaker 1: just a name. It was a nation. And Simeon and Levi,
Speaker 1: the ones that Jacob said, you're bringing me all this trouble,
Speaker 1: who were teenagers at the time, were the forefathers that
Speaker 1: God would use to birth the nation through which God
Speaker 1: would extend his covenant with all peoples. But you will
Speaker 1: never produce your nation if you don't know your name.
Speaker 1: So this word is for anyone who you've had so
Speaker 1: much on you. And I'm talking about shame, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about regret, I'm talking about pressure. I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: things that make you anxious, questions that you've forgotten what's
Speaker 1: in you and how God met you in your bethels
Speaker 1: along the way. This season of your life is going
Speaker 1: to be a bethel that you will return to in
Speaker 1: future days. There's kings in you, there's crowns in you.
Speaker 1: There's legacy in you. There's dreams in you. There's ministry
Speaker 1: in you. There is medicine in your leaves, there is
Speaker 1: healing in you. There are things that God desires to
Speaker 1: release through your life that will change the generations that
Speaker 1: will share your last name. So do not let what's
Speaker 1: on you kill what is in you. You are Israel.
Speaker 1: There are nations in you, and it's always been in you,
Speaker 1: and there was nothing that you could do to change it.
Speaker 1: The gift has always been in you, and so has
Speaker 1: the fear, and they both wrestle with each other in
Speaker 1: the same womb until the day you die. But do
Speaker 1: not let anybody, or situation or set back put a
Speaker 1: name you by which you call yourself that will cause
Speaker 1: you to forfeit what God had put in you. I
Speaker 1: believe there are some things I need to bury under
Speaker 1: the oak and scheck them today. And I believe God
Speaker 1: wants me to turn this church into a changing room
Speaker 1: today where you remember that it is not circumcision or
Speaker 1: uncircumcision that counts. None of that external stuff matters not
Speaker 1: when it comes to the heart of God. What matters
Speaker 1: to God has always been in you. And if you
Speaker 1: win this in you, there is nothing that will happen
Speaker 1: around you that can keep God from establishing his covenant
Speaker 1: in the earth. You have a covenant with God. Have
Speaker 1: you made your covenant with your struggle greater than your
Speaker 1: covenant with your God? You love the pressure of it,
Speaker 1: the fear of it, and the terror of it. God
Speaker 1: was dealing with all the external stuff. God was preventing
Speaker 1: the enemies from even attacking Jacob. If you pay attention
Speaker 1: to what's in you, God knows what's on you. He
Speaker 1: knows that you've been trying to manage and multitask, and
Speaker 1: he sees all of that, and he knows all of that,
Speaker 1: and he knows that you don't know what's next. And
Speaker 1: that's why he gave me the Bethel revelation. I'm the
Speaker 1: God of Bethel, I'm the God of I don't know
Speaker 1: what's next. I'm the God of your new name, and
Speaker 1: there are nations in you. And it's always been in you.
Speaker 1: It's always been in you since you were a little girl,
Speaker 1: since you were a young boy. God said, be fruitful
Speaker 1: and increase, bring forth what I planted. Don't let anything
Speaker 1: stop you from it. For I am God Almighty. I
Speaker 1: put a nation in you, and those teenagers you stand
Speaker 1: with today are going to be the heads of the nations.
Speaker 1: Stand to your feet. Father. In this moment, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to say, so I'm going to ask you
Speaker 1: to say it. There comes a point where my message
Speaker 1: and my stories and my points and my sub points
Speaker 1: can only take the hearer so far. And that's why
Speaker 1: we need your Holy Spirit to write it our hearts.
Speaker 1: For just a moment. We're not focused on what's around us,
Speaker 1: even what's on us, but what's in us. It is
Speaker 1: Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is God
Speaker 1: that works in you both to will and to do
Speaker 1: according to His pleasure. So let's bury those idols, let's
Speaker 1: change those clothes. Let's go back to Bethel and build
Speaker 1: an altar in the place of our anxiety, build an
Speaker 1: altar in the place of our fear. And build an
Speaker 1: altar in response to our questions. Lift your hands to heaven.
Speaker 1: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. We
Speaker 1: call on you right now, and we ask you to
Speaker 1: speak into each Bethel that is represented in this room
Speaker 1: online around the world. I think you, Lord, that the
Speaker 1: stages of our life do not surprise you, and the
Speaker 1: weakness of our flesh does not repel you. I thank
Speaker 1: you Lord that you don't just give us a name,
Speaker 1: You make us a nation. So we're coming back to
Speaker 1: Bethel today just to remember that we felt afraid before
Speaker 1: and you saw us through. We were so confused before,
Speaker 1: and you made it clear. We felt too little then.
Speaker 1: But you are more than enough, and you are right now,
Speaker 1: Oh God of Bethel. I pray that he would rise up,
Speaker 1: supplanting doubt and burying the idols of our false dependents.
Speaker 1: Your name is Israel, and greater is he that is
Speaker 1: in you than he that is in the world. We
Speaker 1: thank you for your presence. Lord, in Jesus' name, everybody
Speaker 1: who receives this word, give God a handclap of praise.
Speaker 1: I don't know who this is for, but the Lord
Speaker 1: said one more thing. He came back to Bethel. But
Speaker 1: the last time he was there, he was alone, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't anymore. That's right. The difference between this time
Speaker 1: and last time that you were here. You're not alone anymore. God,
Speaker 1: we thank you once again for this amazing revelation that
Speaker 1: you do not wait for a place of our full
Speaker 1: understanding and cooperation to bless us with your presence. God
Speaker 1: of Bethel, we praise you one more time for meeting
Speaker 1: us at all points in between. In Jesus Nay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm praying for you today that you would internalize that
Speaker 1: word that you just heard, the part of it that
Speaker 1: you needed the most, the part that spoke right to
Speaker 1: your soul, and plant it. Get it in the soil.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that when the word of God is sown,
Speaker 1: there will always be those snatchers and those storms, and
Speaker 1: some seed that falls among the wayside. But some soil
Speaker 1: is good soil, and it produces thirty sixty one hundredfold.
Speaker 1: And I pray that you will be that good soil,
Speaker 1: and that your life would bear fruit. God Almighty said,
Speaker 1: be fruitful and increase in number. Now, I wonder what
Speaker 1: alter you need to build in your Bethel today, What
Speaker 1: place of remembrance you need to create. One thing I
Speaker 1: didn't get to put in the sermon is that Jacob
Speaker 1: went back to Bethel to fulfill a vow that he'd
Speaker 1: made to God. He said, if you will be with
Speaker 1: me and be my God, then I'll give you a
Speaker 1: tenth of everything that you give me. And that's not
Speaker 1: really about finances. It's just about faith. It's about knowing
Speaker 1: who you belong to and knowing where your help comes from.
Speaker 1: God says, I am God Almighty, and I'm with you
Speaker 1: and I'm in you. I want you to be blessed
Speaker 1: in that knowledge today. I want you to be blessed
Speaker 1: in that certainty, not the certainty of where you are,
Speaker 1: but the certainty of what's in you. Okay, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: now I've preached a second sermon. I really didn't mean you.
Speaker 1: I know you're full already, So just know that we
Speaker 1: love you and I will see you next time.