Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the message. Slap your neighbors say, wake up, Here
Speaker 2: comes the word of God. I hope you didn't take
Speaker 2: that literally when I said slap him. We don't have
Speaker 2: that kind of insurance coverage at the church. What a
Speaker 2: privilege it is to share God's word with you today.
Speaker 2: I appreciate on this passage of scripture since twenty eighteen. Wow,
Speaker 2: and this is one of my absolute favorites. The Lord
Speaker 2: will surely meet us here. Look at Genesis chapter twenty eight,
Speaker 2: verse ten through twenty two. The Bible says Jacob left
Speaker 2: Beersheba and set out for Huran. When he reached a
Speaker 2: certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun
Speaker 2: had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put
Speaker 2: it under his head and lay down to sleep. He
Speaker 2: had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting
Speaker 2: on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and
Speaker 2: the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
Speaker 2: There above it stood the Lord. I like that. I
Speaker 2: like that God is above whatever I'm going through. That's
Speaker 2: just a good reminder, refresher for my faith and encourages
Speaker 2: my heart. Today there above it stood the Lord, and
Speaker 2: he said, I am the Lord, the God of your
Speaker 2: father Abraham, and the God of Isaac. I will give
Speaker 2: you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Speaker 1: Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and.
Speaker 2: You will spread out to the west and to the east,
Speaker 2: to the north and to the south. All peoples on
Speaker 2: earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
Speaker 1: And listen to this promise, and let it get in
Speaker 1: your heart for a moment.
Speaker 2: Today. I am with you and will watch over you
Speaker 2: wherever you go, and I will bring you back to
Speaker 2: this land. I will not leave you until I have
Speaker 2: done what I promised you. When Jacob awoke from his sleep,
Speaker 2: he thought, surely the Lord is in this place, and
Speaker 2: I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said,
Speaker 2: how awesome is this place. This is none other than
Speaker 2: the House of God. This is the Gate of Heaven.
Speaker 2: Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he had
Speaker 2: placed under his head and set it up as a
Speaker 2: pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called
Speaker 2: that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
Speaker 2: Then Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be
Speaker 2: with me and will watch over me on this journey
Speaker 2: I am taking, and will give me food to eat
Speaker 2: and clothes to wear, so that I return safely to
Speaker 2: my father's household, then the Lord will be my God,
Speaker 2: and this stone that I have set up as a
Speaker 2: pillar will be God's house. And of all that you
Speaker 2: give me, I will give you a tenth Say amen
Speaker 2: for the word of God. Go back to verse fourteen
Speaker 2: for a moment. Your descendants will be like the dust
Speaker 2: of the earth, and you will spread out. Your descendants
Speaker 2: will be like the dust of the earth, and you
Speaker 2: will spread out. So we've got dust and expansion in
Speaker 2: the same sentence.
Speaker 1: And what I want to.
Speaker 2: Talk to you about today is your next step. But
Speaker 2: very specifically, for those of you who are in a
Speaker 2: season of uncertainty or confusion or fear, I want to
Speaker 2: talk to you about your next messy step, your next
Speaker 2: messy step. Father, We roll up our sleeves today to
Speaker 2: dig into your word to see what you might say
Speaker 2: to each and every one of us. I ask now
Speaker 2: that you would use me. I am nothing without you.
Speaker 2: But if you breathe through me, speak through me, this
Speaker 2: could be monumental. In these moments, God, we stand before
Speaker 2: a person in a passage of scripture who lived hundreds
Speaker 2: of years ago. But he faced the same things that
Speaker 2: we face. He needed direction and provision from you, and
Speaker 2: so do we. So we ask now, God that you
Speaker 2: would speak to us no less than you spoke to Jacob.
Speaker 2: Remind us what you're doing, reveal to us who you are,
Speaker 2: have your way, and give us the courage to respond
Speaker 2: to what you say. In Jesus' name, Amen, you may
Speaker 2: be seated your next messy step. I wrote that phrase
Speaker 2: down today to use as a title, your next messy step.
Speaker 2: And I want to talk for a moment about what
Speaker 2: it's like for me as a pastor when we go
Speaker 2: down the memory lane of different things that have happened
Speaker 2: in this church and talk about all the things that
Speaker 2: God has done.
Speaker 1: See when we're showing a.
Speaker 2: Highlight video like we showed earlier, of all the amazing
Speaker 2: things that God did in this church, there's a part
Speaker 2: of me that celebrates and I can clap for it now,
Speaker 2: But a lot of the things that I can clap
Speaker 2: about now I cried through then. A lot of times
Speaker 2: I'm hesitant to teach leadership to other pastors, not because
Speaker 2: I don't care for them, but because it's a lot
Speaker 2: different to explain something than it was to experience it.
Speaker 2: And I never just want to be one of these
Speaker 2: hypocrites who gets up here and hides the humanity of
Speaker 2: the struggle, of the steps that I've taken in my
Speaker 2: life in order to just accentuate and elevate the heavenly
Speaker 2: parts of our journey where God moved. The truth of
Speaker 2: the matter is, every time God has greatly moved in
Speaker 2: our ministry and in my life, it was messy. I
Speaker 2: don't remember one time that God really moved where there
Speaker 2: wasn't a real mess. I don't remember one thing that
Speaker 2: God did in this ministry that was significant that was
Speaker 2: not sacrificial. I don't remember one time when I did
Speaker 2: something for God and my hands weren't shaking before I
Speaker 2: came out and steadied myself behind this pulpit and announced it.
Speaker 2: I don't remember many times when I opened my mouth
Speaker 2: to preach to you that I didn't feel like I
Speaker 2: wanted to throw up and swallow it back down before
Speaker 2: I did. That is true to this day. And y'all
Speaker 2: don't like that kind of stuff when I talk about
Speaker 2: throwing up this early in my sermon, because you just
Speaker 2: want the message, you don't want the mess. But the
Speaker 2: fact of the matter is there is no message where
Speaker 2: there is no mess. It's true of your life. You know,
Speaker 2: the ways that we asked God to use us, in
Speaker 2: the ways that we ask God.
Speaker 1: To bless us, we kind of want the blessing without
Speaker 1: the mess.
Speaker 2: In Jacob's life in Genesis chapter twenty eight, you could
Speaker 2: say it was the best of times because he just
Speaker 2: met God.
Speaker 1: You could say it was the worst of times because
Speaker 1: he met him on the run.
Speaker 2: It was the blest of times. It was the mess
Speaker 2: of times. Jacob has made a mess of his family situation.
Speaker 2: When I read the context of the passage only to
Speaker 2: refer to the blessing, I left out the mess so
Speaker 2: that we could talk about it together right now. I
Speaker 2: told you that Jacob set out for a place called Hauran,
Speaker 2: but I didn't tell you that he ran to Haran.
Speaker 2: He ran to Haran not because he was going on
Speaker 2: vacation there. He ran there because his brother Esaul wanted
Speaker 2: to kill him. His brother Esau wanted to kill him
Speaker 2: because Jacob stole his blessing from their father Isaac, who
Speaker 2: was going blind. And Genesis twenty eight starts out with
Speaker 2: Jacob moving to a new place, not because he made
Speaker 2: a decision that would benefit his career or his future,
Speaker 2: but because he had no other options. Jacob is in
Speaker 2: a place of vulnerability. He has come to the end
Speaker 2: of himself and he has to relocate in the middle
Speaker 2: of his life to a place he's never been before.
Speaker 2: This is the context of the blessing of God on
Speaker 2: the life of Jacob. And now looking back on Jacob's life,
Speaker 2: we know that he became a great nation called Israel.
Speaker 2: The twelve tribes of Israel were born from the twelve
Speaker 2: sons that would be born to him in the place
Speaker 2: where he was going. When he got where he was going,
Speaker 2: he would meet his wife Leah and his wife Rachel.
Speaker 2: Don't do that. Those were different times, and the Bible
Speaker 2: says that after they had birthed all of those babies.
Speaker 2: In the messy sibling rivalry of two sisters who were
Speaker 2: trying to prove that one was more productive or more
Speaker 2: loved than the other. A nation set out and Jacob
Speaker 2: became that nation twenty years later. I'm telling you all
Speaker 2: of this because we can see now the strategy of
Speaker 2: God and how he birthed the nation through Jacob. But
Speaker 2: as I've already told you at the beginning of my sermon,
Speaker 2: what is explained as strategic is often experienced as surrender.
Speaker 2: And the reason I don't really like to teach pastors
Speaker 2: about church growth or leadership or strategic objectives is because
Speaker 2: I can explain it as the steps that we took
Speaker 2: to get where we are. But at the time I
Speaker 2: was not experiencing it as steps, not in the strategic sense.
Speaker 1: I was experiencing it as surrender.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to say to you is most everything
Speaker 2: I've ever done right in my life was me doing
Speaker 2: what I thought God was telling me because I didn't
Speaker 2: have anything else to do, because everything else I had
Speaker 2: tried to do didn't work, so I finally had to
Speaker 2: give up and do it God's way. So I can
Speaker 2: explain it to you strategically. You know, how do you
Speaker 2: start a worship ministry like elevation worship I can tell
Speaker 2: you strategic about a record label. I can tell you
Speaker 2: strategically about DSPs and streaming services, and I can tell
Speaker 2: you strategically about anthems that are written for the church
Speaker 2: and touring strategies. And I can tell you strategically about
Speaker 2: putting together a team. And I can tell you strategically
Speaker 2: about bands and sounds and systematations, systems and systems and
Speaker 2: strategies and all of that. But the real secret to
Speaker 2: all of it was surrender. That at the beginning of
Speaker 2: starting our ministry, I said, Lord, I believe you want
Speaker 2: us to have a worship ministry that will touch the world.
Speaker 2: And that's where it started with surrender because I knew
Speaker 2: I didn't have the skills to do it by myself,
Speaker 2: so God sent others. I knew I wasn't smart enough
Speaker 2: to do it by myself, so God gave wisdom. I
Speaker 2: knew that I could not figure it out on my own,
Speaker 2: so God by faith did what I could not do
Speaker 2: by flesh. And so you explain things as strategic, but
Speaker 2: you experience them as surrender. You look back and you say, well,
Speaker 2: here's how we raised our kids.
Speaker 1: See, when they were five, taught them about them.
Speaker 2: Then and when they were seven, we moved them onto
Speaker 2: the blank and the nine.
Speaker 1: We taught them about the nine. And when they were eleven,
Speaker 1: we taught them.
Speaker 2: About the And in stage one you're more like a coach,
Speaker 2: and in stage two you're more like a consultant, and
Speaker 2: then in stage three you're more like a confidant.
Speaker 1: And here are the.
Speaker 2: Stages and the steps for raising godly kids.
Speaker 1: And there's really only one.
Speaker 2: You're God one step to raising godly kids. Here, God,
Speaker 2: They're yours. Parenting can be explained strategically. I mean, you
Speaker 2: can write a book about it all you want, but
Speaker 2: the truth is, you really know that if God didn't
Speaker 2: give you what it took to raise those kids, you
Speaker 2: would have lost your mind a long time ago. So
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get you to see that in this
Speaker 2: journey called faith, what we explain as strategy, we experience
Speaker 2: as surrender.
Speaker 1: Why is that important for our lesson today?
Speaker 2: In case you don't know what God is calling you
Speaker 2: to do next, and you think that because you don't
Speaker 2: know the next step, that means that God is not
Speaker 2: in it. That's not true. Everything God is ever in
Speaker 2: feels uncertain. Look at Genesis twenty eight, verse ten. The
Speaker 2: Bible says that Jacob set out for Haram. Verse eleven
Speaker 2: says when he reached a certain place, everybody say a
Speaker 2: certain place. Now. Isn't that ironic that the Bible calls
Speaker 2: it a certain place and Jacob's life has never been
Speaker 2: more uncertain? How many of you feel like? I'm in
Speaker 2: an uncertain place right now in my life?
Speaker 1: Come on, I'm.
Speaker 2: Uncertain about who to talk to. I'm uncertain about who
Speaker 2: to trust. I'm uncertain if I'm in the right job.
Speaker 2: I'm uncertain if I'm at the right school. I'm uncertain
Speaker 2: if I have what it takes. I'm uncertain whether God
Speaker 2: is calling me to step out the boat or stay
Speaker 2: in the boat. I'm uncertain about whether God wants me
Speaker 2: to quit because this is not him, or he wants
Speaker 2: me to persevere because it is. I hear you talk
Speaker 2: about how you can tell you're in God's will when
Speaker 2: the enemy attacks. But I'm not so sure if it's
Speaker 2: an attack from the enemy, or if it's actually a
Speaker 2: bad decision I made that I need to go back
Speaker 2: and remake. I'm uncertain. Raise your hand again. I'm in
Speaker 2: an uncertain place now. I tell your neighbor don't feel bad.
Speaker 2: I don't know either. When we started the church, one
Speaker 2: of the books they told us to read was pretty good.
Speaker 2: It was about building your church with strategy. And they
Speaker 2: gave me the book and I like most of it,
Speaker 2: but there was one part. Matt, I couldn't stand this part,
Speaker 2: and I did not adhere to it. It said that
Speaker 2: when you bring people into discipleship in your church, it's
Speaker 2: like taking them around the basis at a baseball game,
Speaker 2: and when you go to the base one, it looks
Speaker 2: like this, and this is what discipleship looks like with
Speaker 2: first base, and then you take them to the second
Speaker 2: and then this is what the second stage looks like,
Speaker 2: the third base and the.
Speaker 1: Home play, and then you get them all home and
Speaker 1: they're all disciple.
Speaker 2: I read that and I wanted that, and I would
Speaker 2: like that because that would be cool if it was
Speaker 2: that clear, not only for me as a pastor, but
Speaker 2: for me as a person. See, your walk with God
Speaker 2: goes like this. You do this, and then you do that,
Speaker 2: and then you do that and then your home. But
Speaker 2: home is called heaven and you have to die to
Speaker 2: go there. So now, as long as we're on this earth,
Speaker 2: I found that life is more like dirt and less
Speaker 2: like a diamond on a baseball field.
Speaker 1: It's more dirt less diamond.
Speaker 2: Because my spiritual journey, I don't know about yours, has
Speaker 2: not looked like home. My spiritual journey. If I'm really
Speaker 2: telling you the truth, I could explain it that way.
Speaker 2: I took step one. I accepted Jesus Christ as my
Speaker 2: Lord and savior. I took step two. I was baptized
Speaker 2: in his name. I took step three. I began to
Speaker 2: share my faith with others. I took step four, And
Speaker 2: now I am a wonderful, beautiful child of God with
Speaker 2: absolutely no blemish and no flaw. But the fact of
Speaker 2: the matter is that God formed me, and I'm flawed,
Speaker 2: that I am following Jesus flawed, And so it has
Speaker 2: not looked like this, And there have not always been
Speaker 2: base coaches telling me is safe to come. It has
Speaker 2: looked more like I should draw this for you. But
Speaker 2: you'll get the picture. All the base path people. Teach
Speaker 2: me how you know so clearly what to do next?
Speaker 2: Teach me how you know so certainly what God is
Speaker 2: calling you to do right now? Because most of my
Speaker 2: discipleship has been through making the wrong decision, repenting, learning, trusting,
Speaker 2: and growing. Most of my discipleship has looked like I'm
Speaker 2: doing everything that I think I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And I'm all over the place, and I'm all over.
Speaker 2: The map, and God, I going to do this and
Speaker 2: that and finally just this. Okay, God and the true
Speaker 2: everybody over fifty back your man up. Today it looks
Speaker 2: like this. I'm up, I'm growing, I'm down. I feel
Speaker 2: like I'm dying. I want to die. I'm back up,
Speaker 2: I'm back down.
Speaker 1: I'm left.
Speaker 2: I'm right. I dated him. God said he was the one.
Speaker 2: But that wasn't God talking. That was my loneliness. Back
Speaker 2: down to singleness. Back up, here's another chance. Took that job,
Speaker 2: looked like a good job, you know. I get a promotion,
Speaker 2: got a new manager, wanted to walk out, stayed for
Speaker 2: three years, wondered if I stayed thirty six months too long.
Speaker 2: Don't even know right now what I'm doing. Not I
Speaker 2: was gonna retire. Made an investment in crypto, Still learning
Speaker 2: how to do it. It's like this, look at your
Speaker 2: neighbor and make some swiggles and some scribbles and some
Speaker 2: zigs and some zags and say it's like this. It's
Speaker 2: like this and like that. It's like this and like that.
Speaker 2: It's like this and it's like that. But everywhere I've gone,
Speaker 2: I ran head on into grace. Everywhere I've been, I
Speaker 2: ran right into God. Whether I went to the right
Speaker 2: or to the left. Somehow I heard a voice saying, No,
Speaker 2: this is the way. Walk in it. This is the way.
Speaker 2: This is the way. I'm zigging, and I'm zagging, and
Speaker 2: I'm up and I'm down and I'm back and I'm four.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is third base or second
Speaker 2: base or the outfield. Sometimes I feel like I'm just
Speaker 2: the dugouts. I'm gonna put me in coach. I'm ready
Speaker 2: to play. Sometimes I feel like I'm eating a hot
Speaker 2: dog in the Chief Seas. But I'm here for it
Speaker 2: and I'm in the game, and God is with me.
Speaker 2: That's what God told Jacob in verse fifteen. Show him.
Speaker 2: He said, I am with you and will watch over
Speaker 2: you wherever you go. You're not always gonna go like
Speaker 2: this and like that. You're not always gonna even know
Speaker 2: where homeplate is. Every umpire is not going to agree
Speaker 2: with your opinion of a striking a ball. You're gonna
Speaker 2: miss some stuff. You're gonna slide into some stuff.
Speaker 1: But the promise is this, I will be with you, right,
Speaker 1: I will be with you.
Speaker 2: M He didn't say I will be with you, He
Speaker 2: said I am with you. Which one would you rather have?
Speaker 2: A God who will be with you or a God
Speaker 2: who already is? So when it comes to your next
Speaker 2: step that God has given you to take, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's walking someone that you love through
Speaker 2: a difficult medical procedure that may be your next step.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that is working through this addiction
Speaker 2: issue that's really really got you by the throat. I
Speaker 2: don't know whether that's just you continuing to be faithful
Speaker 2: in something that feels kind of boring and mundane. I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's you getting together with all of
Speaker 2: those people in a couple of weeks for a meal
Speaker 2: without cursing any of them out. Whatever your next step is,
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about it, and I
Speaker 2: want to let you know what God told Jacob. See,
Speaker 2: Jacob is such a messy man, and I'm glad for
Speaker 2: that because the Bible says that the steps of a
Speaker 2: good man are ordered by the Lord. But Jacob shows
Speaker 2: me that the steps of God's man, even if he's
Speaker 2: not a good man, are ordered by the Lord too.
Speaker 2: Because for Jacob to steal Esau's blessing and his name
Speaker 2: literally to mean trick, it means he was messy. He
Speaker 2: is at this point in his life grown enough to
Speaker 2: know better, and he should be mature. But we see
Speaker 2: three things in the passage that may be going on
Speaker 2: in your life too. One is a mistake, one is
Speaker 2: a middle, and the other is a move. A mistake,
Speaker 2: a middle, and a move, all in one passage, all
Speaker 2: happening in the life of one man. You may say
Speaker 2: it wasn't a mistake for him to steal Esau's blessing,
Speaker 2: because God is sovereign, and the Book of Romans says, Jacob,
Speaker 2: have I loved and saw, have I hated? And it
Speaker 2: was predestined by God. Yet be that as it may
Speaker 2: he went about. It wasn't right. He lied to get
Speaker 2: this blessing. He's blessed, but it's messy. He's successful, but
Speaker 2: it's messy. He is increasing, but he's isolated. That's a
Speaker 2: crazy place to be where you find yourself in a
Speaker 2: certain place because of a mistake. You know, as we
Speaker 2: talk about God. We say things like where God guides,
Speaker 2: he provides, But in this specific situation of Jacob's life,
Speaker 2: we get an indication that even if it wasn't God
Speaker 2: guiding you there, he will provide for you there if
Speaker 2: you will turn to him and trust him. I don't
Speaker 2: know who this is for, but you need to go
Speaker 2: ahead and own the mistake that you made. Don't even
Speaker 2: blame the devil for it. The devil didn't make Jacob
Speaker 2: dress up and take his brother's blessing. He decided to
Speaker 2: do it, and it was his mom's idea. He was
Speaker 2: seventy one years old when he did it. It's too
Speaker 2: late to blame your mom when you are seventy one
Speaker 2: years old. So sometimes you got to come to the
Speaker 2: place and say, God, I'm in this place because of
Speaker 2: my mistake. Not all four jobs that you lost in
Speaker 2: the last eight years were the result of the devil
Speaker 2: attacking you. If it was one job in eight years,
Speaker 2: maybe it was the devil. If it was four jobs
Speaker 2: in eight years, maybe there are some decisions, not just devils.
Speaker 2: They don't like me today, not one bit in the
Speaker 2: world today. How can the grace come until the mistake
Speaker 2: is acknowledged and accept it. So I'm in this mess.
Speaker 1: God, I'm in this mess.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do about this mess.
Speaker 1: God, it was my stubbornness that got me here.
Speaker 2: I think it's so great when we preach about Jonah,
Speaker 2: you know, because he's an example of somebody who made
Speaker 2: his own mess. But so is Jacob. In fact, Jacob
Speaker 2: literally made his bed and had to lie in it.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you noticed this or not. It
Speaker 2: said that when he got there to the place in
Speaker 2: verse twelve, in a certain place that wasn't so certain,
Speaker 2: he had a dream on which he saw a stairway
Speaker 2: resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven.
Speaker 2: But go to the verse before that so we can
Speaker 2: get the full context. When he saw this beautiful dream,
Speaker 2: It says he reached a certain place stop for the
Speaker 2: night because the sun had set, and taking one of
Speaker 2: the stones there, he put it under his head and
Speaker 2: lay down to sleep. He is literally in a hard place,
Speaker 2: and it's not hard because of God. It's hard because
Speaker 2: of him. This is not in my notes, So bear
Speaker 2: with me and be patient. Sometimes it's not him making
Speaker 2: it hard. Sometimes it's us and our decisions making it hard.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's our being pair in the past that's making
Speaker 2: it so hard. Sometimes it's our grabbing after things that
Speaker 2: God told us to give up that makes it hard.
Speaker 2: And the problem with preaching is that people will clap
Speaker 2: for the clips that we put on the Internet that
Speaker 2: say that if life is hard for you right now,
Speaker 2: it's because God has something great for you. But sometimes
Speaker 2: we need to also say, if life is hard for
Speaker 2: you right now, it might be because God is trying
Speaker 2: to change you. It can be both. It can be both.
Speaker 2: Waking up with a hangover every morning is not God
Speaker 2: testing you or the devil attacking you. Getting yourself excluded
Speaker 2: from each opportunity because you are never on time is
Speaker 2: not the devil attacking you. The devil is not in
Speaker 2: the traffic. You cannot rebuke traffic. The remedy for traffic
Speaker 2: is not rebuke. Remedy for traffic is ten minutes earlier.
Speaker 2: Now y'all want me to move on, clap a little louder,
Speaker 2: and I'll think about it. I'm not playing with y'all
Speaker 2: no more. I'm not playing with y'all no more. Because
Speaker 2: you have to admit I am why I'm here. I
Speaker 2: am why I'm here. You know, God sends some opportunities
Speaker 2: for me to have some friends, but I wasn't friendly.
Speaker 2: He's saying, rejection is God's protection. Maybe it's a maybe
Speaker 2: it's a bad personality. Maybe you need to be nicer,
Speaker 2: Maybe you need to ask other people how are they doing?
Speaker 2: They rejected me, that was God redirecting me. No, they
Speaker 2: rejected you because you're mean, because your drama, because you're messy.
Speaker 2: And before you just ghost them and move your mess
Speaker 2: around to the next person who hasn't figured you out yet,
Speaker 2: take some time to say, Hey, God, is there a
Speaker 2: reason why I don't have the same friends at the
Speaker 2: end of every year? Hey, God, is there a reason
Speaker 2: why I continue to fly off the handle with my
Speaker 2: temper and think about how others made me lose it.
Speaker 1: I didn't even intend to preach like.
Speaker 2: This today, but notice in the mistake that Jacob made,
Speaker 2: God gets in the middle of Jacob's mistake. Well, that
Speaker 2: really blessed me, because you would think that if you
Speaker 2: got yourself here, you've got to get yourself out of this.
Speaker 2: Or I would at least think that if Jacob wanted
Speaker 2: God to visit him, he would have to pray and
Speaker 2: ask him to come show me in Genesis twenty eight
Speaker 2: where Jacob prayed, it's not there. Show me in Genesis
Speaker 2: twenty eight, where Jacob repented it's not there. Show me
Speaker 2: in Genesis twenty eight where Jacob took seven steps to
Speaker 2: get his life together.
Speaker 1: Show me where Jacob set up on the base path.
Speaker 2: And the first step, and the second step and the
Speaker 2: third step. I burned that book when I read it.
Speaker 2: I was like, people aren't coming to church because they're
Speaker 2: in a baseball game. They're coming to church because they're
Speaker 2: in a battle. It is a battlefield, and it looks
Speaker 2: like this, and it looks like that, and it looks
Speaker 2: like this, and it looks like that, and get this
Speaker 2: little league Christianity out of your mind. God will meet
Speaker 2: me in the middle, right on the mound. God will
Speaker 2: set up and throw me another pitch, no matter how
Speaker 2: the last one went down. That's what I see in
Speaker 2: Genesis twenty eight. The Bible says in verse eleven that
Speaker 2: with Jacob's pillow being a rock, this is horrible for
Speaker 2: your posture and the sun being set, because not only
Speaker 2: does God come into the middle of hard places, he
Speaker 2: comes into the middle of dark places. God does some
Speaker 2: of the best stuff in the dark, and Jacob stops
Speaker 2: in a place he doesn't even know the name of.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you a story about that in a minute.
Speaker 2: Look at this story, he said. He took one of
Speaker 2: the stones, put on his head, laid down to sleep,
Speaker 2: and verse twelve, he had a dream in which he
Speaker 2: saw a stairway pay attention resting on the earth, with
Speaker 2: its top reaching to heaven, and the angels were going
Speaker 2: up and down on it. That's what he saw with
Speaker 2: his eyes closed, that's what he saw. Laying on a rock,
Speaker 2: That's what he saw in a hard place, trying to
Speaker 2: decide which set the stairs to come over to. This
Speaker 2: one feels right today. This is the right one. It
Speaker 2: went up and down the angels. Now the angels are
Speaker 2: moving Jacob, isn't Jacob is stopped because the sun is set.
Speaker 2: But just because the sunset stopped you doesn't mean to
Speaker 2: stop God. Oh, I love to make the Bible come
Speaker 2: alive for people. Can you see it? Isn't it crazy?
Speaker 2: In all of Jacob's scheming, he got blessed by his dad,
Speaker 2: But in Jacob's sleeping he got blessed by God. And
Speaker 2: the angels are moving up and down and up and
Speaker 2: down because life ain't always like this, it's up and down.
Speaker 2: So the angels are doing what life does, ascending, descending.
Speaker 2: The angels are doing what your bank account does. The
Speaker 2: angels are doing what your mood does. Am I not
Speaker 2: preaching this thing? I haven't preached this since twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: so I've been waiting to get back to it. Up
Speaker 2: and down and up and down and up and down
Speaker 2: like your life, and Jacob isn't moving because God shows
Speaker 2: up in the middle of his mistake, and in the
Speaker 2: middle of the night, and in the middle of sleep.
Speaker 2: So that you and I know that it is not
Speaker 2: when we get there that God shows up. It is
Speaker 2: not when we accomplish that that he shows up. It
Speaker 2: is not when we reach the place of our goal
Speaker 2: that we meet God. God meets me in the middle.
Speaker 2: And this is the a I sermon where you touch
Speaker 2: five people and say He met me in the middle,
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: Don't have to say any more than that.
Speaker 2: You don't have to say what it was the middle of.
Speaker 2: If it was the middle of a divorce, if it
Speaker 2: was the middle of a diagnosis, if it was the
Speaker 2: middle of a battle with sickness, if it was the
Speaker 2: middle of a season of depression, if it was the
Speaker 2: middle of you losing your mind, if it was the
Speaker 2: middle of a nervous breakdown, if it was in the
Speaker 2: middle of the street when you sit there and said, God,
Speaker 2: I don't know which way to go. I'm too young
Speaker 2: to be old, I'm too old to be young. God
Speaker 2: met me in the middle. I'm too happy to be sad,
Speaker 2: too sad to be happy. And he met me in
Speaker 2: the middle. I can't quite name this place yet, but
Speaker 2: God met Jacob in the middle. And Jacob did not
Speaker 2: even know the name of the place where he was.
Speaker 2: But he didn't have to know the name of the
Speaker 2: place because God knew his name. There is a woman
Speaker 2: who brought me a letter in Atlanta, Georgia. Her name
Speaker 2: is Lish.
Speaker 1: She's watching on line right now from Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Everybody say, hey, Lish, I want to show you her
Speaker 2: picture so you can see who we're talking about. This
Speaker 2: is Lish getting baptized just recently at one of our
Speaker 2: pop ups at Elevation, Atlanta pop up.
Speaker 1: Did y'all know our church has to pop ups?
Speaker 2: Did you know we have pop ups? We go to
Speaker 2: different cities. We popped up in Riverside, California today, we're
Speaker 2: having a pop up You could take the picture down
Speaker 2: right now. Why do we have pop up church because
Speaker 2: we have a pop up God. Because the devil is
Speaker 2: a pop up devil, and the devil will just pop
Speaker 2: up at times you don't expect him. So we just
Speaker 2: take church wherever people are and God will pop up
Speaker 2: in the middle of a place. God will pop up
Speaker 2: in the middle of a struggle. God will pop up
Speaker 2: in the middle of a panic attack. Have you ever
Speaker 2: had God just pop up for you? Black boom, zam,
Speaker 2: wig wock. There it is, Sam. God just popped up.
Speaker 2: Looked like it was over looked like it was done,
Speaker 2: felt like it was over. He felt like it was done.
Speaker 2: Thank God popped up. He turned a grave into a garden.
Speaker 2: They were weeping for Lazarus, but Jesus popped up, and
Speaker 2: Lazarus popped up when he said his name. So we
Speaker 2: baptized her.
Speaker 1: It to pop up.
Speaker 2: But she told me I haven't always been on such
Speaker 2: a good track. Listen what she told me. She said,
Speaker 2: I had opened several doors to the enemy through the
Speaker 2: course of my life, and because of that, I ended
Speaker 2: up on the run from many abusive situations, and one
Speaker 2: in particular She didn't tell me what those situations were,
Speaker 2: but she told me that it got so bad for
Speaker 2: her that she was going.
Speaker 1: From place to place to place.
Speaker 2: Now stop, you're thinking, well, my life isn't that bad,
Speaker 2: is but we go from place to place to place.
Speaker 2: She was doing it physically, but some of us do
Speaker 2: it emotionally. From place, come on to place. I'm going
Speaker 2: to preach to everybody in this church will admit that
Speaker 2: is this, and it's that is this, and it's that
Speaker 2: is this and it's that. So she wrote me this
Speaker 2: letter and she gave it to me, and she said
Speaker 2: it got so bad at one point that I had
Speaker 2: to go live with a friend and my friend would
Speaker 2: always play Christian TV and it was so annoying.
Speaker 1: And one night I walked in and this guy was preaching.
Speaker 2: She was talking to me, and it really spoke to
Speaker 2: my situation, and it spoke so straight to me. I
Speaker 2: felt like I didn't even know what to call it,
Speaker 2: because I wasn't yet a Christian, but I felt something.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what it was called. I just felt something.
Speaker 2: She said I had to leave there suddenly, and I
Speaker 2: didn't get to ask my friend what was the name
Speaker 2: of that Preacher that we watched.
Speaker 1: She said, for three years, I would think about it.
Speaker 2: Well, I kept making the wrong decisions for three years,
Speaker 2: and my situation didn't get better. It got worse.
Speaker 1: Eventually, she said, I was in a car wreck and
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
Speaker 2: Able to walk for six months after it. She said.
Speaker 2: During the six months, I would try to watch the
Speaker 2: Christian TV anywhere I was, but I couldn't find that
Speaker 2: preacher again. And the other stuff was good, she said,
Speaker 2: but there was just she said. I wish I could
Speaker 2: say that it got better from there, but it didn't
Speaker 2: get better from there. As I went from safe house
Speaker 2: to safe house. At one point it got so bad
Speaker 2: that I thought, I don't even know if I want
Speaker 2: to go on living anymore. What is my life worth
Speaker 2: when I'm just going from place to place to place
Speaker 2: to place to place to place, she said.
Speaker 1: One night at the safe house, I just decided to.
Speaker 2: Turn on the old clock radio. It was the only
Speaker 2: thing in the room, and I turned it on. I
Speaker 2: wanted to hear some music, and some music started playing
Speaker 2: and it was very beautiful, but I didn't know what
Speaker 2: it was. And then they started saying the name of
Speaker 2: Jesus on the song she said, and I reached to
Speaker 2: grab for the dial because I was not trying to
Speaker 2: listen to Christian music.
Speaker 1: But before I touched the dial, the most beautiful.
Speaker 2: Thing that I've heard happened, and she played played the
Speaker 2: intro real quick to more than Able. She said, the
Speaker 2: most beautiful music that I've heard came on the radio,
Speaker 2: and she said, the presence of God looking back. I
Speaker 2: didn't know what to call it when the presence of
Speaker 2: God met me in that room, and I began to
Speaker 2: cry and I began to weep, and she said, I
Speaker 2: honestly feel that God came into my life when that
Speaker 2: song was playing, and it said, I've come a long way.
Speaker 2: I've seen how you work. There's so much goodness and grace,
Speaker 2: much more than I deserve. And I know who I am,
Speaker 2: and I can't stay where I'm at. We've come this
Speaker 2: far by faith, and I just can't turn back because
Speaker 2: you're not done with me yet. I listen, she said,
Speaker 2: I'm crying, and when the DJ comes on after the song,
Speaker 2: he says, that was elevation worship with more than Abel
Speaker 2: and she said, I thought to myself, what is an
Speaker 2: elevation worship? That's literally what she wrote me. In the note,
Speaker 2: she said, I thought to myself. This is her note.
Speaker 2: She said, I literally thought to myself, what is an
Speaker 2: elevation worship? I borrowed a computer from the counselor the
Speaker 2: next morning and googled what is an elevation worship? This
Speaker 2: is what Lich said in her letter to me, and
Speaker 2: I was led to the Elevation Church website. After years
Speaker 2: of looking for you, I found you. But I want
Speaker 2: to say something. Don't clap for that. It's not after
Speaker 2: years of looking for me. She found me. It's not
Speaker 2: about finding me at all. It's after years of running
Speaker 2: God found her. I messed up by showing you the
Speaker 2: first picture before I read you the letter, because you
Speaker 2: would have just thought that she went like this and
Speaker 2: like this and like this and now she's home. But
Speaker 2: she told me that it was like this and like this,
Speaker 2: and like this and like this and like this, and
Speaker 2: then with a clock radio, the Lord found her. She said,
Speaker 2: she's doing good now. She said. The Lord is working
Speaker 2: in her life. She said, she teaches at a Christian school.
Speaker 1: Not like this, but like this and like this and
Speaker 1: like this and like this and like this.
Speaker 2: I came to find somebody today who has been doing
Speaker 2: all of this and this and this and this and
Speaker 2: this and this and this and this and this and this,
Speaker 2: and I came with an announcement. The Lord is in
Speaker 2: this place, and it's messy. I know it is. But
Speaker 2: we're celebrating a holiday called Christmas in a few weeks.
Speaker 2: And it kind of proves that the greatest miracles start
Speaker 2: in the messiest situations. After all, why will millions of
Speaker 2: people sing all around the world of a baby who
Speaker 2: was born in a manger, who was really the king
Speaker 2: of kings. Now you may say, what does that have
Speaker 2: to do with me? Because I see you trying to
Speaker 2: make your next step. I saw it when I was
Speaker 2: praying about this message. I saw people like Jacob who
Speaker 2: know I have made this mistake and I don't really
Speaker 2: can't go back to where I came from. I can't
Speaker 2: really figure out where I'm supposed to God? What is
Speaker 2: my next step? And the Lord said it is going
Speaker 2: to be your next messy step. And what messy means
Speaker 2: is you're not going to know if it's the right one. Oh,
Speaker 2: you'll look back and you'll say, this was my path,
Speaker 2: But what is it explained as a path? Later? Was
Speaker 2: really experienced as a problem in real time. Everything that
Speaker 2: God ever did for me that later I could be like.
Speaker 2: And then God directed my path. It was really this
Speaker 2: and this and this and this and this. I don't
Speaker 2: know what kind of day you're having today. You might
Speaker 2: be doing like this and your life. That's wonderful for
Speaker 2: that lady, But what does it mean for me? I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what it means for you. It means that
Speaker 2: you cannot forget the God who brought you this far
Speaker 2: when you remember that you started at rock bottom. You
Speaker 2: can't come all this way and say look what I did. No,
Speaker 2: if it had not been for the Lord, come on,
Speaker 2: if it had not been for the Lord on my side,
Speaker 2: I would be I would be down, I would be over.
Speaker 2: But God is Abel. But God is Abel. So you
Speaker 2: have Jacob lying on the ground, and you have God
Speaker 2: speaking to Jacob, and you have both things happening simultaneously.
Speaker 2: You have the nation of Israel in this man who
Speaker 2: is lying on the ground with no one, with nothing.
Speaker 2: God is speaking of his descendants and he doesn't even
Speaker 2: have one child. God is speaking of his future and
Speaker 2: he doesn't even have a single friend. God is speaking
Speaker 2: to you about things that you can't see in your life.
Speaker 2: But notice what verse fourteen says. It says that there
Speaker 2: was a ladder that started on the earth and went
Speaker 2: to heaven, and a voice from the Lord who stood
Speaker 2: over it, and he said, your descendants will be like
Speaker 2: the dust.
Speaker 3: God does stuff in dust. God does stuff in dust.
Speaker 2: Y'all, I'm having a moment right now where I know
Speaker 2: I'm preaching to a lish I am preaching to somebody
Speaker 2: who is going to write me a year from now
Speaker 2: and say I was in the dust. Well, that's how
Speaker 2: your whole life got started. Did you ever read the
Speaker 2: Book of Genesis. We talk about destiny. I'm talking about destiny, huh.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about God knows the plans he hasks for you,
Speaker 2: plans to give you a hope in a future. I'm
Speaker 2: talking about God speaks to the youth that he formed
Speaker 2: from the dust, and he breathed the breath of life
Speaker 2: into him, and he formed you from the dust. And
Speaker 2: now you are following the God who formed you from
Speaker 2: the dust. And it's going to be messy. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: was messy for the disciples following Jesus. Air up and
Speaker 2: we're down, and we're here, and we're there and it's
Speaker 2: working and it's not, and Hosanna and crucify him and
Speaker 2: we get it and we don't and we understand and
Speaker 2: we're confused. And that's okay because God leads people through
Speaker 2: messy next steps, just a messy next step. It doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be a beautiful next step. You don't have
Speaker 2: to have a choreographed next step. You don't have to
Speaker 2: dance into your future. You can just absolutely, Okay, God,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna call it Christian counselor.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if this's the right one. If
Speaker 2: they're weird, I'll fire him and get another one. There's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of counselors, and chat GIVT doesn't count
Speaker 2: as a counselor. So I'm gonna get a real human being,
Speaker 2: a real human being, because I'm gonna take that messy step. See,
Speaker 2: a controlled step is you keep trying to deal with
Speaker 2: things that the love well, you can see things. But
Speaker 2: what if the next step for you is that God
Speaker 2: wants to show you a staircase. Remember, God can do
Speaker 2: more while you're sleeping than you can do while you're striving.
Speaker 2: It is not It is not you figuring this out.
Speaker 2: It is you following Jesus into the mess. When Jesus
Speaker 2: called his disciples, he called one disciple named Nathaniel, and
Speaker 2: Nathaniel was confused. He was like, how do you know me?
Speaker 2: How do you see me under the fig tree? How
Speaker 2: did you know who I was? And in John chapter one,
Speaker 2: verse fifty Jesus said to Nathaniel, you are amazed and
Speaker 2: believed because I saw you under the fig tree. You
Speaker 2: will see greater things than that.
Speaker 1: Watch this skinner verse fifty one.
Speaker 2: He said, very truly, I tell you will see heaven
Speaker 2: open and you will see the angels of God. Watch
Speaker 2: this flashback Genesis twenty eight. He said, you will see
Speaker 2: the Angel of God Us sending and descending, not on
Speaker 2: Jacob's ladder. But Jesus said, you will see the angels
Speaker 2: Us sending from a versa voice and descending on the
Speaker 2: son of Man. Who's the son of man? Jesus, who
Speaker 2: is the ladder that appeared to Jacob in the wilderness. Jesus,
Speaker 2: who is the one who is calling to you in
Speaker 2: this season of your life, saying we can do this,
Speaker 2: we can move forward in this. And I came to
Speaker 2: declare to you that it is not your next step
Speaker 2: that matters. It is the step that God has already
Speaker 2: made toward you. It's a mistake, it's a middle and
Speaker 2: it's a move. But it wasn't Jacob's move that saved him.
Speaker 2: It was God's move. God is moving in your situation. Man.
Speaker 2: You say I can't see him, that's because he puts
Speaker 2: you to sleep to do it. You say I can't
Speaker 2: see it, that's because it's covered in dust. But whether
Speaker 2: it's Genesis or whether it's Jesus who been down in
Speaker 2: the dirt when a woman who committed adultery was about
Speaker 2: to be stone, God does stuff in the dust. Your
Speaker 2: next messy step, that's all it's going to take. It's
Speaker 2: just your next messy step because God has already done
Speaker 2: the real work. Now you will know what it is
Speaker 2: today that the Lord is speaking to you about. How
Speaker 2: could I now? God?
Speaker 1: You will know the place in your life where he
Speaker 1: has felt like.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm speaking to somebody though, who you
Speaker 2: thought you had arrived and now you've been in a
Speaker 2: setback and you're surprised by it a little bit. Well, surprise,
Speaker 2: God is in the setback too, because this is this
Speaker 2: is this is this is this everyone's standing all over
Speaker 2: this auditorium and nobody moving to leave at this moment.
Speaker 1: Where did the Lord find you today?
Speaker 2: Was it like this where you're like, yo, man, I
Speaker 2: don't even see a way forward? Or is it like
Speaker 2: Jacob who should have been at the top of his
Speaker 2: life but was empty inside.
Speaker 1: This is a moment for you to decide.
Speaker 2: Is he your God? And do you trust him? In
Speaker 2: verse fifteen, he told Jacob, I am with you, and
Speaker 2: I will be with you wherever you go, and I
Speaker 2: will bring you back to this land. I will not
Speaker 2: leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
Speaker 2: You know, the Lord didn't say he was going to
Speaker 2: do everything that we prayed for. He said he would
Speaker 2: do everything that he promised. Who is that for? And
Speaker 2: you think for you to take the next step, God
Speaker 2: has to answer your last prayer. No, he's already done enough.
Speaker 2: And if the next step he called you to take
Speaker 2: is just stand still, then you do that. Because the
Speaker 2: Lord is in this place. Father, I've administered your word
Speaker 2: with the grace and conviction with which you ministered it
Speaker 2: to me. Now put it in your hands.
Speaker 4: These are your children, these people, they're precious to you.
Speaker 4: You see where they're running to, you see what they're
Speaker 4: running from, and you know where you're leading them. I
Speaker 4: believe that your hand is on each and every one
Speaker 4: of them, none too dusty, none too dirty, none too messy,
Speaker 4: none too far gone. I believe there are some people
Speaker 4: God who have accomplished a lot in earthly standards.
Speaker 2: There is a spiritual vacuum, and they're starting to feel it.
Speaker 2: Right about now, Lord, would you meet that person in
Speaker 2: that place?
Speaker 1: And there's somebody listening to me God at a point.
Speaker 2: In between, like ah, I just don't feel like I
Speaker 2: know what God has called me to do next. I
Speaker 2: pray that heavens would be open over them, even if
Speaker 2: it's just for thirty seconds while I'm praying this prayer,
Speaker 2: and they would know that angels are coming up and
Speaker 2: down for the high times, for the low times, that
Speaker 2: this staircase, this step did not start with them, as
Speaker 2: started with you. And now Father, we commit our lives
Speaker 2: to your grace. Like Jacob said, I will make you
Speaker 2: my God, I will follow you forward. I thank you,
Speaker 2: Lord for what you know about them that they don't
Speaker 2: know about. I thank you for what you see in
Speaker 2: them that they've lost sight of. I thank you for
Speaker 2: what you're doing that I just can't perceive. Now, lift
Speaker 2: your hands just a little bit and give that situation
Speaker 2: to the Lord.
Speaker 1: Surrender it. You know what it is. I want you
Speaker 1: to have a strategy.
Speaker 2: I want you to have a plan, but I want
Speaker 2: you to have His presence, so you could just surrender
Speaker 2: it to him. Every time in the church I didn't
Speaker 2: know what to do, I did this, and God did something.
Speaker 2: Every time with my kids, when I don't know what
Speaker 2: to do, I do this, and I trust God to
Speaker 2: do something every time in my life when I don't
Speaker 2: know what to do, I do this. Because it's not
Speaker 2: strategy that blesses your life. It is surrender. Father.
Speaker 1: You see all these hands lifted to you right now.
Speaker 2: Everything they're caring, every burden that they bear, we place
Speaker 2: it on Jesus. We see angels ascending and descending on
Speaker 2: the son of Man. Jesus, the burden bear, the shame remover,
Speaker 2: the way maker, the God who is always with us.
Speaker 2: Put your hands down for a moment. If your head's
Speaker 2: bowed and your eyes closed, is there one here today,
Speaker 2: even just one who God brought you here and met
Speaker 2: you here? Because you need to give your life to
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Maybe you've been running from God, or maybe
Speaker 2: you've never really even stopped to consider it. But I
Speaker 2: believe that God brought you to this moment so that
Speaker 2: you could give him your heart. Right now, in the
Speaker 2: stillness of this moment, I want to lead you in
Speaker 2: a prayer, and if you are ready to give your
Speaker 2: life to Jesus Christ, I want you to repeat this
Speaker 2: prayer after me. Now, the prayer is not magical. The
Speaker 2: prayer does not save you. God saves you. The Bible
Speaker 2: says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus
Speaker 2: is Lord, and believe in your heart God raised him
Speaker 2: from the dead, you will be saved. So right now,
Speaker 2: this is your day, and God is calling you home.
Speaker 2: I want you to repeat after me. We're going to
Speaker 2: pray it out loud as a church family for the
Speaker 2: benefit of those who are coming to God. Repeat after me,
Speaker 2: Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a savior,
Speaker 2: and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
Speaker 2: God and the Savior of the world. And today I
Speaker 2: make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he
Speaker 2: died that I would be forgiven and rose again to
Speaker 2: give me life. I receive this new life. This is
Speaker 2: my new beginning. I am a child of God. On
Speaker 2: the counter, three, shoot your hand up high in the air.
Speaker 2: If you prayed that one. Two chree.
Speaker 1: I want to celebrate with you.
Speaker 2: Praise the Lord. That's awesome. Less God, come on, let's go.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to
Speaker 2: those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is
Speaker 2: because of you that this ministry is possible. You can
Speaker 2: click the link in the description to give now or
Speaker 2: visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and
Speaker 2: if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can
Speaker 2: share it with your friends. You can click the share button,
Speaker 2: take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
Speaker 2: and tag us at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 2: God bless you.