Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.
Speaker 3: Be sure to.
Speaker 2: Subscribe so we can get you these new sermons every week.
Speaker 3: I hope you're blessed today.
Speaker 4: I don't know how. Honestly, I'm flamox myself as to
Speaker 4: how I slid in to the dms of Elevation. I
Speaker 4: don't know how. I'm shocked. I told Holly in the
Speaker 4: very beginning. I thought she got me confused with either
Speaker 4: Lisa Turkerst, who sells a lot of books, or Lisa Vivier,
Speaker 4: who preaches in leather pants. And I thought, I know,
Speaker 4: but I can't, or it sounds like Duxter being killed.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of squeaking if I've preached in leather
Speaker 4: and so I really don't know how, other than.
Speaker 1: Pure grace, that I get to be here.
Speaker 4: But I am absolutely delighted I do. There's not too
Speaker 4: many people respect more than Pastor Holly and Pastor Steven.
Speaker 4: I love Wade and Amy, Chris, Colleen Tunis.
Speaker 1: There's just so many people at.
Speaker 4: Elevation who have taught me, who have modeled for me
Speaker 4: what running hard towards Jesus looks like what it looks
Speaker 4: like to be enveloped in a family of faith. And
Speaker 4: so before we dive into God's word, let me get
Speaker 4: you to reach out and touch that saint next to you.
Speaker 1: This is not rhetorical. Go ahead and touch them.
Speaker 4: Don't grope them, just touch them. Gentlemen, I know this
Speaker 4: is real girly, so y'all don't have to interlock fingers.
Speaker 1: You can just awkwardly pinky grip at this point. Those
Speaker 1: of you joining us.
Speaker 4: Online, Epham, you don't have to touch anybody. Hope you're
Speaker 4: in comfy pants, you can just undo the top button
Speaker 4: because this is a safe place to lean into Jesus,
Speaker 4: we want you to be comfortable. Would you pray for
Speaker 4: those on either side of you. If you're watching by yourself,
Speaker 4: pray for yourself and pray then in these next few minutes,
Speaker 4: as we dive into this love letter called the Bible,
Speaker 4: that God will give us eyes to see, bigger, ears
Speaker 4: that hear louder, and hearts that are pliant enough to
Speaker 4: actually receive the glorious good news that.
Speaker 1: We have a perfect God who loves us unconditionally.
Speaker 4: We're the prize, y'all, We're the prize. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,
Speaker 4: thank you for this time and the space that we
Speaker 4: get to come together and focus our attention and our
Speaker 4: affection on You.
Speaker 1: Lord.
Speaker 4: We confess that most of us come with a lot
Speaker 4: of distraction. It takes me more more than four or
Speaker 4: five songs to actually get my heart into place to
Speaker 4: receive from you, and I wish worship had been an.
Speaker 1: Hour this morning.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you for that promise that
Speaker 4: when we seek you with all our hearts, you will
Speaker 4: be found by us. But Jesus, I praise you even
Speaker 4: more so for that promise in Isaiah the beginning of.
Speaker 1: The book, where you say, so great is.
Speaker 4: Your love for us that you even reveal yourself to
Speaker 4: people who aren't looking for you. Yet, we're undone this morning,
Speaker 4: by your kindness, God, just undone, we confess as your
Speaker 4: sons and daughters. We can't even understand scripture apart from
Speaker 4: Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, just have your way in
Speaker 4: this place, and our hearts and our minds just plow
Speaker 4: up ground that's hard or numb or disappointed. Open our eyes,
Speaker 4: lift our view beyond our circumstances, so that we can
Speaker 4: remember this miraculous love story you wrote us into. We
Speaker 4: love you, Jesus, we need you, Jesus. We pray all
Speaker 4: these things and your perfect and holy name, Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1: Men and amen. Speaking of.
Speaker 4: Speaking of sliding into elevations DMS, this is called body glide.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a stick, it's an anti chafing bomb.
Speaker 4: It's all all about getting yourself slippery. And I just
Speaker 4: wanted to start with TMI because I had to wear this.
Speaker 4: The last time I was in an athletic competition, I
Speaker 4: got talked into running a tin k. And even though
Speaker 4: I'm wearing spanks this morning, it's probably very apparent that
Speaker 4: I'm not gifted at long distance running. But a friend
Speaker 4: of mine talked me into it because she said, lisaid,
Speaker 4: they have this amazing swag.
Speaker 1: They have really cute T shirts.
Speaker 4: This was in Colorado, and I thought, Okay, I'll line
Speaker 4: up with all these paleo people and I'll run this
Speaker 4: ten k.
Speaker 1: Because the T shirts are really cute.
Speaker 4: And so before the race, she whipped out one of
Speaker 4: these body glide slides, and she said, I don't want
Speaker 4: to hurt your feelings, but you know you have such
Speaker 4: it's gifted legs that I think that it might help
Speaker 4: you to rub this on your inner thighs. She did
Speaker 4: not say or else she will be arrested for arson,
Speaker 4: but that was the implication, And so I slathered myself
Speaker 4: up with body glide. Gentleman is like, what in the
Speaker 4: sam hill? We're getting to the Bible. We're gonna get
Speaker 4: there in just a second. So I'm all slathered up
Speaker 4: with bodyglides so I won't start a forest fire. And
Speaker 4: the starter's pistol goes off to start this race, and
Speaker 4: I have Kodak courage, so I am up with the
Speaker 4: elite eight like the first two hundred yards of the
Speaker 4: race because everybody's cheering. But then it turns up hill
Speaker 4: and we start running up those gorgeous, rocky mountains that
Speaker 4: were always meant to be skied down, not run up.
Speaker 1: I start running up those mountains and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is horrible. Who would do this as a hobby?
Speaker 4: Who would I mean, I can understand if you were
Speaker 4: being disciplined or this was some kind of parole thing,
Speaker 4: but people do this on purpose.
Speaker 1: And so about halfway through the race, I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't do this. I cannot do this anymore. This
Speaker 1: friction is too much.
Speaker 4: I have what they call hotspots for runners, and so
Speaker 4: I thought, I'm an old athlete.
Speaker 1: I played volleyball and.
Speaker 4: Tennis in college, and I thought, I just can't bring
Speaker 4: myself to quit.
Speaker 1: That just seems sissy ish, and I can't do that.
Speaker 4: But maybe I could find a hole, and I could
Speaker 4: step in a hole and break my ankle, and then
Speaker 4: I could step off this course with some measure of
Speaker 4: dignity left. And so I'm searching for a hole on
Speaker 4: the race course, and all of a sudden, I hear
Speaker 4: this really loud swishing sound behind me, and so I
Speaker 4: look over my shoulder and y'all, there's a six foot bacon,
Speaker 4: lettuce and tomato sandwich beside me. You know how some
Speaker 4: people have so much energy when they run races that
Speaker 4: they actually wear costumes, which I'm like, really, I'm like
Speaker 4: about to crawl and cry and knock somebody over the
Speaker 4: head who has a donut who's watching, so I can
Speaker 4: take their carb, But instead these people have enough energy
Speaker 4: to have a costume. The first guy had this massive
Speaker 4: foam cut out that was like wonderbread.
Speaker 1: Just his face is poking through run and cheese.
Speaker 4: Just his face behind him is like this green tart
Speaker 4: piece of lettuce. It was very lifelike. I want to
Speaker 4: eat it badly. And then he's rope to a middle runner.
Speaker 4: The middle runner, just his little face is poking out
Speaker 4: from a piece of lifelike American cheese. And then attached
Speaker 4: to that is three pieces of very wiggly bacon. I
Speaker 4: don't know what they made that out of. Then there's
Speaker 4: two other ropes pulling up the caboose. He's another giant
Speaker 4: piece of wonderbread. And then he's slathered with all kinds
Speaker 4: of condiments and a life size tomato, well more than
Speaker 4: life sized tomato.
Speaker 1: And I mean it was really incredible, so creative, this giant.
Speaker 4: Six foot blt and it was passing me.
Speaker 1: And that is a lot of wind resistance. And so
Speaker 1: that was.
Speaker 4: The lowest point of my competition. I decided, never ever
Speaker 4: again would I compete in anything where I had to
Speaker 4: wear bodyglide. So I no longer compete in ten ks.
Speaker 4: I don't rollerblade, I don't go to Myrtle Beach because
Speaker 4: because of that particular vacation mecca, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: people there who need bodyglide.
Speaker 1: It's pull a.
Speaker 4: Lot of rubbing going on up at Myrtle Beach. And
Speaker 4: I haven't offended you, Myrtle Beachers, but I was there
Speaker 4: recently and I just mentally I couldn't handle that corporate
Speaker 4: need for something to stop the chafing.
Speaker 1: Now. I don't know if running.
Speaker 4: Is your nemesis or if chafing is real for you,
Speaker 4: but I do know all of us can identify with
Speaker 4: feeling like we're not quite good enough for whatever activity
Speaker 4: we've stepped into, that we don't quite meet the minimum
Speaker 4: requirement for some club, some community that we'd hoped to
Speaker 4: belong to. Feeling like we're not quite good enough. That's
Speaker 4: not just an athletic competition thing.
Speaker 1: That's a human thing.
Speaker 4: Part of the human condition is to feel like we
Speaker 4: were just a little bit less than acceptable. Maybe it's
Speaker 4: that your mother in law always treated you like her
Speaker 4: boy could have done better. Or maybe you're the only
Speaker 4: one who doesn't know how to pronounce sobaccac in your
Speaker 4: e fam, Or maybe it's that you're in a double
Speaker 4: Spans kind of season and you hang out with a
Speaker 4: lot of quto girls. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 4: but there's just something about the human experience that presses
Speaker 4: on the bruise in our human psyche and causes us
Speaker 4: at some level to doubt, am I actually good enough
Speaker 4: for that?
Speaker 1: And the real the real danger is.
Speaker 4: When we superimpose that wondering if we're good enough onto
Speaker 4: the character of our creator, redeemer. It's the human experience
Speaker 4: to think we don't quite measure up. It is actually
Speaker 4: not biblically defensible. It's not in this divine love story
Speaker 4: we call a Bible. If you brought yours, turn to
Speaker 4: Genesis forty eight and I'll prove it. Genesis forty eight.
Speaker 4: It's about a quarter of an inch from the beginning.
Speaker 4: Unless you have a Schofield Bible. We'll have it up
Speaker 4: on the screens. Genesis forty eight, verse eight. And this
Speaker 4: is a long one, so don't play angry birds yet.
Speaker 1: I'll read fast.
Speaker 4: When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said.
Speaker 1: Who are these?
Speaker 4: And let me qualify this just a minute, because when
Speaker 4: you hear the word Israel, we forget that Israel is
Speaker 4: synonymous for Jacob. So this is one of the patriarchs
Speaker 4: in in scripture, Jacob. So when I read Israel, I
Speaker 4: might just start changing it. I love you, I might
Speaker 4: just start changing it to Jacob because same name and Joseph.
Speaker 4: You all remember who Joseph is. Young, talkback, I'm not
Speaker 4: your pastor. He's the guy who got this really cool
Speaker 4: colored coat from H and M and his brothers got
Speaker 4: all jealous and through him in a hole.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 4: And then they dragged him off as a slave. He
Speaker 4: was in Egypt, and then Pharaoh's wife was a total
Speaker 4: Houchi mama, and she accused him of sexual misconduct and
Speaker 4: he didn't do it, but he got thrown in jail away.
Speaker 4: Y'all remember this guy, and then he ends up being
Speaker 4: this great leader and God uses him to actually help
Speaker 4: his people not die of starvation.
Speaker 1: Jaron Famine. Are you with me on the story?
Speaker 4: Okay, so we're the part where he's done all that.
Speaker 4: He's a grown man, he has children of his own,
Speaker 4: and he goes back to Jacob the patriarch with two
Speaker 4: little boys, his two little boys, Ephraim and Manassa, who
Speaker 4: were born in each not in Israel. And so his dad, Jacob,
Speaker 4: the granddaddy of these little boys, Joe says to him,
Speaker 4: these are my sons whom God has given me here,
Speaker 4: and he said, bring them to me, please, that I
Speaker 4: may bless them. Now the eyes of Jacob were dim
Speaker 4: with age so that he could not see, so he
Speaker 4: had cataracts. And Jacob so Joe brought them near him
Speaker 4: and he kissed them and embraced them. And Jacob said
Speaker 4: to Joe, I never expect to see your face, because
Speaker 4: remember they've been separated since his hay for brothers Thum
Speaker 4: and the Pitmoll. He says, I never expected to see
Speaker 4: your face. I never expected this reconciliation and never expected
Speaker 4: you to come back to me.
Speaker 1: But God has let.
Speaker 4: Me see your offspring also. Then Joseph removed them from
Speaker 4: his knees and he bowed himself with his face to
Speaker 4: the earth. He's so delighted to bring his boys to
Speaker 4: his father. And Joe took them both Ephraim and his
Speaker 4: right hand toward Israel's left hand, a Manassa in his
Speaker 4: left hand toward Israel's right.
Speaker 1: Hand, and brought them near him.
Speaker 4: And Jacob stretched out his right hand and laid it
Speaker 4: on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and
Speaker 4: his left hand on the head of Manassa, crossing his hands.
Speaker 4: If you've got a brick and mortar Bible and your
Speaker 4: comfortable writing in it, underscore that hugely significant even for us.
Speaker 1: As modern day christ followers.
Speaker 4: We'll get there in just a second, crossing his hands,
Speaker 4: for Manassa was the firstborn, and he blessed Joe and said,
Speaker 4: the God before whom my father's Abraham and Isaac walked
Speaker 4: to God who has been my shepherd all my life
Speaker 4: long to this day, the Angel who has redeemed me
Speaker 4: from all evil, bless these boys, and in them, let
Speaker 4: my name be carried on in the name of my
Speaker 4: father's Abe and Isaac can let them grow into a multitude.
Speaker 1: In the midst of.
Speaker 4: Years, when Joe saw that his dad laid his right
Speaker 4: hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and
Speaker 4: he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's
Speaker 4: head to Manassa's head. And Joe said to his daddy,
Speaker 4: not this way, Dad, since this one is the firstborn,
Speaker 4: and put your right hand on his head. But his
Speaker 4: father refused and said, I know, my son, I know,
Speaker 4: I might have cataract, but I'm not stupid. That's not
Speaker 4: literal Hebrew, it's more message point two. Nevertheless, his younger
Speaker 4: brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall
Speaker 4: become a multitude of nations. So Jacob bless them that day,
Speaker 4: saying bless you. Israel will pronounce blessing, saying God make
Speaker 4: you as Ephraim and Asmanassa does he put Ephraim before Manassa.
Speaker 4: Then Israel said to Joe, behold, I'm about to die,
Speaker 4: but God will be with you, and we'll bring you
Speaker 4: again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I've given
Speaker 4: to you rather than to your brother's one mountain slope
Speaker 4: that I took from the hand of the Amorites with
Speaker 4: my sword and with my bow. So what does that
Speaker 4: Old Testament history mean to us today? Why is it
Speaker 4: significant for us, especially for those of us who wonder,
Speaker 4: how in the world could a perfect God like that
Speaker 4: fully except fully love.
Speaker 1: A damaged woman, a damaged man like me.
Speaker 4: First of all, in this ancient culture, they practice the
Speaker 4: law of primogeniture, and that just means the firstborn got everything.
Speaker 4: Firstborn un goot everything. The law of inheritance was the
Speaker 4: firstborn son was it?
Speaker 1: Second? Really was just a spare? First is the heir
Speaker 1: second as a spare.
Speaker 4: And so what would happen is the patriarch of any
Speaker 4: family community would bless the firstborn with this right hand,
Speaker 4: because in submitted culture, the right hand is the blessed hand.
Speaker 4: The right right hand is the holy hand. The right
Speaker 4: hand is the hand that you want to bless with.
Speaker 4: Left hand is considered subservient. I was just in Israel
Speaker 4: again in marsh and none of my Jewish friends will
Speaker 4: greet me with their left hand. That's considered disrespectful. The
Speaker 4: right hand is the hand of blessing. That's why you
Speaker 4: will never read in scripture that Jesus sat at the
Speaker 4: left hand of God, the Father.
Speaker 1: Always the right, always the right.
Speaker 4: So when when Joe multicolored coat guy brings his two
Speaker 4: little boys to their granddaddy and he says, I want
Speaker 4: you to bless them, dad, and then Jacob crosses his arms, y'all,
Speaker 4: this is the only time that happens in all of scripture.
Speaker 1: That's called a hay pax legomanon. Isn't that cool? Share
Speaker 1: that with your efamgroup.
Speaker 4: If they're thinking you're sliding, just go well, I was
Speaker 4: reading a hay packs legomanon. It's a fancy word that
Speaker 4: means it only happens once in a corpus or in
Speaker 4: a text. You will never read this again in scripture.
Speaker 4: This is the only time, you've got a patriarch crossing
Speaker 4: his arms intentionally to bless the second son instead of
Speaker 4: the first, as was their custom, as was their tradition.
Speaker 4: Joseph is so flustered by it, and he's like, Dad,
Speaker 4: you messed up.
Speaker 1: You bless the wrong kid. And he goes, no, I
Speaker 1: knew exactly what I was doing.
Speaker 4: He says, here's the deal, Joseph, I want both of
Speaker 4: them blessed. What this leads to scholars critical scholars call
Speaker 4: this etology fancy word that means, this is the foundation
Speaker 4: that explains what happens later on. This is the cause
Speaker 4: of something. This explains why Ephraim, who was the second son,
Speaker 4: becomes prominent in Israel's history.
Speaker 1: From then on.
Speaker 4: From Genesis forty eight, when you hear about Manassa, he's
Speaker 4: first born, it says Manassa and Ephraim. You would think
Speaker 4: they were twins by the way you read them in
Speaker 4: biblical narrative. And then Ephraim actually kind of gets bigger
Speaker 4: than Manassa.
Speaker 1: Ephram is the one.
Speaker 4: Where we get a lot of the leaders from in
Speaker 4: the Old Testament. Ephraim is the one when Israel splits
Speaker 4: into two nations. Y'all remember when that happened, because we
Speaker 4: had Solomon third Keen of Israel, and he was a
Speaker 4: player and had way too many wives and concubines, and
Speaker 4: they fought and they couldn't decide for an air.
Speaker 1: Do y'all remember this? And so it was real Jerry Springer.
Speaker 4: And so instead of Israel being one one united nation
Speaker 4: under Yahweh, they split and there was Northern Israel and
Speaker 4: there were Southern Israel. There were twelve tribes, y'all remember
Speaker 4: who the twelve tribes came from?
Speaker 1: Y'a talk back?
Speaker 4: Jacob's Jacob's twelve sons who make up the twelve tribes
Speaker 4: of Israel. Those are the tribes that step over the
Speaker 4: Jordan and they go into Canaan. They're the ones who
Speaker 4: occupy promised land. There are great great great great great
Speaker 4: great great great great great.
Speaker 1: And then some spiritual grandmama's and granddaddies.
Speaker 4: Well, Ephraim and Manassa are sons of Joseph, which means
Speaker 4: technically they aren't one of the twelve tribes. They're half tribe.
Speaker 4: But do you know that after this they're called a tribe.
Speaker 4: Technically they're not a tribe, but they're called a full
Speaker 4: on tribe. And when Israel splits, ten tribes go to
Speaker 4: the north. Two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, go to the south,
Speaker 4: where Jerusalem is. Do you know what they begin calling
Speaker 4: the north Ephraim. The name Ephram becomes a metonym for
Speaker 4: all the Israelites in the North. So he just gets
Speaker 4: bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and more prominent
Speaker 4: in Israel's history.
Speaker 1: But he's the second son, He's the spare.
Speaker 4: It's so cool, y'all. What this means for us as
Speaker 4: christ followers. It means there's no second best. It means
Speaker 4: there's no jv. It means there's no lesser than. It
Speaker 4: means if you put.
Speaker 5: Your hope in Jesus, we're all favorites, every single one
Speaker 5: of us. He doesn't go, Oh, you know what's it's
Speaker 5: thanksgiving up here in glory.
Speaker 1: You got to sit at the kiddie table.
Speaker 4: Only the mature believers said here that is not biblically defensible.
Speaker 4: He goes, there is now no more hierarchy. You humans
Speaker 4: have hierarchy. You humans elevate certain ethnicities, certain sociodemographic groups,
Speaker 4: certain wayte sizes, certain hair colors. You establish criteria for
Speaker 4: value I don't. If you have put your hope in me,
Speaker 4: you're all favorite sons.
Speaker 1: Paul continues this theme. I just love this theme. He
Speaker 1: can te you use it in Romans eight.
Speaker 4: Romans eight is basically the hub of our theological wheel.
Speaker 4: As believers, you know this Romans eight. Some of y'all
Speaker 4: have instagrammed it, but you might not know it. Know
Speaker 4: it Romans eight, verse fourteen. For all who are led
Speaker 4: by the spirit of God are sons of God.
Speaker 1: That's not a gender exclusive term, by the way.
Speaker 4: Paul goes on to explain later in Galatians three.
Speaker 1: He says, if.
Speaker 4: You are in Christ, there is now no more Greek
Speaker 4: nor Jew, male, nor female, slave nor master. So this
Speaker 4: is actually not a gender exclusive term. It's just in language.
Speaker 4: At this time it was a patriarchal society, so inheritance
Speaker 4: language was masculine.
Speaker 1: But that's not just talking about boys there for all.
Speaker 4: That's the operative word for all who are led by
Speaker 4: the spirit of God or sons of God. For you
Speaker 4: did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back
Speaker 4: into fear, but you receive this received the spirit of adoption.
Speaker 1: As sons by whom we cry.
Speaker 4: Abba, Father, Do you know Jesus is the first one,
Speaker 4: and Luke eleven when he's teaching us how to pray.
Speaker 4: Prior to Jesus, the rabbis had really formal prayers and
Speaker 4: they would approach yahweh God.
Speaker 1: The Father with a title.
Speaker 4: Jesus says, no, you get to approach him as Dad,
Speaker 4: your sons, you're first born. You get to approach him
Speaker 4: has dad aha father Dad. The spirit himself bears witness
Speaker 4: with our spirit that we are children of God. And
Speaker 4: if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs.
Speaker 1: Underscore that, y'all fellow heirs.
Speaker 4: Your translation might say co heirs with Christ, provided we
Speaker 4: suffer with Him in order that we may also be
Speaker 4: glorified in him. Colossians one tells us that Jesus is
Speaker 4: the firstborn of all creation. He blows William, the Prince
Speaker 4: of Wales away. He's not the firstborn in UK royalty.
Speaker 4: He is the firstborn of all creation. He is the
Speaker 4: definitive heir, the definitive first born.
Speaker 1: And here Paul says, you're his co heirs.
Speaker 6: You raggedy, broke down, prone to schaef prone to wander people,
Speaker 6: You are co heirs. The Greek term there is soon
Speaker 6: Clay Ranamos soon Clay Ramanas. It means we are properly
Speaker 6: entitled to inherit every single thing. Jesus inherits, properly entitled
Speaker 6: to inherit everything.
Speaker 1: Jesus, y'all that should blow your doors. Properly entitled to inherit.
Speaker 1: So Jesus doesn't say, hey, Dad.
Speaker 4: I've got a friend. I mean no, they're kind of
Speaker 4: broke down, another kind of rat. But I got to
Speaker 4: know him in Charlotte, and can we just invite him in?
Speaker 1: And then they stay like they can stay in the basement.
Speaker 1: That's not it.
Speaker 4: We sit right next to Jesus at the bank winning
Speaker 4: table of God the Father.
Speaker 1: It's stunning. Our access is stunning. We're not less than
Speaker 1: adopted children. We're co heirs.
Speaker 4: Missy and I were at a Christmas event last year
Speaker 4: and a man who has since become a friend, a
Speaker 4: Messianic rabbi from Israel, was at this event in Nashville.
Speaker 1: We were teaching him how to talk, write, and eat biscuits.
Speaker 4: And he watched Missy and I for a long time,
Speaker 4: and then he called me over and he said, Lisa,
Speaker 4: do you understand the distinction between adoption in America and
Speaker 4: adoption in a Jewish culture, especially a biblical Jewish culture.
Speaker 4: And I said, I don't think so. And he said, well,
Speaker 4: in my culture, and especially in the context of biblical narrative,
Speaker 4: a parent could disinherit a biological child, could disinherit a
Speaker 4: biological child. But it is illegal if you're an Orthodox
Speaker 4: Jew to disinherit and adopted child. He said, we don't
Speaker 4: even realize how significant it was when Joseph went with
Speaker 4: Mary to have the first born sacrifice made a week
Speaker 4: after baby Jesus was born.
Speaker 1: You read this in Looke too. That's where Simeon sings over.
Speaker 4: Jesus and says, this is the Savior, this is the
Speaker 4: man you have been waiting for all this time. That's
Speaker 4: where Anna remember she was waiting there for almost one
Speaker 4: hundred years.
Speaker 1: Simeon's old.
Speaker 4: I always imagine her back in the bathroom, like filling
Speaker 4: the paper towel dispensers.
Speaker 1: And she knows Simeon.
Speaker 4: They're really close friends from the Jewish retirement home across
Speaker 4: the street from the temple. They're both big volunteers and
Speaker 4: temple been there for decades. And she hears me in
Speaker 4: warbling and she's back for filling the tape paper towel dispenser,
Speaker 4: and she thinks, al' know, aw, he's broken his hip again.
Speaker 4: And she goes running or kind of wobbling into temple
Speaker 4: and she looks up and.
Speaker 1: She see these sees, these.
Speaker 4: Teenagers and the boy has a pigeon squawking in his backpack.
Speaker 1: Mary and Joe were poor.
Speaker 4: They couldn't afford a normal sacrifice, so they brought a
Speaker 4: pigeon and they've got a baby boy. And Simeon is
Speaker 4: holding this baby boy, and Simeon's face is lit up
Speaker 4: like a Christmas tree, and he says, this is the one,
Speaker 4: and this is the one we've been waiting for.
Speaker 1: All these are this, this is the Christ. This is
Speaker 1: a man.
Speaker 3: You how.
Speaker 4: My friend Samuel said, Lisa when that happened, when Joseph
Speaker 4: voluntarily went to temple and said, this is my first born.
Speaker 4: What he was saying is this one gets my full inheritance.
Speaker 4: Even though i'm technically the step dad. I did and
Speaker 4: get Mary pregnant technically on the step dad, this is
Speaker 4: my son, and every single thing I have I'm given
Speaker 4: to this boy. He said, that's what we have. It
Speaker 4: says we're co eers with Christ. We're co eers with Christ.
Speaker 4: We get everything he gets. That is so hard for
Speaker 4: me to understand. It's become a little more tangible now
Speaker 4: that I'm a mom myself. I became a mom through
Speaker 4: the miracle of adoption. The year I turned fifty. I
Speaker 4: was really broke down, probably all the chafing in my
Speaker 4: twenties and thirties, and I was really afraid of intimacy.
Speaker 4: I didn't get married in my twenties and thirties. I
Speaker 4: was really drawn to abusers. God protected me from the
Speaker 4: men I was most drawn to you. And this is
Speaker 4: of course pre online dating, which that's been to train
Speaker 4: wreck for me too.
Speaker 1: I won't go there.
Speaker 4: But the few good godly guys I dated, God protected
Speaker 4: them from me because I was just crippled with shame.
Speaker 4: Even though I knew Jesus, I knew him as my savior,
Speaker 4: I didn't know him as my liberator in my twenties
Speaker 4: and thirties and so to. And by the way, when
Speaker 4: I hear babies, I love the sound of babies in church.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about a baby.
Speaker 4: When I see people in church give dirty looks to
Speaker 4: parents or grandparents or aunties or uncles with babies. I
Speaker 4: always pray the people give them the dirty looks would
Speaker 4: get hives because I'm like, Lord, have mercy, if ever
Speaker 4: we should celebrate babies. But to get to have my
Speaker 4: story redeemed, to get to become a mom at the
Speaker 4: age of fifty through the miracle of adoption after my
Speaker 4: little girl's first mama died in Haiti, I just I
Speaker 4: feel like I'm still in the honeymoon season of how
Speaker 4: God restored that part of my story and getting to
Speaker 4: be Missy's mom. Getting to be Missy's mom has helped
Speaker 4: me understand more about being a child of God. Head
Speaker 4: backwards to Luke's Gospel. I love Luke's Gospel. Luke is
Speaker 4: the only known non gentile author of Scripture. He wrote
Speaker 4: the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles,
Speaker 4: and he was an outlier.
Speaker 1: He was not a Jew.
Speaker 4: All of the other authors of Holy writ are Jews.
Speaker 4: Got a few books that are formally classified as anonymous,
Speaker 4: but most of them were written by Jews, and so
Speaker 4: Luke is a gentile knew what it was to wonder
Speaker 4: if he fit that he actually didn't meet the minimum
Speaker 4: requirement for an author of a euon Gelon, a gospel,
Speaker 4: and so his stories are just riddled with compassion and
Speaker 4: with the idea of what it means to be close
Speaker 4: to this God who calls us his children. And this story,
Speaker 4: this story that Jesus tells in Luke chapter eleven, you
Speaker 4: half of his sermon material was parabolic. It was story.
Speaker 4: This story he tells just slays me. Begins in verse five.
Speaker 4: He's taught them how to pray. And then Jesus said
Speaker 4: to them, he's talking to disciples. Which of you has
Speaker 4: a friend, will go to him at midnight and say
Speaker 4: to him, friend, lend me three lows.
Speaker 1: This is Luke eleven, verse six.
Speaker 4: For a friend of mine has arrived in a journey,
Speaker 4: and I have nothing to set before him, and he
Speaker 4: will answer from within, do not bother me.
Speaker 1: The doors now shut. My children are with me in bed.
Speaker 4: I cannot get up and give you anything I tell you,
Speaker 4: though he will not get up and give him anything
Speaker 4: because he is his friend. Yet because of his impudence. Again,
Speaker 4: if y'all comfort writing in your Bible's underscore that one
Speaker 4: that is such an interesting word, this too is a
Speaker 4: heypax legomenon. This is the only time this particular word
Speaker 4: is used anywhere in the Bible. The Greek of that
Speaker 4: English word is nadea, and it's this audaciousness anytime you
Speaker 4: read about this in history.
Speaker 1: Josephis talks about it a lot.
Speaker 4: He was first century historian, and he always uses it
Speaker 4: in the pejorative sense. So he says, because the neighbor
Speaker 4: is so audacious in his banging, the dad eventually rises
Speaker 4: and gives him what he needs verse nine. And I
Speaker 4: tell you, asking, it will be given to you. Seek,
Speaker 4: and you will find, knock, and it will be open
Speaker 4: to you for everyone who receives, and the one who
Speaker 4: seeks finds, And to the one who knocks it will
Speaker 4: be opened.
Speaker 1: What father among you.
Speaker 4: If his son asks for a fish, will instead of
Speaker 4: a fish, give him a serpent. Or if he asked
Speaker 4: for an egg, will give him a scorpion. And if you, then,
Speaker 4: who are evil, know how to give good gifts to
Speaker 4: your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give
Speaker 4: the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. I grew
Speaker 4: up half Baptist. My mom's a Baptist at the bone.
Speaker 4: My dad's Pentecostal. So I'm Bapticostle, which means I want
Speaker 4: to dance, but I have no rhythm, and I've seen
Speaker 4: almost all of these stories, Flannel graft, I've heard that
Speaker 4: story in luke Levin. I bet I've heard that preach.
Speaker 4: I don't know, Holly a thousand times.
Speaker 1: You have too.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've preached it before, seen it, Flannel graphed.
Speaker 4: I mean, I thought I knew every nuance to that story,
Speaker 4: as horrifically arrogant as that sounds. And then in a
Speaker 4: seminary class I'm finishing up a doctorate at den sim
Speaker 4: I heard one of the he's considered the foremost authority
Speaker 4: on the parables, doctor Craig Blomberg, preach on this particular passage,
Speaker 4: and I was just undone by his application. One of
Speaker 4: my other favorite theologians living one anyway, I love all
Speaker 4: the dead guys, but doctor Craig Keener is alive and
Speaker 4: kicking at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky, and doctor Craig Keener
Speaker 4: says this, if you get out of the Bible what
Speaker 4: you're expecting to get out of the Bible, you need
Speaker 4: to change your expectations. It's always bigger, it's all ways better.
Speaker 4: I thought that story in luke Levin was about prayer.
Speaker 4: I thought it was about persistence in prayer because the
Speaker 4: takeaway is always asked seek knock, and doctor Blomberg said, well,
Speaker 4: that's one of the applications. But you actually have to
Speaker 4: dig a little deeper and look at the parabolic semblance
Speaker 4: in this story. So any time you have a dad
Speaker 4: in one of Jesus' stories, or a master, a vineyard owner,
Speaker 4: who does that represent always always young, talk back God always.
Speaker 4: If it's a father in the story, Jesus always represents God.
Speaker 4: The father, master always represents the kingball King's always alway always.
Speaker 4: So you've got a dad, he's in bed, he's asleep
Speaker 4: in his house. If you know anything about first century
Speaker 4: Jewish or Semitic architecture, you'll know they had one bedroom.
Speaker 4: So if you're asleep as a dad, or as a mom,
Speaker 4: or as a granddad or an uncle or foster parent,
Speaker 4: your kids are with you, and I don't have separate
Speaker 4: bedrooms where they're playing PlayStation or texting naughty things.
Speaker 1: They don't have that.
Speaker 4: They're with you in that one sleeping room. So you've
Speaker 4: got the dad, and then you've got the neighbor. And
Speaker 4: so the neighbor comes over because the neighbor wasn't prepared
Speaker 4: for a guest who comes to his house and didn't
Speaker 4: takest ahead of time, and so he pantics because he's
Speaker 4: got nothing in the pantry. He comes to the sleeping dad,
Speaker 4: bangs on the door and says, I need something, tortillas,
Speaker 4: you know, just anything, even though reduced fat trisk gets anything.
Speaker 4: I've got to have something because I don't have anything
Speaker 4: to put before this guy. That is unheard of in
Speaker 4: their culture. It's hospitable culture. You always had bread. So
Speaker 4: the thing I love about the Bible because carbs are
Speaker 4: elevated in the Bible, which I think.
Speaker 1: Is a good thing.
Speaker 4: I think Cayle is just about from the devil. But anyway, anyway,
Speaker 4: you always had bread. This guy's run out of bread,
Speaker 4: so he pantics. Comes next door. He starts banging on
Speaker 4: the door. And when he's banging on the door, the
Speaker 4: dad goes, go away. I've already read the bedtime story.
Speaker 4: We've already had the water, we've already done everything. We
Speaker 4: are asleep, go away. This is so rude an idea.
Speaker 4: He's audacious. The guy's persistent because he's painicked. He just
Speaker 4: keeps banging on the door because he's like, I need
Speaker 4: something e linguising anything, I need something to give my guest,
Speaker 4: And it says because of his impudence, the dad eventually
Speaker 4: gets up and gives them a snack for his guest.
Speaker 4: And then usually the application is if you bang a
Speaker 4: little harder, God will answer. Now, that's not biblically defensible.
Speaker 4: It doesn't even go with a story. The stranger, doctor
Speaker 4: Blomberg says, likely represents an unbeliever.
Speaker 1: Dad represents God. Where are we? Where are we?
Speaker 4: Are we outside banging or are we in side reclining right
Speaker 4: next to our dad? Yeah, this is less about prayer
Speaker 4: and it's more about proximity.
Speaker 1: It's less about us banging on the door.
Speaker 4: That doesn't bear out with theological logic. We don't have
Speaker 4: to beg God to act on our behalf.
Speaker 1: We're favorite sons and daughters. He loves us.
Speaker 4: On our worst day, we'll get disciplined from our dad,
Speaker 4: But not disciplined because he's a unibrad library and who's
Speaker 4: mad at us.
Speaker 1: We get disciplined because he loves us, He's for us.
Speaker 4: Three years ago, Missy and I went from Nashville to Kalispell, Montana.
Speaker 1: It was kind of toward the end of COVID.
Speaker 4: We were so excited to actually be leaving the house
Speaker 4: because you know during COVID how you're not traveling much,
Speaker 4: and I travel a lot for work, and I got
Speaker 4: so bored at home and I accidentally cut through my
Speaker 4: propane line with a chainsaw.
Speaker 1: It's actually not hyperbolic. I did almost killed us.
Speaker 4: Single and old, and my dad was a contractor, so
Speaker 4: I know my way around a power tool.
Speaker 1: And I was buzzing this this bush and I thought,
Speaker 1: I just will do some landscaping.
Speaker 4: And I'm kind of a slow reactor, and I smelled
Speaker 4: propane and realized, oh, I just cut a propane line.
Speaker 1: Almost killed us. So I thought it's good for us
Speaker 1: to get out of the house.
Speaker 4: And so I was thrilled when Levi and Jenny said
Speaker 4: come up to Kalispell. They have a church called Fresh Life,
Speaker 4: and he said, come up, we'd love to love to
Speaker 4: host you at Kalispell. And it took us a while
Speaker 4: to get there because you know that tail into COVID,
Speaker 4: there weren't as many flights, and so we flew from
Speaker 4: Nashville to Chicago, long lay from Chicago, finally got to Kaalaispell, Montana.
Speaker 4: It was late in the afternoon, but I didn't have
Speaker 4: anything to do until the next morning. So I said, hey, baby,
Speaker 4: you know, since we've been sitting forever, you want to go.
Speaker 4: You want to go stretch your legs. There's some great
Speaker 4: hiking trails around here. Miss He said, no, ma'am. I
Speaker 4: was like, okay. I said, well, honey, they've got a
Speaker 4: lake right by the hotel and there's some canoes there.
Speaker 4: You want to get in the canoe and go for
Speaker 4: a canoe ride. No, man, it's like, okay, Well, we
Speaker 4: came through this darling little mountain village on the way
Speaker 4: to the hotel, and there is a candy shop there
Speaker 4: and they have got ice cream and chocolate and all
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. You want to walk up and get
Speaker 4: some candy at the candy shop, No, ma'am.
Speaker 1: And then I pulled out my piece to resistance.
Speaker 4: I and my apologies if you build these are like these,
Speaker 4: But I just abhor hotel pools because I think they're
Speaker 4: just like big basins of bacteria. And so I love pools,
Speaker 4: but just not you know, pools with that much strange
Speaker 4: flesh in it, And so I don't usually swim in
Speaker 4: the hotel pools.
Speaker 1: Missy loves hotel pools. So I kind of pulled.
Speaker 4: The last trick out of my bag and I said, baby,
Speaker 4: you want to go swim in the hotel pool. There's
Speaker 4: like a big slide in everything. And she said, no, ma'am.
Speaker 4: It takes me a long time. I am not the
Speaker 4: sharpest tool in the shed. But I finally, after four
Speaker 4: flat refusal, realized I am getting on my child's nerves.
Speaker 1: You know, she's she was eleven at the time.
Speaker 4: She's just stepping into pubrey and I thought, oh my goodness,
Speaker 4: I'm not her hero anymore. I'm getting on your nerves.
Speaker 4: And so I said, honey, am I getting on your nerves?
Speaker 4: And she said yes, ma'am. She said, is that disrespectful?
Speaker 4: I said, no, baby, that's not disrespectful. That's so normal.
Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, over the next few years,
Speaker 4: I'm going to get on your last nerve.
Speaker 1: That's part of what growing up is.
Speaker 4: I said, that's not disrespectful, honey, that's just normal.
Speaker 1: So here's the deal. I'm going to draw an imaginary
Speaker 1: line down.
Speaker 4: This hotel room, and you get to stay on this
Speaker 4: side of the hotel room, and you've got a little
Speaker 4: bit of homework. She can do the homework on your iPad,
Speaker 4: and then after that you watch whatever you want to watch.
Speaker 4: And then I'll stay on this side because I've got
Speaker 4: a little bit of homework too, and we can just
Speaker 4: stay on our separate size of the hotel room. And
Speaker 4: if you need me, just call me, but I'll stay
Speaker 4: over here and I won't bug you anymore.
Speaker 1: And she said, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 4: And a couple of hours went by in that companionable silence,
Speaker 4: and then the sun went down. It was time for
Speaker 4: us to get ready for bed, and so we brushed
Speaker 4: our teeth. They had two sinks, and then we went
Speaker 4: to bed. They had two beds. Missy got in her
Speaker 4: little hotel bed and I got my little hotel bed.
Speaker 1: I turned out the light.
Speaker 4: Maybe thirty seconds passed, and then I heard my little
Speaker 4: girl and she said.
Speaker 7: Mama, will you come over here and goud on me,
Speaker 7: because I don't think of the hills are going to
Speaker 7: sleep if you don't come over here.
Speaker 3: And cut on me.
Speaker 1: And I said, I'll tell you what you can do.
Speaker 1: You can climb out of the window, and you can
Speaker 1: get in the snow and you walk through the snow,
Speaker 1: and you can go to the concierge, and you can
Speaker 1: ask the concierge if he'll bring you up to this floor, and.
Speaker 4: Then you can knock on the door of your bang
Speaker 4: really loud that I might answer the door.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure. Do y'all think that's what I did?
Speaker 4: When she said, I just need to get pentecostal for
Speaker 4: a minute, like.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I really preach unless the veins
Speaker 1: start poking out. And I did spit a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'll be just a little bit as fit. We call
Speaker 1: that annoying. I didn't yell.
Speaker 4: I didn't tell her she had to go outside and
Speaker 4: bang on the door. When she said, Mama, will you
Speaker 4: come over here and cuddle me?
Speaker 1: Y'all?
Speaker 4: I leapt from my bed to hers, and I brought snacks.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is my kid, this is my daughter.
Speaker 4: I will give her anything I have. And my love
Speaker 4: for my kid pals next to God's love for us.
Speaker 4: We forget that we're co eers, we forget that we're
Speaker 4: right next to him.
Speaker 1: We don't have to bang. He's for us, not against us.
Speaker 1: One glance of your eyes, you've captured his heart.
Speaker 4: You don't have to put on matching T shirts and
Speaker 4: drive a long way to be in the presence.
Speaker 1: Of your creator, redeemer. He loves you. He loves you.
Speaker 1: He is a perfect holy God.
Speaker 4: That means he's transcendent, but he condescends.
Speaker 1: To be close to us. He's a relational god. He's
Speaker 1: a father, and he says, you are my favorite. You're
Speaker 1: my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite.
Speaker 1: You're my favorite.
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Speaker 3: God bless you.