Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdeck. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast and I wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you.
Speaker 1: Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective
Speaker 1: to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: I want you to look at this scripture. In Luke
Speaker 1: chapter six, you share a litt's story from the life
Speaker 1: of Jesus. Over the last two weeks, I've been unpacking
Speaker 1: what it means to examine your examples and kind of
Speaker 1: think about what you're modeling your life after, and what
Speaker 1: mold you are squeezing your mind into, and what determines
Speaker 1: the way you think. So just stay standing for one
Speaker 1: more moment while I read the scripture, and then you
Speaker 1: can be seated. You can use that premium seat that
Speaker 1: we put in this campus. And welcome to all of
Speaker 1: our locations and our Ethan around the world. But this
Speaker 1: is a This is the last sermon that I'm going
Speaker 1: to preach in this stream of teaching, but I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be a really important one. Luke chapter six,
Speaker 1: verse one says one Sabbath, Jesus was going through the
Speaker 1: grain fields, and his disciples began to pick some heads
Speaker 1: of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat the kernels.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just have a theory, but I
Speaker 1: think Peter started this little grain picking thing. Verse two.
Speaker 1: Some of the Pharisees asked, why are you doing what
Speaker 1: is unlawful on the Sabbath? And Jesus answered them, have
Speaker 1: you never read what David did when he and his
Speaker 1: companions were hungry. He entered the house of God. In
Speaker 1: taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only
Speaker 1: for priests to eat, and he also gave some to
Speaker 1: his companions this key verse. Then Jesus said to them,
Speaker 1: the son of Man is lord of the Sabbath. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you today about when the
Speaker 1: gift becomes a prison. When the gift becomes a prison, Lord,
Speaker 1: I thank you for what you showed me. There's no
Speaker 1: way I can preach it the way that you showed
Speaker 1: it to me, But help me become as close as
Speaker 1: humanly possible in these moments. I'm excited about it, and God,
Speaker 1: I want you to distribute this food through me. I
Speaker 1: pray that we would just block out distractions and receive
Speaker 1: the seed of your word, the incorruptible word of God,
Speaker 1: fall in our hearts now in Jesus' name, Amen, you
Speaker 1: may be seated when the gift becomes a prison. I
Speaker 1: watched this documentary about Olympic athletes the other day. They
Speaker 1: were all the Olympic athletes on camera were depressed in
Speaker 1: the documentary talking about and did you see this? It
Speaker 1: was called the Weight of Gold. And I'm not recommending it. No,
Speaker 1: there's not sponsoring me to say this. If they want to,
Speaker 1: then I'll consider endorsing it formally. I'm not against that.
Speaker 1: But the thing that got my attention, regardless of kind
Speaker 1: of the point of view, that I'll never understand is
Speaker 1: watching Michael Phelps, who did a great voice over, by
Speaker 1: the way, for the whole documentary, and he was just
Speaker 1: narrating the process of kind of going from the greatest
Speaker 1: human accomplishment that you can imagine and being the most celebrated,
Speaker 1: decorated athlete in the history of the Olympics to going
Speaker 1: to the fact that then he had moments of even
Speaker 1: wondering do I want to live? And so then I thought, man,
Speaker 1: we need to pray for Michael Phelps. But then there
Speaker 1: was another athlete and another athlete, and they all kind
Speaker 1: of shared the same thing. And I understand it was
Speaker 1: just a documentary and there's a storyline. I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it. But it got me thinking about how
Speaker 1: such a great talent that came from God actually became
Speaker 1: a trap for these individuals. And as they were describing
Speaker 1: what it felt like to wonder who am I when
Speaker 1: I'm not in the pool? Who am I when I'm
Speaker 1: not on the uneven bars? And one of the ironic
Speaker 1: things was watching a gymnast talk about the difficulty of
Speaker 1: balance because she was saying, there was no balance in
Speaker 1: my life. I just I became this machine and I
Speaker 1: lost me. And I thought about how that can happen,
Speaker 1: that a talent that comes directly from God, because there's
Speaker 1: no way my body is going to do those things.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't matter how much I trained, So it obviously
Speaker 1: came from God, and they worked hard too, But something
Speaker 1: that was God given, like the talent to be the
Speaker 1: greatest athlete, one of the greatest athletes in the world,
Speaker 1: could actually leave you feeling trapped because you don't, even
Speaker 1: after a while, have a concept of self that is
Speaker 1: separate from the skill set that you've developed and honed
Speaker 1: when the gift becomes a prison. Did you know that
Speaker 1: the Sabbath in Luke chapter six was meant to be
Speaker 1: a gift to the people. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: been paying attention, but there are some issues that are
Speaker 1: controversial in our world today, and yet there is no
Speaker 1: amount of controversy that we experienced that can compare to
Speaker 1: what Jesus went through with these characters called the Pharisees.
Speaker 1: You may have heard of them before in the Bible.
Speaker 1: The Pharisees, they're not as bad as we think they are.
Speaker 1: They're actually people who got caught up in something that
Speaker 1: was meant to be a good thing, which is protecting
Speaker 1: and preserving the law of God. But in the process
Speaker 1: of trying to protect the truth, they got it twisted.
Speaker 1: And this is exactly what's happening in Luke chapter six.
Speaker 1: While Jesus's disciples are snacking on the seeds from the
Speaker 1: heads of fully ripe grain in a field, and the
Speaker 1: Pharisees called Jesus to the side, why are you doing
Speaker 1: what is unlawful on the Sabbath? Everybody say Sabbath. Sabbath
Speaker 1: to us may just be something that Jewish people do
Speaker 1: and yet for many of us, we would have a
Speaker 1: hard time understanding what a great gift it was when
Speaker 1: it was originally given from God. In fact, God said,
Speaker 1: I gave you the Sabbath so that you could pattern
Speaker 1: your life after the way that I created the world,
Speaker 1: so that you do your work in six days, and
Speaker 1: on the seventh you rest. On the seventh you rest.
Speaker 1: It was a pattern so that God wanted us to
Speaker 1: then copy him, to know that we can rest from
Speaker 1: our labor. It ultimately was a shadow of what Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ would accomplish, that he is our sabbath rest, and
Speaker 1: that when we trust in Him for our salvation, it
Speaker 1: is complete and we can rest from our labor because
Speaker 1: of what He did for us. And yet, isn't it
Speaker 1: funny how a gift that God gave them so that
Speaker 1: they could reflect on the rhythm of his creative ability
Speaker 1: has become, by the time of Jesus, a trap by
Speaker 1: which they accuse Jesus of blasphemy. There were many things
Speaker 1: that Jesus argued with these teachers about in his day,
Speaker 1: but nothing was more controversial than the Sabbath. Nothing was
Speaker 1: more controversial to them than catching him. Trying to catch
Speaker 1: him break the Sabbath, and I don't know why I
Speaker 1: never studied it before. But as the Pharisees are accusing
Speaker 1: Jesus in Luke chapter six of breaking the Sabbath, in
Speaker 1: Luke chapter five, everything is breaking. Like in Luke chapter
Speaker 1: five one through eleven, the disciples are out fishing and
Speaker 1: they can't catch anything without Jesus. But when they went
Speaker 1: deeper into the water and obeyed Jesus at the point
Speaker 1: of their frustration, they had a great catch, so much
Speaker 1: that their nets begin to break. A few verses later,
Speaker 1: Jesus is teaching in a house and there are some
Speaker 1: men who need to get their friend to Jesus. Because
Speaker 1: he's a paralyzed man. His body won't work appropriately, so
Speaker 1: since they can't get him through the front door, they
Speaker 1: climb up on the roof break the roof to bring
Speaker 1: their friend to Jesus. And then at the end of
Speaker 1: Luke five, if you want to study this later this week,
Speaker 1: this would be an awesome thing for you to pack
Speaker 1: and take out and snack on sometime during this week
Speaker 1: so you can read what I'm saying. Jesus describes that
Speaker 1: when new wine comes into old wine skins, the old
Speaker 1: wine skin can't hold the new wine. And if you
Speaker 1: try to pour something new that God has given you
Speaker 1: into something old to hold it, it will waste the
Speaker 1: wine and this skin will break. So in that context,
Speaker 1: now I want to show you how the nets were breaking,
Speaker 1: the roof was breaking, the wine skins are breaking, And
Speaker 1: here is Jesus breaking the Sabbath on purpose, by the
Speaker 1: Pharisees definition, in order to engage them in a conversation
Speaker 1: that will confront the very nature of the corruption of
Speaker 1: their way of seeing and teaching God's word in conformity
Speaker 1: with their culture and not the character of God. Maybe
Speaker 1: I should slow down for a minute. I'll see it
Speaker 1: all wound up. Because I'm glad that Jesus will break stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that Jesus will break stuff. Some things I
Speaker 1: need him to break. There are some chains that I've
Speaker 1: tried to pull myself free from for years that I
Speaker 1: need Jesus to break. There are some even thought patterns
Speaker 1: that I need Jesus to break the pattern of my thought.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that some of the things that
Speaker 1: I maybe grew up thinking that we're normal, that I
Speaker 1: need God to break me out of the tradition. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about tradition. For a moment, when my tradition and
Speaker 1: the truth contradict one another, one has to break. How
Speaker 1: many of you, if Jesus was doing a casting call
Speaker 1: for disciples, you would try to sign up and be
Speaker 1: one of the twelve raise your hand. I was thinking
Speaker 1: it would have been easy to be a disciple of Jesus,
Speaker 1: because I have to really when I ask what Jesus,
Speaker 1: would you have to use my imagination and read all
Speaker 1: these words? All I'd have to do. If I was
Speaker 1: a disciple and I had lived two thousand years ago
Speaker 1: and been able to see him the flesh, just follow
Speaker 1: him and do what he did. I don't think it
Speaker 1: would have been that easy, really, especially because everything that
Speaker 1: he would do would contradict everything that I had seen done. Disciple.
Speaker 1: It said Jesus disciples did something, and then Jesus is
Speaker 1: defending his disciples, and uh, well, everybody in here is
Speaker 1: a disciple. The word disciple just means learner. So everybody
Speaker 1: in here is a disciple. And I want you to
Speaker 1: write something down. I don't know if we still give
Speaker 1: out elevation pins in the time of No. Yeah, everything's changed, y'all,
Speaker 1: everything's changed. You don't even get elevation pins anymore. What
Speaker 1: does the world come to? All right? Just put it
Speaker 1: in your phone or put it in the chat. You
Speaker 1: got yours, you brought your own. Write this in the chat.
Speaker 1: Discipleship by default or design. See, everybody in here is
Speaker 1: being disciple. I'll never forget when Holly had to bend
Speaker 1: the movie Kung Fu Panda from our house because our
Speaker 1: our boys were just kicking everything, run around house, kicking
Speaker 1: everything all the time. And she had to put a
Speaker 1: temper im moratorium on Kung Fu Panda because they were uh,
Speaker 1: they were. They were kicking without mister Miyagi to show
Speaker 1: them how to do it. So they're just running around
Speaker 1: kicking crap. And I did the same thing watching Karate
Speaker 1: Kid when I was little. I've kicked. I put my
Speaker 1: foot through a picture window in my mom's house. I
Speaker 1: put my foot through the window, and she was more
Speaker 1: worried about the window than my foot. At first. I
Speaker 1: remember her running in the room my window. I'm like,
Speaker 1: my bloody ankle, my achilles. Anyway, I'm going to therapy.
Speaker 1: But uh, but but but but I I realized that
Speaker 1: I am a disciple of somebody or something. Now, what
Speaker 1: I was trying to get across in the last two weeks,
Speaker 1: how many of you were following with my messages about
Speaker 1: be careful what you copied. And then I'd preach a
Speaker 1: whole sermon called copy that copy that, don't don't copy,
Speaker 1: the don't copy the dysfunction. Some of us were discipled
Speaker 1: by dysfunction, and now we have dysfunctional norms in our
Speaker 1: hearts that have become the default of how we approach life.
Speaker 1: And so we were discipled or taught in dysfunctional ways.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even talking about blaming your parents or
Speaker 1: your nursery was painted blue and you really like green,
Speaker 1: and to this day it really bothers you because green
Speaker 1: means go and blue got you thrown off. And so
Speaker 1: now I'm not talking about some blame game that we play.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about understanding that the patterns that were established
Speaker 1: in your heart usually started in ways that you weren't
Speaker 1: even aware of at the time. Some of us were
Speaker 1: discipled in dysfunction. And I thought about this too. Some
Speaker 1: of us had an apprenticeship in anxiety because we were
Speaker 1: either in an environment right and again, my mom wrote
Speaker 1: me a letter and she was sharing with me some
Speaker 1: of the things that she saw growing up to help
Speaker 1: me understand some of the things that she modeled for me.
Speaker 1: She was showing me this is what I saw. These
Speaker 1: are some things I went through. These are some things
Speaker 1: that happened to me that I've never told you about
Speaker 1: because up until now I haven't known if it was
Speaker 1: appropriate to share. But I don't want you to spend
Speaker 1: your whole life wondering why certain things happen in your
Speaker 1: heart over and over again, when I can expose you
Speaker 1: to some of the things that I saw, or some
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere that I was raised in. And the
Speaker 1: fact is, you know, we come to church and teach
Speaker 1: you to worship God, but we only get ninety minutes
Speaker 1: a week with you. Okay, let's be honest about most
Speaker 1: people's church attendance patterns. Ninety minutes a month. And then
Speaker 1: so if you were raised in a home of anxiety,
Speaker 1: and we're in here teaching faith and trust God and
Speaker 1: by faith, the world's reform. But if your life was
Speaker 1: framed by worry and what if and scarcity, many of
Speaker 1: us have a full apprenticeship and anxiety. And I thought
Speaker 1: about this. Some of us had an internship and insecurity
Speaker 1: and We were taught not to trust God to be
Speaker 1: enough to meet our needs, but to know everything that
Speaker 1: was wrong with us, because it was repeated over us,
Speaker 1: and it was insinuated if it wasn't said out loud.
Speaker 1: And so when you come to church you have to
Speaker 1: realize that you have been discipled by default. But following,
Speaker 1: Jesus gives me the option. This is what I want
Speaker 1: you to know that you don't get to decide how
Speaker 1: you were raised, what you were born into, any of that.
Speaker 1: Those decisions were made for you. But you get to
Speaker 1: decide from this point on what time is it right now?
Speaker 1: What time is it right now? What time is it
Speaker 1: right now? Ten twenty eight Eastern time, August what twenty second,
Speaker 1: twenty and twenty one, the year of our Lord and o'domini.
Speaker 1: From this moment forward or whenever you're watching this, from
Speaker 1: this moment forward, you get to decide who do I
Speaker 1: want to be discipled by. In the scripture you have
Speaker 1: the Pharisees who have been discipled by generation after generation
Speaker 1: of scribes and teachers of the law. And the law
Speaker 1: was good. God gave the law. It was a gift
Speaker 1: from God. God gave them the Sabbath as a gift
Speaker 1: to reflect and remember. One little known thing about the
Speaker 1: Sabbath is that God said one time, I gave you
Speaker 1: this as a gift to remember when you were slaves
Speaker 1: in Egypt and I brought you out. Isn't it crazy
Speaker 1: that a gift God gave them to remember how they
Speaker 1: were set free from their slavery, they have now become
Speaker 1: slaves of the Sabbath. Mark says it real clear. He
Speaker 1: says that Sabbath is made for man, not man for
Speaker 1: the Sabbath. But by the time that Jesus is walking
Speaker 1: the earth and touching and healing and teaching the power
Speaker 1: and preaching the Kingdom of God and inaugurating a new
Speaker 1: order of things, by the time the true king has come,
Speaker 1: they have turned the gift that God gave into a prison.
Speaker 1: Anything can become a prison. Right now, technology is enabling
Speaker 1: me to preach this word to somebody who couldn't hear
Speaker 1: it any other way. And I praise God for the
Speaker 1: gift of technology. On the other hand, I cursed the
Speaker 1: day that our phones ever got smart. And I don't
Speaker 1: have the faith yet, but I bought a flip phone
Speaker 1: two years ago. And when I get enough faith I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hook it up and I'm gonna be the only person.
Speaker 1: They're gonna call me flip phone verdict and yeah, if
Speaker 1: you want to talk to me, you're gonna have I
Speaker 1: don't have the faith yet. I'm not there yet because
Speaker 1: I'm tethered to this right now. But I'm praying for
Speaker 1: the day where I could have enough faith to be
Speaker 1: set free from the curse of this. But it's a gift.
Speaker 1: Welcome our Epham around the world. Somebody is gonna get
Speaker 1: saved off of this message. And I'm trying to cast
Speaker 1: the devil out of your YouTube feed in your algorithm.
Speaker 1: The same feed that is making you crazy is putting
Speaker 1: the word of God in your spirit right now. But
Speaker 1: the same gift that helps me preach the gospel can
Speaker 1: become a prison. It can put you on so many
Speaker 1: stupid headlines and half truths and ten percent truths and
Speaker 1: two percent truths and conspiracy theories and all of that
Speaker 1: is all of that is contained in the same gift.
Speaker 1: Same thing with money, same thing with money. God can
Speaker 1: can bless you with income, but then that income can
Speaker 1: cause you to step out a little too far, a
Speaker 1: little too fast, And now all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: are imprisoned in something that you prayed for and God
Speaker 1: gave you because you didn't know how to manage it.
Speaker 1: I think I ought to teach you about this, that
Speaker 1: a gift can become a prison. Intimacy is a gift
Speaker 1: from God, all kinds of intimacy, not just sexual intimacy,
Speaker 1: but sexual intimacy is a gift from God. But you
Speaker 1: understand how when we talk about the Sabbath, a gift
Speaker 1: that God gave that became twisted to imprison so that
Speaker 1: the Pharisees are saying you're not allowed to eat on
Speaker 1: the Sabbath. They have become locked into the law and
Speaker 1: missed the spirit of the very gift that God gave.
Speaker 1: And that happens all the time in our life. So
Speaker 1: that an Olympic athlete can say, you know, this talent
Speaker 1: that was given to me by God, that was such
Speaker 1: a good thing it almost broke me. So that someone
Speaker 1: who starts to be blessed financially, they can say, you
Speaker 1: know what, when I started getting more money, I stopped
Speaker 1: trusting God as much. I had a man tell me
Speaker 1: one time, I started thinking money was the answer to everything.
Speaker 1: I started just skipping God in the process when I
Speaker 1: didn't need to ask him anymore, and I basically designed
Speaker 1: a life for myself that made God unnecessary. So he thought,
Speaker 1: because the gift became a prison, I could give you
Speaker 1: more examples. I think you've got your own things that
Speaker 1: God gave you, that you became a slave to things
Speaker 1: that God. I'm not talking about the devil. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about a gift. The Sabbath didn't come from the devil.
Speaker 1: It came from God. It's in the book of Genesis.
Speaker 1: It's God that gave them that rest. But they turned
Speaker 1: the gift of rest into a weapon. They turned the
Speaker 1: gift of God into a prison. In fact, just a
Speaker 1: few verses later, they go from picking on the disciples
Speaker 1: about eating grain and a feeling the sabbath to telling
Speaker 1: Jesus he can't heal a man with a withered hand
Speaker 1: on the Sabbath. You mean to tell me that Jesus
Speaker 1: can't give this man his ability to work on this
Speaker 1: day because you've set it aside as a day not
Speaker 1: to work. But see how this happens in our lives.
Speaker 1: So subtly that a gift that God gives you can
Speaker 1: become twisted to the point that the gift that was
Speaker 1: given to serve you begins to enslave you. And I
Speaker 1: think what's happening in this passage is really demonstrated in
Speaker 1: what the disciples did that we have to do all
Speaker 1: the time. It says that verse one, they took the
Speaker 1: heads of grain, and when they would rub them in
Speaker 1: their hands, they would then eat the kernels. All right,
Speaker 1: So what's wrong with this? What's so bad about it?
Speaker 1: Are they stealing in someone else's field? No, because the
Speaker 1: levitical law says that the edges of the field are
Speaker 1: to be left unharvested so the traveler passing through can
Speaker 1: eat from it. So I'm not breaking any laws. But
Speaker 1: see the Pharisees, they had thirty nine laws or thirty
Speaker 1: nine categories of things you couldn't do on the Sabbath
Speaker 1: that God never said you couldn't do on the Sabbath.
Speaker 1: Now here's what's going to trip you. And this is
Speaker 1: how weird religion can get. You're allowed to pluck grain
Speaker 1: on the Sabbath, but you just can't harvest grain on
Speaker 1: the Sabbath by the Pharisees rule, not God's rule, by
Speaker 1: the Pharisees rule. So how close do the pharisees have
Speaker 1: to be watching the disciples, like, who's the sick one here?
Speaker 1: If you are stalking me to the point that you
Speaker 1: are watching me rub the heads of grain between my hands,
Speaker 1: I think you are the one who has a problem
Speaker 1: and needs counseling, not me because I'm hungry. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the comment section. I have never ever in
Speaker 1: my life seem more crazy than in the comment section
Speaker 1: of a Christian YouTube channel, because here I am now
Speaker 1: watching everything. Ah, They're not supposed to do this. Now.
Speaker 1: I would have been fine if they would have plucked it,
Speaker 1: but when they rubbed the grain to get the husks
Speaker 1: to fall away, now you know what the husk is.
Speaker 1: The husk is the workless part that protects the cur Colonel.
Speaker 1: The kernel is the seed that the grain comes from,
Speaker 1: and the husk is the part that covers the kernel.
Speaker 1: So the disciples are watching walking through and Peter says,
Speaker 1: watch this, and Jesai looking right now, and they picked
Speaker 1: the grain that Jesus knew what was happening behind him,
Speaker 1: and he didn't tell him to stop because he wasn't
Speaker 1: following the pattern of the pharisees. I'll take it a
Speaker 1: step further, he didn't care what they did with the grain,
Speaker 1: because he's the Bread of life. I think that's the
Speaker 1: most anointed verse in the Bible. Jesus was going through
Speaker 1: the grain field. Jesus, the Bread of Heaven, the Bread
Speaker 1: of life, is walking by grain and irony of irony.
Speaker 1: The Pharisees are arguing with the Bread of Life about
Speaker 1: how to pick grain on the Sabbath, which he is.
Speaker 1: So they're picking what he is on the day which
Speaker 1: he came to fulfill. And they're like, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: Watch out for people who tell you what God can't do. No,
Speaker 1: God can't bless you like that. It has to be
Speaker 1: like this, It has to fit this structure. That's their
Speaker 1: wine skin, not your limitation. I was, I was. I
Speaker 1: was talking to somebody one time. They said, you you
Speaker 1: tend to let other people's insecurity become your limitation, and
Speaker 1: just because they haven't seen it done before, you let
Speaker 1: them convince you that you can't do it. And I
Speaker 1: realized that what God has given me doesn't have to
Speaker 1: conform with what someone else's wine skin can hold. He's like, uh,
Speaker 1: Jesus is like, have you never read what David did? Now?
Speaker 1: Now the Pharisees here they read a lot of scriptures.
Speaker 1: So for Jesus to challenge them about a Bible story,
Speaker 1: how may you heard of David before? By the way,
Speaker 1: they what did David do? I'm not talking about when
Speaker 1: he killed Goliath, which is a great story. By the way,
Speaker 1: I love that one. I'm talking about when David was
Speaker 1: running from Saul. Can I teach you something real quick?
Speaker 1: Israel wanted a king because all the other nations had
Speaker 1: a king. God wanted to be their king. He didn't
Speaker 1: want them to have to rely on a human king
Speaker 1: because God knew the hearts of men. And when it
Speaker 1: came time for them to choose a king, they chose
Speaker 1: the tallest king they could find, named Saul. When Saul
Speaker 1: became king, all of his insecurities and limitations showed up
Speaker 1: with him in the palace, to the point that when
Speaker 1: David was enlisted in his service and subdued the Philistine
Speaker 1: champion from God that you've heard of, called Goliath, it
Speaker 1: didn't make Saul happy. It made his heart harder. So
Speaker 1: we find David now in a position where God has
Speaker 1: called him to be a future king, but he's having
Speaker 1: to deal with the crazy king now David has a
Speaker 1: heart like God's, but he has a king named Saul,
Speaker 1: and now he has to make a decision whether he's
Speaker 1: going to copy the king that he sees or become
Speaker 1: the king that he is. David is not only a
Speaker 1: good fighter, he's also a skilled musician, and Saul recruits
Speaker 1: him into his service to play the harp for him.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that Saul was starting to lose his
Speaker 1: mind to the point that the only thing would soothe
Speaker 1: him was the sound of the music, and so David
Speaker 1: would play for Saul. And he played the song one
Speaker 1: day that Saul must not like very much, because Saul
Speaker 1: threw a big spirit David. But David eluded it twice
Speaker 1: and started to think, maybe I'm not too safe with Saul.
Speaker 1: David asked Jonathan, Sauw's son, who should have rightfully been
Speaker 1: the next king, but wasn't going to be because God
Speaker 1: chose David. Everybody say that God chose David. Say that again,
Speaker 1: God chose David. So when David duck not once but
Speaker 1: twice and asked, Jonathan, is something wrong with your dad?
Speaker 1: Did somebody switches pills in the cabinet? Should I get
Speaker 1: out of here? Eventually he realized that the only recourse
Speaker 1: that he had was to run, which puts him in
Speaker 1: quite a conflict because he is anointed to be king
Speaker 1: by Samuel the Prophet, but his life is under threat
Speaker 1: from Saul, the crazy king, the one that the people chose,
Speaker 1: And now David, the one that God chose, is running
Speaker 1: from Saul. And Jesus said, have you never read what
Speaker 1: David did when he was hungry? And he takes him
Speaker 1: all the way back the first Samuel twenty one. Because
Speaker 1: David and his men are running from Saul. He's crowned
Speaker 1: to be king. Buddy's about to be killed first Samuel
Speaker 1: twenty one. I told them to give you this story
Speaker 1: so you could see the original. This is so powerful
Speaker 1: what David did. Put it on the screen. Please. David
Speaker 1: went to knob to a Hemelect the priest, and a
Speaker 1: Hemelect trembled when he met him and asked, why are
Speaker 1: you alone? Why is no one with you? And David answered,
Speaker 1: a Hemelect the priest, The King sent me on a mission.
Speaker 1: That's a lie. Saul didn't send him on a mission.
Speaker 1: Saul was trying to kill him. The king sent me
Speaker 1: on a mission and said to me, No one is
Speaker 1: to know anything about the mission I'm sending you on.
Speaker 1: I just want to study the Bible with you. Go
Speaker 1: back to Luke six. Jesus answered them, three, have you
Speaker 1: never read what David did? And then he mentions this incident,
Speaker 1: You mean when he lied, you mean when he lied
Speaker 1: to the priest. And it gets even worse. It gets
Speaker 1: even worse. Now go back to First Samuel twenty one.
Speaker 1: This is crazy, y'all. This is who Jesus uses to
Speaker 1: justify his disciples, picking heads of grain and run around
Speaker 1: rubbing heads of grain on the Sabbath, just trying to
Speaker 1: get in trouble, just trying to get Jesus in a fight,
Speaker 1: just trying to get him to the cross quicker, just
Speaker 1: doing dumb stuff on the Sabbath, you know, like all
Speaker 1: of us, as jesus disciples do all the time, just
Speaker 1: the dumbest stuff possible. And Jesus is like, have you
Speaker 1: never read what David did when he went in the
Speaker 1: house of God? Go back to First Samuel twenty one,
Speaker 1: and I told them to meet me in a certain
Speaker 1: place verse three. Now, then what do you have on hand?
Speaker 1: This is what David did. He asked the priest, what
Speaker 1: do you have on hand? Give me five, almost called
Speaker 1: the sermon, give me five, Give me five loaves of
Speaker 1: bread or whatever you have on hand. Now, the priest answered, David,
Speaker 1: I don't have any ordinary bread on hand. However, there's
Speaker 1: some consecrated bread here, but you're not supposed to eat
Speaker 1: it because it's consecrated. Because every week on the Sabbath
Speaker 1: they would bring the bread back to the table in
Speaker 1: the Holy of Holies and replace the twelve loaves that
Speaker 1: were fresh, that had been fresh, with twelve fresh loaves,
Speaker 1: and then the loaves they took away only the priests
Speaker 1: can eat. And so the priest is like, I have
Speaker 1: some bread, but you're not supposed to eat it, and
Speaker 1: David's like, but my men are hungry. And so Jesus
Speaker 1: now is using the example of what David did to
Speaker 1: let the Pharisees know that they have completely missed the
Speaker 1: heart of the gift God gave, that they had become
Speaker 1: so consumed with principles that they have lost sight of
Speaker 1: the people that the principles were meant to serve in
Speaker 1: the first place. That you have twisted the gift of
Speaker 1: God that God gave and made it in to prison
Speaker 1: instead of the gift of the Sabbath bringing you into rest.
Speaker 1: You've put thirty nine categories on top of something that
Speaker 1: God gave, and you have covered the colonel in a husk.
Speaker 1: You have covered the colonel in a husk. What David did.
Speaker 1: What David did. Remember how nobody else would fight Goliath,
Speaker 1: but David did. Remember how David took off Saul's armor
Speaker 1: because it didn't fit him. What David did. And now
Speaker 1: Jesus uses David as an example to say, I'm not
Speaker 1: copying you, I'm the original. I believe God wants to
Speaker 1: give somebody permission to copy the original, permission to do
Speaker 1: it different. God is sick of your excuses. He is.
Speaker 1: He told me to tell you. He didn't say it
Speaker 1: mean like that. He said, tell them that they have.
Speaker 1: Is your guy talking to British accent? Or is that
Speaker 1: just to God? In the Bible app God said, I
Speaker 1: am trying to give you permission to break the pattern
Speaker 1: of the Pharisees, to separate the chaff from the wee. See,
Speaker 1: the chaff is the tradition. The colonel is the truth.
Speaker 1: The colonel that's the seed that the grain comes from.
Speaker 1: And we sometimes the husk. You know what the husk
Speaker 1: is around the colonel. I didn't grow up on a
Speaker 1: farm either. Well, I just said, just studied. Does this
Speaker 1: mean the husk is the part you have to the
Speaker 1: reason they were harvesting by hand. And this is why
Speaker 1: the Pharisees were accusing them, because they said, that's threshing. Technically,
Speaker 1: that's threshing. You're separating the husk from the colonel. And
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to do that on the sabbath because
Speaker 1: you're doing work. Now. You can pick the grain with
Speaker 1: your hand, but you can't thresh it, not on the Sabbath.
Speaker 1: But God has been trying to thresh them the entire
Speaker 1: time since they started putting layers of husk of humanity
Speaker 1: on the law that was given by God and some
Speaker 1: of us. God has been threshing our life lately to
Speaker 1: try to separate the kernel of the word that he
Speaker 1: spoke over us and the character that he implanted on us,
Speaker 1: from the husk of what people have said about us.
Speaker 1: And God has been rubbing his hands lately. God has
Speaker 1: been rubbing his hands lately because he's trying to get
Speaker 1: the husk to fall off your life. He's trying to
Speaker 1: get the chaff to fall off your life, all the
Speaker 1: worthless stuff, all the worthless things you've been spending your
Speaker 1: energy on, all the worthless things you've been telling your mind,
Speaker 1: all the worthless things you've been worrying about, all the
Speaker 1: worthless things. That's why the disciples are giving a demonstration
Speaker 1: of what Jesus is doing on the earth. He is
Speaker 1: rubbing away the husk of what is not working. He
Speaker 1: is rubbing away the husk of everything that did not
Speaker 1: come from his heart. And for some of you, he
Speaker 1: is rubbing away the husk of the house you grew
Speaker 1: up in, of the habits that you have developed, of
Speaker 1: everything that is keeping you from discovering the kernel. Yo.
Speaker 1: I started studying about Colonel's not like the Kentucky Fried chicken,
Speaker 1: but the kernel of wheat, and I found out something.
Speaker 1: I found out that kernel also means in computer programming,
Speaker 1: what is at the core of a computer's operating system
Speaker 1: and has complete control over everything in the system. So
Speaker 1: when it says that they rubbed away the husk and
Speaker 1: kept the colonel, the Lord said for me to tell
Speaker 1: you keep the colonel, keep the Colonel. I'm a comprecist
Speaker 1: transformation church. I'm a compory Sistan in Tulsa. Because see,
Speaker 1: some things have to fall away for you to get
Speaker 1: to what's true. And sometimes that doesn't happen in a
Speaker 1: harvest field. Sometimes that happens in your mind, in your habits,
Speaker 1: in your prayer life, in your devotion. In a computer program,
Speaker 1: the kernel is the operating system and it has control
Speaker 1: over everything in the system. So Jesus said, there's a
Speaker 1: new kernel in town. This system is broken. So Christ,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Now we talk about Jesus, and we sing
Speaker 1: about Jesus, But I wonder do we really understand what
Speaker 1: we have inside of us? To say, Christ, in you
Speaker 1: the hope of glory. It means that no amount of husk,
Speaker 1: no amount of habits, nothing that has been covering you.
Speaker 1: Because when God does this, you know what I love
Speaker 1: about God. He threshes by hand. I love God because
Speaker 1: he threshes by hand. He knows exactly what needs to
Speaker 1: fall off my life. He knows exactly who needs to
Speaker 1: fall out of my life. Somebody, thank God for the breakup. Somebody,
Speaker 1: thank God for the pig slip. Somebody, thank God for
Speaker 1: the relocation. That's God getting ready to bless you and
Speaker 1: everything that doesn't come from him. It's God fall off.
Speaker 1: It's got to fall off. Work the colonel, work the colonel.
Speaker 1: Even on the sabventh, even if you've been in a
Speaker 1: bad situation, there is a kernel of the goodness of God.
Speaker 1: The colonel doesn't look like much, but everything that is
Speaker 1: going to be in the grain is in the kernel.
Speaker 1: It just hasn't come to maturity yet. From the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God is like that colonel. Right. So God is
Speaker 1: in the business of removing some things. And he said,
Speaker 1: did you never read what David did? How hard would
Speaker 1: it be to be David? And the only king you've
Speaker 1: ever seen is bipolar? I mean, he really was. They
Speaker 1: didn't diagnose it like that at the time. They said
Speaker 1: an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul. But
Speaker 1: not only was it a mental disorder, it was a
Speaker 1: spiritual warfare. And that's what David grew up seeing as king.
Speaker 1: So he had make a decision. And so do you
Speaker 1: am I going to copy Saul or copy God? He
Speaker 1: had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to get revenge on Saul.
Speaker 1: One time Saul was this is really gross. She elbst
Speaker 1: in the Bible, relieving himself in the cave, and David
Speaker 1: got so close to him he cut off a corner
Speaker 1: of his robe he could have killed it. And the
Speaker 1: decision to me, am I gonna copy Saul and continue
Speaker 1: to sow the same kernels of conflict that made him crazy.
Speaker 1: But see, God chose David because he said, I want
Speaker 1: a man after my own heart. I want a woman
Speaker 1: who will copy me, who will learn from me. To
Speaker 1: be discipled by Jesus means more than wearing a bracelet
Speaker 1: of WWJD. It really means that you have to allow
Speaker 1: him to do what he didn't stop the disciples from doing,
Speaker 1: to separate the husk from the heart. There were certain
Speaker 1: seasons in my life where I owe the devil an
Speaker 1: apology for giving him credit for something that Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: was actually doing, because all I felt was this. All
Speaker 1: I felt was threshing, and I'm like, oh God, I'm
Speaker 1: losing this person and I'm losing this thing, and I'm
Speaker 1: losing this opportunity. And that was God threshing my life
Speaker 1: by hand. That was God. Aren't you glad he doesn't
Speaker 1: just use a sickle and thresh you like he threshes
Speaker 1: everybody else. Just come on, through and make a row.
Speaker 1: God loves you enough to thresh you by hand so
Speaker 1: he can get to the colonel, the colonel of the
Speaker 1: prophetic word he's spoken over your life, the colonel of
Speaker 1: your true beauty unadorned, the colonel of who you really
Speaker 1: were all along before all of the layers of thirty
Speaker 1: nine categories of what God can't do got on top
Speaker 1: of you. God is threshing all that away now in
Speaker 1: Luke chapter six. And the nets are breaking, and the
Speaker 1: roof is breaking, and the wine skins are breaking, and
Speaker 1: the Sabbath is being broken because it has become a
Speaker 1: prison when it was meant to be a gift. And
Speaker 1: God is breaking you out. That's what all this has
Speaker 1: been about. Quit giving a praise service to the devil
Speaker 1: by telling everybody you're under attack. You're not under attack.
Speaker 1: It's not a threat. It's a threshing. It's a threshing.
Speaker 1: It's a threshing. And what happens after the threshing depends
Speaker 1: on whose hands you're in. So when God does this,
Speaker 1: you do this. Ah. I'm excited. I'm getting ready to
Speaker 1: see God reveal something in me that I forgot was
Speaker 1: even there. I'm getting ready to see God doing Sesians
Speaker 1: three twenty. I wish you participate in this sermon and
Speaker 1: just do what God's been doing. Just do this. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what God has in mind.
Speaker 1: I'm filling my horn with oil, I mean freshoil. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling it to the top, running over. I'm getting my
Speaker 1: joy back. It's reaping time now, it's reaping time. Now.
Speaker 1: God's been taking the husk off my heart and the
Speaker 1: husk off of my mind. And God has been shetting
Speaker 1: me a wrong thinking. Now I'm getting ready to see
Speaker 1: what God put inside of me. He's harvesting you by hand.
Speaker 1: He knows when the fields are ripe. He knows when
Speaker 1: the time is right. He doesn't need permission from a
Speaker 1: pharisee to do it on the right day. He's been
Speaker 1: doing it all Alongat blessing was a blessing, So I
Speaker 1: don't know who needed to know. That's God's hands. You
Speaker 1: feel That's God's hand, And He's going to keep the colonel.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you something else that we need
Speaker 1: to teach theologically. God forgive me for not teaching this enough.
Speaker 1: Christ in you is the operating system of your life,
Speaker 1: not the condemnation in you because I was thinking about David.
Speaker 1: Y'all stand up because it pressures me to close. Then
Speaker 1: we get the next service in. But when Jesus said
Speaker 1: what David did, did you never read what David did?
Speaker 1: He could have talked about a lot of things. You know.
Speaker 1: He could have talked about Bathsheba, because David did that too.
Speaker 1: He could have talked about Amnon, David's son that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't deal with. He could have talked about Absalom, David's
Speaker 1: son that he was passive aggressive with and wouldn't let
Speaker 1: him come past a certain distance. He could have talked
Speaker 1: about all of that, but he didn't. By the time.
Speaker 1: It says in Acts thirteen that David was a man
Speaker 1: after God's own heart. It doesn't mean that all of
Speaker 1: his decisions were perfect. It means that he kept the
Speaker 1: colonel of God's heart. But so the enemy wants to
Speaker 1: wrap you in so much condemnation that you can't see
Speaker 1: the colonel. That's why God brought you here today. That's
Speaker 1: why he's been allowed you to go through. I don't
Speaker 1: think it probably felt good for the grain, but it
Speaker 1: was good because he is removing everything that does not
Speaker 1: belong and breaking everything that is holding back the purpose
Speaker 1: that He created you for to get you out of
Speaker 1: that prison, to get you out of that prison, to
Speaker 1: uncover the kernel of your true character. He will even
Speaker 1: allow life sometimes to do this to you. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel so gentle, and sometimes we don't know
Speaker 1: how to praise God for this. But I want you
Speaker 1: to rub your hands together real quick. This is just
Speaker 1: You can still do this on COVID protocol, isn't it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to rub somebody else's palm. You just rub.
Speaker 1: And I want you to hear the Lord saying the
Speaker 1: fields are ripe. Now I'm bringing you into a moment.
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you into a moment where you can grow
Speaker 1: up past what you grew up around, to establish a
Speaker 1: different pattern, to break tradition with the things that are
Speaker 1: not true about you. You don't have to keep doing this.
Speaker 1: I know it'll hurt after a minute, But Lord, we
Speaker 1: pray for release for the captives today. Some people are
Speaker 1: captive by the customs of their life, and some people
Speaker 1: are captives in a certain area of their character. But
Speaker 1: I see something coming forth today by faith, I really do,
Speaker 1: and I believe that you have been unlocking as I've
Speaker 1: preached this word today, you literally have been walking through
Speaker 1: the grainfield. I thank you, Lord that when you walk
Speaker 1: through the grain field of my life, that you know
Speaker 1: how to take the husk off. I thank you, Lord
Speaker 1: for everything that you have spoken over her life, over
Speaker 1: his life. Thank you for everything you've planted in them.
Speaker 1: The experience is the wisdom, the gift that you've given.
Speaker 1: We will not allow the lies of the enemy or
Speaker 1: the patterns of Saul to keep the king in them
Speaker 1: from being born. So, Father, I thank you now in Jesus' name,
Speaker 1: not David's name, in Jesus' name, the Lord of the Sabbath,
Speaker 1: the Lord of the gift, the God of the brain field.
Speaker 1: I commit you into their hands. It's not the spear
Speaker 1: that was in Saul's hand, God, it is the grain
Speaker 1: in your hand that gives me confidence and faith today
Speaker 1: to know that we'll make it. This may be a
Speaker 1: word God that needs to go down deep for somebody.
Speaker 1: They may need to hear it another time or two
Speaker 1: to really get it down deep. But I thank you
Speaker 1: that your hand has been there, keeping the kernel of
Speaker 1: their purpose, keeping the kernel of their life, that nothing
Speaker 1: anyone does can change it. Father, our hands are open,
Speaker 1: our lives are yours. In this place today, there's somebody
Speaker 1: who needs to give your life over to God. You
Speaker 1: have been running from him. He has been walking through
Speaker 1: the grainfield trying to get your attention. He wanted you
Speaker 1: to hear this message today so that you could know
Speaker 1: that salvation is a gift from Him. It's not of
Speaker 1: works or behavior, or keeping thirty nine Sabbath laws or
Speaker 1: getting your life together. It's to believe in Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: his Son, the Savior of the world, the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Sabbath, the God of all creation. So right now
Speaker 1: I want to give you an invitation, wherever you are
Speaker 1: in the world, if you're right here in this room,
Speaker 1: I'm going to pray a prayer. It's not magical. It's
Speaker 1: not about the words or the order of the words.
Speaker 1: It's about your heart. Because the Bible says that if
Speaker 1: you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
Speaker 1: believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
Speaker 1: you will be saved. That's a promise, not a probability.
Speaker 1: You will be saved. So I want to give you
Speaker 1: that opportunity right now to place your faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: What he did for you, how he died for you,
Speaker 1: how he took your sin on him, how he rose
Speaker 1: from the grave so that you could have a new life.
Speaker 1: We're going to pray that prayer right now for everyone
Speaker 1: who wants to put your faith in Jesus. You've been
Speaker 1: running from God, and he called you to this moment,
Speaker 1: and he's speaking to you. I want to give you
Speaker 1: this moment to put your life in his hands. Repeat
Speaker 1: after me, Heavenly Father, Today is my day of salvation.
Speaker 1: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
Speaker 1: and today I make Jesus the lord of my life.
Speaker 1: I believe he died that I would be forgiven and
Speaker 1: rose again to give me life. I receive your new life.
Speaker 1: This is my new beginning. I am a child of God.
Speaker 1: Shoot your hand up on three if you prayed that prayer, one,
Speaker 1: two three, shoot him up, shoot him off. Shoot m mom.
Speaker 1: Celebrate you, I celebrate you. Celebrate you. Come on, let's
Speaker 1: join the angels and rejoice. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 1: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 1: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
Speaker 1: information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends. You can click
Speaker 1: the share button, take a screenshot and share it on
Speaker 1: your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening. God bless you