Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Yo, I'm at Elevation child. I know y'all, know y'all
Speaker 1: how good you have it.
Speaker 3: But sometimes you can get so close to something that
Speaker 3: you take it for granted and you're like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is church every Sunday, and you have no idea how
Speaker 3: blessed you are. People don't get to walk into places
Speaker 3: like this all over the world every Sunday. You are
Speaker 3: the favored of the Lord. Somebody say Amen. And one
Speaker 3: of the reason why God favors you the way that
Speaker 3: he does is because of the phenomenal leadership that God
Speaker 3: has given you. And Pastor Stephen and Pastor Holly, come on,
Speaker 3: can you put your hands to get come on with
Speaker 3: these golf collaps?
Speaker 1: Can you honor?
Speaker 3: If you know anything about us preachers, we're a little extra.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking about Pastor Stephen and us pastors.
Speaker 3: We have these terms that we use and we kind
Speaker 3: of delegate him for only a few type of people.
Speaker 3: But we'll say certain people are generals of the faith,
Speaker 3: like you ever talk people about talking about like Billy
Speaker 3: Graham or whatever, generals of the faith. And when you
Speaker 3: think about a general, they're the one that gives the
Speaker 3: orders for the army to march out. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if y'all notice that I probably shouldn't say this
Speaker 3: from a platform, but there are bootleg elevation churches all
Speaker 3: over the world following what you guys do here, and
Speaker 3: it's not copycat.
Speaker 1: It's because God is.
Speaker 3: Giving you a general that is setting the pace for
Speaker 3: the Kingdom of God. And we are grateful, grateful, grateful.
Speaker 3: And I'm not just saying this. Pastor Holly is one
Speaker 3: of my favorite preachers.
Speaker 1: On the planet. Come on out. A lot of times
Speaker 1: when you think about preachers, you're.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, are they funny? You know, love how they
Speaker 3: tell stories or breakdown the word. But there's some preachers
Speaker 3: that when they preach, it's not the stories, it's not
Speaker 3: the word. It's the fact that you can tell that
Speaker 3: person has been somewhere with God and they have proven
Speaker 3: God in their life, and it loses out of everything
Speaker 3: that she says. One last time, put your hands together,
Speaker 3: Come on, get your honor.
Speaker 1: Ah thluyah.
Speaker 3: Hey, before you take a seat, high five two people.
Speaker 3: Tell them I've got perfect church attendance this year. Come on,
Speaker 3: tell somebody I have not missed a Sunday in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five. Hey, turn to your Bible to First Samuel
Speaker 3: chapter twenty one, First Samuel chapter twenty one. And while
Speaker 3: you turn there, I want to show you why I
Speaker 3: am more blessed that you are. And I know that
Speaker 3: sounds ignorant because blessings are not a competition. But it's
Speaker 3: not a competition because I win and you lose. I
Speaker 3: am more blessed than you are because my family is
Speaker 3: better looking than your family.
Speaker 1: Don't blame me, blame your mama.
Speaker 3: But uh, they're gonna throw up a picture of my
Speaker 3: beautiful family. Standing on my far left is my beautiful wife.
Speaker 3: I call her my African Queen. She hails from Cile On,
Speaker 3: West Africa. Her name is Zai Chandler. She is the
Speaker 3: preacher of the family. I am on the backup Standing
Speaker 3: next to me on my right is my son. He
Speaker 3: is my twin. He's six years old. His name is Roman.
Speaker 3: His rapper name is Roro. Sitting on the bench is
Speaker 3: my beautiful Queen, my oldest she's eight. Her name is Zoe.
Speaker 3: Her rapper name is Zozo. Then on my lap is
Speaker 3: my fallen angel, my three year old. Her name is
Speaker 3: Jade Mariah. Her rapper name is Jamo's. Somebody say Jamo.
Speaker 3: Can y'all do me a favorite? Can you pray for Jmo?
Speaker 3: She is not a Christian, she looks like an angel.
Speaker 3: She acts like a fallen angel. And we were praying
Speaker 3: for the salvation of that cutie pipe.
Speaker 1: But I'm pumped.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to preach because my children are in Maryland
Speaker 3: and I am in Charlotte, which means I got the
Speaker 3: bestly last night I've had in a long time. Don't
Speaker 3: tell them, Mama, but I am pumped. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 3: Last thing before I preach. I've got a brand new
Speaker 3: book coming out in just two weeks. Relationship road Maps.
Speaker 3: If you're single, come on, can you wave at me?
Speaker 3: Can you wave at me?
Speaker 1: Put it?
Speaker 3: Keep your hand up, keep a hand up, put it
Speaker 3: in the chat. One of the reasons you're single is
Speaker 3: because you run right to your car after church.
Speaker 1: Linger in the lobby, look around the room.
Speaker 3: There ain't a better place to get chose than in
Speaker 3: the House of God. But it's where everywhere where books
Speaker 3: are sold. And I'm telling you it's gonna be a
Speaker 3: blessing to you. Are y'all ready to work today? Not preach?
Speaker 3: Preaching ain't my job, it's our job. But God's gonna
Speaker 3: work through this text. It says this and for Samuel,
Speaker 3: chapter twenty one, verse six. And let me give you
Speaker 3: a little context before I preach it. This is the
Speaker 3: period when David was running for his life. Saul had
Speaker 3: just thrown spears at his head, trying to kill him.
Speaker 3: Jonathan said, let me test out my dad and see
Speaker 3: if he's serious about these death threats. And Jonathan comes
Speaker 3: to David and said, no, no, he's serious. He's trying
Speaker 3: to kill you. You've got to run for your life.
Speaker 3: So David leaves everything, brings no weapons, brings no food.
Speaker 3: And ah, I'm not preaching yet, but the first place
Speaker 3: he runs to is to the House of God as
Speaker 3: he is running for his life. This ain't even the message,
Speaker 3: but let me preach it already.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you are.
Speaker 3: Running from something, don't run to gossip, don't run to friends,
Speaker 3: don't run to confusion, run.
Speaker 1: To the house of God.
Speaker 3: This is in verse six says So the priest gave
Speaker 3: him holy bread, for there was no bread there but
Speaker 3: the showbread, which had been taken from before the Lord
Speaker 3: in order to put hot bread in its place on
Speaker 3: the day when it was taken away. Now a certain
Speaker 3: man of the servants of Saul was there that day,
Speaker 3: detained before the Lord, and his name was Doeg and
Speaker 3: eat a mite, the chief of the herdsman who belonged
Speaker 3: to Saul. Doeg worked for David's enemy, and not the message.
Speaker 3: But just know that when you're in the presence of God,
Speaker 3: the enemy is going to try to whisper to you
Speaker 3: opposite of what God has promised you. And you've got
Speaker 3: to develop the discipline of blocking out the thoughts and
Speaker 3: the whispers of the enemy and being anchored in what
Speaker 3: God has said over your life.
Speaker 1: Verse aid, and.
Speaker 3: David said him, is there not here on hand a
Speaker 3: spear or sword?
Speaker 1: For I have brought neither my sword.
Speaker 3: Nor my weapons with me because the king's business required hays.
Speaker 3: Now he was lying, he ain't on no king's business.
Speaker 3: He's running for his life. So the priest said, the
Speaker 3: sword of Goliath, the philistine whom you killed in the
Speaker 3: value of Ela. There it is wrapped in a cloth
Speaker 3: behind the ephought if you will take that, take it,
Speaker 3: for there is no other except that one here. And
Speaker 3: David said, there is none like it. Give it to me,
Speaker 3: somebody shout, give it to me. When David arose and
Speaker 3: fled that day from before Saul and went to Akish,
Speaker 3: king of Gath, and the servants of Akish said to him,
Speaker 3: is this not David, the king of the land. Did
Speaker 3: they not sing of him to one another in dances
Speaker 3: saying Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.
Speaker 1: Here's the message.
Speaker 3: Now, David took these words to heart and was very
Speaker 3: much afraid of.
Speaker 1: Akish, King of Gath.
Speaker 3: Before we pray, can you give your neighbor my sermon title,
Speaker 3: Look at your neighbor and tell them the battle made me.
Speaker 1: Come on, tell somebody, tell somebody the battle.
Speaker 3: What you're looking at on battle orn? Father God, we're grateful,
Speaker 3: We're thankful for this moment. We say that we trust
Speaker 3: in you. Got You're heired, healed, delivered, and transformed, open
Speaker 3: eyes to move supernaturally.
Speaker 1: God, do what only you can do.
Speaker 3: And God will be ever so careful to give you
Speaker 3: all the glory, honor, and praise in Jesus' name, we pray.
Speaker 3: Come on, shot at me like you shot at your kids.
Speaker 3: Somebody say amen and amen. I I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 3: to you. I feel a little bit uncomfortable coming with
Speaker 3: a message about David, and uh, don't judge me, but
Speaker 3: I feel like David, particularly David and Goliath, is like
Speaker 3: elementary preaching. I feel like when you get your trial
Speaker 3: sermon and it's like, this is my first time preaching
Speaker 3: that you don't know what to preach.
Speaker 1: David and Goliath is what you go for.
Speaker 3: Why, because you can't mess up David and Goliath. You
Speaker 3: get up there. The little guy was against the big guy.
Speaker 3: He took a stone. God helped them. Giants will fall
Speaker 3: in your life. Aim you fold up your Bible, you
Speaker 3: step down. You successfully accomplished your first message. But for
Speaker 3: some reason, I get stuck on these biblical characters. And
Speaker 3: in this season, I'm just stuck on David because you see,
Speaker 3: as the Bible walks through his life, the hand of
Speaker 3: God and God's favor on his life every single step
Speaker 3: of the journey, and it is impossible to see how
Speaker 3: God's hand is on David's life and not also recognize
Speaker 3: how God's hand has been on your life every single
Speaker 3: step of the journey. When we are introduced to David,
Speaker 3: we find him in the backside of a wilderness taking
Speaker 3: care of sheep that was a servant's responsibility, but yet
Speaker 3: his father relegated him to something that honestly was beneath him.
Speaker 3: The priest showed up and said, God has anointed a
Speaker 3: new king, and it's none of these sons.
Speaker 1: Is there not another?
Speaker 3: So we see God plucking David out of his family
Speaker 3: that is not a called family, bringing him out of
Speaker 3: a place of wilderness to use him in a great way.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't take.
Speaker 3: Much to look at your story and realize that God
Speaker 3: plucked you out of your family and annoying you for
Speaker 3: a particular reason. Here on earth, can somebody testify that
Speaker 3: the part of the country I come from, my town,
Speaker 3: my community, my family, it does not actually produce what
Speaker 3: God is producing through my life, but the favor of God.
Speaker 3: We've got a church in Maryland. I get irritated every
Speaker 3: time I tell people my church is in Maryland.
Speaker 1: Ooh, Baltimore. Is it like the wire. No.
Speaker 3: But what they're saying is almost like Nazareth. Can anything
Speaker 3: good come out of Baltimore? No, except for the hand
Speaker 3: of God plucking somebody out of a place that God
Speaker 3: is ready to do something. As we walk through David's story,
Speaker 3: not only do we see God pluck him out of
Speaker 3: a family, but we see God pour oil on his head,
Speaker 3: anoint David, and we see David get results out of
Speaker 3: his life that are not equal to the effort that
Speaker 3: he puts in.
Speaker 1: Just in case you were wondering what anointing is.
Speaker 3: Anointing is when you put in human efforts and you
Speaker 3: get back supernatural results. When you look at the results
Speaker 3: you get back and you realize it is not equal
Speaker 3: to the effort I put in.
Speaker 1: This was none other than the hand of God.
Speaker 3: And if you would be honest, and I'll be honest
Speaker 3: with you, ain't a lot of honest people in church.
Speaker 3: You cannot take credit for everything that has happened in
Speaker 3: your life. I know you are edgumicated, I know you
Speaker 3: worked hard.
Speaker 1: I know you put that.
Speaker 3: Effort in, but the results you are seeing in your
Speaker 3: life are not comparable to the effort that you've put in.
Speaker 1: It is none other than.
Speaker 3: The hand of God on your life.
Speaker 1: Be careful being.
Speaker 3: Jealous of what somebody else has because you have no idea.
Speaker 3: They didn't get it based on their effort. They got
Speaker 3: it based on the favor you. Ever, we're family, y'all
Speaker 3: said it, so you're gonna get the family stuff. I
Speaker 3: get irritated when you run into certain people and they
Speaker 3: begin to take credit for things that they should not
Speaker 3: take credit for.
Speaker 1: You run into a married couple.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about real married couples, not like five years
Speaker 3: or ten years. I'm talking about thirty five years, thirty
Speaker 3: seven years, forty years.
Speaker 1: Come on.
Speaker 3: Now, you run into some folks that have been married
Speaker 3: for three or four decades.
Speaker 1: Wow, how do I build a godly marriage? Like you?
Speaker 1: And they've got the nerve to give you an answer? Whaw?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, just gotta be long suffering. You gotta keep knowing
Speaker 3: record of wrong. You gotta make sure that you for
Speaker 3: a give and make sure that you come. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you communicated, I'm sure you forgave, but homicide was on
Speaker 3: your mind at least one night. You made it thirty
Speaker 3: five years because of the favor and and mercy of God.
Speaker 3: When you look at David. You see him plucked out
Speaker 3: of his family. You see the anointing of God. You
Speaker 3: also see outrageous victories that David won. And God just
Speaker 3: had a way of making David win in front of
Speaker 3: his haters. It wasn't just a victory in the backside
Speaker 3: of nowhere, but the exact brothers that said, how dare
Speaker 3: you leave those sheep? What are you doing here? Who
Speaker 3: do you think you are? They had to watch David
Speaker 3: defeat Goliath. They had to watch David be celebrated. If
Speaker 3: you would look back over your life, you would see
Speaker 3: victories that God brought because of his hand of favor.
Speaker 3: Somebody shout Amen in his play. The problem with David's story,
Speaker 3: y'all know, preachers, all that was a setup is you
Speaker 3: don't just see God pluck David out of obscurity. You
Speaker 3: don't just see anointed for the supernatural. You don't just
Speaker 3: see massive victories in David's life. The Bible also shows
Speaker 3: us the battles that David had to fight that David
Speaker 3: wish he never had to fight. It doesn't just tell
Speaker 3: us about the anointing, and it tells us about the
Speaker 3: lion that jump on him, that he had to fight
Speaker 3: for the sheep and fight for his life. And it
Speaker 3: tells us about the bear, It tells us about Goliath,
Speaker 3: it tells us about the time that he was in
Speaker 3: battle against his own son. As you look over the
Speaker 3: life of David, you see the favor of God, but
Speaker 3: you see battles that David wish he had never fought.
Speaker 3: And if you look back over your own life, you
Speaker 3: can see the favor of God. But we all see
Speaker 3: battles that we wish we never had to fight. Maybe
Speaker 3: it was battles with depression, maybe it was battles with sickness,
Speaker 3: maybe it was battles with confusion, or relational battles. But
Speaker 3: we we all have battles in our stories that we
Speaker 3: would not wish on our worst enemy. And we sometimes
Speaker 3: ask God, why did I have to go through this?
Speaker 3: And here's what I've discovered, That you can waste a
Speaker 3: lot of time commiserating over all the battles that you've
Speaker 3: been through, that you can actually forget all of the
Speaker 3: blessings and favor and open doors of what God has done.
Speaker 1: New Year twenty twenty five, let's go.
Speaker 3: It is hard to find somebody that has something good
Speaker 3: to say about twenty twenty four. Man, so glad that
Speaker 3: year was over. Believe in God has more for me
Speaker 3: in a new year. And yes, you may have had
Speaker 3: some rough things in twenty twenty four, but I'm telling
Speaker 3: you you had some miracles, and you had some favor,
Speaker 3: and you had some open door. It is all based
Speaker 3: on what you choose to obsess over. And I'd like
Speaker 3: to submit to you that, whether you realize it or not,
Speaker 3: the battles that you wish you could have avoided, there
Speaker 3: is a blessing in those battles because for some reason,
Speaker 3: God uses battles to make us. You are not just
Speaker 3: who you are because of the parents who raised you.
Speaker 3: You are not just who you are because of the
Speaker 3: effort that you put in.
Speaker 1: You're not just who you.
Speaker 3: Are because how have you educated yourself and developed you.
Speaker 3: There are some things that were developed through the battles
Speaker 3: that you had to fight.
Speaker 1: There are parts of your personality.
Speaker 3: That you built based on the fights that you had
Speaker 3: to fight.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you it is the battle.
Speaker 3: That God allowed you to walk through that made you.
Speaker 3: Three thoughts, Three Krik thoughts about the battles that we face.
Speaker 3: The first one is this, Some battles come looking for me.
Speaker 3: Some battles come looking for me. Pastor Steven a few
Speaker 3: weeks ago about how trying to avoid drama or battles
Speaker 3: is not a way to live in life. It doesn't
Speaker 3: matter how safe you try to live, some battles will
Speaker 3: find you. Now. I wish I had a great story
Speaker 3: about how I grew up. I used to fight and
Speaker 3: all this other kind of stuff. But the reality is,
Speaker 3: I'm not a fighter. I'm a pastor's kid.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: And not only am I a pastor's kid, but I
Speaker 3: was homeschooled, so the only people to fight at school
Speaker 3: were my siblings. So I don't have any like I
Speaker 3: got into fistfights growing up. I've got one story. It's
Speaker 3: the only story half about a fight ever. Actually, what
Speaker 3: happened is a kid came to my house and he
Speaker 3: rang the doorbell. It was one of those deals, you know.
Speaker 3: Back in the nineties, parents used to live their kids
Speaker 3: at home. Nowadays it's oh, you can't leave your kids. Well,
Speaker 3: they used to leave us at like six, seven, eight whatever.
Speaker 3: I think the statute of limitation is over. Sorry, dad,
Speaker 3: So my dad's at work, my mom's gone. You know
Speaker 3: how it is. Don't open the door for anybody. A
Speaker 3: kid comes to the door, and I didn't like this kid.
Speaker 3: The kid didn't like me. We knew we didn't like
Speaker 3: each other. Rings the doorbell, and because my mom said
Speaker 3: don't open the door, I do what every kid does.
Speaker 3: I open the door and I'm like, what do you want?
Speaker 3: And he goes I came to borrow some.
Speaker 1: Cheese, He said, cheese. I don't got no cheese.
Speaker 3: He said, then, why don't you scrape it off your
Speaker 3: mother's teeth.
Speaker 1: That's what I said.
Speaker 3: Now, this pastor's kid, who's homeschooled and has never been
Speaker 3: in a fight in his life, it don't take a
Speaker 3: high IQ to understand you've got to protect your mother's honor.
Speaker 3: So I said what I took off running out the door.
Speaker 3: He took off running. I don't know if my dad's
Speaker 3: have heard the story. Sorry dad. Anyway, he goes running.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're running through the neighborhood, through people's backyards.
Speaker 1: I'm chasing him. I finally catch him. I tackle him.
Speaker 1: But remember I've never been in a fight before. I
Speaker 1: didn't think this far. I do, what do you do now, y'all?
Speaker 1: I hit him.
Speaker 3: It didn't cross my mind. So I went take it back,
Speaker 3: and he like, that's it.
Speaker 1: I take it back. I'm like, yeah, for it away.
Speaker 1: I walk home.
Speaker 3: You can't tell me, nah, some fights come and find you,
Speaker 3: no matter if you do everything.
Speaker 1: You possibly can in life to avoid drama.
Speaker 3: The Bible says in First Samuel seventeen thirty thirty four.
Speaker 3: But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep
Speaker 3: his father's sheet. And when a lion or a bear
Speaker 3: came and took a lamb out of the flock, I
Speaker 3: went out after it and struck it and delivered the
Speaker 3: lamb from its mouth, And when it arose against me,
Speaker 3: I caught it by its beard and killed it. We're asking, David,
Speaker 3: why do you think you have what it takes to
Speaker 3: feat this nine foot giant? And David said, because this
Speaker 3: fight ain't my first fight. I didn't go looking for
Speaker 3: a fight. But a lion came and found me, and
Speaker 3: that lion bit off more than he could chew, and
Speaker 3: a bear came and found me. And because I fought
Speaker 3: the lion, and because I fought the bear, I am
Speaker 3: now prepared to fight this giant in front of me.
Speaker 1: Hear me, some fights come and find you.
Speaker 3: By the way, be careful judging people for what they're battling.
Speaker 3: Do you really think they picked that fight. They didn't
Speaker 3: pick that fight. That fight picked them. They didn't pick addiction.
Speaker 3: Addiction picked them. They didn't pick mental torment. Mental torment
Speaker 3: picked them. And hear me, just because the fight picks
Speaker 3: you does not mean you get to surrender. You have
Speaker 3: Almighty God on the inside of you. You've got to
Speaker 3: fight the fight that comes your way. But not all fights.
Speaker 3: We pick some of them like us. And here's what
Speaker 3: was wild. David gott in a fight with a lion
Speaker 3: and a bear and it wasn't even his sheep. He
Speaker 3: was taking care of his father's flock and God in
Speaker 3: a drama with an enemy because he was protecting something
Speaker 3: that does not belong to him. Some of you have
Speaker 3: been fighting for your life and you believe the lie
Speaker 3: of the enemy that you did something wrong, that maybe
Speaker 3: I messed up some way and that's why I'm battling
Speaker 3: the way that I'm battling, or maybe because of the
Speaker 3: fight that you're facing. You're like, has God forgotten about me?
Speaker 3: Has he abandoned me? Has he left me? You're not
Speaker 3: fighting because you did something wrong. You are fighting because
Speaker 3: your Father's kingdom and purpose is on the inside of you,
Speaker 3: and the enemy is attacking the potential that God has
Speaker 3: placed on the inside of you. The fight has found
Speaker 3: you because there's destiny on your life. And by the way,
Speaker 3: the size of your fight is an indication of the
Speaker 3: size of the call of God on your life. You're wondering,
Speaker 3: why does it seem like I am fighting for my
Speaker 3: life because of the potential that God has placed on
Speaker 3: the inside of you. The enemy said, let me take
Speaker 3: you out before you even realize who God has called
Speaker 3: you to be.
Speaker 1: As you track through scripture, the enemy did it all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 3: When he knew Moses, the Deliverer was coming, he tried
Speaker 3: to have all the Hebrew boys executed. Why because he
Speaker 3: will always attack in infancy. What he does not want
Speaker 3: to deal with immaturity with somebody elbow. Your neighbors say,
Speaker 3: but he failed. He failed. He should have taken me
Speaker 3: out when he got a chance. He should have taken
Speaker 3: me out when I did not know God and did
Speaker 3: not in my right mind. But I made it a
Speaker 3: church today. I made it into the house of God. Today,
Speaker 3: I made it into an atmosphere that is telling me
Speaker 3: who I am.
Speaker 1: And whose I am. The fight did not take me out.
Speaker 1: You've got Aha.
Speaker 3: I gotta get dramatic because I think sometimes we don't
Speaker 3: realize that that part of being a Christian means you're
Speaker 3: gonna take some shots. And it's not because of who
Speaker 3: you are, it's because of who your dad is. We
Speaker 3: are not living in a demilitarized zone.
Speaker 1: We are at war.
Speaker 3: And there is an enemy and he is trying to
Speaker 3: take out the Kingdom of God. And you've got to
Speaker 3: stand ten toes down saying I've got in a sick
Speaker 3: I know who my dad is, and I'm gonna fight
Speaker 3: for what he's One of the problems is we think
Speaker 3: what we're fighting over belongs to us. So I'm confused
Speaker 3: while I've got to battle so much over this marriage
Speaker 3: because this is my marriage. Can I put you on
Speaker 3: notice that ain't your marriage. That marriage belongs to God.
Speaker 3: God created marriage a husband loving a wife and a
Speaker 3: wife loving a husband as an example to the world
Speaker 3: of God's love for his church and his bride.
Speaker 1: And as you, guys, love each other.
Speaker 3: And build a family that God has called you to build,
Speaker 3: it is example to unbelievers of the hope and love
Speaker 3: and joy of God, you're not just fighting for love,
Speaker 3: you are fighting for the Kingdom. I get in trouble
Speaker 3: because I tell these stories about my family and then
Speaker 3: y'all start thinking my family was ratchet, and we were,
Speaker 3: but we were educated in love God too. I was
Speaker 3: driving with my mom when I was a kid, and
Speaker 3: this would happen quite often. And there's this one mall
Speaker 3: up in Maryland. If you're from Maryland, you know it.
Speaker 3: It's a massive, one of those, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: outlet malls. And there's like enough room in the mall
Speaker 3: for a million people, but they only have four parking spaces.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they want to have like Instagram
Speaker 3: fist fights. I don't know what it is, but you
Speaker 3: spend more time looking for parking that you spend in
Speaker 3: the mall. So I'd go to this mall my mom,
Speaker 3: my siblings in the car, and my mom would be
Speaker 3: driving up one aisle and she would see a parking
Speaker 3: space in the other aisle. You would look at me
Speaker 3: and she would say, Stephen, I love these moments and
Speaker 3: preach it because half of y'all, like my mama, did
Speaker 3: the same thing, and half of y'all light I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, and they say it's going. Hey, my mama said,
Speaker 1: get out the car.
Speaker 3: Y'all have to say mama and go stand in that
Speaker 3: parking space until I could drive around.
Speaker 1: So I come like, I'm like ten twelve, So I
Speaker 1: get out of the car.
Speaker 3: I go stand in that parking space and my mom,
Speaker 3: I mean, it would seem like it take her four
Speaker 3: hours to go up and come back down. And as
Speaker 3: I'm standing there, a car would come and try to
Speaker 3: park in the space and they go honk, honk, and
Speaker 3: they move a little closer, and I'm like, it's taken.
Speaker 3: And they'd be like, you're not a car. Honk honk,
Speaker 3: and they move a little.
Speaker 1: I'm like it's taken.
Speaker 3: And sometimes it would get a little dicey, and it's
Speaker 3: like almost like they're gonna hit me with their car.
Speaker 3: What they did not realize is you hitting me with
Speaker 3: your car not hurt as much as what my mama
Speaker 3: gonna do to me if I So, you do what
Speaker 3: you gotta do. But I'm gonna say it, I need
Speaker 3: some believers that know what God has promised them, And
Speaker 3: you are gonna stand ten toes down on the healing,
Speaker 3: on the hope, on the purpose, on the joy, devil.
Speaker 3: You can give it your best shot, but I know
Speaker 3: what my God has promised me, and I am not
Speaker 3: moving off of this. And you might not have picked
Speaker 3: the fight, the fight picked you. But you do not
Speaker 3: have the option of backing down. So there is a
Speaker 3: blessed scene in the battle. Do you realize that there
Speaker 3: are some things that you learned about yourself in the
Speaker 3: fight that you would have never learned about yourself if
Speaker 3: it had not been in that fight. You learn that
Speaker 3: you have more faith than you thought you did. You
Speaker 3: learn that you have more fortitude than you thought you
Speaker 3: You learn that you have more creativity. Who takes a
Speaker 3: stone and a sling against someone who has their back
Speaker 3: against the wall and knows who their God is?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: The worst fight of my life was when my mom
Speaker 3: was battling cancer for thirteen years and ended up passing
Speaker 3: away after thirteen years. And by the way, you can't
Speaker 3: tell me my God is not a healer because the
Speaker 3: doctor gave her three months to live, said that we
Speaker 3: could do with you. Go home, make your peace with God,
Speaker 3: and God extended her life thirteen years. But hear me
Speaker 3: walking through that battle, watching her battle the faith that
Speaker 3: it built in me to still preach about healing and
Speaker 3: hope and purpose. There is something that battles develop on
Speaker 3: the inside of you that nothing else can. Some battles
Speaker 3: will find me, but some battles I go looking for.
Speaker 3: Here's what it says in First Samuel seventeen thirty two.
Speaker 3: Then he even said to Saul, let no man's heart
Speaker 3: fail because of him, your servant will go and fight
Speaker 3: with this philistine. So in one passage we find David
Speaker 3: fighting a lion and a bear that he did not
Speaker 3: want to fight. In just a few passages later, we
Speaker 3: find David running towards a battle that nobody else wanted
Speaker 3: to fight.
Speaker 1: What happened, well, what happened was.
Speaker 3: When you make it through a few battles and you
Speaker 3: realize that the victory belongs to the Lord, it brings
Speaker 3: a confidence on the inside of you that all of
Speaker 3: a sudden in your life. I'm not intimidated by a fight.
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, I'm looking for a fight. And instead
Speaker 3: of running from the enemy, I start running towards the enemy.
Speaker 1: I start picking a fight.
Speaker 3: I start looking for places to push back the forces
Speaker 3: of darkness. The Bible says in Matthew Chapter A Lie
Speaker 3: and Versuol that says the days of John the Baptist.
Speaker 3: The Kingdom of God has suffered violence, but the violent take.
Speaker 1: It by force.
Speaker 3: I believe this year, a supernatural violence is gonna begin
Speaker 3: to rise up in the people of God, and we
Speaker 3: begin to realize I'm no longer gonna be on the
Speaker 3: defense against.
Speaker 1: The enemy, but I'm going on the offense.
Speaker 3: Why did David run after Goliath because Goliath dared to
Speaker 3: defy who God was.
Speaker 1: Here's the battles.
Speaker 3: You need to start picking in your life anything that
Speaker 3: defies the promise that God has made over your life.
Speaker 1: You've got to.
Speaker 3: Stop allowing the enemy to occupy territory that does not
Speaker 3: belong to him, and begin to declare, this is what
Speaker 3: God has promised me, and I'm taking it back. I'm
Speaker 3: taking my joy back, I'm taking my peace back. I'm
Speaker 3: taking prosperity back. I will not lack, i will not
Speaker 3: have not enough. I'm taking my health back, no matter of.
Speaker 3: I'm taking back every unbelieving family member in my family.
Speaker 1: As for me and my house, we will serve the
Speaker 1: Lord Devil.
Speaker 3: Get your hands off my teenager, get your hands off
Speaker 3: of my spouse, get your hands of aunt, off my uncle,
Speaker 3: addiction is broken in my family in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 3: Divorce is canceled in my family in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 3: You've got to start attacking.
Speaker 1: What God has promised you.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. What happens when you're fighting.
Speaker 3: Is is sometimes you don't know how to calm down.
Speaker 1: And I see this a lot.
Speaker 3: Can I just be ignorant on social media? People fighting
Speaker 3: fights that they ain't got no business fighting. As you
Speaker 3: are running after the fights that God has for you,
Speaker 3: make sure you're not picking fights that don't stand between
Speaker 3: you and the destiny that God has for you. Because
Speaker 3: one of the things the enemy wants is to get
Speaker 3: you occupied in a fight that ain't got nothing to
Speaker 3: do with what God has called you to do.
Speaker 1: It happened to David.
Speaker 3: He's fighting a lion, he's fighting a bear, he's fighting Goliath.
Speaker 3: He don't know who Insaul's army he can trust. And
Speaker 3: next thing you know, him and his army they're marching
Speaker 3: and they go ask a man, Hey, we have no food.
Speaker 3: Can you feed us? The man said, I don't know
Speaker 3: who you are. Y'all could be thieves, y'all, y'all could
Speaker 3: be enemies. I'm not gonna feed you. You know what
Speaker 3: David said, We gonna kill him. And it took somebody
Speaker 3: talking David down. Of David, this ain't your fight. Leave
Speaker 3: that alone. Some of us men.
Speaker 1: People talk to you the wrong way. Say something. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a peace.
Speaker 3: In my mind. First of all, you don't have much
Speaker 3: mind left. You can't be handing pieces out all willy nilly, Okay.
Speaker 3: You need to keep all the mind that you've got,
Speaker 3: keep your mind stayed on him, and you've just got
Speaker 3: to make a decision.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to fight a.
Speaker 3: Fight that doesn't have the ability to splock me from
Speaker 3: all that God has for me. Bible's Sysition, Chapter twenty one,
Speaker 3: verse eight. When David is in that temple, it says,
Speaker 3: then David said to a Himelek, is there not here
Speaker 3: on hand a spear or a sword? For I have
Speaker 3: brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me because
Speaker 3: the King's business required. Hayes, You've got to understand us, pastors.
Speaker 3: Our brains are like Rupek's cubes, and we write messages
Speaker 3: and then the message writes itself. Even as I'm reading this,
Speaker 3: I'm reminded when Jesus told his disciples when they went out,
Speaker 3: don't bother to take anything with you, because when you
Speaker 3: get to the place, it is going to give you
Speaker 3: the resources that you need to accomplish what you need
Speaker 3: to accomplish. The priest said, the sword of Goliath, the Philistine.
Speaker 1: Whom you killed.
Speaker 3: Watch this in a past battle, is now available in
Speaker 3: your moment of need, wrapped in a cloth behind the
Speaker 3: ephod if you will take that ticket, for there is
Speaker 3: no other except that one. Ear and David said, there
Speaker 3: is none like it. Give it to me. Come on,
Speaker 3: where's my bible scholars at You've already preached this to yourself.
Speaker 3: If I'm David and I'm fighting Goliath, the only thing
Speaker 3: I am thinking about is don't die. I ain't worried
Speaker 3: about being king. I'm not worried about the rest of
Speaker 3: the Philistines. I'm not worried about who talking about me.
Speaker 3: I'm just worried about don't die. I'm trying to take
Speaker 3: Goliath out now. While I'm trying to take Goliath out,
Speaker 3: God ain't even thinking about the battle that I'm in
Speaker 3: right now. He's already two three year ahead in in
Speaker 3: my future and knowing yeah, Goliah's a big battle when
Speaker 3: you're gonna need a win. But make sure, David, you
Speaker 3: snatch his sword at the end of this battle, because
Speaker 3: this battle is not about this battle. This battle is
Speaker 3: about equipping you for a battle that is coming on
Speaker 3: from your future. Hear me, Some of you are so
Speaker 3: consumed in this situation that you're in right now you
Speaker 3: can't see two three years down the road and not
Speaker 3: realize that this may be a battle to the enemy.
Speaker 1: But it's only training ground to God.
Speaker 3: This is a season where He is preparing you for
Speaker 3: what He is getting ready to take you to.
Speaker 1: Can anybody testify?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to go through that fight again, but
Speaker 3: I learned some things in that fight.
Speaker 1: That I'm telling you, baby, I'm using right now.
Speaker 3: I'm not happy that they walked out on me and
Speaker 3: stabbed me in my back, but I picked up desernment
Speaker 3: in that moment and ain't gonna get me twice. I
Speaker 3: can see it coming a myt somebody shout prove it.
Speaker 3: There was this passage in this Bible. The prophet came
Speaker 3: to this widow. It was just her and her son.
Speaker 3: There was a famine, you probably know the story, and
Speaker 3: they had nothing to eat. The prophet said, can you
Speaker 3: make me a cake? She said, bro, I ain't got nothing.
Speaker 3: We're gonna make a cake for me and my son.
Speaker 3: Then we're gonna die and that's it. He said, great,
Speaker 3: do that, but first make me a cake. She had
Speaker 3: enough faith to obey the word of God, even though
Speaker 3: it made no common sense. She made a cake for
Speaker 3: the prophet and then for her. And it said that
Speaker 3: the flour and the oil sustained her through the famine.
Speaker 1: Somebody say they survived the battle.
Speaker 3: The Holy Spirit showed me something that passage that blew
Speaker 3: my mind years later. Here's what it says. It says
Speaker 3: after they survived that famine. Later on her son died. Uh, oh,
Speaker 3: what's a bigger deal, hunger or death. But when her
Speaker 3: son died, it was not her first battle, and she
Speaker 3: knew who her God was. And she said, I wonder
Speaker 3: if the same God who can multiply flour and oil
Speaker 3: can breathe life back into my dead boy. Let me
Speaker 3: take him to the same place where God did the
Speaker 3: last miracle.
Speaker 1: Whole time, it was never.
Speaker 3: About the famine, never about the flower, never about the oil,
Speaker 3: all about building.
Speaker 1: That faith muscle.
Speaker 3: For when she actually needed it, she knew how to
Speaker 3: use it. Hear me, the battles that you fought in
Speaker 3: your past were only preparing you for the victory that
Speaker 3: God has a head of you. You may have called
Speaker 3: it a battle, but I'm telling you it was a
Speaker 3: blessing because it made you who you.
Speaker 1: Are.
Speaker 3: Some battles, come find me, some battles I go looking
Speaker 3: for the last thing?
Speaker 1: Is this?
Speaker 3: But running from battles is not an option? Says this
Speaker 3: in verse eleven, the end of that story. David eat
Speaker 3: the bread, he has the sword, and it says the
Speaker 3: servants of Acus said to him, is this not David
Speaker 3: the king of the land? By the way, y'all, he
Speaker 3: was anointed king, but he wasn't operating his king. Here
Speaker 3: was the enemy calling David by his future, even though
Speaker 3: nothing about his current situation looked like the future that
Speaker 3: God had promised him. They said, is this not David
Speaker 3: the King of the land? Did they not sing of
Speaker 3: him to one another and dances saying Saul has slain.
Speaker 1: His thousands and David his ten thousands.
Speaker 3: Now David took these words to heart and was watched
Speaker 3: this very much afraid. You would think, if people are
Speaker 3: reading your resume that your chest.
Speaker 1: Would go out. Yeah, that's me. That's me.
Speaker 3: I'm been killing for the days. Said fear came over David,
Speaker 3: and he says, watch this. So he changed his behavior
Speaker 3: and pretended madness in their hands, scratched on the doors
Speaker 3: of the gate, and let his saliva fall down.
Speaker 1: On his beard. You can play him done. Here's David.
Speaker 3: In the face of a new enemy with a resume
Speaker 3: of victory, and instead of standing ten toes down and saying,
Speaker 3: the God who brought victory in every season of my life,
Speaker 3: he will do it again, David started to pretend to
Speaker 3: be less than who God called him to be because
Speaker 3: he didn't want to fight another battle elevation. Hear me,
Speaker 3: there will be opportunities in your future if you do
Speaker 3: not have the right perspective to diminish who God has
Speaker 3: called you to be just to avoid another fight. Oh man,
Speaker 3: when I get around these people and I talk about
Speaker 3: all that God's going to do through my life.
Speaker 1: They get angries. So I'm just gonna stop talking.
Speaker 3: When when I when I walk in boldness and I'm
Speaker 3: actually moving that, I get pushed back, I get flack,
Speaker 3: I get attacked. So let me there are gonna be
Speaker 3: temptations of let me just shrink, let me just stop dreaming,
Speaker 3: let me just stop pushing, let me just stop pressing.
Speaker 3: And if you're not careful, you can look at the
Speaker 3: blessings that God is done in your life up to
Speaker 3: this point and.
Speaker 1: You can say this is good enough. The heat that
Speaker 1: I've had to take to get this far, I don't
Speaker 1: want to fight anymore.
Speaker 3: A lot of times people they passed me that message,
Speaker 3: which just for me. Sometimes I'm transparent, sometimes I'm not.
Speaker 1: But in this moment, I will be going. I tell you,
Speaker 1: this message ain't for you. This is for me.
Speaker 3: Because I'm walking out of a season where I just said, God,
Speaker 3: I don't want to fight anymore.
Speaker 1: This thinks I'm tired. I'm exhausted.
Speaker 3: Our church has been outrageously blessed, and God has moved
Speaker 3: it forward and leaps and bounds, and every time it's
Speaker 3: moved forward, there has been an insane attack prior. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, God, if this is what building your kingdom
Speaker 3: is like, count me out. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 3: like stupid attacks like people talking about you. How many
Speaker 3: people know people talking about you ain't got nothing to
Speaker 3: do with nothing.
Speaker 1: But it's tax like you know your children.
Speaker 3: Our church went through the season where we grew exponentially,
Speaker 3: and right before we grew exponentially, we sit down in
Speaker 3: the doctor's office and doctor tells me my seven year
Speaker 3: old is losing her hearing and she'll never be able
Speaker 3: to hear. Let's begin to start this process of figuring
Speaker 3: out how she's going to live without hearing.
Speaker 1: God, if this is I ain't signed up for this church.
Speaker 3: Crew on the other side got supernaturally healed her, no
Speaker 3: healing problems, whatsoever. Another season like that comes, church grows exponentially.
Speaker 3: Me and my wife are traveling at some conference or
Speaker 3: whatever may be. We get a phone call or two
Speaker 3: year old broke her femur and is in the hospital
Speaker 3: and we're in another city. I am you want to
Speaker 3: talk about naus just nauseousness, I said, God, if this
Speaker 3: is the fight, count me out those last year She's
Speaker 3: run around healthy, healed, perfect good.
Speaker 1: God's covered by the way. Pray for your pastors every time.
Speaker 1: God bless us.
Speaker 3: You have no idea the battles that they fought and
Speaker 3: they won, But there's such a temptation.
Speaker 1: I know that's my story.
Speaker 3: You've got your own story of man, I just can't
Speaker 3: handle another fight, Dave. I read this and I'm gonna it'
Speaker 3: Second Samuel eleven, verse one. It says this, it happened
Speaker 3: in the spring of the year, at the time when
Speaker 3: kings go out to battle, that David sent Job and
Speaker 3: his servants with him in all Israel, and they destroyed
Speaker 3: the people. If I'm on besiege watched this, but David
Speaker 3: remained at Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: Y'all Bible scholars, you know the story. You could preach
Speaker 1: it to yourself.
Speaker 3: David was supposed to be at war, and Steady stayed home,
Speaker 3: ran across this chick called Bathsheba, and wrecked the whole deal.
Speaker 3: If you look at the life of David, there's one
Speaker 3: thing that you might miss that the only times David
Speaker 3: nearly died was when he was in the palace, not
Speaker 3: when he was out on the battlefield. The safest place
Speaker 3: for David was out fighting the debt battles that God
Speaker 3: called him to fight. It was in the palace that
Speaker 3: sold tried to kill him. It was in the palace
Speaker 3: that Absalom created that q ku and tried to take
Speaker 3: him out. It was in the palace that he thought
Speaker 3: about Sheheba and ruined his legacy. David was safest when
Speaker 3: he was on the offense, going after all that God
Speaker 3: had called him to go after. But when David allowed
Speaker 3: the intimidation of the enemy to keep him blocked up
Speaker 3: in what he thought was a safe place, is when.
Speaker 1: He was not safe at all.
Speaker 3: Hear me, you are safest not when you're playing it safe,
Speaker 3: but when you are running forward in faith towards all
Speaker 3: that God has for you. And you may say, hey,
Speaker 3: I don't want to fight another battle, hear me, don't
Speaker 3: look at it as another battle. Look at it another
Speaker 3: victory on the other side of this battle that I'm
Speaker 3: gonna walk through. What in ten spies say, Hey, we
Speaker 3: can't take the city. There's giants in the land. What
Speaker 3: in two spies say, when we kill these giants, we're
Speaker 3: gonna sleep in giants' beds, and we're gonna live in giants' houses,
Speaker 3: and we're gonna have giant blessings on the other.
Speaker 1: Side of this.
Speaker 3: Hear me, I got bad news and I got good news.
Speaker 3: The bad news is there's some battles ahead of you.
Speaker 3: You cannot avoid them. Here's the good news. If you
Speaker 3: don't back up, if you don't quit, if you don't
Speaker 3: throw in the towel. Victory has your name on it,
Speaker 3: and the size of the blessing on the other side
Speaker 3: of the battle will be greater than any battle you
Speaker 3: can face.
Speaker 1: In your life. If you believe it.
Speaker 3: Somebody shot hallelujah.
Speaker 1: Come on, Can you hop up on your feet? Father God,
Speaker 1: We're grateful.
Speaker 3: God, We're thankful that you said, though the enemy comes
Speaker 3: in like a flood, that you will raise up a.
Speaker 1: Standard against him.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 3: I pray over every single person under the sound of
Speaker 3: my voice, God, that your victory will go before us,
Speaker 3: that you would cover us, that we would see your
Speaker 3: hand on everything that we do. Come on, right where
Speaker 3: you are, Can you close your eyes? Can you pray
Speaker 3: this prayer? Say, Holy Spirit, what are you.
Speaker 1: Saying to me? And just give God a moment to.
Speaker 3: Make this time to make this message personal to you.
Speaker 3: For some of you, you are in the fight of
Speaker 3: your life, and God's word to you, as you're not alone,
Speaker 3: this will end in victory. Your best days are ahead
Speaker 3: of you, not behind you. For some of you, if
Speaker 3: you'd be honest, you are fighting this fight by yourself
Speaker 3: because you've never asked God to be a part of
Speaker 3: your story. Well, if that's you, this is your moment
Speaker 3: where if you find yourself. If you say, pastor, I'm
Speaker 3: tired of fighting by myself. I need God to be
Speaker 3: my victory. Right where you're standing, pray this prayer. Say
Speaker 3: Lord Jesus, this is my moment. I surrender to you.
Speaker 3: I believe it was your cross, it was your blood
Speaker 3: that bought my freedom.
Speaker 1: And in this moment, I give you all of me.
Speaker 3: Be my Lord, be my savior, and use me for
Speaker 3: your glory in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen and Amen.
Speaker 3: Come on, Can you celebrate for every single person? God
Speaker 3: bless you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
Speaker 2: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 2: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 2: link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch
Speaker 2: dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
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Speaker 2: Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 2: God bless you.