Speaker 1: Right now. I don't know what y'all wanna do on
Speaker 1: the instruments, but we're gonna take twenty one seconds for
Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty one, and we're gonna praise God
Speaker 1: for his mighty power and his awesome work. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna do it in Gaston and Concord and Lake Norman
Speaker 1: and Valentine. We're gonna do it in our bedrooms and
Speaker 1: kitchens and living rooms and cars. Praise them on the treadmill.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all got a podcast going. Just holler in
Speaker 1: the gym. They will throw you out bed. I praise
Speaker 1: you Lord. I'm running and not growing weary. I'm walking
Speaker 1: in a will knock fad. I give you a pray.
Speaker 1: I did you praised? I'm gonna saved the praise. Whoo whooh,
Speaker 1: didn't that feel good. Let's get those hands out of
Speaker 1: those pockets and start clapping. You clapping the Devil's hip.
Speaker 1: It's back. It's back, it's back, it's back. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to preach. I broke my mic and I hadn't
Speaker 1: even write my scripture, all right, so let me start
Speaker 1: the sermon. Now, Welcome everybody to Elevation Church. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: share with you today this scripture. I had a substitute
Speaker 1: preacher ready because my voice was tired from preaching on
Speaker 1: this tour. But it was almost like a battle of
Speaker 1: two voices, because the voice of God was speaking to me,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I'll preach this week. Somebody
Speaker 1: needs this word. The Lord brought me here for you.
Speaker 1: You believe God loves you that much that he would
Speaker 1: make sure you were here to hear this. I totally
Speaker 1: believe that. I want to preach for a moment. From
Speaker 1: Hagi chapter two, Draham said, are you preaching this week? Dad?
Speaker 1: I said, I think so. God's speaking to me And
Speaker 1: he said from Luke five, because that's what I've been
Speaker 1: preaching in church and I preached it out there. I said, no, Son,
Speaker 1: not from Luke five. He said, let's go. He was
Speaker 1: so tired of hearing about Simon and the nets and
Speaker 1: the boats. Chris didn't get tired of it. One time.
Speaker 1: Chris got saved. Every night on the Elevation Nights tour,
Speaker 1: he rededicated sanctified Spiritville. He was walking around speaking in tongues. Backstage,
Speaker 1: David was eating grapes. Tiffany's about the only pure one
Speaker 1: on the worship team. Don't let their smiles for me.
Speaker 1: I love this scripture is such a powerful prophecy and
Speaker 1: a promise for us. Listen to this Hagi too. That's
Speaker 1: three books from the back of the Bible. You'd be
Speaker 1: better off to start or back of the old tip.
Speaker 1: So you go to Matthew, go back three books. That's hagi.
Speaker 1: Be the easiest way to find it. If you like
Speaker 1: to flip or look at the screens lazy booms. In
Speaker 1: the second year of King Darius, on the twenty first
Speaker 1: day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord
Speaker 1: came through the prophet Hagi. The word of the Lord
Speaker 1: came through the prophet Hagi. Speak to Zarabebel, son of
Speaker 1: Shiel Tiel, Governor of Judah, to Joshua, a son of Joseidac,
Speaker 1: the High Priest, and to the remnant of the people.
Speaker 1: Ask them, who of you is left? Who saw this
Speaker 1: house in its former glory? How does it look to
Speaker 1: you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?
Speaker 1: But now, be strong, Sir Rubebel, be strong, Zerubebel, declares
Speaker 1: the Lord, be strong. Joshua, son of joseph Ac, the
Speaker 1: High Priest, be strong. Say your name. Say it in
Speaker 1: the chat right now, Be strong, Stephen, say your name.
Speaker 1: Be strong, because you have to talk to yourself this way.
Speaker 1: All right. God's not always gonna have a Hagie following
Speaker 1: you around telling you you can do it. So say it.
Speaker 1: Say be strong and say your name. Say be strong,
Speaker 1: Be strong, Be strong, all you peoples of the land,
Speaker 1: declares the Lord, and work for I am with you,
Speaker 1: declares the Lord Almighty. This is what I covenanted with
Speaker 1: you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit
Speaker 1: remains among you. Do not fear. This is what the
Speaker 1: Lord Almighty says. In a little while won't be long.
Speaker 1: It might be happening right now. It might happen before
Speaker 1: you get home today. In a little while, I will
Speaker 1: once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea
Speaker 1: and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and
Speaker 1: what is desired by all nations will come, and I
Speaker 1: will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty.
Speaker 1: The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares
Speaker 1: the Lord Almighty. And the crypto and the bitcoin, it's
Speaker 1: all mine, declare whatever they make I trade in it.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord Almighty, and the glory of this
Speaker 1: present house will be greater than the glory of the
Speaker 1: former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place
Speaker 1: I will grant peace. This place I will grant peace,
Speaker 1: declares the Lord Almight, not declares Pastor Stephen. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: give you two dollars for what I say. But when
Speaker 1: God says it. And this is the word God said
Speaker 1: to say to you today, you ready. God said to
Speaker 1: tell you this my title. Stop crying is coming. Who
Speaker 1: stop crying is coming? Stop crying is coming. You may
Speaker 1: be seated. Wow. Well, so we got to talk about temples.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening in Hagai too. They're rebuilding the temple,
Speaker 1: the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. It's been in
Speaker 1: ruins for over fifty years because the people of God
Speaker 1: got carried off to Babylon. He gave the history lesson
Speaker 1: real quick. Just a little one, just a little one,
Speaker 1: just a little context. Every blessing has a context. So
Speaker 1: you don't want to just shout over something that you
Speaker 1: don't understand the context that it's set in. All right,
Speaker 1: very important to understand that they've been in Babylon because
Speaker 1: they were carried off, not of their own choice, but
Speaker 1: they've been in Babylon. When Psalm says that by the
Speaker 1: rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept, they actually
Speaker 1: hung up their their harps and their electric guitars and
Speaker 1: their tailors and their martins hung it all up on
Speaker 1: the willow tree, which represents sweeping, and they web for
Speaker 1: seventy years. So what we're stepping into in Hagai chapter
Speaker 1: two is much more than just the rebuilding. All right.
Speaker 1: I hesitate to use that word because it's soapop culture
Speaker 1: and it's so buzzy at almost certain words right now
Speaker 1: just make you feel sick to hear them all over again.
Speaker 1: We're going to rebuild this nation, and we're going to
Speaker 1: rebuild this economy, and we're going to rebuild We're going
Speaker 1: to build it back better, praise God. And that's not
Speaker 1: the hype right here. This is the hope, the hope,
Speaker 1: the hope, the hope, not the height, not the hype,
Speaker 1: but the hope is that they are going to rebuild
Speaker 1: the temple. But really, really, they are going to reinvent
Speaker 1: their template. Template. And what comes to mind when I
Speaker 1: say template will depend on your background. If you're like
Speaker 1: in a computer background, a template means one thing, if
Speaker 1: you are like in a machine, if you use machinery
Speaker 1: and stuff. They use metal and wood as a template
Speaker 1: for a pattern to build something. Or is even if
Speaker 1: there's really any geniuses in here. Is even in DNA
Speaker 1: and in genetic code, we talk about the template. But
Speaker 1: understanding this will really help us to know what Hagi
Speaker 1: had to do to encourage the people, because this temple
Speaker 1: that they're rebuilding, that was destroyed, which represented the center
Speaker 1: of Jewish life in Jerusalem, was completely unfamiliar to one generation.
Speaker 1: They had only heard about it, they never saw it.
Speaker 1: The only people who saw Solomon's Temple, which was awesome,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you a little bit about it in
Speaker 1: about forty five seconds. But the only ones who saw
Speaker 1: it are now senior citizens. That's important. But let's talk
Speaker 1: about Solomon's temple. It was so grand that one historian
Speaker 1: said half of the gold in the world at the
Speaker 1: time of Solomon was used to overlay the temple, half
Speaker 1: of the world's gold. I started studying about it. I said,
Speaker 1: what would you need half the gold in the world
Speaker 1: for to build a temple? I mean, can't God meet
Speaker 1: you anywhere? He met the Israelites and the tent in
Speaker 1: the wilderness. He didn't need a bunch of gold to
Speaker 1: meet with the people. I mean, he'll meet with you.
Speaker 1: Some of you. You met God, not somewhere in a
Speaker 1: church service, but you met God on the kitchen floor
Speaker 1: trying to crawl to the toilet to throw up, promising God,
Speaker 1: I will never do it again. If you will get
Speaker 1: me through this, or if you will let the test
Speaker 1: be negative, I will never do it again. I know
Speaker 1: it's early to be in your business, but you can
Speaker 1: meet God anywhere. I mean anywhere meet God throwing up
Speaker 1: in the toilet bowl. But here's this temple that God
Speaker 1: gave his people, and he wanted it built that way
Speaker 1: because he's great and he's glorious. The silver is his,
Speaker 1: the gold is his. He doesn't mind any of that.
Speaker 1: Had a guy coming to church one tim, he said,
Speaker 1: I would get baptized, but I don't want to stop
Speaker 1: driving my nice car. I said, who told you that?
Speaker 1: He said there was a preacher one time that said
Speaker 1: if I wanted to give it, I had to sell
Speaker 1: everything and follow him. I said, did the preacher that
Speaker 1: told you that? Because the guy was rich, and apparently
Speaker 1: he has some preacher that was trying to build a
Speaker 1: building for the church. So he's trying to work this
Speaker 1: guy saying, well, now, if you really want to be
Speaker 1: a sincere Christian, the proof of your sincerity is poverty.
Speaker 1: So you got to sell everything and give it to God.
Speaker 1: Lord said, I'm not stuck in your scarcity. I can
Speaker 1: bless you so much with my runover as the disciples.
Speaker 1: God blessed them so much off of five loaves of
Speaker 1: bread and two fish that they had to carry home leftovers.
Speaker 1: God said, you will break your back trying to carry
Speaker 1: home what is left over if you will seek me first,
Speaker 1: not just money, but peace of mind. Don't you want that?
Speaker 1: But meaning and purpose and significance that goes past this
Speaker 1: present evil age. I feel like preaching and telling somebody
Speaker 1: God's got it. God's got it anyway. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of gold, right. The candlesticks were made of gold, five
Speaker 1: on each side of the altar. In Sulomon's temple, the
Speaker 1: basins were made of gold. You know, the tongs that
Speaker 1: they would pick up the colds with, those were made
Speaker 1: of gold. This is how crazy God is. Even the
Speaker 1: hinges on the doors were made of goal. That's that's extravagant.
Speaker 1: That was Solomon's temple. That was Solomon's temple. That is
Speaker 1: not the temple that is being built in Hagai too.
Speaker 1: It's a different temple, and it requires a different template,
Speaker 1: you know, psychologically speaking, Right now, you have a template
Speaker 1: that is formed. They tell me this anyway, by the
Speaker 1: neural pathways and associations in our brain. And really our
Speaker 1: template is based on familiarity, not always truth. Now what
Speaker 1: feels true to you might not be actually true. It
Speaker 1: may just be your template. Everybody say template template. Now
Speaker 1: imagine that the prophet hag guy. We don't know anything
Speaker 1: about this guy. He's he's got some leaders. The Joshua,
Speaker 1: who comes from the line of Aaron, who was the
Speaker 1: first high priest, Moses's brother. You might remember here in
Speaker 1: his name. One time Moses was like, I can't speak God.
Speaker 1: He's like, here comes Aaron. He'll speak you shut up
Speaker 1: and do what I tell you to do. Here's your staff,
Speaker 1: because God always send you what you need. And so
Speaker 1: that's who Joshua, the son of josephak is. He's from
Speaker 1: that priestly line of Erin. And then there's Zorubbabel, who's
Speaker 1: a governor now here here, here's something that will help
Speaker 1: you to know. The king at the time is called Darius.
Speaker 1: This is before he start hoody and the blowfish. Darius
Speaker 1: was the I just got to keep you all awake
Speaker 1: during this history lesson because y'are kind of shifting around
Speaker 1: like a I when's he gonna preach? Here a sermon?
Speaker 1: This is the sermon, okay, Because every blessing has a context.
Speaker 1: Every blessing has a context. And so Darius wasn't even
Speaker 1: supposed to be king. But there was a coup when
Speaker 1: the Persians took over Babylon. The Persian king his name
Speaker 1: was Cyrus. He sent the Jews back. He's like, I
Speaker 1: want you all to like me, so y'all can go
Speaker 1: rebuild whatever you want. And that's who is back in Jerusalem,
Speaker 1: more specifically in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, rebuilding sixty
Speaker 1: thousand of them. They come back and they start rebuilding
Speaker 1: the temple. Because for the Jewish people, their template, the
Speaker 1: way they saw it, their model was that spirituality should
Speaker 1: be the center of life, not the periphery. We are
Speaker 1: almost in the day where I preach the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: For us, spirituality is like the last thing that we
Speaker 1: consider when we're making decisions. We will sooner move to
Speaker 1: a city based on the climate than we will based
Speaker 1: on the church. Lord Jesus, you didn't tell me is
Speaker 1: going to be this quiet? You didn't tell me my
Speaker 1: church turn Presbyterium. When I took one week off to
Speaker 1: go on the road. You know what I noticed on Corona?
Speaker 1: You know what I noticed. I would see people and
Speaker 1: it's not fine. I don't care. You wear a mask,
Speaker 1: you don't wear a mask. I'm not here to talk
Speaker 1: to you about that. I'm not a doctor. But what
Speaker 1: I would notice is I would see people everywhere, no mask,
Speaker 1: mask off, future style, everybody mask off, all everywhere, And
Speaker 1: I come up to them and we would be in
Speaker 1: a ballgame, a restaurant, a movie, a mall, anything, And
Speaker 1: I say, have you been back to church? You all
Speaker 1: in the building ought to help me with this. You're
Speaker 1: here I'm talking to now. That's a chance for you
Speaker 1: to be sophisticated and superior. Nah. We hadn't made it
Speaker 1: back to church, but you made it to the ball field. Nah,
Speaker 1: we haven't made it back to church. Because for us,
Speaker 1: our template, our cultural template, the pattern of this world
Speaker 1: is yet God is an add on. God is an
Speaker 1: app and scripture is a salad bar and I pick
Speaker 1: what I want. That's our template. That's our template. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what what's true. Oh no, no, you gotta
Speaker 1: live your truth. What if your truth is trash. It's
Speaker 1: the fleece, y'all, it's the fleece. I'm burning up. And
Speaker 1: so they know, before we can rebuild the walls, which
Speaker 1: Nea Maya will come along later and start to do
Speaker 1: not without opposition, before we can rebuild the economy, we
Speaker 1: gotta build this temple. But they get discouraged in the work,
Speaker 1: you know, because it doesn't look like the old one.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like the one we heard about. This
Speaker 1: is the temple. Man, I thought it would be better
Speaker 1: than this. You so make your decision to follow Christ,
Speaker 1: and then he doesn't give you a raise by next Monday.
Speaker 1: This is Christianity. I'm sorry. You have a bad template.
Speaker 1: If you just think that God exists to deck your
Speaker 1: temple out in gold everywhere, that is not all God is.
Speaker 1: You know what Bible verse I love John eleven thirty five.
Speaker 1: How many of y'all need to memorize more scriptures, less
Speaker 1: football stats chunks, and more scriptures fantasy football. God, if
Speaker 1: I could just take some of y'all's heads and put
Speaker 1: three Bible verses, so we'll start. We'll start today. Baby steps,
Speaker 1: baby steps, baby steps, all right, because you don't do
Speaker 1: it once. John eleven thirty five put it on the
Speaker 1: screen and Jesus wept. Now, look, it's not even the
Speaker 1: week hasn't even started yet, and you memorized the whole scripture.
Speaker 1: Give yourself a ham. Come on, that's good, that's good,
Speaker 1: that's good. Jesus wept, and Jesus wept. You're like, well,
Speaker 1: what does that have to do over the the temple?
Speaker 1: Because it's all about expectation right in John eleven thirty five,
Speaker 1: Jesus is going to see these sisters named Mary and Martha,
Speaker 1: and their brother died, and Jesus didn't show up when
Speaker 1: they thought he would, or when they thought he should,
Speaker 1: and he could and they thought he should, but he didn't,
Speaker 1: and they were crying. They were crying. Now, Jesus did
Speaker 1: not say to the sisters what your dad might have
Speaker 1: said to you, that my dad would say to me.
Speaker 1: If you don't stop cry, finish it, I will give you.
Speaker 1: Y'all are traumatized. I felt trauma. Your shoulders got tense
Speaker 1: when you said, ah, he didn't say that. He wept
Speaker 1: with them. He wept with them. He weeps with me.
Speaker 1: He knows my disappointments. They don't have to stay hidden.
Speaker 1: I can bring them right out in the light of day,
Speaker 1: because he knows the deeper disappointment behind the disappointment that
Speaker 1: created the disappointment. He knows the descendants of my disappointment.
Speaker 1: He knows what disappointment led to what disappointment. Jesus did
Speaker 1: an ancestry treat on all the things I'm frustrated about,
Speaker 1: and he sees all of that. He knows the real
Speaker 1: template that's driving my behavior. Knows the same about you.
Speaker 1: He knows why watch this, you push people away who
Speaker 1: are trying to love you. You don't even know why
Speaker 1: you do that yet. It's a mystery to you. You
Speaker 1: don't even know why. Yet when things get good in
Speaker 1: your life, you find some way to screw them up.
Speaker 1: And he knows why. It's because you figure, rather than
Speaker 1: let somebody else take it away from me like happened
Speaker 1: last time, I'll just take it away from myself. I
Speaker 1: will take my ball and go home. I will take
Speaker 1: my blessing and go home. So watch this. If your
Speaker 1: template is every relationship ends in pain or betrayal. If
Speaker 1: that is your template, you will start creating the very
Speaker 1: thing that you fear to avoid being surprised by it
Speaker 1: ever again. If that's your template, the template of these
Speaker 1: people was a temple that had so much gold that
Speaker 1: they had to start putting gold in weird places like
Speaker 1: the wash basin. They made Solomon's Temple's wash basin gold
Speaker 1: just because God is that glorious. So then they start
Speaker 1: building a new one. Ah, we're gonna build a temple. Oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get our life together. Oh, we're gonna lose
Speaker 1: twenty pounds. You know what. The hard thing about keeping
Speaker 1: weight off is nobody congratulates you from not putting it
Speaker 1: back on. Oh you've lost weight. Nobody has ever said
Speaker 1: to me, you still look decent. It's been six years
Speaker 1: and you haven't fluctuated. Your jeens look the same size.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, good job. Nobody compliments you when the genes
Speaker 1: stay the same size. That's what's difficult is they're not
Speaker 1: just rebuilding a temple. God is reinventing their template and
Speaker 1: their identity. They've been in Babylon so long they have
Speaker 1: forgotten the songs of Zion. They've been on pandemic on
Speaker 1: church online so long that they don't even remember how
Speaker 1: to be in a crowd without being scared of catching
Speaker 1: their death around people. Do you see why I have
Speaker 1: no patience with people that say the Bible isn't relevant
Speaker 1: to our day? Is this not us? Is this not us?
Speaker 1: Not only have you been rebuilding what was destroyed in
Speaker 1: the last two years, you've had to reinvent. You have
Speaker 1: the same title, but it's a completely different template for
Speaker 1: your job. I talked to the campus pastors when they
Speaker 1: were calling church members and we couldn't pray for people
Speaker 1: and lay hands on them. I said, this sucks for you,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. You signed up to do ministry with people
Speaker 1: and now you're basically running a call center because you
Speaker 1: can't touch. And touch was your template for ministry. It
Speaker 1: was so hard to reinvent. It's been hard for me
Speaker 1: to reinvent my identity as a pastor for years. My
Speaker 1: adult identity for my ego was just like in high school,
Speaker 1: it was how much do you bench press? But then
Speaker 1: as a pastors, how many people come to your church?
Speaker 1: So I went from bench to attendance. Oh yeah, you
Speaker 1: got ten thousand. I remember those days, small beginnings. Sorry,
Speaker 1: don't be discouraged. I'm tell you the Lord to give
Speaker 1: you twenty. Can I get a thirty? Can I get
Speaker 1: a forty? Can I get a fifty? Wait? Man, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a minute minute. Now you're talking about I was
Speaker 1: coming up in the church wondering would anybody come back?
Speaker 1: I mean after training behavior. You know, I'm not fuscinating
Speaker 1: to anybody that comes on online because really, really, really,
Speaker 1: God has given us a template for ministry now that
Speaker 1: we can reach you wherever you are. I praise God
Speaker 1: for it. I mean there's some places we can't put
Speaker 1: a building, but I can preach the Bible and we
Speaker 1: can watch this. I'm about to say something cool. You'll clap.
Speaker 1: God can give you a breakthrough where there is no
Speaker 1: church building. So now God is expanding the territory of
Speaker 1: the church. I hear from Zimbabwe about this ministry and
Speaker 1: South Paulo, Brazil. I hear from everywhere. I hear from Kentucky.
Speaker 1: Whoa God is good? Sometimes God says your template is
Speaker 1: too small for what I want to do. This is
Speaker 1: not a temple built by human hands. This is a
Speaker 1: temple that his name in heaven is unknown to men,
Speaker 1: but it is revealed to us. It is it is
Speaker 1: a shadow of Jesus Christ. Wow, all that is in
Speaker 1: this text. Yeah, it's a text about reinventing. It's a
Speaker 1: text about temples, text about templates. It's a text about trauma.
Speaker 1: Is a text about tears, and there's a time for tears.
Speaker 1: If sadness was a sin, Jesus couldn't have died for
Speaker 1: yours because he cried. Disappointment doesn't make you wrong. Anger
Speaker 1: doesn't make you wrong. There is just as much of
Speaker 1: a danger of stuffing it and letting it come out sideways,
Speaker 1: then letting it out. That's why I hate to hear
Speaker 1: preachers say you don't need therapy and counsel and all
Speaker 1: you need is the Holy Ghost. The blood is on
Speaker 1: our hands when we talk like that, because God uses
Speaker 1: all of that in people's lives. It's all a part
Speaker 1: of the process that he uses. Matter of fact, that's
Speaker 1: so dumb. Let's take that to the extreme. You don't
Speaker 1: need airplanes, all you need is the Holy Ghost. I
Speaker 1: don't see any preachers fly into their preaching engagements with
Speaker 1: their own wings. So stupid God uses stuff. And even
Speaker 1: in the text I read, it said the word of
Speaker 1: the Lord came through hag II. Sometimes the help that
Speaker 1: you need, the healing that you need, comes through people.
Speaker 1: Sometimes even you know, like I treat my daughter different
Speaker 1: than my sons, and sometimes I have to catch myself
Speaker 1: because they'll remind me you are too easy on Abby.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like that for us, and they're right for them.
Speaker 1: It was dry it up for her. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: I'll buy you one, don't worry about it. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? Yeah, it's different raising boys and girl. It's
Speaker 1: like a different template. It's different. So what God is
Speaker 1: trying to get the people to do in Hagi Too
Speaker 1: is not just to build what they had before four,
Speaker 1: but to get ready for something better. All right, So
Speaker 1: all this time you're spending wishing that it would be
Speaker 1: like it was before is completely wasted because God's not
Speaker 1: gonna make it what it was before, because if he
Speaker 1: listened to you and made it what it was before,
Speaker 1: he couldn't make it better. And the Bible says that
Speaker 1: we go from glory to glory as we are being
Speaker 1: transformed by the image of God, not your image of
Speaker 1: what God is supposed to be like, not your template
Speaker 1: of what you were told God was like when you
Speaker 1: were seven. Not your template of what men have always been,
Speaker 1: or women have always been, or Church has always been.
Speaker 1: God is not consulted your template. It will be according
Speaker 1: to His truth. God, what is your truth? That's what
Speaker 1: I want to be, my blue crip. I gotta get
Speaker 1: in the word and find out what God said about
Speaker 1: me before what people said about me became a faulty
Speaker 1: template to keep me trapped and buried in the rubble
Speaker 1: of yesterday. It's gonna be better. It's gonna be better.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be better. And sometimes the enemy of better
Speaker 1: is not bad. It's before all right, how guy shows up?
Speaker 1: The people have gotten so discouraged building the temple externally
Speaker 1: and internally because there's resistance on the outside and there's
Speaker 1: disappointment on the inside. And both are happening to you
Speaker 1: right now. It's almost impossible to live in this world,
Speaker 1: own a smartphone and not be an idiot. Everything is
Speaker 1: against us, you know what I'm saying. And it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of boath, it's a little bit of you,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of the world. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit of the devil. It's just this perfect storm, all right.
Speaker 1: And you're not just rebuilding, you're reinventing. Not just for
Speaker 1: those of us in a midlife crisis, but for everybody.
Speaker 1: You are always reinventing. That's the nature of it. Or
Speaker 1: you're dead, or you're reinventing, or you're dead. That's your
Speaker 1: two options. So the Lord gave me these things I
Speaker 1: want to teach. We don't have time to go through
Speaker 1: all of them today. But I heard a rumor y'all
Speaker 1: are coming back next week. I heard that. Go ahead
Speaker 1: and put it on your schedule and tell her I
Speaker 1: can't next week. I got to hear the rest of
Speaker 1: this sermon. But let me give you. Can I give
Speaker 1: you what I can give you today? Can I give
Speaker 1: you what I give you today? Okay? Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: It's four urs of reinvention, and I want to call
Speaker 1: your attention to as many of them as I can
Speaker 1: in the time we have left. And they're all from
Speaker 1: the text. And the first one is a word you
Speaker 1: may not hear a lot. It's in verse two where
Speaker 1: God told hat guy speak to Zorrubb a Bell. I
Speaker 1: thought it was so cool. Z a rubb a bell.
Speaker 1: Everybody say, it is a rubb a bell. You need
Speaker 1: a baby name, you've been praying for one. There you go.
Speaker 1: I've just throw that in your bag for free, all right,
Speaker 1: That comes with the happy meal. This is a rubb
Speaker 1: a bell. I thought it was cool how his name
Speaker 1: said rubble in it. Almost if you slitch the letters around,
Speaker 1: it sounds like rubble. That's what they were looking at.
Speaker 1: The city was still burned. It didn't look like it
Speaker 1: used to look. And that's a sad thing to look
Speaker 1: around at your life, on your bank account, or people
Speaker 1: that used to be there for you, all of that,
Speaker 1: and go where did it go? Because we're back from Babylon,
Speaker 1: but we're not exactly living in Zion, at least not
Speaker 1: how it used to be, at least not how we
Speaker 1: heard about it. We're back, we love God, we're here
Speaker 1: for it. We're doing what we can. But it's not
Speaker 1: exactly what we thought it would be. And so God
Speaker 1: tells Hagi has a word for him. He has a
Speaker 1: word from the word of the Lord came through Hagai.
Speaker 1: Speak to Zarabebel, son of Shiltiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua,
Speaker 1: son of Joseph the High Priest, and to the remnant.
Speaker 1: That's the first word I want you to write in
Speaker 1: your phone. Remnant, remnant, the remnant. It means what's left.
Speaker 1: It means the small park that stayed. When you find
Speaker 1: yourself in a period of reinvention and nothing seems familiar
Speaker 1: and nothing seems normal, and nothing makes sense, and nothing
Speaker 1: matches your prior map of meaning or knowledge. Nothing looks
Speaker 1: like where you've been before, and you're looking at it,
Speaker 1: going where's the gold, where's the temple we heard about?
Speaker 1: Where's all the stuff that used to happen? Or if
Speaker 1: your body's starting to ache in ways that it didn't
Speaker 1: ache when you were twenty four, and you're figuring out
Speaker 1: how to work around that, God said, speak to the remnant.
Speaker 1: The remnant. The remnant can represent a fragment. Remember there
Speaker 1: were hundreds of thousands taken to Babylon, only sixty thousand
Speaker 1: came back. That can discourage you, especially if you're a
Speaker 1: leader like Zaraba Bel And you know, the hardest thing
Speaker 1: about staying in the ministry has been for me fifteen years,
Speaker 1: having to keep a good spirit even when people and
Speaker 1: it breaks your heart, not if they leave to go
Speaker 1: on and do something great for God. I'm telling people
Speaker 1: who just flat fall out and you go. This is
Speaker 1: how some of the campus pastors feel about the people
Speaker 1: who hadn't even come back to volunteer yet after everything
Speaker 1: we did for you, really you, I was praying for
Speaker 1: you for every inbroom toenail. You call me at two
Speaker 1: in the morning because you had heartburn and thought you
Speaker 1: had to go to the hospital and I would pray
Speaker 1: for you. And you can't come back. Let me run
Speaker 1: into you and Ruby Tuesday. I will cuss you out.
Speaker 1: But so see, if I'm the devil and I'm not.
Speaker 1: If I'm the devil, if I'm the enemy, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try to get you so focused on who left that
Speaker 1: you don't see what's left. There's still a remnant, even
Speaker 1: if it's a fraction of what it once was, there's
Speaker 1: still a remnant. There is a remnant, Yo, I don't
Speaker 1: have anything to be grateful for. There's a remnant. You
Speaker 1: just did it. Did you breathe in? Did you breathe out? Well,
Speaker 1: let everything that happ BRep praise the Lord. Even if
Speaker 1: you lost your business, you still got prep. Even if
Speaker 1: you lost your port friend, you still got brought Hey,
Speaker 1: who's not to say that that dude was rubble. Maybe
Speaker 1: God was clearing him out so you could get ready
Speaker 1: for something better, better, better, better, bad happen bad, y'all
Speaker 1: better not let me go on tour. I feel fired up.
Speaker 1: Holy Ghost ripped it, annoys it. I'm not with you
Speaker 1: all today. God said, if you stay so focused on
Speaker 1: who didn't come back, who didn't support, who didn't like,
Speaker 1: who didn't endorse, who didn't click through, who didn't do it?
Speaker 1: This is what the Lord said to me one season
Speaker 1: of ministry. He said, if you keep focusing on who
Speaker 1: left and what's lost, you are not going to see
Speaker 1: who's lost and what's left. Because I was crying because
Speaker 1: some people left out on me that I thought, what, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll never leave. Be careful on those people. That's like
Speaker 1: Peter saying I will never deny you, Lord. She's like
Speaker 1: before that rooster says God the doodle. He ain't even
Speaker 1: gonna get to the dow and you're gonna say you
Speaker 1: don't know me. You're gonna cut the rooster off, mid
Speaker 1: crow and disown me. But while I'm crying over who left,
Speaker 1: God has given me a mission as a pastor. To
Speaker 1: reach people who are lost. That's the mission of Jesus
Speaker 1: to seek and save what's lost. So the devil can't
Speaker 1: take your No, there is one thing he can't do.
Speaker 1: He can't take what God gave you. He can't, he can't,
Speaker 1: he can't, he can't. But if he can get you
Speaker 1: so depressed, so distracted, so disappointed, he wants to keep
Speaker 1: you crying, to keep you from seeing what's coming. Stop crying,
Speaker 1: it's coming. Stop crying. It's coming. For everything that your life,
Speaker 1: God has made a covenant with you. I am with
Speaker 1: you to this day. And let me finish the sentence.
Speaker 1: If God is for us, who can be against us?
Speaker 1: If God is with me, he is more than the
Speaker 1: world against me. I know you've been crying. It's all right.
Speaker 1: But God sent me with a prophetic word like, ha, God,
Speaker 1: I see him reaching for the centuries to tell you
Speaker 1: stop crying. Is coming. You don't want to miss what's
Speaker 1: coming because they're crying over what's gone. What's this, what's this?
Speaker 1: What's coming is better than what's going. God has taken
Speaker 1: you from glory to glory, to glory, to glory to glory.
Speaker 1: He didn't bring me this love, all right, if you
Speaker 1: feel comfortable, touch your neighbors. Say stop crying is coming.
Speaker 1: Stop crying is coming. Put it in the chack. Stop
Speaker 1: crying is coming. How long will you born? Oh what
Speaker 1: God that's rejecting. Fill your horn with oil. David is
Speaker 1: in the field. It's coming, is coming, is coming, is coming,
Speaker 1: is coming, is coming. I don't say that by feeling.
Speaker 1: I say it by faith. It is common choice coming,
Speaker 1: piece is coming, Praise is coming, Restoration is coming, is coming,
Speaker 1: is coming. In fact, lift them your eyes. The hardness
Speaker 1: is here. Stop or more much? Right now? Whoa work? Whoa?
Speaker 1: I'm glad I finished this tour at home. I praiching
Speaker 1: to the right church today. Get the ten second, build
Speaker 1: a temple with prey, with pray. Stop crying. It's coming.
Speaker 1: And if the enemy can keep you crying, he can
Speaker 1: keep you from seeing what's coming. Hey, guys, said, I
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. I'm thinking it too. This is
Speaker 1: nothing compared to that. I saw pictures of Solomon's temple
Speaker 1: on Pinterest. It was expensive, not no, no, it was
Speaker 1: the same place Solomon's temple was. But what made the
Speaker 1: same stuff? Because God is reforming it. He's reforming, He's
Speaker 1: reforming it. He's reforming your life. He's shaping it like
Speaker 1: a potter in the clay. He's reforming it. That's what
Speaker 1: it is. It's his hands, not the devils. And when
Speaker 1: we write songs, they always the worse they suck when
Speaker 1: we start them, the better they get when we finish them.
Speaker 1: But then we take it home and we have the demo,
Speaker 1: which is like the rough version. And there's this thing
Speaker 1: called demo witis. And it's when you listen to the
Speaker 1: first version so much that you start thinking it's perfect,
Speaker 1: but it really needs a lot of work. The devil
Speaker 1: has some of y'all in demo witis. You thought, the
Speaker 1: first version, what's the only version of who you are,
Speaker 1: of what you do, of what your gifts are? But
Speaker 1: the Lord said, I can't make it better if you
Speaker 1: keep going back. Stop crying. I know it sounds insensitive.
Speaker 1: Pastor Steve, Jesus wept. Didn't you see that? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: the one who told you about that. But that's not
Speaker 1: all he did. Look at John chapter eleven, verse thirty eight.
Speaker 1: It says after Jesus cried, which is important. You know,
Speaker 1: trauma is Trauma is real. Seventy years in Babylon will
Speaker 1: make you cry. It'll make you forget to sing when
Speaker 1: you find out what your kids been doing behind your back.
Speaker 1: It'll make you cry when you and your husband don't
Speaker 1: even look at each other except when you're around people,
Speaker 1: so you can fake it real good. It'll make you
Speaker 1: cry alone. God doesn't correct the sisters, but I'm glad
Speaker 1: he didn't stop there, and you can't either, because in
Speaker 1: verse thirty eight John eleven thirty eight, it says not
Speaker 1: Jesus cried, but Jesus once more deeply moved game. So
Speaker 1: he cried, and then he came. Stop crying is coming.
Speaker 1: I don't want the old temple to keep me from
Speaker 1: seeing Jesus. Seriously, you know how it's said in the
Speaker 1: verse and Hagai that from the day I brought you
Speaker 1: out of Egypt till now, did you catch that really
Speaker 1: small thing in verse five? I didn't make a big
Speaker 1: deal out of it, but it is a big deal.
Speaker 1: Because they thought that Pharaoh had to let them go
Speaker 1: for them believe Egypt. That wasn't their biggest problem. Their
Speaker 1: biggest problem was letting go of Moses, because see, Moses
Speaker 1: gave them the law, and they were so committed to
Speaker 1: that that when Jesus came, who is the true image
Speaker 1: of God, to show them what God is really like,
Speaker 1: not to break the law, but to fulfill it. When
Speaker 1: Jesus came, they could not recognize better because they were
Speaker 1: stuck in before. So while we're fighting, like, hey Pharaoh,
Speaker 1: let me go, Hey addiction, let me go, Hey temptation,
Speaker 1: let me go, God's like the thing that you're holding
Speaker 1: onto is the former glory. I don't know who it
Speaker 1: is of his three people as worth saying you gotta
Speaker 1: let go a former glory to receive present help. Now
Speaker 1: that means a lot of things. It means that the
Speaker 1: same Jesus who cried at the gate came to the tomb.
Speaker 1: It didn't stop him from doing what he came to do,
Speaker 1: because he didn't come just to cry or give him
Speaker 1: a Hallmark car. He didn't just bake them a roast
Speaker 1: so they could eat it three days later. He came
Speaker 1: to show them who he was. He came to reinvent
Speaker 1: their concept of God and to switch their template of
Speaker 1: truth that not only am I a healer, I am resurrection.
Speaker 1: He came to prefigure what he would do he can,
Speaker 1: So he cried everybody say, he cried, Come on, don't
Speaker 1: tap out on me. This is the best part of
Speaker 1: the sermon. I know y'all aren't going to listen to
Speaker 1: a sermon about the glory of the Latter House and
Speaker 1: skip the end of the sermon. This is the part
Speaker 1: I wanted to preach us to because he cried, and
Speaker 1: you've been crying, and you have a Christ who crist
Speaker 1: So that's fine. He will cry with you. But then
Speaker 1: you have a Christ too. After he stopped crying, he
Speaker 1: came to the tomb. So he's coming to the tomb.
Speaker 1: He's coming to the park that's buried. He's coming to
Speaker 1: the park that's broken. He's coming to the park that's dead.
Speaker 1: He's coming to the park that stinks. He's coming to
Speaker 1: the park that's rotten. He's coming to the park that
Speaker 1: it's giving up on. He cried, he came. But that's
Speaker 1: not the good part. The good part is verse forty three.
Speaker 1: Put verse forty three on the screen quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly,
Speaker 1: And when Jesus has said this, he called. So he cried,
Speaker 1: he came, and then he called in a loud voice.
Speaker 1: And I hear that voice calling today through the halls.
Speaker 1: Of history from the pages of Hagai to this very
Speaker 1: moment in the house of God. Lazarus, come forth, Come,
Speaker 1: for he's speaking to your joy. He's speaking to your peace,
Speaker 1: he's speaking to your strategy, he's speaking to your spirit.
Speaker 1: Come far. So you cried a while, It's all right.
Speaker 1: I am convinced that the sufferings of this present time
Speaker 1: are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed. Suck.
Speaker 1: Did you catch that whole sermon? He cried? He came,
Speaker 1: he called. You got to call some things out today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. You ain't not gonna come just automatically. You
Speaker 1: can cry over it as long as you want, But
Speaker 1: I believe that something deeper is call him from the inside.
Speaker 1: What the prophet told the people was you got to
Speaker 1: do the work. You gotta do the work. Is wishing
Speaker 1: for something that you don't have keeping you from working
Speaker 1: with what you do have. I don't know, Maybe it's
Speaker 1: just me, but I needed this word that the Lord said.
Speaker 1: You can cry, but eventually you gotta come, and you
Speaker 1: got to call those things that be not as though
Speaker 1: they are beneath your feelings. And the promise is it's
Speaker 1: a covenant not a commitment. Commitments can be broken. Yeah,
Speaker 1: covenants cannot, especially when one of the parties is the
Speaker 1: one who cannot lie. So it's a lot of pain.
Speaker 1: You know. When they laid the foundation, Ezra showed us something.
Speaker 1: Give me Ezra three ten when they got that temple started,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm gonna pick this up next week
Speaker 1: for real, y'all, because y'all got one point. It's your fall.
Speaker 1: You were shouting and receiving and glorifying. Die. I didn't
Speaker 1: come to get through my points. I came to give
Speaker 1: you this work. Stop crying. It's coming. It's coming, because
Speaker 1: the Bible says an Ezra three that when the builders
Speaker 1: laid the foundation of this second Temple, the priests and
Speaker 1: their vestments, with their trumpets, the Levites, the sons of
Speaker 1: Asaf with their symbols, took their places to praise the
Speaker 1: Lord like Dave had told them to. And with praise
Speaker 1: and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord, he is good
Speaker 1: his love to Israel, and dos forever. Probably better melody
Speaker 1: than that, but that was the worst. They say, he
Speaker 1: is good his love, oh Israel, and do it forever,
Speaker 1: and all the people. I want you to do what
Speaker 1: the text says, stand up, gave a great shout, a
Speaker 1: great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation
Speaker 1: of the House of the Lord was laid. Now that's
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna pick up next week, because some of
Speaker 1: us are comparing our foundation to somebody else's finish line,
Speaker 1: and that's why we're discouraged. And next week, if you
Speaker 1: will give me the opportunity and God gives me the strength,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna preach about how to shout about foundations. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna teach you. I'm gonna teach you how I'm gonna
Speaker 1: teach you how to do a dance. When the scale
Speaker 1: drops one pound. I'm gonna teach you how to dance
Speaker 1: on the scale. And I'm gonna teach you how to
Speaker 1: do it because when you lose a pound, you don't
Speaker 1: celebrate by eating a cookie. When you lose a pound,
Speaker 1: you buy some shoes. But if you're getting out of debt,
Speaker 1: you don't go buy shoes. You eat cookies. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna teach you about how to shout over little stuff
Speaker 1: next week and just redistribute the balance of this so
Speaker 1: you could keep your progress going. Oh, I love y'all.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do it next week. But I gotta show
Speaker 1: you this because this is really what started me to
Speaker 1: teach this message. They were shouting about what God was doing,
Speaker 1: the new thing. Wow, we're gonna have a temple. I've
Speaker 1: heard about this. One generation was saying, but it's not
Speaker 1: like the old one. And watch what the Bible says
Speaker 1: in verse twelve. But many of the older priests and
Speaker 1: the Leevites and the family had the ones who should
Speaker 1: have been leading, the ones who should have been known
Speaker 1: that God is with us and we can't fail. He's
Speaker 1: gonna do a new thing. So who he is is
Speaker 1: what he does. He's reforming us. But when they saw
Speaker 1: the foundation, they had seen the former temple. They had
Speaker 1: the old template. This is what it has to look like.
Speaker 1: This is what I thought marriage would be. This is
Speaker 1: the city I thought I would live in forever. This
Speaker 1: is how old I thought my mom would be when
Speaker 1: she died. This is how I thought it would be.
Speaker 1: When they saw the temple, it didn't match their template.
Speaker 1: And watch what happened. They wept. They wept, and the
Speaker 1: sounds of celebration, the shouts of joy, while others were
Speaker 1: shouting one generation is weeping over what it was, and
Speaker 1: one generation is shouting over what it will be when
Speaker 1: God gets done with it. What I want to know.
Speaker 1: What I want to know is are you going to
Speaker 1: keep weeping or start working? Because you have forgotten who
Speaker 1: you are working with? The Lord Almighty is in you.
Speaker 1: It's by His spirit that you're building. You are not
Speaker 1: building this by yourself, and you're not going to build
Speaker 1: it like before. He is able to do exceeding abundantly
Speaker 1: above all you ask, above every template. Hey transcends that.
Speaker 1: So within the same body you got shouts of joy
Speaker 1: and weeping. Which one will you listen to? Which one
Speaker 1: will you obey? He will begin a good work in
Speaker 1: you will be faithful to complete it. Got to be
Speaker 1: strong and do the work well. You're not working on
Speaker 1: your own. It is God that works in you to
Speaker 1: will and to do according to His good pleasure. So
Speaker 1: maybe God brought you here to remind you what you're
Speaker 1: working with. Ah, that there is a rim net that
Speaker 1: God has left everything in your life that He intends
Speaker 1: to use in this next season. And I always read
Speaker 1: how I always read the Ecclesiastes verse there is a
Speaker 1: season for everything, But I live in Charlotte. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the weather is like where you live, but
Speaker 1: in Charlotte, we have like two or three different seasons
Speaker 1: in the same day. A lot of times, especially right now,
Speaker 1: we don't know how to dress, do we. We'll be
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning shivering six layers. You'd be
Speaker 1: sweating by three pm, shivering again at night. That surprises
Speaker 1: people who come here from other parts of the country.
Speaker 1: They just can't believe how violent it is. They put
Speaker 1: up all their shorts and the next thing you know
Speaker 1: is Wednesday. I need them again. I put them in
Speaker 1: the attic. I got bad knees, and it's confusing. So
Speaker 1: remember Solomon who built the first temple. This is something
Speaker 1: he said, I'll leave you with this and we'll pick
Speaker 1: it up next week. Received this, he said, okay, I
Speaker 1: got it. I know how I know what to type.
Speaker 1: He said, Verse first one Ecclesies, He's three to one.
Speaker 1: There's a time for everything, and a season for every
Speaker 1: activity under the heavens. So new season, new temple, new template.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening in your life. That's why you're uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: God didn't leave you. God didn't leave you. He's showing
Speaker 1: you himself in a different dimension. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: That's all it is. But watch this, he said. A
Speaker 1: time to be born, a time to die, a time
Speaker 1: to plant, a time to uproot, a time to kill,
Speaker 1: time to heal, a time to tear down, a time
Speaker 1: to build, a time to weep, time to laugh, time
Speaker 1: to mourn, and a time to dance. And you know what,
Speaker 1: sometimes you are doing both in the same season. I
Speaker 1: thought those were two different seasons. Oh, I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: that dance and season. Sometimes you are going to have
Speaker 1: to dance while you dry the tears out of your
Speaker 1: eyes and ape dancing anyway. For the glory of this
Speaker 1: present house will be greater. God said, I will fill
Speaker 1: the house with glory. You keep looking for the gold,
Speaker 1: But God said, I'm trying to fill it with glory,
Speaker 1: not what you can see, what you can't see. I
Speaker 1: will phil this house with glory. It is coming. It's coming.
Speaker 1: She might not see it, you might not feel it.
Speaker 1: He said, I want you to keep working even as
Speaker 1: you're weeping. Be strong, Joshua, be strong, sir, rebebel. Speak
Speaker 1: to the remnant. Strengthen what remains, because it's only the foundation.
Speaker 1: And I don't care what the devil has been telling you.
Speaker 1: Your best days are not behind you. I rebuke that
Speaker 1: right now, in the name of Jesus, the glory of
Speaker 1: the present House will be greater. Everybody who receives it. Shout,
Speaker 1: shout like they did over the temple, sound like South,
Speaker 1: over the foundation pen the glory of the President House.
Speaker 1: What God is doing right now, It's sound big, greater glory,
Speaker 1: to glory, strength to strength, sid it sign Lord, Thank
Speaker 1: you for sending your word through today. We receive it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for laying this foundation, We receive it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for Jesus, who is the greater glory. We receive
Speaker 1: your presence right now. Well, if you enjoy today's podcast,
Speaker 1: there are a couple things I'd love for you to do.
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You
Speaker 1: can also help us reach others by investing today at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church dot org, slash give and thanks again for
Speaker 1: joining us on the Elevation Podcast.