Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Mark chapter nine, verse fourteen through twenty nine. I want
Speaker 1: to read this whole passage to you again, and let's
Speaker 1: look at this, this proclamation that God wants to make
Speaker 1: you didn't lose it. Say that to the person next
Speaker 1: to you, you didn't lose it, and put it in
Speaker 1: the chat. Those of you that are on YouTube right
Speaker 1: now say I didn't lose it. Amen, Mark nine fourteen.
Speaker 1: When they came to the other disciples, they saw a
Speaker 1: large crowd around them and the teachers of the law
Speaker 1: arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus,
Speaker 1: they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
Speaker 1: Y'all fighting about now. Jesus asked, I wonder if he's
Speaker 1: still asking that question. A man in the crowd answered
Speaker 1: verse seventeen, Teacher, I brought you my son, who is
Speaker 1: possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech.
Speaker 1: Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground.
Speaker 1: He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid.
Speaker 1: I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but
Speaker 1: they could not. I listened to the phrase, Jesus uses
Speaker 1: you unbelieving generation, How long shall I stay with you?
Speaker 1: How long shall I put up with you? Bring the
Speaker 1: boy to me. So they brought him, and when the
Speaker 1: spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion.
Speaker 1: So this thing that's been controlling this boy isn't going
Speaker 1: out without a fight. Is not going to go out
Speaker 1: just because he came to church one time. Is not
Speaker 1: going to happen just because you watched one YouTube sermon.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen because you listen to worship
Speaker 1: on the way to work for two days in a row.
Speaker 1: And so the boy falls to the ground and rolls
Speaker 1: around and foams at the mouth. Then we said last week,
Speaker 1: let's don't get so caught up in the symptoms that
Speaker 1: we missed the spirit that was at work in the situation.
Speaker 1: It's the devil. It's the evil one. He comes to
Speaker 1: kill and steal and destroy, and in this boy's case,
Speaker 1: it was a physical manifestation. But in many of our
Speaker 1: cases it doesn't manifest in this way, and manifest in
Speaker 1: different ways. You know, we all have we all have
Speaker 1: different ways that we experienced this. But Jesus asked the
Speaker 1: boy's father, and I think this important question. How long
Speaker 1: has he been like this? From childhood? He answered? It
Speaker 1: has often thrown him in to fire or water to
Speaker 1: kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity
Speaker 1: on us and help us. And this is the part
Speaker 1: that stood out to us last week. If you can,
Speaker 1: said Jesus, everything is possible for the one who believes. Immediately,
Speaker 1: the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe. Help me overcome
Speaker 1: my unbelief. So when Jesus saw that a crowd was
Speaker 1: running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit, you
Speaker 1: death and mute spirit. He said, I command you come
Speaker 1: out of him and never enter him again. And the
Speaker 1: spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently, and came out. The boy
Speaker 1: looked so much like a corpse that many said he's dead.
Speaker 1: Many said he's dead. Many said he's dead, But Jesus.
Speaker 1: Many said, but Jesus, many said, but Jesus. Popular opinion
Speaker 1: never overrides God's purpose. Many said, But Jesus, y'all love
Speaker 1: the Bible. Many said, but Jesus, they don't have the
Speaker 1: last word. They don't have the last word. Many said,
Speaker 1: But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him
Speaker 1: to his feet, and he stood up. Now here's where
Speaker 1: we want to go today. After Jesus had gone indoors,
Speaker 1: his disciples asked him privately, why couldn't we drive it out?
Speaker 1: And he replied, this kind can only come out by prayer.
Speaker 1: Why couldn't we do it? My first instinct in reading
Speaker 1: the text was to judge the disciples for their lack
Speaker 1: of faith to help this boy. And I even wanted
Speaker 1: to tell them, you know, if you would have spent
Speaker 1: less time arguing with the teachers of the law, maybe
Speaker 1: you could have helped the boy. Now, I've got to
Speaker 1: be honest, I'm hard on myself, so maybe I'm reading
Speaker 1: into the text how I feel about myself. And Holly
Speaker 1: helps me with this. Holly has helped me in so
Speaker 1: many ways, but one of the main things she helps
Speaker 1: me with. And I'm telling you, man, people will come
Speaker 1: up to me all the time. It's like we like
Speaker 1: you a lot. But we love Holly, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's how I feel too. I only like me sometimes
Speaker 1: I love her. She's amazing and however amazing she looks,
Speaker 1: she's much more amazing up close, and not everybody's like that,
Speaker 1: but she really is like that. And she's got better
Speaker 1: every year, and she's taught me so much. She teaches
Speaker 1: me things, like she'll say after she she did a
Speaker 1: Bible study for y'all, and we're gonna share this with
Speaker 1: our E groups. It's called Essentials, and she's gonna break
Speaker 1: down the essentials, just getting back to basics, fundamental training,
Speaker 1: you know, coarse strength to put it in fitness terms,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna share it this fall with our E groups.
Speaker 1: But when she came home from filming it, she said
Speaker 1: something I've never said after I preached, it was really good.
Speaker 1: Never once have I put down the mic and walked
Speaker 1: off and gone that was really good. Never Ever, The
Speaker 1: best it gets for me on the inside, because I'm
Speaker 1: really hard on myself and she helps me with this.
Speaker 1: The best it gets for me is I don't want
Speaker 1: to die, right. That would be my version of really good.
Speaker 1: I don't want to quit and go get a job
Speaker 1: at Guitar cent I'm really hard on myself and she
Speaker 1: helps me with that. And my instinct is and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be confessing all this. I always feel like I
Speaker 1: said too much after I preach too which is part
Speaker 1: of the reason that I never like it after I
Speaker 1: preach it, because I open up my gaping wounds and
Speaker 1: bleed all over you, and then I walk back to
Speaker 1: stitch it together myself. But Holly helps me because I'm
Speaker 1: typically thinking like I'm thinking like that my best is
Speaker 1: behind me. So for instance, if I preach a sermon
Speaker 1: and I feel like I didn't say it like I
Speaker 1: was supposed to, and I saw seven people yawn when
Speaker 1: I was in only my first point, and wow, that
Speaker 1: guy's asleep over there. If I see all that. When
Speaker 1: I'm preaching, my instinct is to think like I think
Speaker 1: I've lost it. Or if I open my Bible and
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a sermon and this Monday and I
Speaker 1: can't find one, that's fine. If I'm looking for a
Speaker 1: sermon and this Tuesday, I know that's fine. Wednesday, I'm okay. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday,
Speaker 1: I start repenting of every sin I committed from childhood
Speaker 1: stuff I did when I was sixteen. I start telling
Speaker 1: the Lord, I'm sorry for everything, just in case, because
Speaker 1: I'm like, where did you go? Lord? I think I
Speaker 1: lost it. Sometimes when I'm going to create, and Chris
Speaker 1: can tell you this, but a lot of times, if
Speaker 1: we go to write a song and we don't get
Speaker 1: a good song that day, I'll I'll leave and I'll
Speaker 1: be like, I don't know, maybe I'm just maybe my
Speaker 1: season of songwriting is over. Just it only takes one
Speaker 1: bad day, you know, I lost it. And Holly's really
Speaker 1: good because she will She'll get in there and she
Speaker 1: talks tough to me. She has a whole other gear,
Speaker 1: a whole other demeanor that's not sweet. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, she's like, you didn't lose it, and she's
Speaker 1: really good about getting me to see like that a
Speaker 1: bad day doesn't mean you're going backwards. In general, I'm
Speaker 1: a catastrophizer. Right. If I walk in the room and
Speaker 1: the church is kind of only like there's not as
Speaker 1: many people as there were the week before, I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's over losing relevance, We're losing ground. It's terrible. I'm
Speaker 1: not bragging about this. I just relate to the disciples
Speaker 1: because I think they're afraid. They go to cast out
Speaker 1: this demon and they can't do it, and they're like, Jesus,
Speaker 1: what happened? Did we lose it? Because they did this before,
Speaker 1: they cast out demons before, and it isn't like they
Speaker 1: never did it before. But they go to do it
Speaker 1: and it doesn't work. And then Bartholomew tries and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and Andrew tries and it doesn't work, and
Speaker 1: then Julus tries, you know, it didn't work. And after
Speaker 1: they're all finished trying because Jesus. Now, now Jesus is
Speaker 1: up on a mountain being transfigured. The voice of the
Speaker 1: Father is speaking over him. This is my son whom
Speaker 1: I love, and I am well pleased in him. That's
Speaker 1: what happened in Mark chapter nine, part ay. And he's
Speaker 1: got with him his favorite disciples, like you have your
Speaker 1: favorite kid, and Peter, James, and John come back down
Speaker 1: the mountain only to find that the glory that they
Speaker 1: experienced in the radiance that they experienced on the mountain
Speaker 1: is not exactly in full operation in the valley. And
Speaker 1: isn't life just like that to where you have to
Speaker 1: get from the mountains of inspiration and encouragement and to
Speaker 1: get into the valleys of these hardships. And I'm now
Speaker 1: more than ever, I'm kind of looking at the disciples
Speaker 1: in a new light because I'm a middle aged man
Speaker 1: and I know what it feels like to be like
Speaker 1: it isn't working like it used to work. Or I
Speaker 1: go in the gym, I have to wrap up my elbow,
Speaker 1: my wrists, we're in headgear before I go in there.
Speaker 1: Soon my son says, Dad, you look like a robot.
Speaker 1: You're so wrapped up because stuff herst it doesn't work
Speaker 1: like it used to work, you know. And I think
Speaker 1: for a split second, here their disciples, they're asking Jesus,
Speaker 1: and I want to point this out. Give me the
Speaker 1: scripture back on the screen. It said after Jesus verse
Speaker 1: twenty eight, had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately,
Speaker 1: why couldn't we drive it out? Everybody say privately, they
Speaker 1: asked Jesus privately, And I wrote down a question, how
Speaker 1: much better off would we be if we asked Jesus
Speaker 1: some things privately instead of saying things publicly. Y'all don't
Speaker 1: like that, because instead of blaming the teachers of the law,
Speaker 1: they finally realize that we have to fix this internally privately,
Speaker 1: and Jesus said, this kind can come out only by prayer.
Speaker 1: So now the disciples are asking Jesus privately, why couldn't
Speaker 1: we drive it out in the Father. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you noticed this, but the Father in verse twenty four,
Speaker 1: he says something that sounds like a contradiction on the
Speaker 1: surface and the really spiritual over spiritual scratch and sniff.
Speaker 1: Christians don't like this verse because it doesn't sound so concrete.
Speaker 1: It's a little too abstract. It's got too much tension
Speaker 1: in it. He said, I do believe verse twenty four,
Speaker 1: help me overcome my unbelief. The father who brought his
Speaker 1: son to Jesus who needed healing and struggling with the
Speaker 1: same thing that the disciples are struggling with, unbelief. He
Speaker 1: immediately exclaimed, I do believe, help my unbelief. So the
Speaker 1: message last week was built around the idea that there
Speaker 1: is a difference between you and your feelings. There's a
Speaker 1: difference between you and your thoughts. There's a difference between
Speaker 1: you and your emotions. There's a difference between you and
Speaker 1: your successes. There's a difference between you and your failures.
Speaker 1: You are not it. This boy is possessed by a
Speaker 1: spirit that's making him do all kinds of things to
Speaker 1: harm him. But he's still the son of the father,
Speaker 1: and the father still sees his son beneath the things
Speaker 1: that he struggles with, just like your father still sees you.
Speaker 1: Your heavenly father still sees you separate from the things
Speaker 1: that you struggle with. And now he dealt with the
Speaker 1: sin that stood against you on the cross, So he
Speaker 1: doesn't see your sin when he looks at you. He
Speaker 1: doesn't see your successes. When he looks at you, he
Speaker 1: sees a son, he sees a daughter. You are not it.
Speaker 1: You are not it. We are so addicted to it
Speaker 1: in our culture that when we really want to compliment
Speaker 1: somebody that they're good at something, we'll say, you're a machine. Man,
Speaker 1: you're a machine. Wow, you're just amazing. You're a machine.
Speaker 1: That's a downgrade. How did you take me out of
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom and make me a machine? How did
Speaker 1: you demote me into what I just did? And so
Speaker 1: the trick is, you can't let people do that to you,
Speaker 1: positively or negatively, right, You can't let people identify you
Speaker 1: with your gift, because you're more than your gift. You
Speaker 1: can't let people identify you with your sin, because you're
Speaker 1: more than your sin. You are the righteousness of God
Speaker 1: in Christ Jesus. You are made in His image and
Speaker 1: in his likeness. And the Father said, this is my son,
Speaker 1: just like God. The Father said over Jesus, this is
Speaker 1: my son. The Father in March after nine says, this
Speaker 1: is my son. And he's got problems, but he is
Speaker 1: not it. He is not it. And the disciples are
Speaker 1: learning a valuable lesson, and the Father is learning a
Speaker 1: valuable lesson that in owning your doubts, you don't disqualify
Speaker 1: your faith. I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.
Speaker 1: Now there's a couple miracles in this passage. One is
Speaker 1: that the boy gets healed of his condition, and two
Speaker 1: is that the man asks for help. How many women
Speaker 1: know that for a man to ask for help is
Speaker 1: a miracle in hisself. Now, not me. I ask Colley
Speaker 1: for help all the time. I particularly this is one
Speaker 1: of the things in our marriage. I told you that
Speaker 1: she helps me a lot. I am horrible about losing
Speaker 1: things and then freaking out and thinking it's gone forever,
Speaker 1: and Holly's more calm. So every morning we start our
Speaker 1: day with me losing my AirPods. Every morning. I know
Speaker 1: this is some real first world problems I'm telling you
Speaker 1: about up here, but every morning, this is the first
Speaker 1: thing we do. I don't seek the Lord. I look
Speaker 1: for my AirPods because I have sleep issues, so I
Speaker 1: always put something really boring in my AirPod to fall
Speaker 1: asleep to. And I spend the first ten minutes of
Speaker 1: the day looking for the AirPod, and then after five
Speaker 1: minutes of looking for it, I ask you, I ask
Speaker 1: you for Holly to help me, and ask her to
Speaker 1: help me, and she does. She's been doing this our
Speaker 1: whole marriage. Because my first instinct is it's gone. It's gone.
Speaker 1: It'll never be back again, whether it's sunglasses, AirPods, my anointing.
Speaker 1: I told you, my first instinct is it's gone. It's gone.
Speaker 1: I don't feel God's presence right now. I guess it's gone.
Speaker 1: I've been looking for my AirPods for thirty seconds. They're
Speaker 1: not here. They're gone. And she says, do you think
Speaker 1: they got up and walked away? You put them in
Speaker 1: your ear seven hours ago. They are here. Somewhere. This
Speaker 1: is what she taught me. You don't know how to look.
Speaker 1: Y'all shut up. She said, you don't know how to look.
Speaker 1: I said, I looked. She said you looked with your
Speaker 1: eyes to really look. You can't just use your eyes.
Speaker 1: She said. This was several years ago. She said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna teach you how to look. She started picking stuff up.
Speaker 1: She said, See what I'm doing. I'm lifting while I'm looking. Whoa,
Speaker 1: I'm lifting while i'm looking. See I'm looking underneath stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm moving the pillow, I'm peeling back the cup. And
Speaker 1: God said, some of y'all look, but you don't lived.
Speaker 1: You don't know how to look. So in the past
Speaker 1: six months you said stuff like this, I've lost my faith.
Speaker 1: You didn't lose it, You just don't know how to look.
Speaker 1: Why were y'all shouting so much when I was talking
Speaker 1: about me and Holly. When I talk to people, I
Speaker 1: noticed the way we phrase things. We say I lost
Speaker 1: my joy, I lost my peace. How many of y'all
Speaker 1: have said in the last thirty days, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm losing my mind. How many of y'all didn't even
Speaker 1: get that specific? Just I feel like I'm losing it.
Speaker 1: You didn't lose it. You just have to learn how
Speaker 1: to look. And sometimes looking means lifting stuff, looking under stuff,
Speaker 1: not just walking. And it's gone. Well. I woke up
Speaker 1: in a good mood. But y'all, just the devil just
Speaker 1: stole my joy. I guess he did. You left it
Speaker 1: lion right out for him to take. You didn't lock
Speaker 1: the door, roll up the window. Now I'm preaching to
Speaker 1: me because I'll say I lost it, but I haven't
Speaker 1: really even looked. I haven't even really looked. The man said,
Speaker 1: I do believe. That's why I brought my boy to you.
Speaker 1: I still have faith, But will you help me with
Speaker 1: my unbelief? Now? What I want to teach you today.
Speaker 1: There's the difference between having unbelief and being an unbeliever.
Speaker 1: He did not say I'm an unbeliever. He said, I
Speaker 1: have unbelief. And when you have doubts about anything in
Speaker 1: your life, what God spoke to you, or even who
Speaker 1: God is, sometimes many of us doubt the existence of God.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make you an unbeliever. There's a difference between
Speaker 1: having unbelief. Immediately, he exclaimed, Did you see that word? Immediately?
Speaker 1: He exclaimed, Immediately he exclaimed, I do believe, but help
Speaker 1: my unbelief. And we understand that although his explanation was immediate,
Speaker 1: his unbelief probably came over time because his boy has
Speaker 1: been in this condition since childhood, and perhaps at the
Speaker 1: first sign or symptom that his boy had something wrong
Speaker 1: with him, he believed. But life has a way of
Speaker 1: laying unbelief, and beneath the lairs of unbelief is still
Speaker 1: you that trusts God. And we try to bring you
Speaker 1: into church sometimes and remove all of the doubts from
Speaker 1: the equation. And we do that sometimes through preaching cliches
Speaker 1: or by making vague promises that you're going to make
Speaker 1: it to the other side and things like that. And
Speaker 1: I preach those things too, and sometimes they have value.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I think we we think that God is
Speaker 1: going to decrease our doubts. The father in this passage
Speaker 1: prayed that Jesus would increase his faith, help me overcome
Speaker 1: my unbelief, And he's shifted now. When he first started
Speaker 1: talking to Jesus, your disciples couldn't do it, the first
Speaker 1: instinct was to blame. But now he's understanding that it's
Speaker 1: not going to get me anywhere to blame Jesus's staff.
Speaker 1: If I want my boy healed, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to get beneath all the surface reasons that it didn't work,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to have to own this for myself.
Speaker 1: Help my unbelief. Would you have the guts to pray
Speaker 1: that out loud, help my unbelief. Now we pray help
Speaker 1: my bank account, we pray, help my husband act right,
Speaker 1: We pray all kinds of things. But when you say
Speaker 1: help my unbelief, power happens. That's the connection right there,
Speaker 1: Help my unbelief. And there are some things that we
Speaker 1: need to unbelieve before we can believe what we need
Speaker 1: to believe. Unbelief creeps in. It doesn't come in all
Speaker 1: at once. You don't wake up one day and talk
Speaker 1: about like I just don't believe anymore. As years go by,
Speaker 1: as disappointments accumulate. Here's a way of saying that faith
Speaker 1: doesn't disappear. It deteriorates, just it. Where's the way. I
Speaker 1: wrote a book in twenty ten in my Journey of
Speaker 1: faith called Sun Stands Still. Two people read that book,
Speaker 1: my mom and Israel. That's all I heard. But it's
Speaker 1: a good book. It was about believing God for the impossible.
Speaker 1: I watched my dad die of als a couple years later,
Speaker 1: and I had to go back and revisit do I
Speaker 1: still believe that God can do the impossible. My friend
Speaker 1: Levi Lasco prayed sunstands still over his five year old
Speaker 1: daughter and she died in his arms of an asthma
Speaker 1: attack as he tried to resuscitate her. And I had
Speaker 1: to go back in my life now and separate out
Speaker 1: the events that happened that cost me to doubt from
Speaker 1: the faith that I have to realize that sometimes we
Speaker 1: didn't really lose our faith. We misplaced it. Is this
Speaker 1: too deepbate. We misplaced it. It didn't get up and
Speaker 1: walk away. You didn't lose your faith, you misplaced it.
Speaker 1: In the Father's case, he said your disciples couldn't drive
Speaker 1: it out. Your disciples couldn't do it. The disciples weren't
Speaker 1: the ones that you needed to believe in to begin with.
Speaker 1: Many of us lost our faith in Jesus because we
Speaker 1: put our trust in people. So we lose our faith
Speaker 1: in God because somebody else let us down. Because the
Speaker 1: disciples couldn't do it, You're gonna walk away from what
Speaker 1: God has for you, I don't go to church anymore.
Speaker 1: I got burned. Have you ever had a bad meal?
Speaker 1: Do you still eat? My unbelief? I've watched my son
Speaker 1: like this so long, you know, when it's been so
Speaker 1: long like this, it just adds up over time to
Speaker 1: where his first instinct is, I do believe it. Will
Speaker 1: you help me overcome the part of me that doesn't.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. When I was in Orangeburg, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: preaching on a Friday night, and I preached a sermon
Speaker 1: back in the day on Jonathan for Samuel fourteen Old
Speaker 1: Testament character he's the son of Saul the King, And
Speaker 1: I preached that thing for Samuel fourteen six so many times.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've preached it so many times. I used
Speaker 1: to talk about how Jonathan said, perhaps the Lord will
Speaker 1: act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving.
Speaker 1: And I talked about how that sounds kind of like he's, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm quite made up his mind, nothing can hinder the Lord.
Speaker 1: Perhaps God will act, And I called it the perhaps paradox. Now,
Speaker 1: this was a little and I don't know was I
Speaker 1: nineteen years old that this guy drove me back to
Speaker 1: the host home where we were staying and the guy's
Speaker 1: name was Rodney. That was driving me and on the
Speaker 1: way home. You know, I'm insecure, So I said, how'd
Speaker 1: you like the sermon? Rodney? Well, I shouldn't ask that,
Speaker 1: he said. He said, I don't know if i'd call
Speaker 1: that a sermon. What you did up there, I'm not
Speaker 1: making this up. He said, there's no perhaps about it.
Speaker 1: If God said he'll do it, he'll do it. That
Speaker 1: stuff you're preaching up there isn't faith, it's doubt. I said,
Speaker 1: but I got it from the Bible, Rodney. I read
Speaker 1: the Bible. That's what Jonathan said in the Bible. I
Speaker 1: was preaching the Bible verse. He said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: If God said he'll do it, he'll do it, and
Speaker 1: there's no if about it. Hold on, if you can
Speaker 1: do anything, take pity on us and help us. If
Speaker 1: you can. Everything is possible for the one who believes.
Speaker 1: And Jesus did it. Even though the man said if so,
Speaker 1: I start arguing with Rodney. I said, Rodney, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the Bible, and I'm putting a
Speaker 1: substitute name in there is the real name with Rodney,
Speaker 1: I still remember what it was. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say it. I won't get sued or canceled, the man said.
Speaker 1: The man said, well, real faith in the Bible. I said,
Speaker 1: Moses had doubts. He said God couldn't use him. God
Speaker 1: got so mad at Moses that the Bible said his
Speaker 1: anger burned against him, but he still used him, even
Speaker 1: though he had to give him Aaron to speak for him.
Speaker 1: You got more faith than Moses, I said. Abraham lied
Speaker 1: about his wife. I went through a whole list of
Speaker 1: people who doubted, but God still used him. I said,
Speaker 1: you got more faith than all of them. He said, well,
Speaker 1: I guess when it comes to that, I do. By
Speaker 1: the time we got to where he was dropping me
Speaker 1: off in the driveway, were about we were about to
Speaker 1: fist fight in the driveway, and the man whose home
Speaker 1: it was, he came running out the house. He said,
Speaker 1: what in the world's going on? And he kind of
Speaker 1: broke us up, and he took us in the house,
Speaker 1: and Rodney left and spun out the driveway and pick
Speaker 1: up Trump. And I sat down the house and I said, man,
Speaker 1: we were arguing about He said, if you have any doubt,
Speaker 1: you don't have real faith. And this is what the
Speaker 1: man said, to me. He said, if you teach that
Speaker 1: and preach that, you're gonna be broke, poor, and sick
Speaker 1: all your life, and so will all the people that
Speaker 1: you lead and your future children, if you have any.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, hey, man, leave my hypothetical future children
Speaker 1: out of this, and make fun of me if you want.
Speaker 1: But he really thought that. He really thought that, He
Speaker 1: really thought that the proof of faith is the absence
Speaker 1: of doubt. He had no room in his view of
Speaker 1: who God is for an if. But Jesus did what
Speaker 1: the men needed, even though the man isn't perfectly convinced
Speaker 1: he could do it, because the man invited Jesus into
Speaker 1: the place where he had the greatest doubt and the
Speaker 1: greatest pain. And now I think this might be my
Speaker 1: favorite prayer in the Bible, because I can get with this.
Speaker 1: I can get with this when I'm in a bad mood.
Speaker 1: I can get with this when I'm in a good mood.
Speaker 1: I can get with this when I'm riding high. I
Speaker 1: can get with this when when when the news is bad.
Speaker 1: I can get with this any any day of the week.
Speaker 1: I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief. I'm not
Speaker 1: asking God to just take it away. I'm asking God
Speaker 1: help me, overcome him, help me. My faith is not gone.
Speaker 1: I just have to learn where to look. And sometimes
Speaker 1: the greatest faith I need you to get this is
Speaker 1: right underneath that biggest doubt. Sometimes the greatest thing that
Speaker 1: God wants to show you. If you will start lifting
Speaker 1: and looking and lifting and looking, you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Because we can't just cover over it. We can't just
Speaker 1: come to church for a fresh coat of paint over
Speaker 1: our problems. We can't just come to church for a
Speaker 1: three hour scriptural sugar boost to get us feeling good
Speaker 1: for a moment. It won't work, and we'll end up
Speaker 1: the like the disciples saying why did I shout and
Speaker 1: sing and listen and take notes in church? Because you
Speaker 1: didn't invite Jesus into the real place of your pain.
Speaker 1: You didn't lose your faith. You just stop looking at
Speaker 1: the surface. It's gone. It's gone. One boy broke up
Speaker 1: with you. I guess I'll never be loved. You're fourteen
Speaker 1: years old. I guess it's gone. I guess you can't
Speaker 1: trust anybody. See how we do it, It's gone. You
Speaker 1: have to know where to look. Can I ap preach
Speaker 1: something else. Sometimes you are so intimidated by it that
Speaker 1: you forget about him. When Jesus saw that a crowd
Speaker 1: was running to the scene, is this good, y'all? Because
Speaker 1: this is good to me. When Jesus saw that a
Speaker 1: crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit.
Speaker 1: He didn't argue with the disciples. He didn't argue with
Speaker 1: the teachers. He didn't have to. He was bigger than it.
Speaker 1: So the disciples said, why couldn't we drive it out?
Speaker 1: He said, because you lost your focus. This kind can
Speaker 1: only come out through prayer. When we think about prayer,
Speaker 1: we think about maybe like a list of things that
Speaker 1: we say to God. But God is showing me lately
Speaker 1: that prayer is more about a lens than a list,
Speaker 1: and it's more about what I see than what I say.
Speaker 1: So if my prayer is always just let me just
Speaker 1: say my prayers. When Jesus said this kind can only
Speaker 1: come out by prayer, the King James says, and fasting,
Speaker 1: But the original manuscripts don't say by fasting. And even
Speaker 1: the fact, look, even the fact that he said this
Speaker 1: kind can only come out by prayer. He's letting you
Speaker 1: know you can't do it alone. You can't do it alone.
Speaker 1: I looked on my message last week and somebody said
Speaker 1: on a comment, I don't usually read the comments. Pray
Speaker 1: for me. I'll read them more. Nasha. They said you
Speaker 1: left out fasting. It said by prayer and fasting, they
Speaker 1: didn't get the demon out because they didn't fast. Isn't
Speaker 1: that just like us to think, if we'll just do
Speaker 1: one more thing, if we just do one more step.
Speaker 1: But it was their inability to rely on God's power
Speaker 1: in them that got them in the predicament to begin with.
Speaker 1: He said, it's only by prayer. I mean, it's intimidating.
Speaker 1: How dare we judge the Disciples that they couldn't cast
Speaker 1: out a demon like all the out of shape people
Speaker 1: watching these Olympic athletes, huh talking about well that was
Speaker 1: pretty good? I mean second place, it was all right.
Speaker 1: And I want to judge the disciples. Why couldn't you
Speaker 1: drive out the demon? You should have confessed the name
Speaker 1: of Jesus and prayed and fasted. I can't even give
Speaker 1: my kids to clean their room, y'all. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to judge the disciples for not casting out a demon.
Speaker 1: This is a demon that's been with this boy since childhood.
Speaker 1: How dare we judge them for that? It was intimidating.
Speaker 1: He said, this kind can only come out by prayer.
Speaker 1: This isn't going to be like one of your other
Speaker 1: problems that you can fix in your own strength. I
Speaker 1: wonder have you been have you been losing it because
Speaker 1: you've been fighting on the wrong level. One of my
Speaker 1: friends went into a business situation a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and he said when he pulled up to the person's
Speaker 1: house for the meeting, the house was so big and
Speaker 1: so beautiful that he lost his He lost his confidence.
Speaker 1: And he said, and I went in there and I thought,
Speaker 1: I can't do this. I can't do this. When he
Speaker 1: went in to meet with the people, after he left,
Speaker 1: they sent him a text and said, you are amazing.
Speaker 1: We have not stopped talking about how your spirit and
Speaker 1: he's a great Christian, he has an amazing Oh man,
Speaker 1: this this guy changes the atmosphere of every room that
Speaker 1: he walks into. And he said, afterward they were texting
Speaker 1: me how amazing the meeting was and how they were
Speaker 1: so impressed with me. He said, I couldn't believe it
Speaker 1: because I went in so scared and you know what
Speaker 1: I told him. I said, yeah, because you got so
Speaker 1: caught up in what you were walking into that you
Speaker 1: forgot what you were walking in with. You forgot what
Speaker 1: you were walking in with because you were so focused
Speaker 1: who is this for? You were so focused on what
Speaker 1: you were walking into. But God says, if you will
Speaker 1: get a focus on what you were walking in with
Speaker 1: the spirit of God, not just your abilities, not just
Speaker 1: your education, not just your knowledge, not just your wisdom,
Speaker 1: at some point that will fail you. But if you
Speaker 1: remember that you were walking in with the spirit of God,
Speaker 1: and this is a guarantee of your inheritance. This is
Speaker 1: not corruptible. It cannot perish, it cannot spoil, it cannot fade.
Speaker 1: Whatever it I'm walking into, come on, I'm walking in
Speaker 1: with something that is greater. Greater is he that is
Speaker 1: in me, then he that is in the world. And
Speaker 1: when Jesus confronted it, it had to back down, because
Speaker 1: greater is he that is in me, he that is
Speaker 1: in the world. I got a devil, I got the
Speaker 1: spirit of God, I got the calling of God. I've
Speaker 1: got the purpose of God, I've got the Word of God,
Speaker 1: I've got the assurance of God. I've got the anointing
Speaker 1: of God. I got a sling in a stone and
Speaker 1: a promise and a savior, and I still got faith.
Speaker 1: After all I've been through, and all it cost me,
Speaker 1: and all they took in roughed my speech, but it
Speaker 1: didn't take my thing. I do believe. I still believe.
Speaker 1: So let me give you a scripture. Lift before you look,
Speaker 1: Lift before you look. Stop looking at stuff on the
Speaker 1: surface and saying, oh, there's nothing there. Lift before you look.
Speaker 1: This is what Holly taught me, is not gone. You
Speaker 1: just haven't looked yet. You just haven't looked yet. You
Speaker 1: haven't looked, so you haven't seen the opportunity that's in
Speaker 1: this hardship. You haven't seen the blessing that's in this
Speaker 1: rejection yet because you haven't looked. I will lift my
Speaker 1: eyes to the hills. What did Dismist do? He said,
Speaker 1: I've got to lift before I look. They looked at
Speaker 1: the boy and he looked dead, but Jesus reached down
Speaker 1: and lifted him up. Why lifts before you look, before
Speaker 1: you look, at your schedule for the day, lift your
Speaker 1: eyes to the hills. You're gonna need help today, and
Speaker 1: you've got it on the inside. Don't look so much
Speaker 1: at what you're walking into that you forget what you're
Speaker 1: walking in with. Oh no, I'm a nobody with somebody
Speaker 1: on the inside of me. I gotta decrease so he
Speaker 1: can increase. I lift my eyes to the hills. I
Speaker 1: might be preaching for three people, but you haven't really
Speaker 1: looked yet. You've been saying, there's nothing special about me.
Speaker 1: I don't really have a gift. I'm not anointed like
Speaker 1: those other people. I'm not called I don't really see
Speaker 1: any benefit in this situation. You haven't really looked until
Speaker 1: you've lifted, and when you lift your eyes to the hills.
Speaker 1: The turning point for the Father is when he stopped
Speaker 1: looking at the crowd, stopped looking at the disciples, stopped
Speaker 1: looking at the symptoms, and he finally saw Jesus. I
Speaker 1: see Jesus, come in toward your unbelief, come in toward
Speaker 1: your struggle, come in toward your issue. Will you lift
Speaker 1: your eyes? Lift? Lift before you look, he said, I
Speaker 1: lift my eyes to the hills. From whence cometh my help.
Speaker 1: It's not going to come from the disciples. It's not
Speaker 1: going to come from my own flesh. It's not going
Speaker 1: to come from my own solutions. My help comes from
Speaker 1: the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And he
Speaker 1: will not suffer your foot to be moll The Lord
Speaker 1: keep it thee He will not slumber nor sleep. For
Speaker 1: the Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade
Speaker 1: upon thy right hand. And the sun shall not smite
Speaker 1: you by day, nor the moon by night. He that
Speaker 1: keepeth Israel shall preserve your soul even forever more. Will
Speaker 1: you lift your eyes for a moment. You've been looking
Speaker 1: in the wrong places. You've been looking in the wrong
Speaker 1: places for your joy, for your peace. You didn't lose it.
Speaker 1: You didn't lose it. You just need somebody to help
Speaker 1: you look. And that's what the spirit of God does.
Speaker 1: He searches all things. He helps you look in the
Speaker 1: places where you haven't looked yet. You know, God has
Speaker 1: put his help on the inside of you, and I
Speaker 1: just want to help you look for a moment. Stand
Speaker 1: to your feet. One time, Paul prayed that the eyes
Speaker 1: of your heart might be open. The eyes of your
Speaker 1: heart might be open. Prayer isn't just about saying things
Speaker 1: to God. It's about seeing things. Ask God sees them.
Speaker 1: I do believe. Would you say that I do believe
Speaker 1: life has lered me with unbelief. But I'm not an unbeliever.
Speaker 1: I do believe. That's why I came today. I still believe.
Speaker 1: Sometimes my faith feels very weak and my joy feels
Speaker 1: very low, but I received this prophetic word today. I
Speaker 1: didn't lose it. I just need Jesus to help me
Speaker 1: look for it. I want you to pray like I
Speaker 1: asked Collie. I want you to ask God, say help me.
Speaker 1: Look Lord, because when I see things with my own eyes,
Speaker 1: I misjudge them. I see them from a human appearance.
Speaker 1: Show me what's really going on with my children, Show
Speaker 1: me what's really driving that behavior. Show me what's really
Speaker 1: beneath the fear that I feel. Show me what's lurking
Speaker 1: beneath that help me overcome my unbelief. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us special thanks to those of you who give
Speaker 1: generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this
Speaker 1: ministry is possible. You can click the link in the
Speaker 1: description to give now, or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash
Speaker 1: podcast for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: You can click the share button. Take a screenshot and
Speaker 1: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.