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: How awesome, How awesome, What a wonderful, wonderful time of worship. Amen,
Speaker 1: do me a favor real quick before you take your seat.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of torn. I'm going to preach in just
Speaker 1: a moment. I'm excited to preach. I'm in a little
Speaker 1: bit of a dilemma. I have two different scriptures. One
Speaker 1: is from the Old Testament and one is from the
Speaker 1: New Testament, and I kind of can't decide which one
Speaker 1: I want to give you. So I thought we put
Speaker 1: it up for a vote. Huh. She said both. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing because my message today is the
Speaker 1: blessing of both. Let's do it. Let's do it. You
Speaker 1: may be seated. God bless you, God, bless you, Choir,
Speaker 1: God bless you, Anna, God bless you, Matt, God bless you.
Speaker 1: Pastor Shawn see in the house from Athens Church. Let's
Speaker 1: thank God for this great Man of God. Thanks for
Speaker 1: stopping by. It's good to have my brother, Pastor Mike
Speaker 1: Todd on the second row representing the Oakland Athletics. You're
Speaker 1: not a fan at all, are you? Oh man, that's terrible.
Speaker 1: You just watch Moneyball and bought in Oakland A's had
Speaker 1: Is that what happened? Oh man? This feels good. So
Speaker 1: if I'm not preaching good I can throw the mic
Speaker 1: on the first row the second row and somebody else
Speaker 1: can pick it up. So good to be here and
Speaker 1: just touch somebody and say. If Pastor had time, he
Speaker 1: would say thank God for you and mention your name too.
Speaker 1: You do that if you had time, many wonderful things
Speaker 1: to share from the Word of God. Hey, thank you
Speaker 1: for serving this love week, whatever you did, if you
Speaker 1: did something this week, or really what I like to
Speaker 1: thank God for is consistency, because it's not just one
Speaker 1: week out of the year that builds a great church.
Speaker 1: And so while this week there are many people we
Speaker 1: could highlight and thank for their contribution, I want to
Speaker 1: say thank you to those of you who never make
Speaker 1: a lot of noise, but you just contribute in meaningful
Speaker 1: ways prayer giving service. It's a big deal, and you
Speaker 1: lead an e group, whether it's a spectacular thing, whether
Speaker 1: it's forty people or four people, you just do it.
Speaker 1: That's really how you can know that you're doing it
Speaker 1: for God and not for the approval of others or
Speaker 1: the praises of people. It's just really beautiful and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I don't know how to say it any
Speaker 1: more than that, but I appreciate you, and I hope
Speaker 1: you can feel that that's sincere from my heart. Thank
Speaker 1: you to those of you. You don't blow a trumpet
Speaker 1: or anything like that. You don't announce it, just do it,
Speaker 1: and that means a lot. It's not just a Nike slogan.
Speaker 1: It's the way that a great local church is built
Speaker 1: when people are just willing to do it and not
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be known for it. But I thank
Speaker 1: God for each and every one of you on every location.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say that, and in the spirit
Speaker 1: of love, I wore pink. Now let's get into the Bible.
Speaker 1: Let me read you this from Ecclesiastes, chapter eleven, verses
Speaker 1: five and six. Now I'm gonna take my time because
Speaker 1: I've been waiting to preach these passages since since the
Speaker 1: beginning of June, and I couldn't figure out how God
Speaker 1: wanted me to preach them. But today I saw it.
Speaker 1: And I've just been pacing all day waiting for you
Speaker 1: to put on your makeup and get here so we
Speaker 1: could talk about it together. And now I can't find
Speaker 1: Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Everything's falling apart. Here it is,
Speaker 1: it's right there, I said. Verse five is you do
Speaker 1: not know the way the spirit comes to the bones
Speaker 1: in the womb of a woman with child. So you
Speaker 1: do not know the work of God who makes everything.
Speaker 1: In the morning, So your seat and at evening withhold
Speaker 1: not your hand, for you do not know which will
Speaker 1: prosper this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
Speaker 1: There's our word both. Go over to Matthew chapter thirteen,
Speaker 1: verse twenty four for my second scripture. You told me
Speaker 1: you wanted both, so I'm fulfilling your request. He put
Speaker 1: another parable before them, verse twenty four, saying, the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed
Speaker 1: good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping,
Speaker 1: his enemy came and sowed weeds among the weed and
Speaker 1: went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain,
Speaker 1: then the weeds appeared. Also. By the way, by the
Speaker 1: time something destructive appears in your life has been planted
Speaker 1: for a little while. There's a difference between the time
Speaker 1: when it was deposited in the soil and the time
Speaker 1: it showed up in your life. So when they woke
Speaker 1: up to the weeds, he said, the servant said, Master,
Speaker 1: did you not sow good seed in your field? I
Speaker 1: thought you raised your kids right, you know things like that.
Speaker 1: I thought you went to church. I thought you prayed.
Speaker 1: But he said, if you sow good seeds, how then
Speaker 1: does it have weeds in the field? And he said
Speaker 1: to them an enemy has done this. So the servants
Speaker 1: said to him, then do you want us to go
Speaker 1: and gather them? Take care of it, sort it out.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, you got to You got to be
Speaker 1: careful because less gathering the weeds, you root up the
Speaker 1: wheat along with them. Let both, everybody say both. Let
Speaker 1: both grow together interesting until the harvest. And at harvest time,
Speaker 1: I will tell the reapers gather the weeds first, bind
Speaker 1: them in bundles to be burned, But gather the wheat
Speaker 1: into my burn When Jesus was teaching about the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God. It was a new phrase and an entirely
Speaker 1: new concept for his hearers. It had never been said
Speaker 1: that way before the Kingdom of God. Now, Israel thought
Speaker 1: of themselves as a kingdom in a military and nationalistic sense.
Speaker 1: But to think of the Kingdom of Heaven or the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of God in an invisible realm required Jesus to
Speaker 1: not only explain it, but to demonstrate it. And both
Speaker 1: are always necessary. Everyboy say both. That's why Love Week
Speaker 1: was so important in our church. Those one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: hours that we served validated the message that we preach.
Speaker 1: It is one thing to explain love, but it's another
Speaker 1: thing to hand somebody some warm food or a blanket,
Speaker 1: or to be with somebody in their time of need.
Speaker 1: And so Jesus had to do both. And he had
Speaker 1: quite a challenge on his hands because he would demonstrate
Speaker 1: something by working a miracle, but then he would have
Speaker 1: to explain it, because the people who saw the miracle
Speaker 1: would miss the point. I told you about one last
Speaker 1: week when he took the happy meal and fed everybody,
Speaker 1: and they thought that the point of the miracle was
Speaker 1: that their stomachs were full, and because they wanted him
Speaker 1: to be their burger king, he had to shut that
Speaker 1: whole thing down and say, eat my flesh, drink my blood.
Speaker 1: You've missed the entire point. So he's always having to
Speaker 1: explain it. He was always having to demonstrate so they
Speaker 1: could see it, and then explain it so they could
Speaker 1: understand it. He said, if you see it but don't
Speaker 1: understand it, it'll be like a seed that was sown,
Speaker 1: but the bird snatches it up before it has the
Speaker 1: opportunity to hit the soil. And so if you don't
Speaker 1: get the lesson in your heart through the power of demonstration,
Speaker 1: then you will miss the intention of the message. But
Speaker 1: if you only see the demonstration and don't hear the explanation,
Speaker 1: then you'll understand the miracle on the wrong level, and
Speaker 1: you'll always live your life thinking that the physical thing
Speaker 1: is the real thing, and you'll not understand what's really
Speaker 1: pointing to. So you'll engage in behavior modification to try
Speaker 1: to fix your life, not understanding that every habit in
Speaker 1: your life started with something in your heart. And until
Speaker 1: God turns the soil of your heart and weeds out
Speaker 1: the stuff that is choking the seed of his word.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's a lot in the text. And
Speaker 1: Jesus must have felt overwhelmed because in the crowd he
Speaker 1: had his disciples and he needed them to take the
Speaker 1: message after he left. And then there were the people
Speaker 1: who were just coming just to see the show and
Speaker 1: just to eat the fries. And he had to separate
Speaker 1: the two out, and he would often have to pull
Speaker 1: the disciples aside and say, now, when I said this,
Speaker 1: this is what I meant. He had to not only
Speaker 1: teach to the crowds, but he had to teach his
Speaker 1: disciples too. He had to do both. I relate to
Speaker 1: that challenge because some of you in this church know
Speaker 1: so much of the Bible. You know, I'm like, you
Speaker 1: know Math thirteen twenty four wait in the tears, Wow.
Speaker 1: And then others are like Matthew, who is at his
Speaker 1: brother's name? What are we doing? And it's like all
Speaker 1: over the place in terms of knowledge and just frame
Speaker 1: of reference, right. But Jesus was always able to speak
Speaker 1: to both, unless they thought he could only do one
Speaker 1: or the other. He'd do stuff like this, He'd say
Speaker 1: to a paralytic sins, your friend, your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 1: And then when the people doubted if he had the
Speaker 1: power to forgive sins, he would tell him, now get
Speaker 1: up and take up your bed and walk. The reason
Speaker 1: that he told him to get up and take up
Speaker 1: his bed and walk was to give them a physical
Speaker 1: demonstration of his spiritual authority. So it's demonstration and explanation,
Speaker 1: and Jesus is doing both. In the context of the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of God. He would often have to teach this
Speaker 1: principle of the already and not yet eschatological twenty dollars word,
Speaker 1: the eschatological tension of the Kingdom of God. And so
Speaker 1: it simply means that some things have already come, the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of God is here, and then some things are
Speaker 1: still coming. Isn't it that way in our life to
Speaker 1: know that if we have trusted in Christ, we are saved,
Speaker 1: We have been saved, and yet we are being saved,
Speaker 1: and we will be saved. Because there are certain things
Speaker 1: in my life right now that God has already done.
Speaker 1: I can see the fruit of it, but there are
Speaker 1: other changes that are still taking root in my life.
Speaker 1: And what I've noticed about this is that as my
Speaker 1: devotion to Christ grows, so do the things that distract me.
Speaker 1: To try to pull me away from that pure devotion
Speaker 1: and simple childlike faith in the grace of God. And
Speaker 1: Jesus is using a parable so he can use an
Speaker 1: earthly symbol to convey a spiritual truth. He said, it's
Speaker 1: like if a man was planting weed, weeds with the
Speaker 1: plural Uh. Yeah, it might be legal, but it isn't
Speaker 1: always just the best thing to do. But that's a
Speaker 1: different sermon. But he said, it's like if he was
Speaker 1: planning wheat and then somebody else planted weeds. He said,
Speaker 1: I want you to know that both grow together, which
Speaker 1: is symbolic of how as the ministry of Jesus increased,
Speaker 1: so did the opposition. The more that his popularity grew,
Speaker 1: the more vocal his opponents became, because both grow together.
Speaker 1: In the church. I grew up in Monks Corney United
Speaker 1: Methodist Church. We used to go upstairs to the youth room.
Speaker 1: Rick Burnett would lead us in praise and worship songs
Speaker 1: like it only takes a spark to get a fire going. Shine, Jesus, Shine.
Speaker 1: What was the other one he used to love so much? Oh,
Speaker 1: I remember the other one. I'm not gonna tell you
Speaker 1: what it was. I'll tell you know, how James Taylor
Speaker 1: sang the Carol King song You've Got a Friend. He
Speaker 1: would do, You've got a friend, but then he would
Speaker 1: go into what a friend we have in Jesus, and
Speaker 1: it was like a medley, and then he would stop
Speaker 1: after he played the songs. And it was only about
Speaker 1: ten of us in the youth group, but he would
Speaker 1: always say, and now it's time for praise reports and
Speaker 1: prayer requests. So it's a bunch of teenagers, right, So
Speaker 1: what you would usually happen is everybody that would raise
Speaker 1: their hand would raise their hand and say, I have
Speaker 1: an unspoken unspoken is code for is probably about a girl,
Speaker 1: or it's about a guy. I have an unspoken But
Speaker 1: you know, maybe every once in a while, somebody will
Speaker 1: raise their hand and give a praise report about a
Speaker 1: test that they passed, or a prayer request about a
Speaker 1: test that they were taking. Here's what's weird, and I
Speaker 1: wonder if you've experienced this in your life, is that
Speaker 1: in our lives we will often see the cycle that
Speaker 1: what will be our prayer request in one season of
Speaker 1: our life will become our praise report in the next season,
Speaker 1: only to become our prayer request again. There's probably a
Speaker 1: couple in here who right now is pregnant with child,
Speaker 1: and you probably prayed that God would enable you to
Speaker 1: have a child, and maybe in like five months, three months,
Speaker 1: seven months, you will give birth to your prayer request.
Speaker 1: You had your friends praying, probably even in a crowd
Speaker 1: this size, somebody who had trouble conceiving, and maybe even
Speaker 1: through the course of many different miscarriages. This may be
Speaker 1: the third or fourth or fifth time you tried, and
Speaker 1: now you're on the way to giving birth to what
Speaker 1: you prayed about. Others are still waiting for that, and
Speaker 1: we're all at different places. But let me tell what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. Because I've had She's had three babies,
Speaker 1: and you pray for it, and then you have it,
Speaker 1: and you praise God for it, and then you start
Speaker 1: praying about it all over again. So watch this, y'all. Pray.
Speaker 1: We're trying to have a baby. Y'all pray. We haven't
Speaker 1: slept in thirty four days. Y'all pray. Our toddler is
Speaker 1: now showing some developmental delays. Y'all pray. We're trying to
Speaker 1: get him into this school, but we can't get him
Speaker 1: with the right teacher. Y'all pray he's got his driver's license.
Speaker 1: Y'all better pray for yourselves. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: y'all might want to stay off the road for the
Speaker 1: next few years. Y'all pray. It was your prayer request
Speaker 1: that became your praise report that turned back into your
Speaker 1: prayer request. So here's what I'm trying to say. You
Speaker 1: prayed for your problems, Yes you did. You prayed for
Speaker 1: the promotion on the job, and the promotion came with people,
Speaker 1: and people are stupid and lazy and late and tardy.
Speaker 1: You prayed for that. Touch somebody say you prayed for it.
Speaker 1: You asked for it. Don't get mad about it. Now.
Speaker 1: You prayed for it. You prayed for a man. I
Speaker 1: heard one girl praying for a husband one time. She
Speaker 1: was praying for a future husband. She had a whole
Speaker 1: list about it. She was praying. She was like, God,
Speaker 1: I pray that he would be godly, and I pray
Speaker 1: that he would be tall. But God, I'd rather than
Speaker 1: be godly than tall. But God, if he could be both,
Speaker 1: if he could be both, if he could be Oh,
Speaker 1: it's both. You need both. You need both. It's in marriage,
Speaker 1: Like you know, don't marry somebody you're attracted to. Marry
Speaker 1: somebody that you know loves the Lord. You better be
Speaker 1: attracted to him too. It better be both. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: for real about this. Most preachers won't say these things
Speaker 1: because they sound carnal and unspiritual, but it needs to
Speaker 1: be both. You need to like to look at each other.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be looking at each other all the time.
Speaker 1: And this thing, you don't gonna be prayer partners don't
Speaker 1: have to get married. You gotta have some chemistry and christ.
Speaker 1: So it goes back to the idea that humans are
Speaker 1: always wanting to categorize, and we always want to divide things.
Speaker 1: You want us to get the you want us to
Speaker 1: get the wheat, separate from the weeds. That's what we
Speaker 1: always want to do. We always want to separate the
Speaker 1: good from the bad. You know, we want to talk
Speaker 1: about I'm in a season of blessing right now, or
Speaker 1: I'm going through a really hard season right now. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you the truth, all of us are going
Speaker 1: through a season of blessing right now, and all of
Speaker 1: us are going through a really hard season right now.
Speaker 1: It just depends on which angle that you catch me from.
Speaker 1: As to what season I look like I'm going through.
Speaker 1: If you see me from one side, from my good side,
Speaker 1: I might look like the most blessed men in the
Speaker 1: United States of America, in the continental United States of America.
Speaker 1: But on the other side, I yelled at one of
Speaker 1: my kids, who shall remain nameless, right before I came
Speaker 1: to preach to you. But you didn't have to see that.
Speaker 1: So now I'm a man full of the spirit and
Speaker 1: wisdom up here. Give him a praise. Let it be done,
Speaker 1: receive your reign. We're like a flood. I was coming
Speaker 1: through like a flood, but a different kind of flood.
Speaker 1: Just a few minutes before I out on the stage.
Speaker 1: Just both I could preach the Bible and want to
Speaker 1: beat your behind, both in the same two hour period,
Speaker 1: in the same one hundred and twenty minutes. Because I'm
Speaker 1: a pastor, but I'm also a daddy, and if you
Speaker 1: disrespect my wife, I will turn into something else. Because
Speaker 1: I'm a transformer. I'm a go bart, I'm both. You
Speaker 1: don't know how to be both? WHOA wasn't in my notes,
Speaker 1: But he kept trying to describe the kingdom. He said,
Speaker 1: It's like the seed was good and the weeds were bad.
Speaker 1: But they both grow together. And that's so true. They
Speaker 1: both grow together. The opportunities grow, and so do the responsibilities. God,
Speaker 1: take me deeper in my walk with you. Okay, As
Speaker 1: you go deeper, you're gonna gain intimacy with Christ. And
Speaker 1: then you are gonna also gain awareness of your ignorance,
Speaker 1: because the closer to Him you get, the more you're
Speaker 1: gonna realize how much you don't know. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I want to know you more, but the more you
Speaker 1: come to know Christ, the more you're going to know
Speaker 1: that you didn't know him at all. That's why I
Speaker 1: like Ecclesiastes eleven. I was reading that how Solomon had
Speaker 1: chased things that he called vanity or meaningless. It was
Speaker 1: like the sense that, in the context of having success
Speaker 1: and fulfillment, if you have one without the other as problematic,
Speaker 1: what you really want is both. See like, if you
Speaker 1: have success but not fulfillment or wholeness, that will feel
Speaker 1: to you like the ultimate failure because to chase what
Speaker 1: you thought you wanted and to get it and it
Speaker 1: didn't do what you need to done makes you feel like, well,
Speaker 1: what do I do now? That's the point that he
Speaker 1: was writing from where he said that there are certain
Speaker 1: things that you just don't know, and he mentions two
Speaker 1: things an Ecclesiastes eleven. Because all of us struggle from
Speaker 1: time to time when we are sowing, when we are investing,
Speaker 1: when we are living our lives and doing the things
Speaker 1: that we believe that God has called us to do,
Speaker 1: without knowing whether it's making a difference at all. There's
Speaker 1: so much you don't know. Solomon says, if you watch
Speaker 1: the wind to see if it's blowing right, you will
Speaker 1: never sow. And if you watch the clouds to see
Speaker 1: if it's dry enough, you will never read. Your mind
Speaker 1: will always find an excuse for you. We'll always find
Speaker 1: a reason, will always find an indication that this is
Speaker 1: not the right time. And so Solomon is giving advice.
Speaker 1: He's saying, just like you don't know how the breath
Speaker 1: enters the bones of a woman in the wound. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: we have ultrasounds now, but it's still is still true
Speaker 1: to be said today that there is a part of
Speaker 1: the process of human life that we can't put on
Speaker 1: a sonogram. There's a part of it, he says, there's
Speaker 1: the bones, and then there's the spirit or the breath
Speaker 1: Hebrew word ruha. It's the same way that God breathed.
Speaker 1: It's the spirit of God, the ruh of God. In
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, he said, there's the bones, and there's
Speaker 1: the breath. There's the structure, and there's the spirit. And
Speaker 1: if you have structure but not spirit, you don't have life.
Speaker 1: If you have spirit but you don't have structure, you
Speaker 1: don't have life. In a few weeks, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be teaching our staff on our annual staff Advance, and
Speaker 1: I'm doing a whole session just around this verse for leadership,
Speaker 1: because in church you can pray for the spirit of
Speaker 1: God to come. But if you don't have structure, if
Speaker 1: you don't have any capacity to manage what God brings you,
Speaker 1: it will simply be irresponsibility and wishful thinking. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, you can have organizational charts and resources and
Speaker 1: all of the things that would tend to make people
Speaker 1: think you are successful, but without the spirit, just without
Speaker 1: that thing that only God can do. Can I tell
Speaker 1: you something? I can get up here with an outline
Speaker 1: and an outfit and think that I have something to say,
Speaker 1: but there's a part of me that knows because I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for fourteen years now on this stage,
Speaker 1: well not this when we had different buildings, but at
Speaker 1: this church as the pastor, and there is a certain
Speaker 1: thing that God has to do that I can't do,
Speaker 1: and I don't always know what He's going to do.
Speaker 1: So there's a part of me that came in today
Speaker 1: excited to preach to you because I had a structure,
Speaker 1: I have some scriptures. But there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that knows that God, if you don't blow on this,
Speaker 1: if you don't breathe on this, if you don't do
Speaker 1: that thing that you do that I can't do, if
Speaker 1: you don't tear open somebody's facade and speak down deep
Speaker 1: in the places of their heart, then I'll just be
Speaker 1: a clanging symbol. I'll just lose my voice, but I
Speaker 1: won't say anything. God. I need you to breathe on
Speaker 1: my life. I need you to breathe peace. I need
Speaker 1: you to breathe joy because God, I can get a
Speaker 1: big house, a nice car, the right clothes, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people. But if you don't breathe, I won't
Speaker 1: be fulfilled. If you don't do it, it won't be done.
Speaker 1: I need both. I need the bones and the breath.
Speaker 1: I need the structure and the spirit I need. Here's
Speaker 1: what I love about it. I need the friends and
Speaker 1: the enemies. I need both. I was amazed how Jesus,
Speaker 1: when he was putting together his Kingdom dream team, knew
Speaker 1: that one of them was a devil and kept him anyway. John,
Speaker 1: I understand the disciple that Jesus loved, at least that's
Speaker 1: what he put in his own bio. Of course you
Speaker 1: chose John. He's going to take care of your mama
Speaker 1: when you're gone. And of course he chose Judas because
Speaker 1: Judas was the one who got him to the cross
Speaker 1: where he paid the price that he came to pay.
Speaker 1: You need both. You need wheat and weeds, and if
Speaker 1: you try to pull them up. He tried to get
Speaker 1: the stuff out of your life that you don't like.
Speaker 1: You'll tear out the wheat, the substance. You'll tear out
Speaker 1: the thing that God is growing. Because see what would
Speaker 1: happen if you planted this particular type of weed, or
Speaker 1: some versions call it the tears. The wheat and the tears.
Speaker 1: It looked the same on the surface, but where it
Speaker 1: was really difficult was underground, where the tears would intermingle
Speaker 1: with the wheat and the root systems would get intertwined.
Speaker 1: And sometimes what God is doing in your life beneath
Speaker 1: the surface, the pain is intertwined with the purpose. You
Speaker 1: hear me, The thing that you don't like about yourself
Speaker 1: is sometimes the thing that God is using. And we
Speaker 1: ask God to use us, and we ask God to
Speaker 1: do as will in our lives unless we don't like it,
Speaker 1: and then we want to root that out. And so
Speaker 1: then it's like, well, God, I want you to do this,
Speaker 1: but not that. And what Solomon said is what Jesus said.
Speaker 1: You don't know which one is which, And so we
Speaker 1: have to be very careful when we are trying to
Speaker 1: do our own gardening. Because I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I am not a horticulturist. I don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of agriculture experience. I was preparing this message and
Speaker 1: I had this weird memory of being a little boy
Speaker 1: and my mom had this little flower bed outside our house.
Speaker 1: And one day I decided to be helpful and I
Speaker 1: came back to the door and I was so proud.
Speaker 1: I was like Mom, and I had my hands full,
Speaker 1: and I said, I got all the weeds out of
Speaker 1: your flower bed. And she looked like she wanted to
Speaker 1: slap me, but she restrained herself. She said, those were
Speaker 1: the flowers. But I didn't know the difference because I
Speaker 1: was too immature to know the difference. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: are spiritually immature, and we are running from things and
Speaker 1: removing things and resisting things. And in the process of
Speaker 1: trying to pluck out the weeds, you're removing the wheat.
Speaker 1: If God answered every prayer you prayed right now, I'm sorry, Bruce.
Speaker 1: Almighty was a pretty good movie. It would screw up
Speaker 1: the universe. It would ruin your training. Look, can I
Speaker 1: teach you a little bit? All right? So I used
Speaker 1: to not be able to do a pull up. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie to you. I was twenty two years
Speaker 1: old and I had never done a pull up in
Speaker 1: my life. So I start training to do pull ups,
Speaker 1: and I could do some pull ups. One day, this
Speaker 1: guy told me that I had to do not only
Speaker 1: pull ups, which was a feat of accomplishment for me.
Speaker 1: I work my whole life tour to this point, a
Speaker 1: culmination of my entire life's effort in the rum of
Speaker 1: e X. He's like, now I need you to do
Speaker 1: a negative. I said, what's a negative? He said, well,
Speaker 1: there's two parts to every rep. There's when you're going
Speaker 1: up and there's when you're coming down. But there's just
Speaker 1: as much benefit in coming down as there is in
Speaker 1: coming up. I'm gonna give you seven seconds, because if
Speaker 1: that hits you right, you will start to see that
Speaker 1: the things in your life right now that you perceive
Speaker 1: as negative might be a crucial function in building your
Speaker 1: strength and your stamina and your hope. There are some
Speaker 1: things about God that you can only learn going down.
Speaker 1: Ask Peter beginning to sink when he felt the grip
Speaker 1: of the grace of God through the hand of Jesus
Speaker 1: of Nazareth, and he said, now I know that, your Lord.
Speaker 1: It's the blessing of both. And you don't know touch
Speaker 1: Somebody say you don't know. You don't know the difference
Speaker 1: between wheat and wheat. You can't do the angel's job.
Speaker 1: Let God sort that out. I heard the Lord say,
Speaker 1: keep sewing and stop sorting. Sr T I n G.
Speaker 1: Keep sewing and stop sorting. Stop judging the experience the
Speaker 1: moment it happens, Give it some time to see what
Speaker 1: it is. As a matter of fact. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have experienced this, but some of my successes
Speaker 1: have been the fruit of my failures. Some of the
Speaker 1: things that have produced the most in my life were
Speaker 1: the things that, honestly, at the time I was the
Speaker 1: most embarrassed about some of the things that have Actually,
Speaker 1: I know that most of you in this church know
Speaker 1: the song, Oh, Come to the altar, the song that
Speaker 1: almost never was. There were twelve versions of that song.
Speaker 1: All of them sucked. All right, write this down. You
Speaker 1: want a deep revelation. Success starts with sucks, he says.
Speaker 1: Sow it in the morning, sow it in the evening,
Speaker 1: because you don't know. Seeds can be deceiving. Seeds can
Speaker 1: look awfully small. Seeds can look impotent, and they may
Speaker 1: be dormant for a while. And when you sew them,
Speaker 1: they go away for a little while. But they didn't
Speaker 1: go to die. They went to multiply. Some of the
Speaker 1: things in your life that you said goodbye to, you
Speaker 1: need to say see you later. I'm expecting you to
Speaker 1: come back up again. Because I believe in resurrection, the
Speaker 1: blessing of both both. I need both in my life.
Speaker 1: Paul needed both. I guess I do too. Paul had
Speaker 1: this thing. He called it thorn, and he kept trying
Speaker 1: to weed it out. Ask God three times, take it away. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've ever asked God to take something away, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But if he doesn't do it, leave it alone. And
Speaker 1: here's why you can leave it alone, because the presence
Speaker 1: of weeds will not cancel out the power of the weak.
Speaker 1: What is supposed to grow will grow. Leave it alone
Speaker 1: for a little while and see what it becomes. See
Speaker 1: if it will be the fruit this failure that you're
Speaker 1: processing right now. Some of you started the business, you
Speaker 1: did the thing, you took the step, and you made
Speaker 1: a mess out of it. See if maybe that that
Speaker 1: might be the seed of something that becomes something that
Speaker 1: people will celebrate in the future. And you will know,
Speaker 1: and God will know that you almost gave up, and
Speaker 1: the enemy was there telling you stop sewing it. It's
Speaker 1: not working. But you kept sewing, and you sewed in
Speaker 1: the morning, and you sewed in the evening, and you
Speaker 1: loved any way, and you forgave any way, and you
Speaker 1: showed up any way, and you did it anyway. And
Speaker 1: you memorized a scripture and quoted it anyway, even though
Speaker 1: it wasn't happening in your life, but you kept quoting it,
Speaker 1: and you kept sewing, and you didn't try to sort
Speaker 1: it out, and you didn't try to root it up,
Speaker 1: and you didn't get impatient and immature. But you waited
Speaker 1: for the will of God to come to pass in
Speaker 1: your life. Once you ever stop sewing because you don't know,
Speaker 1: Solomon said, you don't know the way that the breath
Speaker 1: enters the bones, and you don't know the way God
Speaker 1: works either. You don't know. We don't know which sermons
Speaker 1: God's going to use to touch people. Then you ever
Speaker 1: preach one you hate it, and then everybody wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about it for the next year, and you preached
Speaker 1: one you loved and nobody ever remembered it. It'll make
Speaker 1: you mad, but that's how the breath operates. So you'll
Speaker 1: be reminded that you need the spirit of God, not
Speaker 1: just structure and skill and some things in your life.
Speaker 1: It's gonna surprise you because you don't know. He said
Speaker 1: one might work and one might not, or both might
Speaker 1: do equally well. In fact, he said in the ESV
Speaker 1: both may be good. Now that made me think of
Speaker 1: Joseph Naturally Old Testament Joseph with the with the coat Joseph.
Speaker 1: The coat that got him beat up, the coat that
Speaker 1: got him thrown in a pit, The coat that represented
Speaker 1: the favor of his father. The coat that was kind
Speaker 1: of loud and obnoxious, but he wore it anyway. The
Speaker 1: coat that let him know he was chosen even if
Speaker 1: people didn't like him. Remember, you need both. Everybody's not
Speaker 1: supposed to like you. If everybody likes you, you are
Speaker 1: doing nothing. If everybody likes you, you stand for nothing.
Speaker 1: If everybody agrees with you, you are saying nothing. You
Speaker 1: don't need everybody to like you. This is like a
Speaker 1: true prophet now, because one time I was going through
Speaker 1: some criticism and I asked God to make it stop.
Speaker 1: He said, well, if I stop that, then I got
Speaker 1: to stop the blessing that created the criticism to begin with.
Speaker 1: Because both grow together. Both grow together. Oh, I want
Speaker 1: to be used by God, and I want everybody to
Speaker 1: agree with all of my decisions and validate my existence.
Speaker 1: Both grow together. And so when Joseph did get pushed
Speaker 1: in a pit, it was no surprise to me that
Speaker 1: the Ishmaelite caravan was the one that picked him up.
Speaker 1: It didn't surprise me at all, because that's just like God.
Speaker 1: He always uses both. Ishmael was the son that Abraham
Speaker 1: had doing it his own way. Isaac was the one
Speaker 1: that he had doing it God's way. But guess which
Speaker 1: one God used? Guess which one God used both? You
Speaker 1: mean God will use my mistakes to bring about a
Speaker 1: deliverance in my future. You mean God will use the
Speaker 1: dumb thing I did. I'm saying absolutely, if he's sovereign,
Speaker 1: he will, if it's his field, if it's his harvest,
Speaker 1: if it's his job to superintend your life. Even the
Speaker 1: ishmaelite served a purpose. When David slept with Bathsheba after
Speaker 1: the child died. The next son he had was named Solomon,
Speaker 1: who was the wisest man who ever lived, who wrote
Speaker 1: Ecclesiastes eleven. His dumbest decision led to the world's greatest wisdom.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try because I saw it
Speaker 1: in my mind like this. I saw that God is
Speaker 1: using both in your life right now. He's using both.
Speaker 1: So when Joseph gets thrown in prison, it's not good.
Speaker 1: But God uses that to introduce him to somebody who
Speaker 1: is going to bring him before Pharaoh. When he comes
Speaker 1: before Pha. Pharaoh was telling him about a dream that
Speaker 1: means there's going to be a famine in the land. Well,
Speaker 1: the femine isn't good, but God is using the famine
Speaker 1: to create a position of favor for his people. Now,
Speaker 1: when they finally got there, Joseph is standing before his
Speaker 1: brothers and he has a revelation that everything that has
Speaker 1: happened in his life wasn't good, But everything that happened
Speaker 1: in his life has been held in the hand of God.
Speaker 1: So God wasn't just using the stuff that felt good
Speaker 1: to you, not just the stuff that you praised him for,
Speaker 1: not just the stuff that you thanked him for. Paul
Speaker 1: finally came to the point where he said, I learned
Speaker 1: to thank God for my foreign I learned to thank
Speaker 1: him for the things that he is using that I
Speaker 1: did not choose for myself, The things that he is
Speaker 1: using that tormented me at one time. But the tormentor
Speaker 1: was my mentor that transformed me into who I needed
Speaker 1: to be so that I would rely on the grace
Speaker 1: of God. It's the blessing of both. It's both. So
Speaker 1: when Joseph said, you meant it to harm me, but
Speaker 1: God meant it for good. He's not speaking out of
Speaker 1: both sides of his mouth. It's both. They meant it,
Speaker 1: but God used it. God is going to use both.
Speaker 1: I promise you he is. I promise you he is.
Speaker 1: That's what the cross represents, after all, is two beams,
Speaker 1: one vertical that's you and God, one horizontal that's you
Speaker 1: and people. Is both. Love the Lord, your God with
Speaker 1: all your heart, soul, mind, strength, Love your neighbor as yourself.
Speaker 1: It's both. It's not one or the other. It's both.
Speaker 1: I praise God when I feel it. I pray God.
Speaker 1: When I don't feel it. I praise God when I
Speaker 1: sense him. I praise Him when it's so distant that
Speaker 1: I wonder sometimes as any of this even real. I
Speaker 1: praise him in the good times. I praise him in
Speaker 1: the bad times. I praise him when he does when
Speaker 1: I ask. I praise him when he runs a little
Speaker 1: late to Lazarus funeral, because I know, even on the
Speaker 1: fourth day, he can say something. And Joseph said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's both. Is pain and purpose. It's both. And we
Speaker 1: keep waiting to this day when everything in our life
Speaker 1: will be stable, and all of our relationships will be
Speaker 1: harmonious and God said, I need you to learn how
Speaker 1: to celebrate the wheat even while you're looking at the weeds.
Speaker 1: Even the enemy serves a purpose. Even the devil works
Speaker 1: for God. The devil's not in charge of what happens
Speaker 1: in my life. God doesn't do everything that happens to me,
Speaker 1: but he uses everything that happens to me. There is
Speaker 1: nothing that is happening in your life that will not
Speaker 1: have to pass through the hand of God by the
Speaker 1: time is said and done. And so I saw this
Speaker 1: picture that really moved me of how Joseph's father, Jacob,
Speaker 1: at the end of his life, was sitting on his deathbed.
Speaker 1: And Jacob was an interesting character because he had two names,
Speaker 1: Jacob Deceiver Israel Prince, which one was he If you'll
Speaker 1: be really honest, you're both too. So please don't judge
Speaker 1: people just because their shortcomings are exposed. If it weren't
Speaker 1: for the grace of God, who knows where you would be.
Speaker 1: Come on, how many know what you're capable of. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a problem. I didn't have a problem preaching
Speaker 1: in that prison the other day because I'm not in
Speaker 1: that same situation. But I could be. There's nothing better
Speaker 1: about me than anybody that I was preaching to. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a problem for me to preach. It's the power
Speaker 1: of both, it's the blessing of both. And when Jacob
Speaker 1: was about to die, Joseph wanted to get his kids
Speaker 1: in front of Jacob so that they could be blessed.
Speaker 1: And he brought these two sons that he had in Egypt.
Speaker 1: The oldest one was named Manassa, the younger one was
Speaker 1: named Ephraim. And they sat on Jacob's knees for a minute.
Speaker 1: Jacob couldn't see very well. And after all that Joseph
Speaker 1: has been through, God has blessed him. Anyway, these two
Speaker 1: sons have significant names. Manassa means to forget, because he said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to forget the shame and the pain of Egypt.
Speaker 1: God has made me forget. And then Ephraim means fruitful,
Speaker 1: not beautiful. How God can produce fruit and even the
Speaker 1: hardest and worst situations. Well, anyway, when Jacob was sitting
Speaker 1: up to bless the boys, he did something weird. I
Speaker 1: want to show you this real quick. I don't know
Speaker 1: who this is for, but in Genesis forty eight thirteen,
Speaker 1: you got it forty eight thirteen. Please they said in
Speaker 1: Joseph took them. He took both of them, Ephraim in
Speaker 1: his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manassa in
Speaker 1: his left hand. God's gonna bless both, and he brought
Speaker 1: them near him next verse and Israel stretched out his
Speaker 1: right hand laid it on the head of eph who
Speaker 1: was the younger, and his left hand on the head
Speaker 1: of Manassa, crossing his hands, for Manassa was the firstborn.
Speaker 1: Now understand when he did that, it broke every protocol
Speaker 1: and violated every expectation, because he was supposed to bless
Speaker 1: the oldest one first. But God doesn't do things the
Speaker 1: way we think that he should do things, and we
Speaker 1: don't get what we deserve from God. We get so
Speaker 1: much more. We get his grace and his mercy. And
Speaker 1: when he crossed his hands over to bless the younger
Speaker 1: one first, do any of you know that God has
Speaker 1: blessed you in ways that you don't deserve and didn't earn.
Speaker 1: And there's no way in the world you could have
Speaker 1: built a resume to afford it. So when he did it,
Speaker 1: Joseph got really upset. It said, when Joseph saw verse
Speaker 1: seventeen that his father laid his right hand on the
Speaker 1: head of Ephraim. It displeased him, and he took his
Speaker 1: father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manassa's head.
Speaker 1: Watch the next verse, and Joseph said to his father,
Speaker 1: not this way, my father, This one was the firstborn.
Speaker 1: You know, I know you're getting old and you can't.
Speaker 1: You used to do this when you were a little kid.
Speaker 1: You've been trying to switch things up your whole life.
Speaker 1: But put your right hand on his head. Watch the
Speaker 1: next verse. But his father refused and said, I know,
Speaker 1: my son. I know he shall also become a people.
Speaker 1: He shall also be great. In other words, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bless both. You know why I don't ever
Speaker 1: have to be jealous of anybody else's life. You know
Speaker 1: why I don't ever have to worry about comparing myself
Speaker 1: to what God does for somebody else, because God is
Speaker 1: big enough to bless both of us. And when you
Speaker 1: know that, come on, when you know that this is
Speaker 1: the blessing of both. To know that what I call
Speaker 1: good what I call bad, God is going to bless both,
Speaker 1: don't you go trying to pluck stuff yourself. That's above
Speaker 1: your pay grade. Don't you go on a self improvement
Speaker 1: project without God's help, You'll mess up the masterpiece. God said,
Speaker 1: it's all working together for the good. I'm gonna bless both.
Speaker 1: They were singing a minute ago. Come here, Tiff.
Speaker 2: She was singing, you never lost the battle, You never
Speaker 2: lost a battle.
Speaker 1: I felt that when when we were writing that song,
Speaker 1: I felt it.
Speaker 2: Was we were just singing that you never lost a battle,
Speaker 2: never lost a.
Speaker 1: Battle, and we just started singing that. Yes, oh man.
Speaker 1: I was like, yes, Lord, the church is gonna want
Speaker 1: to sing this. And then I was like keep it.
Speaker 1: But then I was like, Chris, won't you uh, won't
Speaker 1: you help her? And then she's saying it. I said,
Speaker 1: if they what if they both? If they what if
Speaker 1: they bone? Yeah? What if they bone? What if? What if?
Speaker 1: What if it was? What if Paul is silas start
Speaker 1: praising God together? What if we come together in his
Speaker 1: name and begin to lift him off? What if we
Speaker 1: praise him we weren't together. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 1: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 1: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
Speaker 1: information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends. You can click
Speaker 1: the share button, take a screenshot and share it on
Speaker 1: your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening. God bless you