Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. Be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: so we can get you these new sermons every week.
Speaker 1: I hope you're blessed today. And now, as promised, I
Speaker 1: am going to pick up right where I left off.
Speaker 1: Last week. We got to get Gideon out of this
Speaker 1: wine press. We got to get you out of your
Speaker 1: wine press too. Been whining about things, been depressed about things.
Speaker 1: But last week I preached when God goes in, and
Speaker 1: we had a powerful time in God's presence, so powerful
Speaker 1: that I only got to one of my five points.
Speaker 1: But good news for my job is every six days,
Speaker 1: another Sunday, another opportunity to help you fight whatever devil
Speaker 1: that you've been facing. So I believe God gave me
Speaker 1: something for you today. Let's go back to Judges six.
Speaker 1: After I read this scripture, you can be seated, but
Speaker 1: not before just stand up for the word of God.
Speaker 1: Let's give our attention now to what he wants to speak.
Speaker 1: He has a word for you. I'll read you verses
Speaker 1: eleven through fourteen. For now, Verses eleven through fourteen. The
Speaker 1: Angel of the Lord came and sat down under the
Speaker 1: oak in or I always say it wrong? Can I
Speaker 1: start the whole verse over? The Angel of the Lord
Speaker 1: came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that
Speaker 1: belonged to joe Ash the abbiez right where his son
Speaker 1: Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep
Speaker 1: it from the Midianites. And when the Angel of the
Speaker 1: Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, the Lord is with you,
Speaker 1: mighty warrior. Pardon me, my lord? Gideon replied, but if
Speaker 1: the Lord is with us, why has all this happened
Speaker 1: to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors
Speaker 1: told us about when they said, did not the Lord
Speaker 1: bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord
Speaker 1: has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.
Speaker 1: And the Lord turned to him and said, go in
Speaker 1: the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand?
Speaker 1: Am I not sending you? And with that question, I
Speaker 1: want to give you a title today. The subject is
Speaker 1: make peace with your strength. This is what I intended
Speaker 1: to teach you last week before the Holy Ghost blew
Speaker 1: my notes off my pulpit and took over on my
Speaker 1: first point. But I'm going to teach it today. God
Speaker 1: helping me make peace. God said his time to make
Speaker 1: peace with your strength. You have spent so much of
Speaker 1: your life at war with your weaknesses, wishing you weren't
Speaker 1: something that you are, wishing you are something that you're not.
Speaker 1: But today God wants to help you make peace with
Speaker 1: your strength. Spirit of God, reconcile your people to yourself today.
Speaker 1: Use me as a vessel, a conduit, a bridge builder.
Speaker 1: Whatever I need to be, I'm available to you. So
Speaker 1: speak those words that only you can whisper to each
Speaker 1: and every man and woman, boy and girl. I give
Speaker 1: you praise for it in Jesus' name. Amen, oh subtitle.
Speaker 1: On your way down, tell your neighbor I'm going in.
Speaker 1: I'm going in. We'll get back to that. We'll get
Speaker 1: back to that. You want to know my vote. Gideon
Speaker 1: is the greatest judge in the Book of Judges, the
Speaker 1: greatest judge of all time. Do you know how they
Speaker 1: have debates about the greatest of all time, with like
Speaker 1: basketball players and guitar players and rappers and stuff like that. Well,
Speaker 1: I got to say to me, fresh off of a
Speaker 1: study of all the different judges, Gideon is the greatest
Speaker 1: of all time they call that the goat. Who's the
Speaker 1: goat the greatest of all time? I think Gideon is
Speaker 1: the greatest of all time, the greatest ever to do it,
Speaker 1: the goat. And I want to speak to you a
Speaker 1: little bit about Gideon, the young goat. Now he's the
Speaker 1: youngest in his family, but that doesn't stop God from
Speaker 1: using him. His family is the least in their whole clan,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't stop God from using them. Their tribe
Speaker 1: is the least of all the tribes, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: stop God from using them. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Speaker 1: Nothing stops God from using who he wants to use.
Speaker 1: So Gideon is a goat, but God is getting him
Speaker 1: ready because you're not looking much like a goat at
Speaker 1: the moment. He's not looking like the greatest. He's not
Speaker 1: thinking like the greatest. He's not speaking like the greatest.
Speaker 1: He's not moving like the greatest. He's not doing what
Speaker 1: the greatest would do. But God is preparing him for
Speaker 1: something very amazing. Not just a new house, not just
Speaker 1: a new boat, not just a new car. There is
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with any of those things that I listed,
Speaker 1: But for a great purpose, say this out loud. God
Speaker 1: is preparing me for a great purpose. That was about
Speaker 1: forty percent participation. Let's try again. God is preparing me
Speaker 1: for a great purpose. And maybe the reason you're hesitant
Speaker 1: to say that is because you don't like talking out
Speaker 1: loud in church, and you a little bit defying and rebellious,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you can't make me say anything. Well
Speaker 1: I can't. That's true. But maybe the reason you had
Speaker 1: a hard time saying it is because it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like preparation. It feels pointless. I'm trying to adopt the
Speaker 1: mindset in my life more and more that everything is preparation.
Speaker 1: If God is sovereign, and if He has a plan,
Speaker 1: and if all things work together for the good of
Speaker 1: those who love God, who are called according to His purpose,
Speaker 1: than all things are preparation for the purpose that he
Speaker 1: called me to. Because I love Him and I'm called,
Speaker 1: I'm called, I am called by God. I've never been
Speaker 1: more convinced than my life of what my calling is.
Speaker 1: I got it down to a sentence. Now there's my
Speaker 1: relationship with Holly as her husband. My call there is
Speaker 1: just to be the simply amazing man that I naturally am.
Speaker 1: Every day when I wake up, let her bask in
Speaker 1: the glory of that. But when it comes to what
Speaker 1: I do with you each and every week, whether you're
Speaker 1: part of our e fam online or our local church,
Speaker 1: my job. God showed me what my job is here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to make leadership decisions and be a leader. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to have vision and strategy and tactical stuff.
Speaker 1: And there are so many wonderful people who do that
Speaker 1: because my job, my priority, my focus, is to put
Speaker 1: God's words in people's hearts. If it's a sermon, if
Speaker 1: it's a snippet of a sermon, if it's a song,
Speaker 1: if it's a line in a song, I might spend
Speaker 1: nine months trying to get the line better because I
Speaker 1: feel like, if that thing gets in you right, oh,
Speaker 1: it could be dynamite, it can be the power of God.
Speaker 1: It is the power of God if you believe it.
Speaker 1: And so my job is to help you hear it.
Speaker 1: Faith comes by hearing the word of God in a
Speaker 1: way that you can receive it, digest it, and do it,
Speaker 1: and do it and do it. This is what we
Speaker 1: understand that God is always doing in our lives because
Speaker 1: we see him do it so many times through the
Speaker 1: characters that he raises up in scripture is that he
Speaker 1: is preparing you. He sends words to prepare you, he
Speaker 1: sends people to prepare you. But when you compare you,
Speaker 1: when you compare you to others, or when you compare you.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this, We either compare ourselves to
Speaker 1: people who make us feel better about where we are.
Speaker 1: At least I'm not you know, I'm not doing good,
Speaker 1: but hey, at least I'm not that bad off of
Speaker 1: you that you can always find somebody make feel little
Speaker 1: better or to make ourselves feel just worse about it.
Speaker 1: But in the passage that I read you, there's something
Speaker 1: kind of weird going on, because Okay, you've got God
Speaker 1: calling Gideon a warrior, and you've got Gideon who is hidden,
Speaker 1: who is heroic. He's about to go on. If I
Speaker 1: told you all the things he's about to do, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe it. Looking at him right now. If you
Speaker 1: memorize him by his lowest moment, you've missed the point.
Speaker 1: Because Gideon is not sinning in this passage. He's threshing
Speaker 1: wheat in a wine press. Last week, I tried to
Speaker 1: illustrate that not only is he threshing wheat, but God
Speaker 1: is threshing him to get you to see that in
Speaker 1: certain seasons of your life, God is allowing things to
Speaker 1: be added or subtracted, given or taken away, people in
Speaker 1: your life to be coming or going. But everything is
Speaker 1: preparation when it passes through his hands, his hands, somebody
Speaker 1: say his hands. Now the Bible says that they were
Speaker 1: in Midian's hands, that was their enemy. And my friend
Speaker 1: told me, this week slowed down a little bit. When
Speaker 1: you're giving us this background. You act like we have
Speaker 1: all week to study this stuff, and we don't, and
Speaker 1: you do, so break it down. So I'm gonna break
Speaker 1: it down. My friend said, the only thing I know
Speaker 1: about Gideon is the Bibles, little Gideon's Bibles that they
Speaker 1: hand out. I said, really, you don't know anything about
Speaker 1: Gideon other than the Bibles. He said no. I said,
Speaker 1: you don't even know that the Angel of the Lord
Speaker 1: sent a word into a wine press and called him
Speaker 1: a warrior while he was down there scared that the
Speaker 1: swarms of Midianites were gonna come get what he planted,
Speaker 1: so we had to hide it. You don't understand that
Speaker 1: Gideon the Great Warrior took on the Midianites with just
Speaker 1: three hundred men who were laughing water like dogs. You
Speaker 1: don't know Gideon had that dog. Gideon had that dog.
Speaker 1: Gideon had that I'll do it with who I've got,
Speaker 1: where I am with the God I know. You don't
Speaker 1: know a Gideon could get up with a jar and
Speaker 1: put a lamp in it, and break the jar and
Speaker 1: blow a trumpet and say, we're coming for you. We're
Speaker 1: three hundreds strong, but with God, we're a majority. He said, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of that, and especially I didn't
Speaker 1: know that before he did any of that, he was
Speaker 1: hidden in fear and hidden in a certain place within
Speaker 1: his family that nobody expected him to be the one.
Speaker 1: A word from God just came through me. For somebody.
Speaker 1: You're not insignificant because you're hidden. Nobody sees me, nobody
Speaker 1: notices me, nobody appreciates me. Do not confuse your hiddenness
Speaker 1: with your significance. The significance of Gideon's life and your life,
Speaker 1: my life, and what's happening in this season cannot be
Speaker 1: discerned just by looking at us in this moment. We
Speaker 1: have to read a little further. There's so much more
Speaker 1: to the story. So when Gideon is hidden, he is
Speaker 1: not sinning, but he is shrinking. The picture we get
Speaker 1: of Gideon is not of a sinner, but of a survivor.
Speaker 1: Are there any survivors at elevation Valentine? Not on the
Speaker 1: front row? Y'all didn't make it through anything? Because when
Speaker 1: I say survivor, I don't mean you had a headache
Speaker 1: and you took two and then it went away, and
Speaker 1: then you went to work anyway and you didn't get fired.
Speaker 1: That's not the kind of surviving I mean. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about you almost lost your faith. You almost said is
Speaker 1: there a God? But something like the hand of God
Speaker 1: snatched you from the hand of your own doubt, something
Speaker 1: like the hand of God. It was invisible, so you
Speaker 1: can't exactly prove it and say, well, it was on
Speaker 1: this date at this time. But for everybody who knows
Speaker 1: that I was in the in the hands, in the grip,
Speaker 1: in the stronghold of the feeling that I might not
Speaker 1: make it, and something snatched me. And I can't show
Speaker 1: you what snatched me because it wasn't a person. I
Speaker 1: can't show you what snatched me because it wasn't just
Speaker 1: one event. I can't show you what snatched me because
Speaker 1: it wasn't just one date. It was the hand of God,
Speaker 1: That's what it was. It was him that snatched you
Speaker 1: because he has something for you, something to do, something
Speaker 1: to build, something to be, something to do, something to build,
Speaker 1: something to be. I got all free, I got something
Speaker 1: to do. I've created for good works, something to build,
Speaker 1: I can't stay torn down, and something to be. I
Speaker 1: am becoming the new creation and crime high five. Somebody
Speaker 1: say I got something. I got something, something to do,
Speaker 1: something to build, something to be. Don't memorize me down here.
Speaker 1: I know I look shrunk in right now, but there's
Speaker 1: a good reason for that. See, I'm a survivor. I'm
Speaker 1: a survivor. I'm a survivor. Saying I'm a survivor, even
Speaker 1: if you have to say it under your breath because
Speaker 1: you don't want the devil to hear you, because you're
Speaker 1: scared if he hears you say it, he might attack
Speaker 1: you again. But saying I'm a survivor, I'm a survivor,
Speaker 1: I'm a survivor. I'm a survivor. I'm a survivor. I'm
Speaker 1: a survivor. My buddy who fights in the UFC, he said,
Speaker 1: you got to survive the assault and work the cut.
Speaker 1: I said, what does that mean? He said, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be around every time you fight, unless you get lucky
Speaker 1: with a spinning heel kick in the first round, where
Speaker 1: it's gonna come on like a storm and the only
Speaker 1: goal in that round is to survive it. But then
Speaker 1: he said, there will be an opportunity to go on offense,
Speaker 1: and when you cut him, I feel my Rocky for
Speaker 1: anointing coming on me today. I'm scared of it. I'm
Speaker 1: really scared of it. I'm really scared of it because
Speaker 1: if it comes on me, I might shout Drago, I
Speaker 1: might shout Devil. I might start doing some stuff. I
Speaker 1: might start swinging. Because there comes a time when survival,
Speaker 1: survival becomes selfish, when God gives you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do the good that He created you to do, and
Speaker 1: you shrink down. Now, sometimes when we shrink, get the
Speaker 1: picture of Gideon in the wine press, getting out of
Speaker 1: the sight of his enemy, the Midianites, shrinking down in
Speaker 1: a low place where we discovered last week there is
Speaker 1: no wind to blow the chaff away, where the devil
Speaker 1: pushes you down, where there is no fresh air of
Speaker 1: God's spirit, where you get in a place thought patterns
Speaker 1: and thought processes. That feels safe because you are a
Speaker 1: stuck survivor, a survivor who got stuck in a season
Speaker 1: of survival. Now, how is that selfish? Because God did
Speaker 1: not just come to get you through it. He came
Speaker 1: to get it through you. Yes, yes, we need that
Speaker 1: revelation for all of the survival sermons that we've heard
Speaker 1: that are saying you're going to make it, which are
Speaker 1: wonderful when you need them. But if every six days
Speaker 1: the only word that you can receive is you're gonna
Speaker 1: make it, and then six days later you're gonna make it,
Speaker 1: and then six days later you're gonna make it, and
Speaker 1: God is getting you ready. And six days later God
Speaker 1: is getting you ready, and six days later God is
Speaker 1: getting you ready. Meanwhile, your teeth are gonna fall out
Speaker 1: while you're waiting, hogd read God, Oh God, get me ready.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a back back when he finally does so,
Speaker 1: then the key becomes watch this. We can't just stay
Speaker 1: here shrinking in survival forever. At some point God is
Speaker 1: going to give you a survival word when you need it,
Speaker 1: and then he will give you a stretching word to
Speaker 1: call fourth something dormant in you to call forth something
Speaker 1: holy in you. If we were to put a new
Speaker 1: Testament verse here, I would recommend for your consideration Ephesians
Speaker 1: three twenty, which states, now somebody shout, Now, don't leave
Speaker 1: that word out. It's important because it doesn't say in
Speaker 1: three years. It doesn't say when you get out of rehab.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say when they come back, I can start
Speaker 1: living with you again. It doesn't say when the doctor
Speaker 1: tells you if it's a tumor or not. It says, now,
Speaker 1: unto him who is able to do, how much more,
Speaker 1: immeasurably more, you got an immeasurably more anointing. But sometimes
Speaker 1: we have a depressingly low view of ourselves. Keep going.
Speaker 1: The best part of the verse is at the end,
Speaker 1: more than we ask or imagine, according to His power,
Speaker 1: which we love. Oh, it's his power. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: comes from him, every single time. All power comes from him,
Speaker 1: all power. No more than we could unplug this sound
Speaker 1: system and the microphone still get a signal over the camera.
Speaker 1: Can I preach this word without his power working? But
Speaker 1: watch where it works, Watch where it works. It is
Speaker 1: at work within us. The contrast is not only that
Speaker 1: it's his power and it doesn't come from me. The
Speaker 1: contrast is that it doesn't work from without, it works
Speaker 1: from within. Can I go a little bit deeper with
Speaker 1: this word? Oh, I'm going in. I studied too much
Speaker 1: to preach this thing like it was third grade class.
Speaker 1: I am going to teach the Bible to three people
Speaker 1: today who want to go into God's word and get
Speaker 1: what he has for you so you can be what
Speaker 1: he called you to be, build what he called you
Speaker 1: to build, and do what he called you to do.
Speaker 1: Somebody shout, go, that's the key, because you're going to
Speaker 1: see this like y'all play pick a ball. God and
Speaker 1: Gideon go back and forth for a moment where Gideon
Speaker 1: doesn't know it's God. You usually don't at first. You
Speaker 1: usually don't at first. Usually God first appears as something
Speaker 1: that you fear. It's a ghost. Peter said, No, it's God.
Speaker 1: Gideon thinks he's got an interrupt or maybe even thought
Speaker 1: it was the enemy coming to get some of his
Speaker 1: wik But it was an angel. And the angel starts
Speaker 1: talking to Gideon, which happens every day. No, No, this
Speaker 1: is an unusual occurrence for the word of God to
Speaker 1: come to Gideon. There is there is a sense when
Speaker 1: I read this passage. The reason I use pickleball is
Speaker 1: because it's got this back and forth to it that
Speaker 1: I want to show you where Gideon is asking God
Speaker 1: to pardon him while God is trying to empower him.
Speaker 1: So God keeps human say that again. Okay, she's gonna
Speaker 1: say that again. Well, I say, does anybody know I
Speaker 1: was going to the next thing? You know, No, it
Speaker 1: was Gideon is saying pardon me, and God is trying
Speaker 1: to empower him. Gideon, the next thing I was gonna
Speaker 1: say before I got interrupted by the Holy Spirit. It's good.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell a story about you in a minute
Speaker 1: if I remember. But when Gideon is saying pardon, God's
Speaker 1: trying to give him permission to get out of that,
Speaker 1: and Gideon keeps saying pardon me. Now, the first thing
Speaker 1: he does is he shrinks his view of God down
Speaker 1: to his experience. He shrinks his view of God down
Speaker 1: to his experience. Look at verse thirteen, pardon me Lord.
Speaker 1: But if the Lord is with us, God just said
Speaker 1: he's with you. Well, if that's true, then why has
Speaker 1: all this happened to us? Because he's looking to external
Speaker 1: events and personal experience for his definition of who God is.
Speaker 1: And that's the wrong starting place. God doesn't start with
Speaker 1: your experience. He was God before you got here. He'll
Speaker 1: be God when they lay your body in the ground.
Speaker 1: He'll be God when everybody's eating chicken. Five minutes after
Speaker 1: they all cry that you're gone, everybody's moving on, everything
Speaker 1: is coming, everything is going, And he is still God.
Speaker 1: He's big, he's mighty. He's not as small as one
Speaker 1: little life, one little lifespan, one little opinion, one political party,
Speaker 1: one view of seeing things, one color, one ethnicity, one denomination.
Speaker 1: God is bigger than any of this stuff that we
Speaker 1: fight about. So watch Gideon. He's not sinning, but he
Speaker 1: is shrinking. He's shrinking. If God is with us, why
Speaker 1: has all this You're gonna put it up? Or okay,
Speaker 1: happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our
Speaker 1: ancestors told us about. Get the questions, get your list going. Okay,
Speaker 1: you got your little list for God? Okay, this is
Speaker 1: why is my daughter struggling in school? And why am
Speaker 1: I always having to go down there? And why don't
Speaker 1: I have a husband when you know that I am chased? Okay,
Speaker 1: your words, your list. I'm just using some Bible words,
Speaker 1: all right, And you know she's not And so why
Speaker 1: does she have a husband? And I don't have a husband.
Speaker 1: When I was a lady in waiting, I got three
Speaker 1: promise rings, purity rings, promise rings. I am a Proverbs
Speaker 1: thirty one woman and I'm thirty one years old and
Speaker 1: I don't have a man. Why all right? So, but
Speaker 1: all of that is just experience. All of that is
Speaker 1: just events. All of that is external, all of that
Speaker 1: is outside. All of that as well. I see all
Speaker 1: of that as well. I know all of that is
Speaker 1: what I understand. So watch God kick the verse up, y'all?
Speaker 1: Where are all the wonders that our ancestors told us about?
Speaker 1: We said, did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt?
Speaker 1: I love what God does here. This angel is amazing
Speaker 1: verse fourteen. Now the Lord is man. I said, hand,
Speaker 1: it's give him a hand of mine. Okay? Now verse fourteen.
Speaker 1: And the Lord turned and said, no, he answers none
Speaker 1: of it. God's like. The reason I call it pickleball
Speaker 1: is because Gideon is like, Okay, you are calling me
Speaker 1: a mighty warrior and you're saying this about me, Then
Speaker 1: how about this thing that I struggle with, and how
Speaker 1: about that thing that I deal with? And how about
Speaker 1: the other thing that they did to us? And how
Speaker 1: about what I heard that you would do that you
Speaker 1: haven't done. And that's why I'm down here in this
Speaker 1: wine press. And so you expect God right to Gideon
Speaker 1: goes why, and you expect God to go, well, you know,
Speaker 1: here's the reason. And then you expect Gideon to hit
Speaker 1: it back over the net. Well, then what about And
Speaker 1: then God's like, yeah, so about that? And you expect
Speaker 1: us to go back and forth. And You're kind of
Speaker 1: waiting for this back and forth. And God's like, uh, go,
Speaker 1: because we don't have time for you to figure out
Speaker 1: and work through every single weakness that you've got some
Speaker 1: of You have taken every personality test that they sell
Speaker 1: in the personality test store and department, and you are
Speaker 1: more confused than ever. And you have read every book,
Speaker 1: you have eaten, you have prayed, you have loved, you
Speaker 1: have searched, you have tested, you have Myers Briggs, you
Speaker 1: have discs, you have any of Graham. You have done
Speaker 1: it all, and those are all wonderful things. But God
Speaker 1: is like, by the time you finish the tests, the
Speaker 1: lesson will be over, and the blessing will be passed.
Speaker 1: And at some point, and it might just be while
Speaker 1: Pastor Stephen is preaching today, we've got to go. We
Speaker 1: have got to go at some point. Do you know
Speaker 1: how much more I could have put in this sermon
Speaker 1: if I didn't have to preach it right now? But
Speaker 1: at some point I gotta preach it. A lady got
Speaker 1: in an elevator one time at a conference. I was
Speaker 1: going to the forty thousand people at the conference. She said, hey, Stephen,
Speaker 1: are you ready? I said, what's ready got to do
Speaker 1: with it? I've never been ready to preach a day
Speaker 1: in my life. If I'm about to have the microphone,
Speaker 1: So I guess, yeah, pray for me. Whatever kind of
Speaker 1: prayers you do, praying for me, this one, the one
Speaker 1: in tongues. Any Oh, I'll take all of them. I'll
Speaker 1: take every single prayer. So we at a restaurant Friday,
Speaker 1: and the lady was so nice to us. It was
Speaker 1: the restaurant that the Jonas family owns. What's it called Nellie's.
Speaker 1: It was good, but the server was really nice. She
Speaker 1: came over and she's I think she listens to our
Speaker 1: I know she listens to our messages, and so she
Speaker 1: was extra nice and I tipped her extra big. So
Speaker 1: if you're a server and you go to this church,
Speaker 1: tell me and I do a little, you know, let
Speaker 1: me take it up alot. We could do it. Just
Speaker 1: keep the diet coke coming and don't judge me by
Speaker 1: how many I'd drink, and I'll take care of you. Now.
Speaker 1: I could drink a lot worse things than diet coke.
Speaker 1: I think you know what I'm talking about. Na. The
Speaker 1: lady is like, do you have any questions about the menu?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, she does. Holly loves menus. I just
Speaker 1: love full. It's not that deep. Does it have onions?
Speaker 1: If no, bring it to me, that's all. If it
Speaker 1: doesn't have carbs and it doesn't have onions, bring it
Speaker 1: to me. But not Holly, not my Holly, Oh not
Speaker 1: my Holly. So she said, do y'all have any questions?
Speaker 1: I'm like, go ahead, babe. Have had her looking at
Speaker 1: Stephanie like you asked for this. Just remember you asked
Speaker 1: for this. So then the whole quiz started, the whole test,
Speaker 1: the whole final exam started, like we are buying a ranch.
Speaker 1: So the meat loaf. What's the meat loaf like? And
Speaker 1: I'm so bored because I didn't bring my phone because
Speaker 1: I was trying to be focused on our day together.
Speaker 1: I wish I had my phone. I took her phone,
Speaker 1: start playing with her phone. Then after after I guess
Speaker 1: it was only about ninety seconds, but it felt like
Speaker 1: longer because I'm hungry. And she said, now they're talking
Speaker 1: about the dumplings and the diameter of the dumplings. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, but think I think I think we
Speaker 1: I think you know enough to get go on, move
Speaker 1: far with this, linch. You think we can go ahead
Speaker 1: and do it now? We can go in order. Now, Stephanie,
Speaker 1: we're good. She's got gut enough information. And Stephanie goes, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't mind. I don't mind. And I said, none
Speaker 1: of Stephanie, you don't understand. This could go on a
Speaker 1: long time. I know this woman. This could go on
Speaker 1: and on. When does your shift in, Stephanie? This could
Speaker 1: be she loves menus. If we do this, you know,
Speaker 1: what about the dumplings? What about the meat loaf? What
Speaker 1: about the other stuff? About those dumplings again, are they
Speaker 1: like dumpling dumplings or dumpling dumplings, Like, because dumpling dumplings?
Speaker 1: Are they chewy chewy? Or are they? We gotta ee.
Speaker 1: I don't have a phone. I'm a dopamine addict. And
Speaker 1: there's nothing interesting on your text messages. I've looked. Let's
Speaker 1: just do it. I feel like God, God is saying,
Speaker 1: get in. We could do this all day. I could
Speaker 1: give you twenty reasons why you're struggling. What good would
Speaker 1: it do? Just an endless awareness of your weakness. That's
Speaker 1: what God saved you for. Just an endless awareness of
Speaker 1: who hurt you. Well, they hurt me, and they wounded me,
Speaker 1: and they hurt me, and I have church hurt, and
Speaker 1: I have job hurt, and I have marriage hurt, and
Speaker 1: I have relationship hurt. And I got burned over here
Speaker 1: and burned over there, and burned over here and burned
Speaker 1: over there. And God's like, that's cool. I'm fire. Let's
Speaker 1: burn different Noweah. Yeah, if the fire shows up, I say,
Speaker 1: fight fire with fire. If you got burned, let's call
Speaker 1: on the God who answers bought fire. I feel fire.
Speaker 1: I feel fire falling from heaving fresh strike. Now, yes, Lord,
Speaker 1: God says, I'm going in right now to the strength
Speaker 1: that you have. Now, this is a word for a
Speaker 1: person who you've been going back and forth in your mind,
Speaker 1: back and forth. Well, if I do that, then they
Speaker 1: might say that. And if I go there, then they
Speaker 1: might do this. And if I go there, it is
Speaker 1: the pickleball game from hell. And you're hungry, and meanwhile
Speaker 1: God is like, would you like me to bring you
Speaker 1: something off the menu so I can show you who
Speaker 1: I am and what you have? Or you just want
Speaker 1: to go back and forth like this. I thought about
Speaker 1: bringing out a pickleball paddle and tell you to give
Speaker 1: it back to God, like, man, whatever, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it is what it is, and let's do what we
Speaker 1: can do with what it is because we know who
Speaker 1: God is. Which is actually the turning point of the passage,
Speaker 1: if you want to know truth about it, it's when
Speaker 1: God says, go in the strength that you have. Say that,
Speaker 1: go in the strength that you have. Let's get that
Speaker 1: verse on the screen. Get it real deep in your spirit.
Speaker 1: When you don't feel strong, when you don't feel kind,
Speaker 1: when you don't feel backed, when you don't feel endorsed,
Speaker 1: when you don't feel important, when you don't feel significant,
Speaker 1: when you don't feel like turning off the thing and
Speaker 1: not snoozing it the seventh time. Snooze at six and
Speaker 1: get up and go with the sleep that you have.
Speaker 1: Can we all stop saying tie as our primary identification
Speaker 1: of what we are. I wonder what God feels, who
Speaker 1: never sleeps, norse slumbers when we take his name. I
Speaker 1: am and put tired after it all the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll take a nap whatever, or I won't. But is
Speaker 1: this really gonna be my primary identity in life? How
Speaker 1: are you just tired? Man? Wow? I gotta take charge
Speaker 1: of some things on the inside of me, starting with
Speaker 1: what I say, Starting with what I say, and say
Speaker 1: things that make me feel stronger. I'm collecting little mantras.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put a lot of them in a book
Speaker 1: that I'm working on that you can get in your
Speaker 1: spirit and say things like He's in it with me,
Speaker 1: working through me, fighting for me. That started as a
Speaker 1: mantra that I told myself driving up to church, didn't
Speaker 1: start as a song, became a song. You know what,
Speaker 1: that's a weird thing. For years years of my life,
Speaker 1: I resisted the gifts that I had been given. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that's what I was doing. I thought I
Speaker 1: was being self aware, right, which is a very good
Speaker 1: thing to be, by the way, But if self awareness
Speaker 1: doesn't lead to spirit dependence, it has its limits. Self
Speaker 1: awareness is meant to get you to the place not
Speaker 1: only of being at war with your weaknesses, but being
Speaker 1: aware of your strengths. For many years, when I went
Speaker 1: into a songwriting situation, I would think I'm a preacher,
Speaker 1: not a songwriter. The reason I probably felt that way
Speaker 1: is because, over the course of giving up things to
Speaker 1: God that he had given me, I felt like maybe
Speaker 1: in preaching I was giving up this love that I
Speaker 1: had for music. I never will forget Israel Holton's standing
Speaker 1: on a sidewalk in Sydney, Australia telling another pastor what
Speaker 1: an anointed songwriter I was, You know, I say I am.
Speaker 1: I wasn't being false humble. I literally didn't feel like
Speaker 1: I was one. In fact, it was reinforced by the
Speaker 1: fact that a lot of people would tell me I
Speaker 1: heard you just put your names on the songs because
Speaker 1: you're the pastor and you don't really write them. So
Speaker 1: now I got a couple things going on. One is
Speaker 1: people God love them. You know how easy ministry would
Speaker 1: be if people weren't in it. I'm kidding. I love people,
Speaker 1: But it gets in you, doesn't it. You ever have
Speaker 1: something to get in you that you believe about yourself,
Speaker 1: especially now man not only on songwriting, but if I
Speaker 1: could just share with you honestly, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fear for everybody who is a public figure these days,
Speaker 1: with cancel culture and the way that things get clipped,
Speaker 1: taken out of context, abuse be rated, and nobody even
Speaker 1: bothers to read the story. They look at a headline,
Speaker 1: or they hear a headline that was passed on to
Speaker 1: them by someone else. They put that headline in their
Speaker 1: heart and they define you by something that they heard
Speaker 1: that somebody else didn't even read. They skimmed and for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, the last few years, it has
Speaker 1: been a wrestling match for me. On one hand, I
Speaker 1: want to spread the gospel, put God's words in people's hearts.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I find myself wanting to shrink
Speaker 1: because when you talk into a microphone for people, you
Speaker 1: become a target. Every word you say, every syllable. Look
Speaker 1: how he mispronounced that, Oh look how he said that?
Speaker 1: And it doesn't even have to be what you really said,
Speaker 1: because they don't have to take the ten seconds before
Speaker 1: you said it. They can chop it, drop it, and
Speaker 1: drop it, and then the next thing you know, people
Speaker 1: will say, oh, well, you know he's a this or
Speaker 1: he's a that, or she's a this or she's that.
Speaker 1: It's just a real thing. Now you deal with it
Speaker 1: on your own level. I deal with it on my
Speaker 1: own level, but sometimes it makes me want to go
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't even want these sermons to go online.
Speaker 1: I drove by this little Baptist church one time. I
Speaker 1: was like, I think I'm gonna just go over there
Speaker 1: and preach and not tell anybody I'm preaching, so I
Speaker 1: can still help people, but I don't put it online.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure there's no internet connection, collect everybody's
Speaker 1: phones at the door, and just preach like it's nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven. And that fear is real. Man. That probably
Speaker 1: happens to you in some way where you feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel like if I really step forward with me
Speaker 1: to be who I believe God is calling me to be,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm probably gonna get like either attacked
Speaker 1: or misunderstood or criticized, or I might fail to stay safe.
Speaker 1: I shrink this day safe. So I feel like the
Speaker 1: Lord will say, tell me to say something, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say it because what if it comes out
Speaker 1: the wrong way. What if it comes out the right
Speaker 1: way and somebody takes it the wrong way. Well if
Speaker 1: it comes out the right way and somebody takes it
Speaker 1: the right way, but twist it the wrong way because
Speaker 1: they don't like me. We could do this all day, Stephanie.
Speaker 1: But there comes a time when God gives a word,
Speaker 1: and the word is did you just say, come on, verdict,
Speaker 1: call me by my last name? What's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: What if this is a turning word for you today
Speaker 1: that God is saying the answer is not for you
Speaker 1: to shrink yourself. It is to depend on Him and
Speaker 1: step into it. Now. I see you shrinking, and you
Speaker 1: have your reasons. You don't have a college education. I
Speaker 1: see you shrinking, and you have your reasons. You don't
Speaker 1: have a support system in your life. I see you shrinking,
Speaker 1: and you have your reasons. The business fail and you're embarrassed.
Speaker 1: I see you shrinking, and you have your reasons. The
Speaker 1: addiction really has its clause in you. You feel like
Speaker 1: you're in the hand of Midian. I see you shrinking,
Speaker 1: and you have your reasons. You have been diagnosed with
Speaker 1: something that you don't know if you're going to live
Speaker 1: or die in this body. I see you shrinking, and
Speaker 1: you have your reasons. You're really worried about your kids.
Speaker 1: So now life is just survival. And you're stuck here
Speaker 1: and you can't move here, and you feel like if
Speaker 1: I shrink, I'll be safe. And if I'm not safe,
Speaker 1: at least I feel safe. Because see when I take
Speaker 1: these pills, I feel safe. I'm not really safe, but
Speaker 1: I feel safe. I'm not talking about medication that a
Speaker 1: doctor prescribed you. I'm talking about when you get in something,
Speaker 1: when you shrink yourself down to stuff that God is
Speaker 1: setting you free from. You're shrinking to feel safe. But
Speaker 1: the Lord told me something, and I want to give
Speaker 1: it to you. God said, you keep shrinking, thinking that
Speaker 1: it'll make you safe. But the answer to your fear
Speaker 1: is not to shrink yourself down. The answer to your
Speaker 1: fear is not to shrink yourself. The answer is to
Speaker 1: get moving. When they do security training, touch somebody say
Speaker 1: get moving, get move, and get move and get moving.
Speaker 1: Because when they do security training, they teach you. The
Speaker 1: worst thing you can be is a sitting target. You
Speaker 1: have got to get moving in this season of your
Speaker 1: life and not just sit in the thoughts of what
Speaker 1: could go wrong. We could do this all day. I
Speaker 1: can give you a list of ten more things to
Speaker 1: be scared of, but you don't even know to be
Speaker 1: scared of. We can do this all day, or you
Speaker 1: can go in the string that you have now. The
Speaker 1: problem is that doesn't feel like a lot right now.
Speaker 1: The wisdom you have doesn't feel like a lot right now,
Speaker 1: and there are some facts to back that up. So
Speaker 1: now I just want to stay shun But the problem
Speaker 1: is you are a sitting duck for the devil down there.
Speaker 1: You're not serving anybody. You're not encouraging anybody. Some of
Speaker 1: you quick giving because you started watching the news. Are
Speaker 1: you crazy? It's called currency. I've got to generate something
Speaker 1: through my giving so I can receive something as I'm wait.
Speaker 1: You gonna sit down there and die down there? Get
Speaker 1: going in the string you have. Gideon has a dilemma.
Speaker 1: He's in a real pickle. He's down low. God is
Speaker 1: calling him up high. He's down low. God is saying
Speaker 1: you're a mighty warrior. Now here's the word of the
Speaker 1: Lord for you. You might be. You might be think
Speaker 1: about that. You might be in a hard place. You
Speaker 1: might be alone, living by yourself. You might be in
Speaker 1: a very difficult dilemma. You might be in a situation
Speaker 1: where the odds are against you. But you are still
Speaker 1: a mighty warrior. If God is within you, he is
Speaker 1: more than anything that is against you. Go in the
Speaker 1: strength that you have, and the strength that you have
Speaker 1: will become the strength that you need for what is next.
Speaker 1: If I am prophesying this word for you, put it
Speaker 1: in the chat. It's for me. I need to get moving.
Speaker 1: It's for me. I need to get step in It's
Speaker 1: for me. I need to get back in it. I
Speaker 1: need to step back into it. I need to get
Speaker 1: out of this place of feeling sorry for myself. I
Speaker 1: need to get out of why and step into what
Speaker 1: God called me to be. He's able according to his power.
Speaker 1: This fellow named Trenton, I hope he's there right now.
Speaker 1: Wrote me this week and he serves at Lake Norman
Speaker 1: on a week he serves. You know, Trenton sent me
Speaker 1: a text. What meant the most to me is where
Speaker 1: he sent it from sitting in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy.
Speaker 1: He said, thank you, Pastor Stephen for preaching about Gideon,
Speaker 1: and thank you for the song more than Abel because
Speaker 1: it means a lot to me because I'm disabled and God,
Speaker 1: God started speaking to me, he said. And God started
Speaker 1: speaking to me that I'm disabled. But when you said
Speaker 1: go in the strength you have, and I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: this wheelchair listening to that word, I realize if you
Speaker 1: take disabled and put go in front of it, help
Speaker 1: me preach this, Treton. If you take disabled and put
Speaker 1: go in front of it, what does this smell? I said, what? Trenton?
Speaker 1: He said, God is able. I declare it where you're at.
Speaker 1: I declare it over your life. God is abled. I
Speaker 1: declare it over your life. God is abled. I declare
Speaker 1: it over your paralysis. God is abl I can declare it.
Speaker 1: I declare it. I declare it. I declare it, I
Speaker 1: decree it. I establish it now unto him. So thank
Speaker 1: you Trending for that truth. If you can say it
Speaker 1: from a wheelchair, I can say it in my weakness too.
Speaker 1: If you can smile in that wheelchair, I can smile
Speaker 1: through my storm too. The problem is not what you have.
Speaker 1: It's what you don't know about what you have. You
Speaker 1: won't know what it is if you don't go in it.
Speaker 1: I promise you that, I promise you that, I promise
Speaker 1: you you will always You have not yet made peace
Speaker 1: with the strength God has given you, because you're not
Speaker 1: yet good with what He didn't give you. And we
Speaker 1: could do this all day, all day long. You could
Speaker 1: wish that you were taller. I never seen anybody grow
Speaker 1: us in a meter all day long wishing they had
Speaker 1: stayed with you. They didn't, and they're only pretending to
Speaker 1: be happy in those pictures you see on Facebook. They
Speaker 1: miss you a lot. Okay, she's giving me a little
Speaker 1: spiritual hug there. You can wish this stuff all day.
Speaker 1: We could do this all day, Stephanie. We can do
Speaker 1: this all day. Tom we can do this all day.
Speaker 1: Get in, or you can go with what I gave
Speaker 1: you and go in the strength you have. Somebody say it,
Speaker 1: I'm going in. I don't know what day had happened,
Speaker 1: I don't know what we could happen. I don't know
Speaker 1: what month had happened. But at some point I came
Speaker 1: to this in my spirit that as I preach God's
Speaker 1: word and teach God's word and put God's word in
Speaker 1: people's hearts. There may come a day where I fail.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've already had many of those days where
Speaker 1: I failed. I will have them anymore. I don't know
Speaker 1: the future of my life anymore than you know the
Speaker 1: future of your life. I don't know the future of
Speaker 1: this church anymore than you know the future of you
Speaker 1: ain't even decided where you're going to lunch yet today. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's don't pretend like you got it all mapped
Speaker 1: out either. What's the ten year plan for the minute?
Speaker 1: What's your ten minute plan? Let's talk about your ten
Speaker 1: minute plan. So God gave me a thought, and I
Speaker 1: say it a lot. It may, but I won't And
Speaker 1: specifically it goes like this. It may end in failure.
Speaker 1: I can't control that, but I will not live in fear.
Speaker 1: I don't know who this is for, but the Lord
Speaker 1: released me to share that with you. And that is
Speaker 1: from my own personal wine press. That's from the grapes
Speaker 1: of my own heart. That God has had to stump
Speaker 1: out a whole lot of insecurity to get me to
Speaker 1: a place where I can tell you you need to
Speaker 1: make a decision, Gideon, are you gonna live in fear?
Speaker 1: And I just decided, I'm gonna have moments of fear.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have days of fear. I'm gonna sometimes draw back,
Speaker 1: but I am not gonna live in it. I'm going in.
Speaker 1: I'm going in. I told Holly, I'm going to write
Speaker 1: a song today. She said, I hope you get something good.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I don't know if I will, but
Speaker 1: I know I want. If I don't go, let me
Speaker 1: give you a success rate on seeds that are not
Speaker 1: sown zero percent, one hundred percent mortality rate on unsown seeds.
Speaker 1: So I'm going in, but we don't. We don't go in.
Speaker 1: Watch what Gideon did. God said, go in the strength
Speaker 1: you have, and Gideon says something else Verse fifteen. He said,
Speaker 1: pardon me, We're still doing this. We could do this
Speaker 1: all day. You can make excuses all day. You can
Speaker 1: list reasons all day. You can talk about why you
Speaker 1: won't forgive all day. It'll make a wonderful book. Write it,
Speaker 1: sell it. I'll buy it. But at some point, at
Speaker 1: some point, you got to receive the power and make
Speaker 1: peace with the power that God has put inside of you.
Speaker 1: Because God is trying to give you permission to live again,
Speaker 1: to love again, to breathe again, to open your heart again,
Speaker 1: to trust again, to move again, to flow again, to
Speaker 1: see him move a mountain again, to walk through an
Speaker 1: open door, to believe him for better days ahead, to
Speaker 1: tell the devil that he's a liar. And I will
Speaker 1: not live in this wine press. I will not live
Speaker 1: in the wine press of why me? And why it didn't?
Speaker 1: But it's so amazing how he kept going back to
Speaker 1: this thing about what's happening outside. Pardon me, Gideon replied
Speaker 1: verse fifteen. But if the Lord is with us, why
Speaker 1: has all this happened to us? And then the Lord said,
Speaker 1: go in the strength that you have and save Israel
Speaker 1: out of Midian's hand? Am I not sending you God's
Speaker 1: like I? I thought it was me that you trusted,
Speaker 1: not them. And then Gideon says versus the pardon me.
Speaker 1: But how can I wait? Wait, wait, wait, how can
Speaker 1: I say this reel? My plan is the weakest in Manassa,
Speaker 1: and I am the least in my family. This is
Speaker 1: the wrong I am? God said? Am I not strong
Speaker 1: enough to do it? Am I not able? Am I
Speaker 1: not enough? Am I? Not God. Gideon's like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I am we Gideon. We can do this seven more years,
Speaker 1: or you can get up right now and go in.
Speaker 1: I'm going in. You gotta go in. Watch what happened.
Speaker 1: The Lord answered verse sixteen, I will be with you
Speaker 1: and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.
Speaker 1: And Gideon replied, if now I have found favor in
Speaker 1: your eyes, give me a sign. Oh, come on, like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't need one too. Some of y'all need to
Speaker 1: sign to join an e group. He was taken down
Speaker 1: a nation. Let's give it up for Gideon. At least
Speaker 1: he was honest. Oh Gideon, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1: I need a sign too. Angels don't show up and
Speaker 1: talk to me every day. Bro, I would need to
Speaker 1: know too before I'm gonna do this. Show me this
Speaker 1: use So watch what Gideon did. He said, please verse eighteen,
Speaker 1: do not go away until I come back and bring
Speaker 1: my offering and set it before you. And the Lord said,
Speaker 1: I will wait until you return. What a word? God said,
Speaker 1: I'll wait, Remember, the Bible said the Angel was sitting.
Speaker 1: He knew it would take a while. He knew it
Speaker 1: would take you to get in your thirties to learn this.
Speaker 1: He knew some of you'd have to be seventy six
Speaker 1: before you got it. He knew. So he's sacked and
Speaker 1: he waited and he spoke. So he sat and he waited,
Speaker 1: and watch what get In did next. Yeah, that baby
Speaker 1: is excited for a reason, because this is a good word.
Speaker 1: God said, I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting to see
Speaker 1: if you want to hide here the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting to see if you're going to arise and
Speaker 1: try again. I'm waiting to see if you're going to
Speaker 1: receive what I'm speaking. God is waiting. I'm waiting on God.
Speaker 1: He's waiting on you. He gave you a spirit, he
Speaker 1: gave you a son. He's done a lot. He said,
Speaker 1: I'll wait till you return. And Verse nineteen is the
Speaker 1: climax of this text, for it says that after Gideon
Speaker 1: asked his questions, after Gideon second guest himself, after Gideon
Speaker 1: told the angel, I can't do it, and the angel said, no, Dice,
Speaker 1: you gotta go with what you've got, the Bible says
Speaker 1: verse nineteen, get ready, Gideon went in, is somebody shot?
Speaker 1: I'm going in. I'm going in. Gideon went inside. Now
Speaker 1: to go inside the house, he had to come out
Speaker 1: of the wine press. So that means God is bringing
Speaker 1: you out of some things to bring you into some things.
Speaker 1: Help me, Holy Spirit, I only got four minutes left,
Speaker 1: and I don't think they're ready for this. Gideon went
Speaker 1: in and watch this, He went inside prepared a young goat.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, that's not only what Gideon did, That's
Speaker 1: what God is doing. I told you when I started
Speaker 1: my message that Gideon was one of the greatest of
Speaker 1: all time. That means he's a young goat. So when
Speaker 1: the Bible says that Gideon went in and prepared a
Speaker 1: young goat, it is nothing more than a picture of
Speaker 1: what God was doing in Gideon. Now, somebody shout, God
Speaker 1: is getting me ready for this. God is getting me
Speaker 1: ready for this. God is raising me up for this.
Speaker 1: God is strengthening me for this. God is breathing new
Speaker 1: wind into me for this. God is preparing me for this.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it coming, but God did. He's preparing you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a goat, the greatest of all time,
Speaker 1: the greatest, what the greatest me? God called me to
Speaker 1: be the greatest dad Elijah and Abby and Graham ever
Speaker 1: had the greatest husband. Holly ever laid her eyes on
Speaker 1: the greatest builder up of elevation Church that could stand
Speaker 1: in a puppet till I'm not no more, but I
Speaker 1: will not live in fear of what I'm not no
Speaker 1: I am. You gotta get this, Come on, you gotta
Speaker 1: get this. He's getting you ready. I know it's painful,
Speaker 1: but he's getting you ready. He's preparing you. He's preparing you.
Speaker 1: He's preparing you. He's preparing you. That's preparation. That thing
Speaker 1: that hurts you, that's preparation before they do surgery. They
Speaker 1: prepare you for surgery. God is working on your heart
Speaker 1: in this season. God is making you ready. In this season.
Speaker 1: God is unzipping everything that wasn't you so you can
Speaker 1: come out strong and worsip Him again and praise him
Speaker 1: again and thank him again. You're going in. You're going
Speaker 1: in with what you got, You're going in with who
Speaker 1: you are, and it's gonna be enough because He's with you,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna strike down every swarm, every locust. The
Speaker 1: lying on the inside of you is gonna roar like
Speaker 1: never before. God is getting you ready for this, for this,
Speaker 1: for this, I don't even know what it is yet,
Speaker 1: but God said, for this, his preparation for this, his
Speaker 1: preparation for this. It's an open door. Are you gonna
Speaker 1: go through it? You're gonna stand there looking at cracked windows?
Speaker 1: Or are you gonna walk through this door? This is
Speaker 1: a season He's strengthening you. It's not just your biceps,
Speaker 1: it's your belief. You gotta get it back. You gotta
Speaker 1: get it back. You gotta get it back. You gotta
Speaker 1: take hold of it. You got a gold kidion. God
Speaker 1: is able preparation. The pain is preparation. The pain is preparation.
Speaker 1: God is gonna multiply what you have left in this season.
Speaker 1: You are not left with nothing. Go in and we don't,
Speaker 1: we don't go. In this story about the young goat,
Speaker 1: you'll be seated a moment. It reminded me of another
Speaker 1: scripture that I saw in Luke fifteen. Gave me chills
Speaker 1: to think about this about another young goat, Another young goat.
Speaker 1: This young man he belonged to a very wealthy home,
Speaker 1: but he decided at one point to leave his father
Speaker 1: and see what life would be like outside. And he
Speaker 1: found out fast his heart out of here, his heart
Speaker 1: out under the Father's protection. Have you found that out lately,
Speaker 1: that your strength runs out? Talk to me Elevation, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian,
Speaker 1: Catholic Church. Talk to me and found out fast that
Speaker 1: where it comes from determines when it runs out. And
Speaker 1: get your strength from the wrong places. You won't have
Speaker 1: it when you show up for your purpose. That's why
Speaker 1: God is trying to give you his strength. But this
Speaker 1: young boy, Luke fifteen twenty eight. I asked him to
Speaker 1: prepare the scripture for the screen so we could close here.
Speaker 1: He finally came back home to his father, and his
Speaker 1: father threw a party, and then he had this older brother.
Speaker 1: So we got the young boy who ran away and
Speaker 1: came back, the older brother who represented the nation of Israel,
Speaker 1: who didn't want the gentiles to come into the kingdom.
Speaker 1: But Jesus is using a personal example, just like I
Speaker 1: am today, he said the older brother, when he saw
Speaker 1: his young brother come back, look what he did. He
Speaker 1: became angry and refused to go in. He didn't go in,
Speaker 1: and neither do we. Sometimes he refused to go in.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you go into the Father's house. Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you go into this next season of your life full
Speaker 1: of faith and confidence and hope. Why wouldn't you go in?
Speaker 1: Why didn't you sing today when we were singing because
Speaker 1: there were new songs. I didn't know them. They're not
Speaker 1: that easy to learn. Okay, okay, you have a point.
Speaker 1: But why are you even fighting what I'm saying right now?
Speaker 1: Why are you distracting yourself checking a stupid snap right
Speaker 1: now while I'm preaching a word that can set you free?
Speaker 1: Why don't you go in? What do you think you're
Speaker 1: gonna find if you do? I think sometimes we don't
Speaker 1: go into God's presence because we think we're not worthy.
Speaker 1: But that's what the blood of Jesus was for. So
Speaker 1: you can go in knowing God is me again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm not worthy, may man. We could give unworthy
Speaker 1: reasons all day here, but God did not ask you
Speaker 1: about that. He just said, what do you have? Now?
Speaker 1: Watch this? The older brother refused to go in, like
Speaker 1: so many of us, so his father went out. Oh,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't go in, So the father went out. Is
Speaker 1: this a picture of a God who will come down
Speaker 1: from heaven to die for a sinner and shed his
Speaker 1: blood for someone, oh send against him. Is this a
Speaker 1: picture of an angel who will speak into a wine press,
Speaker 1: of a god who will make your strength affect in weakness? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So his father went out and pleaded with him, and
Speaker 1: verse twenty nine says that he went back and forth
Speaker 1: with the father. Look, all these years I've enslaving for you.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna believe what it says. Yet. Next, and
Speaker 1: never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even
Speaker 1: a young goat. Can you believe that's in there? So
Speaker 1: Gideon goes in and gets a young goat and brings
Speaker 1: it to the angel, lays it down. Fire from heaven
Speaker 1: comes up, and he builds an altar, and he names
Speaker 1: the altar the Lord is Peace Jehovah Shalloh. But this boy,
Speaker 1: he said, thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus. That's all
Speaker 1: right with me. Go in, Go in. Well, that truth
Speaker 1: hiss you. You shouldn't be quiet. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be quiet in my church. Just don't come down here
Speaker 1: and tackle me. All right, touch somebody and say, do
Speaker 1: what you want. I'm going in. I'm going in. I'm
Speaker 1: going in because there's a celebration in my father's house,
Speaker 1: because there's strength in my father's house. Thank you. There's
Speaker 1: joy in my father's house. There's freedom in my father's house.
Speaker 1: There's forgiveness in my father's house. I'm going in. I'm
Speaker 1: going in. I will not die out here, I will
Speaker 1: not stay out here. I'm going in. I'm going in.
Speaker 1: So watch this, watch this. He said, you never gave
Speaker 1: me a young goat. Oh, I feel so bad for
Speaker 1: him that he never got to go. But you never
Speaker 1: gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with
Speaker 1: my friends. Verse thirty. Let's go. But when this son
Speaker 1: of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, comes home,
Speaker 1: you kill the fat and calf for him. And here
Speaker 1: is the word of the Lord. Stand up and receive it.
Speaker 1: Stand up and receive it for the father said to
Speaker 1: the older son what he said to the younger son,
Speaker 1: My son, you are always with me, and all that
Speaker 1: I have is yours. Lift your hands, the father says,
Speaker 1: all I have is yours. Now go with what you've
Speaker 1: got and be who I made you to be, and
Speaker 1: do it for my glory. And move in what I
Speaker 1: gave you, and flow in your anointing and bring me glory.
Speaker 1: For all I had is yours. I fit do all
Speaker 1: things through him. PLU gave me strength, lift up, a
Speaker 1: shot of praise and I hope you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: and if you did, make sure to share it and
Speaker 1: subscribe so we can get you all of these new
Speaker 1: messages as soon as they're available. I also want to
Speaker 1: take a moment and thank all of you who are
Speaker 1: a part of Elevation. Whether you support us financially, or
Speaker 1: serve with us, or just share these messages, it's because
Speaker 1: of you that we're able to reach people all around
Speaker 1: the world. And if you want more information on how
Speaker 1: to be a part of Elevation, click the link in
Speaker 1: the description. Thanks again for listening. Make sure to leave
Speaker 1: a review, share the message, and subscribe. God bless you.