Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Goodness, goodness, goodness. Thank y'all, Thank you so much. Please
Speaker 1: sit down. I have a couple of confessions to make
Speaker 1: before we dive into God's word. Ah love Elevation. I
Speaker 1: love this house. I really really love Pastor Steven, Pastor Holly.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, Holly, I had a message
Speaker 1: that was rhymed and everything prepared, and then I've been
Speaker 1: doing Holly is grateful for aid And the other day
Speaker 1: I just got wrecked by thinking of what I'm grateful for,
Speaker 1: and I realized one of my ates is grief. And
Speaker 1: I thought, what a weird thing to be grateful for grief.
Speaker 1: And I promise I have not been smoking anything medicinal.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds so counterintuitive when we come from
Speaker 1: this great time of worship to then just kind of
Speaker 1: dive into grief. But I realized grief for me and
Speaker 1: I'm in another season of grief. I lost somebody I
Speaker 1: loved very much a month ago yesterday, and I'm just
Speaker 1: in that place of I trust in God. And he answered,
Speaker 1: but he took a wild answer. And ye know, sometimes
Speaker 1: there's that gap between I trust in God and then
Speaker 1: you're waiting on an answer, waiting on an answer, waiting
Speaker 1: on answer. C. S. Lewis says, sometimes we don't get
Speaker 1: the answer that we're so desperate for. We get more
Speaker 1: of a no answer. He said, but it's not uncompassionates,
Speaker 1: as if God is saying peace child. You don't understand
Speaker 1: this because we see through the lens, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of blurry, and so it's your fault. It's not going
Speaker 1: to rhyme today because she wrecks me with just that
Speaker 1: focused on everything that filters through the hands of God
Speaker 1: is good. I love this house, deeply, deeply respect your leadership.
Speaker 1: I'm at an age and stage of life where I
Speaker 1: get discounts at fast food restaurants and I'm turning to
Speaker 1: sixty one next month. So I've lived a whole lot
Speaker 1: of life. So when I get to be around leaders
Speaker 1: like Chunks and Colleen Tunis and people who've stayed the
Speaker 1: course for a while I just so deeply respect that
Speaker 1: kind of longevity. If you're one of those people who
Speaker 1: gets bugged when people go on and on about how
Speaker 1: much they love Elevation, you're going to have to get
Speaker 1: over yourself this morning because I love the house. The
Speaker 1: first time I got to come here, I really thought
Speaker 1: they had messed up. I thought Chunks thought he was
Speaker 1: texting Lisa Turkhurst, and I just wasn't going to tell
Speaker 1: him any different. I was so excited about the fact
Speaker 1: that I got to come and I still feel like that.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like the shy girl, you know,
Speaker 1: with a you know, payless haircut, and I got invited
Speaker 1: to prom by the football quarterback. I love getting to
Speaker 1: come here. On the plane in Nashville, they delayed us,
Speaker 1: and I was like, if they tell me they are
Speaker 1: canceling in spite to Charlotte, I will get on my
Speaker 1: bike and ride here, which would have been difficult because
Speaker 1: it's a peloton, but still I would have attempted it.
Speaker 1: I love, love, love this house, and a couple of
Speaker 1: qualifications extra I'm a spitter, and y'all, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I get really excited when I'm talking about Jesus and
Speaker 1: I spew, So y'all are kind of going to get
Speaker 1: rebaptized if your presbyteria'll be cool, because it's a sprinkling.
Speaker 1: If you need a full dunking, it's not going to
Speaker 1: be that exciting. And then I might slightly wreck your
Speaker 1: Independence Day week because I want to start with a
Speaker 1: Fourth of July story, which is where I actually learned
Speaker 1: to grieve in a way that led me towards Jesus
Speaker 1: instead of into a place by myself. It's about fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago. It was Fourth of July week, and I
Speaker 1: was real excited. I love the Fourth of July. I
Speaker 1: get all the blinkies and the Sparkleys and the red,
Speaker 1: white and blue, and I was really really fired up.
Speaker 1: And I was also fired up because I was in
Speaker 1: a very serious romantic relationship with a really, really handsome,
Speaker 1: incredible man. And I guess enough time has passed that
Speaker 1: I can share his name publicly now. His name is
Speaker 1: Larry super fat liar pants and it was such a
Speaker 1: big fat liar. But anyway, we dated seriously for about
Speaker 1: and we were heading to what I thought was I
Speaker 1: was going to finally get to, you know, buy the
Speaker 1: white dress and get all the bride's maid's dresses. I
Speaker 1: was going to do a bush and I was so
Speaker 1: excited because I was almost forty and to get married
Speaker 1: at almost forty, I mean, spanks are going to be involved,
Speaker 1: but that's like exciting, that's a huge relief. And he
Speaker 1: ghosted me right before fourth of July, and I know,
Speaker 1: I know I should tell you it was real name,
Speaker 1: but anyway, he's married another girl but they divorced, so anyway,
Speaker 1: that was hateful and not fruit of the spirit. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to gratitude in just a second.
Speaker 1: Do not is faster? Stephen watching this. Hopefully he's just
Speaker 1: like being alone with the Lord and doesn't know what's
Speaker 1: happening in his church this morning. We're going to get
Speaker 1: to the Bible in just a second. But anyway, Larry
Speaker 1: Lyerpants ghosted me right before Jolly fourth and we were
Speaker 1: going to this big couple's sway and that I'd gotten
Speaker 1: a new output for It's gonna be so much fun.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I can't go with all
Speaker 1: the couples, you know, when I'm he just I'm not
Speaker 1: with him. That's like going to Krispy Kreme when you're
Speaker 1: on keto. I'm not going to do that. And so
Speaker 1: a friend called me and said, hey, if you're not
Speaker 1: going to go to that party, why don't you come
Speaker 1: over to my house because she was going through a
Speaker 1: real awful divorce and it was the first time she'd
Speaker 1: ever been without her kids. They were with their dad
Speaker 1: for Fourth of July, and she said, I kind of
Speaker 1: need a friend. And then a bunch of us are
Speaker 1: getting together for our own Fourth of July party, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh great, I'll be with all the
Speaker 1: sad single ladies with cats. So I thought, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to own this. And so I go over
Speaker 1: to her house and I thought, you know, she doesn't have,
Speaker 1: you know, her husband here anymore. Maybe I could actually
Speaker 1: help before the party. My dad was a contractor, I'm single,
Speaker 1: all kinds of power tools, and so I thought, I'll
Speaker 1: put in some shelving in her garage. That would help
Speaker 1: this nice girl who's a single mom and she's kind
Speaker 1: of sad like me. And so I put these shelves.
Speaker 1: I was putting them in her garage and I was
Speaker 1: way up high on the ladder and the ladder started
Speaker 1: to She had those bougie garage floors. They're real slick.
Speaker 1: And the ladder started to slide and I'm way up
Speaker 1: with this drill, and I thought, oh, shoot fire, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna fall. I can't there's nothing I can do. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't saidhoot fire if I wasn't in church. But so
Speaker 1: I start to slip and I look down and you
Speaker 1: know those tomato those swirly things people put tomato plants
Speaker 1: on the summer metal things. I look down and I
Speaker 1: see those, and the sharp part is up and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh shoot, I'm about to become a kebab.
Speaker 1: And so I was trying to you know how you're
Speaker 1: like swimming in the air because I knew it was
Speaker 1: going to hit the concrete. I just didn't want to
Speaker 1: hit the tomato spirals. So I'm kind of swimming well.
Speaker 1: When I did, my leg hooked under the ladder and
Speaker 1: I fell from twelve feet on the concrete and knocked
Speaker 1: myself out, and I cracked a tooth and lost a
Speaker 1: tooth right there, which is why I listp a little
Speaker 1: and broke my ankle, knocked myself out, knocked the tooth
Speaker 1: out of my head. She heard me fall, she comes
Speaker 1: running around. I promise this will get better. We're getting
Speaker 1: to the Bible and hope, so stay with me. And
Speaker 1: she comes running around while she was really alarmed that
Speaker 1: I was unconscious when she found me in a little
Speaker 1: bloody and so she calls somebody she knows who's the
Speaker 1: medical field, and they say she probably has a you know, concussion,
Speaker 1: so keep her up and ask her about the president
Speaker 1: of the year and all that. And so she kind
Speaker 1: of gets me on her couch and she's like, what's
Speaker 1: the year? And I'm like, like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: She keeps asking me historical questions. I've never really liked history.
Speaker 1: And then she comes back in like the fourth time,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking, I just need to go home, Like
Speaker 1: this has just been not at all the day I expected.
Speaker 1: I just need to go home. She comes running back in.
Speaker 1: I think she's going to ask me about the president,
Speaker 1: and she goes, Reeve's dead, and I was like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about. Well, a friend of mine when
Speaker 1: they had kids, he found out his kids were allergic
Speaker 1: to dogs, and so he said, can you keep one
Speaker 1: of my dogs. I'm finding a place for him. And
Speaker 1: he had a dog named Reba, because is why writes
Speaker 1: country songs. And she wrote a cut on Reba's record,
Speaker 1: so named the dog Riba. There's the worst dog in
Speaker 1: the history of time. But I love dogs and I
Speaker 1: felt sorry for this dog. Well, nobody wanted the dog,
Speaker 1: and I ended up having the dog forever, even though
Speaker 1: technically I was just keeping the dog for twelve years
Speaker 1: until he got somebody to adopt this dog. So I
Speaker 1: had several dogs, but also I had Riba and little tiny, red,
Speaker 1: fluffy dog. And while I was helping at this girl's house,
Speaker 1: I just put RIBA's leash on the fence because I
Speaker 1: was going to go for a run with Riba before
Speaker 1: the party. And when this girl named Kim took me
Speaker 1: under how she just wasn't thinking that this little dog
Speaker 1: the leash was still on the fence. And so when
Speaker 1: fireworks started going off and she's making sure I'm not dead,
Speaker 1: Rita but got all twisted up and Riba died, and
Speaker 1: I thought she was kidding me, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was this horrible, horrible joke. I'm like, that's just awful,
Speaker 1: and she was no. You know when people get nervous
Speaker 1: and they laugh because they're nervous, So I still couldn't
Speaker 1: tell she was punking me. She was like, no, he
Speaker 1: was dead, and I was like what, Like this is awful.
Speaker 1: I've lost my man, I've lost a tooth, I've broken you.
Speaker 1: Are you really tell him when my dog died? And
Speaker 1: then she went yeah, I put her in the freezer.
Speaker 1: I was like, you put her in the fresh star
Speaker 1: and she said, well it's hot, and I was afraid
Speaker 1: she'd stink and I've never dealt with the dead dog before,
Speaker 1: so yeah, she's in the freezer. And for a moment,
Speaker 1: I thought, this isn't my life. Like I was supposed
Speaker 1: to get married. I'd picked out the dress and as
Speaker 1: July the fourth, and supposed to be all sparkly, and
Speaker 1: now I've lost my man, I've lost my tooth, and
Speaker 1: my dog is in the freezer, and I thought this
Speaker 1: is not one of those I trust in God, And
Speaker 1: he answered moments this is I trust in God. And
Speaker 1: I feel like it's gotten me to a really bad
Speaker 1: place because now I can't even cuss because I trust
Speaker 1: in God and this is just hard and sad, and
Speaker 1: all I want to do is eat been in jerries
Speaker 1: and like, oh, this is terrible. Maybe even go to Netflix.
Speaker 1: I what happens when you trust in God? And you
Speaker 1: don't get the answer you want right then. I used
Speaker 1: to never talk about hard things like that. I never
Speaker 1: used to say when I was grieving, when I lost
Speaker 1: somebody I loved. I never talked about the gap between
Speaker 1: I trusting God any answers. Because I grew up in
Speaker 1: a stream of the church where it was just tacitly
Speaker 1: endorsed that you always wear a happy face. I thought
Speaker 1: that was somewhere in the Bible. I thought, if you
Speaker 1: were serious about your faith, you could not ever say
Speaker 1: you were having a hard day. I thought you just
Speaker 1: shoulders back, head up, big smile, hopefully a T shirt
Speaker 1: with a verse on it. Because I didn't think we
Speaker 1: were allowed as Christ followers to say I trust in God,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't answered yet. I trust in God, but
Speaker 1: I'm really sad right now. I thought I'm not allowed
Speaker 1: to do that. It'll be a bad witness, It'll hurt
Speaker 1: God's reputation. I used to beat myself up internally and
Speaker 1: just say, if you could just memorize a few more verses,
Speaker 1: if you could just muster up a little more faith,
Speaker 1: you'd be a more effective evangelist. Lisa, you can't say
Speaker 1: you're having a hard day. Somehow that negates the whole
Speaker 1: fact that he's a perfect God, that he's good God,
Speaker 1: that he never leaves us, and he never forsakes us.
Speaker 1: So I curated my emotions and I only brought the
Speaker 1: bright and shiny and the red, white and blue sparkly
Speaker 1: wines to church. And I never brought the black and blue.
Speaker 1: My heart is broken and my dog is dead. I
Speaker 1: didn't bring that to the family of faith. I just
Speaker 1: ached in isolation because I swallowed the lie that God
Speaker 1: is disappointed in us if we're sad. I thought sad
Speaker 1: was bad. You know, it took me a long, long
Speaker 1: long time to realize that our guy is so kind
Speaker 1: that never one time, never, one time, in this love
Speaker 1: story we call the Bible, does he say I want
Speaker 1: you to stuff the sad parts and only bring the
Speaker 1: bright and shiny to me. He never ever people do that.
Speaker 1: But our creator, Redeemer has never said I only want
Speaker 1: the positivity in you. He never says that. He says,
Speaker 1: bring me everything, bring me everything. If deep if deep
Speaker 1: fake was a sport, I was a world champion. Then
Speaker 1: I went to seminary the first go round, and I
Speaker 1: could wrap Greek and Hebrew around my deep fake, and
Speaker 1: when I got in a ditch between I trust in God,
Speaker 1: and it took a while for me to hear his answer. Man,
Speaker 1: I got stuck stuck in that ditch, and God did
Speaker 1: chastise me, and I didn't get a holy spanky, Uni
Speaker 1: said through Holy Spirit. When I was literally and emotionally
Speaker 1: flat on my face, he said, Lisa, you've been running
Speaker 1: so hard for so long that I had to put
Speaker 1: a lump under your rug, so big that it would
Speaker 1: cause you to trip. Because I love you so much
Speaker 1: and the pretense in you has caused offense between us,
Speaker 1: and I want all of you, and so I'm going
Speaker 1: to sit here with you in the dark until fear
Speaker 1: doesn't own you anymore, until you can bring all of
Speaker 1: you to all of me. So I still have deep ends.
Speaker 1: This July the fourth was a hard one too, because
Speaker 1: the only man I've ever trusted died, and he died
Speaker 1: way too young, and we really believe that he would
Speaker 1: be healed. So this July the fourth wasn't super bright
Speaker 1: and shiny either, But the presence of God in that
Speaker 1: place and the way grief has made his countenance a
Speaker 1: little clear. When we're sad, sometimes the veil gets a
Speaker 1: little thinnered, doesn't it, And His presence is just so
Speaker 1: palpable because we need it and we're more cognizant of
Speaker 1: the fact that we need God. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be Debbie Downer today. I'm just saying, as a people
Speaker 1: of God, sometimes I think we're missing this whole beautiful
Speaker 1: green pasture and the still water because we try to
Speaker 1: put on bright and shiny when we're in church or
Speaker 1: when we were other Christians, and sometimes even the world.
Speaker 1: We've got a world that is so sad and so broken,
Speaker 1: and we've become so irrelevant because we try to pretend
Speaker 1: like we aren't. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. We
Speaker 1: talk about how God is with us in the hard places,
Speaker 1: not that we don't have them anymore. And it's all
Speaker 1: throughout scripture. I don't know how I miss this. All
Speaker 1: throughout Scripture. We have story after story. You have story
Speaker 1: of people who were disappointed, people who were sad. Why
Speaker 1: do we think they are all bright and shiny and
Speaker 1: in leather pants. They're not. Every single one of the
Speaker 1: saints went through seasons where they lost their groove. Charles Spurgeon,
Speaker 1: who is my pretend theological boyfriend. I love Spurgeon, and
Speaker 1: I was so encouraged when I read the Spurgeon, one
Speaker 1: of the greatest saints we've ever experienced as a Christian
Speaker 1: people lived in the UK late eighteen hundreds, amazing communicator
Speaker 1: of the gospel. Hundreds of thousands got saved under Spurgeon's ministry.
Speaker 1: We're still reading his books. He's amazing. Spurgeon said, there
Speaker 1: are times when I feel like I'm living in a
Speaker 1: dungeon underneath a castle of despair. That's sad. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's like prozac kind of sad. Baby, that is carbo
Speaker 1: loading kind of said, I'm living in a dungeon underneath
Speaker 1: a castle of despair. One of the most effective evangelance
Speaker 1: the world has ever seen. And he said, I ache, y'all,
Speaker 1: we will all ache. Unless you have not gone through puberty,
Speaker 1: or you have amnesia, or you too are Larry or
Speaker 1: Larry at liar pants, we will all ate. Jesus didn't
Speaker 1: punk us. He didn't say everything's going to be perfect here.
Speaker 1: He said, in this world, you will have trouble. He said,
Speaker 1: take heart, take heart, take heart. I've overcome the world.
Speaker 1: And if you've listened to your pasture, I think we'll
Speaker 1: get to the place where we even become grateful for
Speaker 1: grief because we realize Oh. Usually revivals follow pits. Usually,
Speaker 1: if you'll look back over the trajectory of your walk
Speaker 1: of faith, you'll go Man, where I really grew wasn't
Speaker 1: a season of where everything was going well. It was
Speaker 1: a season where the bottom fell out of my world
Speaker 1: and I found God there. I still have deep ens.
Speaker 1: I'm just not afraid I'm gonna drown anymore. I brought
Speaker 1: a couple of multisyllabic theological words so those of you
Speaker 1: who are enneagram eights would feel like you got your
Speaker 1: money's worth in church today. I learned these in seminary,
Speaker 1: and I have sweat and blood in my doctoral programs.
Speaker 1: So the few long words I remember and I paid
Speaker 1: so much for, I want to humble brag about. But
Speaker 1: these actually are really pertinent when we talk about bringing
Speaker 1: all that we are to all of who God is.
Speaker 1: First word is orthodoxy, and orthodoxy comes from a Latin prefix,
Speaker 1: a Greek sorry prefix. Ortho means right. That's why you
Speaker 1: go to an orthopedis, because they're going to get your
Speaker 1: bones right. Ortho means right or correct, and dox refers
Speaker 1: to beef. Therefore, in the Christian context, and you'll hear
Speaker 1: orthodoxy as it applies to other things. But in the
Speaker 1: Christian context, for those of us who who love Jesus
Speaker 1: or stumbling towards Jesus, it means to have right beliefs
Speaker 1: about God. So if you are going to Elevation, if
Speaker 1: you're a member of Elevation, if you're Epham, if you're
Speaker 1: online from South Africa, if you believe what's being preached
Speaker 1: from this from this house every single week, what's being
Speaker 1: done the bands that our people are coming alongside to bless,
Speaker 1: then you have probably an orthodox Christian belief system that
Speaker 1: means your beliefs are grounded in scripture. Second word is orthopraxy. Ortho,
Speaker 1: of course, is that prefix that means write or correct.
Speaker 1: Practice means activity. Actually like practice better than practice because
Speaker 1: practice refers to your hearts in it, so it's not
Speaker 1: just duty. So orthopraxy is to have right actions in
Speaker 1: light of what you believe to be true about God.
Speaker 1: You still with me orthopraxy, don't take mental field trips yet.
Speaker 1: And then there's a third one, ortha pathy. So we've
Speaker 1: got right and then pathos in Greek refers to feelings
Speaker 1: or emotions, and y'all, this is where usually Christians have
Speaker 1: train wrecks, because so many of us, like me, have
Speaker 1: assumed there's part of what I feel that isn't congruent
Speaker 1: with what I believe to be true about God. How
Speaker 1: many of y'all heard a youth pastor when you're growing up,
Speaker 1: Usually their next were poking out their veins, were poking
Speaker 1: on their macs. I used to think I had to
Speaker 1: scream to be effective. I had a lot of youth
Speaker 1: pastors that slung their bibles and screamed, and so I
Speaker 1: started doing that. One time, Genesis fell out of my
Speaker 1: Bible chunks and hit a woman on the front row.
Speaker 1: It's wonder I wasn't sued. But I used to think
Speaker 1: to be effective, I had to scream pathos emotion. How
Speaker 1: many times have you heard of youth pastors say, please,
Speaker 1: is not a feeling? Any of y'all heard that? And
Speaker 1: so I thought, Ah, I got to be careful my feelings.
Speaker 1: I can only have, like you know, biblical feelings. I
Speaker 1: can't have sad. Sad is bad. That's where we have
Speaker 1: a train rag, because you can't have right beliefs about
Speaker 1: God and segregate your heart. Yes, faith is not a feeling,
Speaker 1: but we feel. In Genesis one twenty six and twenty seven,
Speaker 1: God said I made you in my image. So feelings
Speaker 1: aren't bad. They just have to be under the canopy
Speaker 1: of what we believe to be true about God. So
Speaker 1: to be sad isn't bad as a believer. It is
Speaker 1: nothing illegitimate about being sad. Where you go with that
Speaker 1: sorrow or that grief, or that disappointment, or that anngst
Speaker 1: or that anxiety, that's where we get illegitimate. But to
Speaker 1: have feelings or the pathy that's supposed to be congruent
Speaker 1: orthodoxy or theoproxy how we behave we don't say the
Speaker 1: things sometimes that are in our head about the Larry
Speaker 1: Liar pants in our lives, and then ortha pathy, those
Speaker 1: have to be congruent. I lost a little weight last
Speaker 1: year and I have a lot of hanging down parts
Speaker 1: now which are exciting, and so I was moving rocks
Speaker 1: in my yard recently, and I thought, you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen those big people on television who are trying to
Speaker 1: get in shape of throw tires, and so it would
Speaker 1: help me to just instead of move these rocks to
Speaker 1: hurl these rocks. And so I picked up this river
Speaker 1: rock that I needed to move to that garden. From
Speaker 1: this garden, I thought, I'm gonna chunk this puppy over
Speaker 1: my head. And when I tried to chunk it over
Speaker 1: my head, I heard this horrible rip and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: that that doesn't sound good. And so I waited for
Speaker 1: a while ago the doctor because I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm old school. I'm like, oh, take tylernand, don't be
Speaker 1: a baby. And after you know, a week of talan
Speaker 1: on dit coke, I was like, this hurts. And so
Speaker 1: I went to the doctor and after an MRI, he said, Lisa,
Speaker 1: I need to know how you did this, because I've
Speaker 1: been doing a surgery for twenty five years and I've
Speaker 1: only had one other woman who completely tore her bicep
Speaker 1: to her rotator cuff and her laborum and in one
Speaker 1: fell sweep. Only one other woman, and she was a
Speaker 1: professional athlete. And he said, so I need to know
Speaker 1: how you did this, and I said, well, I have
Speaker 1: these hanging down parts, and so I had to confess
Speaker 1: I was throwing rocks, and so he had to do
Speaker 1: this major surgery. And after the major surgery had to
Speaker 1: drill holes in my humorous because they had to, you know,
Speaker 1: reattach the bicep and running up through it looks like
Speaker 1: a toggle bolt. They run up through a hole in
Speaker 1: your in your bone and then plopping on the other side.
Speaker 1: And then one of the nerves got stuck in that
Speaker 1: bone hole and that was unpleasant. And he said, it's
Speaker 1: because nothing is aligned right anymore. He said, because your
Speaker 1: nerves and your muscular structure and your what's left of
Speaker 1: my muscles, and your joint it's not aligned the way
Speaker 1: it was. He's said, I'm not real sure what we
Speaker 1: can do. We can't go back in right now because
Speaker 1: it's hamburger meat. But he said, we just need everything
Speaker 1: to be aligned. And when he said that, I thought, oh, golly, jeepers.
Speaker 1: That so often has been my walk with God too.
Speaker 1: I get orthodoxy. I mean, I'm a student, baby, I
Speaker 1: want to have right beliefs about God. I want to
Speaker 1: put it on a bumper sticker on my car. Orthopraxy. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I grew up half Baptist, I'm baptocostel. We've got the
Speaker 1: activity baby, and it rhymes. I mean, I've got an
Speaker 1: across stick from my behavior orthopathy. Ooh ooh, hard for
Speaker 1: me to be honest about where I am because I'm
Speaker 1: afraid I'll be judged by other believers. And one scroll
Speaker 1: through social media and you know we're gifted at that.
Speaker 1: But then, more significantly, I wonder if God will be
Speaker 1: disappointed in me, if he'll go geez, Louis Lise. I mean,
Speaker 1: I sent my only begotten son. Wasn't that enough for you?
Speaker 1: And so I just sometimes feel so guilty if I
Speaker 1: don't go, no, it's a great day. He's a good
Speaker 1: God all the time. All the time. When I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm not really being honest about it. All the time,
Speaker 1: I just feel like I feel like there's something wildly
Speaker 1: wrong with me. And then I go to this love
Speaker 1: story and I'm so stinking grateful that these saints stumbled.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it bug you if they were all perfect and
Speaker 1: like Keito worked for them and they never ever had
Speaker 1: seasons where they said, I am stumbling today. They stumbled
Speaker 1: all the time, y'all. And God didn't kick him to
Speaker 1: the curb. He said, I'm actually going to give you
Speaker 1: more responsibility, because as you begin to understand, self reliance
Speaker 1: is not a spiritual gift. I can actually trust you
Speaker 1: with more now that you become more dependent on me.
Speaker 1: I'm not just your savior, I'm your sustainer. You need
Speaker 1: me every single moment of every single day. Don't ever
Speaker 1: cut the cord with Jesus. We need him to breathe,
Speaker 1: to live, to get up every morning. We've got it
Speaker 1: wrong in evangelical circles. We think atonement is just for salvation.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no. Atonement's three hundred and sixty degrees.
Speaker 1: It's every day today. He's making all things new. Open
Speaker 1: your Bibles to First Kings. You know this story, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna synopsize it. You've got a really, really good guy.
Speaker 1: He's a prophet. His name is Elijah, and they have
Speaker 1: this basically a super bowl between the good guys and
Speaker 1: the bad guys. There's a stinker of a king, and
Speaker 1: this king kind of says, okay. This is in verse
Speaker 1: seventeen a First Kings Chapter eighteen, when Ahab he's the
Speaker 1: bad king. When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him,
Speaker 1: is it you, you troubler of Israel? And he answered,
Speaker 1: I have not troubled Israel, but you have, you stinker liar,
Speaker 1: pens of a king and your father's house, because you
Speaker 1: have abandon the commandments of the Lord and followed the bales. Now, therefore,
Speaker 1: send and gather all Israel to be at Mount Carmel
Speaker 1: and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Bail and
Speaker 1: the four hundred prophets of Astra who eat at Jezebel's table.
Speaker 1: So basically, they're going to have this huge showdown between
Speaker 1: good and evil. And you've got eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: bad guys and you've got one lone faithful guy, Elijah.
Speaker 1: Most of y'all know this story, if you grew up
Speaker 1: like me, you've seen at flannel Graft And they meet
Speaker 1: on this pinnacle called Mount Carmel, and the bad guys
Speaker 1: called down their gods, little g gods, not real gods,
Speaker 1: Larry Liar pants gods. And they call them down and
Speaker 1: they say, come down, show yourself and consume the sacrifices
Speaker 1: these bulls we've prepared for you. And nothing happens, to
Speaker 1: the point that Elijah says, maybe your God needed a
Speaker 1: restroom break. It's a little more colorful than that in
Speaker 1: the Hebrew and people say the Bible's boring. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you're lazy. If you'd actually read the these stories, they're unstinkin' believable.
Speaker 1: Yellowstone's got nothing on scripture and says, then Elijah says,
Speaker 1: go get some water. They're in a drought. That in
Speaker 1: itself is a miracle. And they're like, Okay, we don't
Speaker 1: know where we're gonna get water. We'll go get water.
Speaker 1: They go get water, They bring it. They douse all
Speaker 1: the meat sacrifice, just to make the miracle kind of amplified.
Speaker 1: And then he says that's not enough water. Go get
Speaker 1: more water. They get more water. People are like, golly,
Speaker 1: he really is getting theatrical here. He says, for a
Speaker 1: third time in a drought, go get more water. They
Speaker 1: soak the sacrifice, and then he calls on the name
Speaker 1: of our God, the One True God, God, the Father God,
Speaker 1: the Son God, the Holy Spirit, and he comes down
Speaker 1: and he consumes not just the watery sacrifice, he consumes
Speaker 1: the boulders that the bulls are on top of. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's this unstinkin believable bic miracle. I mean it would
Speaker 1: have been all over ESPN, like every single day would
Speaker 1: have been a real that never went away. It was epic.
Speaker 1: Right after that unbelievable miracle where god Win. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how many worship songs that we would
Speaker 1: have from that one moment in redemptive history. Right after that,
Speaker 1: Elijah gets a text from this Houchi queen named Jezebel,
Speaker 1: and it's in the Bible. I promise. Ahab told Jezebel
Speaker 1: all that Elijah had done one kings nineteen verse one,
Speaker 1: and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
Speaker 1: Then Jesse sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may
Speaker 1: the gods do to me, and more also, if I
Speaker 1: do not make your life as the life of one
Speaker 1: of them by this time tomorrow, she's talking about the
Speaker 1: bad guys that were killed. Then Elijah was afraid, and
Speaker 1: he arose and ran for his life and came to
Speaker 1: bear Sheeba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there,
Speaker 1: not gonna camp out there. But y'all, Verse three is
Speaker 1: so important. He goes with somebody in his sphere, and
Speaker 1: then this is a massive mistake. He leaves him there
Speaker 1: and goes alone. Don't ache alone. Isolation one of the biggest,
Speaker 1: biggest lies of the enemy. If you are in grief,
Speaker 1: if you're sad, if you're just wanted, if you're mad
Speaker 1: right now, if you are secretly shaking your fist at God,
Speaker 1: don't do that in isolation. Find someone to go. I'm mad,
Speaker 1: I'm sad, I'm disappointed church it and doing it for
Speaker 1: mean before I feel like my prayers are hitting the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Find someone to go with you. Do not ache in isolation.
Speaker 1: Huge mistake. Not that he grieves, not that he's scared.
Speaker 1: The mistake is he does it alone. But he himself
Speaker 1: went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and
Speaker 1: sat down under a broom tree that's also called an
Speaker 1: acacia tree, little bitty spindley tree, like a scrub oak,
Speaker 1: and he asked that he might die. Y'all, this is
Speaker 1: on the heels of this massive miracle. People had gotten
Speaker 1: t shirts Elijah's epic. He's it, he was right, His
Speaker 1: God is the one true God, massive revival. And on
Speaker 1: the heels of that, he says, I don't even want
Speaker 1: to live anymore. It is enough now, o Lord, take
Speaker 1: away my life, for I'm no better than my father's.
Speaker 1: And he lay down and slept under that scrawny tree
Speaker 1: and behold, an angel touched him and said to him,
Speaker 1: you are such a loser. We're chasing another prophet. No, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what the Angel of the Lord did to
Speaker 1: this great sad man. He said, God wants you to
Speaker 1: take a nap, but he wants to make sure you
Speaker 1: have snacks first. How amazing is a god who doesn't
Speaker 1: forget snacks? Wow? Incredible is that he doesn't chastise Elijah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no reprimand he recognizes that we're human and he
Speaker 1: gives them rest, and he gives them sesstenance. What a
Speaker 1: good God. Why is it we are so hesitant to
Speaker 1: bring him our hurts when he envelops us and says,
Speaker 1: I know we don't get chastised, we get compassion. He's
Speaker 1: slow to anger, rich in compassion. Please don't be as
Speaker 1: dumb as me. Please don't wait until you're middle age
Speaker 1: to be honest with God. One of the reasons I
Speaker 1: think the church has lost its efficacy is the watching
Speaker 1: world sees us pretend and they think we're so sick
Speaker 1: of pretending. I'm so over holding in my stomach and
Speaker 1: using a filter, and y'all do it worse than we do.
Speaker 1: So your God must judge you the way other people
Speaker 1: judge me. No, he doesn't, No, he doesn't. He sees
Speaker 1: us through the righteousness of He's holy. Please hear me.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's Santa Claus. He is absolutely holy, transcendent,
Speaker 1: the only one who is perfectly transcendent. But he condescends
Speaker 1: to be close to us. He condescends to say, I
Speaker 1: want you to take a nap. Come to me, all
Speaker 1: you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say, if you're weary and heavy laden, that
Speaker 1: you have completely just ruined your testimony. He never won
Speaker 1: times says that. So you see Elijah in First Kings,
Speaker 1: and you see that to walk in divine power, which
Speaker 1: is what happens after he has snacks and rest. To
Speaker 1: walk and divine power presupposes a pit revival, pre supposes
Speaker 1: a time when we get stripped of our self reliance.
Speaker 1: Weakness presupposes strength, presupposes weakness. Why is it that we
Speaker 1: always try to hide that. It's because we're trying to
Speaker 1: be the hero. We aren't the hero, we aren't the answer,
Speaker 1: we aren't the good news Jesus is we're conduits, y'all.
Speaker 1: We are conduits, flip over a few pages to Psalm
Speaker 1: twenty two. Oh I love Psalm twenty two. We crossed
Speaker 1: itch Psalm twenty three, and we sing about Psalm twenty
Speaker 1: three because that's happy clappy and it's super inspirational. But
Speaker 1: Psalm twenty two the song. Remember all of the songs
Speaker 1: were originally written as songs so O andngs, so it's
Speaker 1: like God's Spotify list. And the song that precedes Psalm
Speaker 1: twenty three, the green Pastures and the steer Still waters
Speaker 1: and God is Our Shepherd. It's a blues tune. David
Speaker 1: wrote both of these songs, and David began Psalm twenty
Speaker 1: two right before Psalm twenty three. My God, My God,
Speaker 1: why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far
Speaker 1: from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh
Speaker 1: my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
Speaker 1: and by night I find no rest. I am poured
Speaker 1: out like water verse fourteen. And all my bones are
Speaker 1: out of a joint. My heart is like wax and
Speaker 1: has melted within my breast. My strength is dried up
Speaker 1: like a potterd and my tongue sticks to my jaws.
Speaker 1: You lay me in the dust of death for dogs
Speaker 1: encompass me. At least they're not in the freezer. A
Speaker 1: company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands
Speaker 1: and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare
Speaker 1: and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them.
Speaker 1: For my clothing, they cast lots. Now, scholars will tell
Speaker 1: you that Psalm twenty two it is christological and it's prophetic.
Speaker 1: This is nine hundred years before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: and it's a play by play of the crucifixion. But
Speaker 1: don't forget David is just like us. He's a divine
Speaker 1: condu for God's word. But he's just a man, and
Speaker 1: he's really really sad, and God says, bring it to me.
Speaker 1: I love that more of the psalms are sad than perky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got some amazing victory psalms in there. I love
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that comes out of this house
Speaker 1: that just makes me want to dance. I mean, rad
Speaker 1: ole goodness, it's gracious. But I also love psalms of
Speaker 1: lament because I go, that's what I'm feeling today, and
Speaker 1: that's not incongruent with believing he is a Good God.
Speaker 1: It's being human and recognizing I'm not Him, and today
Speaker 1: I can't carry the weight of my own life. Today,
Speaker 1: I need Jesus to carry me. Two other terms, formal
Speaker 1: theology and functional theology. Is what we can put in
Speaker 1: a church mission statement. It's what you can hang on
Speaker 1: the wall if you go to a formal church. It's
Speaker 1: what some of us have recited growing up. The Apostles
Speaker 1: Creed and I see Creed. Formal theology it's what we
Speaker 1: can state or write that we believe. It's awesome. I
Speaker 1: love the Creeds. I think we've thrown the baby out
Speaker 1: with the bathwater with some of the Creeds. I love
Speaker 1: the Creeds. Functional theology is how we live, and there's
Speaker 1: a gap between formal theology, between what we say we
Speaker 1: believe and functional theology. Why y'all can talk back because
Speaker 1: we're human. Because we're human. We're not glorified yet we're
Speaker 1: in the process of sanctification. So there are seasons when
Speaker 1: we have a really hard time walking out what we
Speaker 1: say we believe. In that gap between the two, it's
Speaker 1: a hotbed for hypocrisy. That's why the world goes you're
Speaker 1: all a bunch of deep fakers. Because you say you
Speaker 1: believe this, it's written on your web page. But actually
Speaker 1: I work with this guy, I work with this woman,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you what they're like. Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1: There's a gap, and there's a gap for all of us.
Speaker 1: And if you don't acknowledge the gap, if we don't
Speaker 1: act like our friends in the UK and mind the gap,
Speaker 1: then you too are Larry layer Pants. There is a
Speaker 1: gap for all of us. You know what makes the
Speaker 1: gap wider? Pretense? No, I'm fine, I'm fine. I've got
Speaker 1: it all together. I've got that gap. Makes the gap
Speaker 1: just gets bigger when we fake it, when we humbly go.
Speaker 1: I can't do this by myself. I know the theology.
Speaker 1: I went to school for theology. I can make the
Speaker 1: theology rhyme. But today I feel like I am barely
Speaker 1: hanging on. Today my heart is like wax. Gap gets mourning.
Speaker 1: Heartbreak actually narrows. Honest heartbreak when we bring it to
Speaker 1: the Lord actually nearros the gap between what we say
Speaker 1: we believe and how we respond to the world around us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need more Christians who say, let me tell you
Speaker 1: about the God who carried me when I couldn't carry
Speaker 1: the weight of my own life. That's not being a
Speaker 1: Debbie Downer. That's telling the world around us that he
Speaker 1: actually is who he says he is. If we act
Speaker 1: like we can do it by ourselves, what are we
Speaker 1: saying about Jesus. We're saying we don't need him. He
Speaker 1: is such a good guy. I've become grateful for grief.
Speaker 1: I don't know any other setting I could say that.
Speaker 1: In them with brothers and sisters. It's not the perky
Speaker 1: seasons when I've stayed on Quito and I'm we're in
Speaker 1: jeans of zippers. Those are not the seasons where I've
Speaker 1: needed God the most. The seasons where I've needed God
Speaker 1: the best have been the seasons where I can just
Speaker 1: barely breathe without Jesus. Last week, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go to church. I sat in the parking lot and
Speaker 1: I thought, I just don't want to go to church.
Speaker 1: I don't want to raise my hands. I don't want
Speaker 1: somebody to say God's good all the time. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: punch him in the throat. I mean, I do believe that.
Speaker 1: I believe He's good all the time. It's just right
Speaker 1: now my life feels anything but good and I am
Speaker 1: flipping sad, and he is in heaven and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: come back if he could, but I'm missing. What do
Speaker 1: I do with that? I bring it to Jesus because
Speaker 1: he's close to the broken hearted, and he's near to us,
Speaker 1: when our lives are crushed near to us, not disappointed
Speaker 1: with us, near to us, near to us, near to us.
Speaker 1: What grief have you been pretending like it doesn't hurt
Speaker 1: because you don't want to disappoint your small group or
Speaker 1: you don't think it's very singable. My parents divorced when
Speaker 1: I was really little, and it was really ugly, very
Speaker 1: acrimonious divorce with a lot of physical abuse, and so
Speaker 1: when my dad left us, I just kind of made
Speaker 1: a vow to my six year old self that I
Speaker 1: would never cry in front of my mother. She's already
Speaker 1: been through enough, so I just said that I was
Speaker 1: always going to be positive. Didn't have theology to wrap
Speaker 1: around it. Then I just had trauma. I will never
Speaker 1: ever ever cry in front of my mom, much less
Speaker 1: anybody else again. I'm just going to be positive. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to find the good, find the good, find
Speaker 1: the good. And I was able to live that way
Speaker 1: for I don't know. A year and a half and
Speaker 1: then something happened. I don't remember somebody took my bike,
Speaker 1: or another dog died. I don't remember what happened, but
Speaker 1: there was a deep hurt when I was about eight
Speaker 1: years old, and I didn't know where to go to cry,
Speaker 1: and so the only place I could think of where
Speaker 1: I could be alone and my mom wouldn't see me,
Speaker 1: was under my bed. And we were really poor, and
Speaker 1: we had those mattresses. Some of y'all don't even know
Speaker 1: a mattress used to come from a store, not from online.
Speaker 1: But they used to have springs, and we were so poor.
Speaker 1: The springs hung down real low, and so I crawled
Speaker 1: under my bed. The springs were right in my face,
Speaker 1: and I was just crying under my bed. I don't
Speaker 1: know how long I was under there, five ten minutes,
Speaker 1: and I hear my mom's voice and she had opened
Speaker 1: the back door because she was calling me in for
Speaker 1: dinner and I was usually outside playing. And I heard
Speaker 1: her say, Lisa, it's time to come in for dinner.
Speaker 1: And I didn't answer because I thought if I answer,
Speaker 1: she's going to know I'm under the bed. And then
Speaker 1: I heard the back door close, and I heard my
Speaker 1: mom walk toward where my room was. I don't know
Speaker 1: how I heard that because we had avocado green shagcar,
Speaker 1: but you know, you just sense your mom's getting closer.
Speaker 1: And she stopped in front of my door, and then
Speaker 1: she said, Lisa, honey, are you under the bed. And
Speaker 1: I didn't want to say yes because I thought, oh crud.
Speaker 1: You know, she's going to see him under here crying
Speaker 1: and it's going to compound her grief, and oh gosh,
Speaker 1: what do I do? But she had really instilled honesty
Speaker 1: in us, so when she asked it the second time,
Speaker 1: Lisa Hunting, are you under the bed? I said yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: And I expected to be chestised, or I expected to
Speaker 1: really mess up her day. But the next thing that
Speaker 1: happened is the dust ruffle lifted and there was my
Speaker 1: mom's face. My mom was a Southern bell. My apple
Speaker 1: fell pretty far from the tree. It was beautiful. You know,
Speaker 1: her hair was always done, I always had makeups, wearing pearls.
Speaker 1: And I saw her beautiful face and she realized what
Speaker 1: was happening under the bed, and I will never forget
Speaker 1: what my mom did next. She just stretched out her
Speaker 1: adult body and she scooched until she was right next
Speaker 1: to me under the bed. She didn't say a word,
Speaker 1: She just got right under the springs, right next to me.
Speaker 1: I could feel her all the way down my arm our.
Speaker 1: Bodies were just side by side, and she just laid
Speaker 1: under the bed with me. The presence of God doing
Speaker 1: difficult seasons becomes not just a gift, becomes the cornerstone
Speaker 1: of our faith because then when we sing I trust
Speaker 1: in God and He heard and He answered, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if there's a gap in between, because even when
Speaker 1: there's no words, we recognize presence. I want to ask
Speaker 1: y'all to stand up. Pastor's going to come wrap up
Speaker 1: this family meeting in a minute. And I know, y'all,
Speaker 1: I know that as a very grateful guest, I have
Speaker 1: not earned the right to be bossy. I have no
Speaker 1: authority in this house except what is generously loaned to
Speaker 1: me by Pastor Holly and Pastor Stephen. And so forgive
Speaker 1: me if this comes across as bossy. I am older
Speaker 1: than y'all, So I'll just be your auntie for a moment.
Speaker 1: If you are in a difficult season for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: nobody needs to know. Let's the Holy Spirit prompt you
Speaker 1: to share that part of your story. If you're in
Speaker 1: a difficult season, you're sad, you're in grief, you're mad,
Speaker 1: you're so stinking disappointed because you've done the right thing.
Speaker 1: You've tithed, and you're leading an Etham group and you're
Speaker 1: studying God's word, and right now your life has not
Speaker 1: at all turned out the way you hoped or prayed for.
Speaker 1: And because you're human, you're just stinking disappointed. You thought
Speaker 1: I was so so grateful for the presence of God.
Speaker 1: You're in that miscarriage. Surely this pregnancy will come to fruition,
Speaker 1: Surely there will be another baby, and instead you had
Speaker 1: an emotional miscarriage, and you think, I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: I know he's a good guy, but I just don't
Speaker 1: know how to wait until he answers again. Will you
Speaker 1: please sit down? If that's where you are today, just today,
Speaker 1: that's where you are. You're in a hard place. You
Speaker 1: feel like you're walking through wet and you're trying to
Speaker 1: keep your head up and you're trying to keep the
Speaker 1: smile on. But if you were in a safe place,
Speaker 1: you'd go I'm just tired and I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can carry the weight of my own wife well anymore.
Speaker 1: Will you just sit down? There's no shame in that. Actually,
Speaker 1: the fail is going to get thinner for you today
Speaker 1: if you honestly bring your heartbreak to the God who
Speaker 1: loves us more than we can ask or imagine. Just
Speaker 1: sit down. If you're in a hard place, there's some
Speaker 1: people over here who like me, you've been raised thinking.
Speaker 1: You can't let your guard down. If it's hard for
Speaker 1: you to season, please sit down. This is a safe,
Speaker 1: safe family to say I need somebody to pick up
Speaker 1: a corner of my mind and carry me to the
Speaker 1: roof and lower me to Jesus. If you have the
Speaker 1: gift the privilege of standing by one of those saints
Speaker 1: who's sitting down right now, let's actually do church. Let's
Speaker 1: not just talk about it. Let's be a community. I
Speaker 1: had a woman recently say Lisa, I pray for you
Speaker 1: every Tuesday at nine o'clock. And my first thought was, Man,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful somebody besides my mom prays for me
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. You know what My second thought was,
Speaker 1: what if I'm struggling on Wednesday? Let's not just put
Speaker 1: each other in our prayer journals. Let's pray right now.
Speaker 1: So those of y'all who have the gift of standing
Speaker 1: by one of these beautiful saints, one of these godly men,
Speaker 1: one of these brothers or sisters, would you just lay
Speaker 1: a hand on them. That's not a denominational thing, that's
Speaker 1: not an elevation tradition, that's a biblical thing. Just put
Speaker 1: your hand on their shoulders so they can feel the
Speaker 1: physical presence of somebody who loves Jesus, somebody who's not
Speaker 1: judging them, somebody who's not going to rip them later
Speaker 1: on social media, but somebody who goes. I know I've
Speaker 1: been there. He carried me too. And would you pray
Speaker 1: for each other? Those of you who are comfortable praying
Speaker 1: out loud, please do so. You don't have to pray
Speaker 1: anything fancy. You can actually just reiterate God's promise in
Speaker 1: Psalm thirty four. I am close to the broken hearted.
Speaker 1: I'm near to those whose lives feel crushed. This low
Speaker 1: point in your life, if you bring it to a
Speaker 1: Lord will lead you to a place of intimacy, a
Speaker 1: place of personal revival you probably haven't had the faith
Speaker 1: to carry quite yet. Lowering your pretense in the family
Speaker 1: of God. Yell, it makes for a safer family of God,
Speaker 1: those of you who are grieving. If the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: confirms this, would you be audacious enough to even right
Speaker 1: now say thank you God. I'm gonna choose to be
Speaker 1: grateful for this grief. I can't see around the corner
Speaker 1: of my circumstances yet, but I really do believe you'll answer,
Speaker 1: and I really do believe you're enough, and I really
Speaker 1: do believe you're close to the broken hearted. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna choose right now to say I'm gonna say thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't feel it yet, but I'm gonna say thank
Speaker 1: you for this grief because somehow, some way, You're going
Speaker 1: to use even this diad dog of a season to
Speaker 1: make me more dependent on you, to make me lean
Speaker 1: into my brothers and sisters more closely. You're going to
Speaker 1: build in me a heart of flesh instead of allowing
Speaker 1: me to hide my heart of stone. Oh, King Jesus,
Speaker 1: come and bring revival. King Jesus, come and bring me healing.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you God, that we can
Speaker 1: trust in you. We can trust in you, and you
Speaker 1: will answer. Help us in the no answer or Jesus,
Speaker 1: help us to keep our hands raised even when our
Speaker 1: hearts are broken, and trust that your presence never leaves us,
Speaker 1: even de're in the know. Answer kind of chapters. We
Speaker 1: love you, we need you. We cannot make it by ourselves. Jesus,
Speaker 1: you are a good God. You are a good God.
Speaker 1: Thank you that you define yourself as a man of sorrows.
Speaker 1: Thank you that you tell us you were prepared for
Speaker 1: the cross through pain. Thank you that you are not
Speaker 1: a stranger to hard seasons. Thank you that you are
Speaker 1: an empathetic high priest who says, bring it all, bring
Speaker 1: it all, bring it all to me. Don't just bring
Speaker 1: me the happy clappy parts, bring everything. I want to
Speaker 1: sit with you in every season, every moment of every season.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you God for your closeness.
Speaker 1: Thank you that your proximity has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: our performance, certainly not our pretense. Teach us what it
Speaker 1: is to be honest before you got and then honest
Speaker 1: with the people you allow us to rupt shoulders with.
Speaker 1: We love you, We love you, We love you, we
Speaker 1: love you, We need you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
Speaker 2: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 2: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 2: link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch
Speaker 2: dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
Speaker 2: enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it
Speaker 2: with your friends. You can click the share button, take
Speaker 2: us greenshot and share it on your social stories and
Speaker 2: tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
Speaker 2: bless you.