Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: It's so awkward how they let the beat run and
Speaker 1: you'll just look at me after the highlight video is over.
Speaker 1: By the way, my son made that beat. Do the
Speaker 1: dash on YouTube. Yes I'm his manager, and yes I'm
Speaker 1: going to take a cut when he gets to that level.
Speaker 1: I want to look at Matthew chapter six today, Matthew six,
Speaker 1: verse one through four from the sermon on the mounth
Speaker 1: that Jesus preached, and I want to get into a
Speaker 1: very deep topic. Don't worry about standing up in show today.
Speaker 1: You probably need to sit still for this one. But
Speaker 1: it's not bad. It's really good. But I just want
Speaker 1: you to receive it. You know, sometimes I worry that
Speaker 1: everywhere else you go in life, you're so focused on
Speaker 1: what you need to do, and you come into church
Speaker 1: with that same mindset. But in many ways, I want
Speaker 1: this time to be the one part of your week
Speaker 1: where you can receive. Now that doesn't mean you do
Speaker 1: it passively, because you get more out of it if
Speaker 1: you put something into it. But this message today comes
Speaker 1: from this general spirit of the age Zeitgeist, where it
Speaker 1: seems that our entire emphasis is on being seen. And
Speaker 1: you're going to see that phrase seen two times in
Speaker 1: this passage. But it's in direct contrast. And I want
Speaker 1: to do my best, with the help of the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: to illuminate or that God will illuminate exactly what we
Speaker 1: need to see today. And I trust that He will
Speaker 1: be careful. Verse one not to do your acts of
Speaker 1: righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do,
Speaker 1: you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Speaker 1: So when you give to the needy, and right there,
Speaker 1: you know most of us just heard the word give.
Speaker 1: This is not a scripture about money. This is a
Speaker 1: scripture about motives. He's using the vehicle of talking about
Speaker 1: money to get to the idea of what are your motives.
Speaker 1: And he says when you give to the needy, or
Speaker 1: when you pray, or when you fast. He uses three
Speaker 1: different examples in Matthew six. But when you are doing
Speaker 1: something significant, don't do it to be seen. Okay, when
Speaker 1: you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets,
Speaker 1: as the hypocrites do on Facebook. And did I read
Speaker 1: it wrong? I just got caught in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: a moment, but this is a this is a like
Speaker 1: thirty a D. So I'm off on my dates. Okay,
Speaker 1: do not do it like the hypocrites do in the
Speaker 1: synagogues and on the streets. To be honored by men.
Speaker 1: I tell you the truth. They have received their reward
Speaker 1: in full. But when you give to the needy, do
Speaker 1: not let your left hand know what your right hand
Speaker 1: is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.
Speaker 1: Then your father, who sees what is done in secret,
Speaker 1: will reward you. The title of this message is the
Speaker 1: Father Saw, The Father Saw. I want to pray one
Speaker 1: more time if you would join me. Lord, your word
Speaker 1: is powerful, and if I get out of the way,
Speaker 1: it will do work. So remove me. I know that
Speaker 1: it's my vocal chords right now, but I pray that
Speaker 1: the voice would come from heaven now. If their hearts
Speaker 1: are blocked by something that they are thinking about that
Speaker 1: is not in this room, I pray that every thought
Speaker 1: would be taken captive right now, so your word can
Speaker 1: go forth, feed your people. God, use me to do
Speaker 1: it in Jesus' name. Amen, this is my last service
Speaker 1: of the weekend. I preached three and I forgot to
Speaker 1: do this every other time, so I decided to do
Speaker 1: it upfront on this service. Now. It's really good that
Speaker 1: we saved it for last because my middle son, Graham,
Speaker 1: is a wrestler and he won two state championships. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well the first one that he won, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a what do you call it, like a
Speaker 1: junior state championship or something like that, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily like NCAA or something like that, but it was
Speaker 1: a big deal to us. And I remember on the
Speaker 1: way home from the first one that he won, because
Speaker 1: we were both kind of surprised that he won it.
Speaker 1: And when we sat down at Pizza Hut to celebrate,
Speaker 1: which is what every great parent does at any juncture
Speaker 1: of life, whether it's book it or a state championship,
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut is the answer. How many know that you
Speaker 1: store up for yourself treasures on earth, or you can
Speaker 1: enjoy treasures at pizza Hut. That's in Matthew Chapter six,
Speaker 1: verse twenty one through twenty three, and I said, man,
Speaker 1: it's so good. I got to be here for it.
Speaker 1: I said, imagine if I had missed it because it
Speaker 1: was on a weekend and I had scheduled someone else
Speaker 1: to preach so I could be there and watch it.
Speaker 1: And he said something back to me. It's one of
Speaker 1: those moments you live for as a parent. I said,
Speaker 1: what if I had missed it? He said, well, if
Speaker 1: you hadn't been there to watch, I probably wouldn't have won.
Speaker 1: Like it was written straight out of a script from
Speaker 1: Seventh Heaven, you know, like stuff your kid's never saying.
Speaker 1: My house usually is more like the Simpsons than Seventh Heaven.
Speaker 1: But this was at one moment and it took me
Speaker 1: back having that trophy to the year was nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: when I won first place. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you can get a close up of this. I never
Speaker 1: won a Grammy, but I won the Somerville Takedown Tournament.
Speaker 1: Come on, in the one hundred and ten weight pound
Speaker 1: division ninety three. If I need to tell you something,
Speaker 1: hold on. You might not want a clap yet. There
Speaker 1: were only two other people in the weight class, and
Speaker 1: they didn't give out trophies. So my dad on Christmas
Speaker 1: Day there was an awkwardly wrapped present under the tree.
Speaker 1: And my dad was not always the model father. He
Speaker 1: did his best, but my mom was always there telling
Speaker 1: him what he needed to do. And she said, get
Speaker 1: that boy a trophy and wrap it and write him
Speaker 1: an And I never forget what the note said is
Speaker 1: that here is the trophy that I watched you win
Speaker 1: that I think you deserve. So what do you do
Speaker 1: when the world doesn't give out trophies? This message is
Speaker 1: called the Father saw. Jesus makes a distinction in Matthew
Speaker 1: chapter six between what people see and what God sees.
Speaker 1: How many know there's a difference. And have you noticed
Speaker 1: that the world hands out trophies sometimes for all the
Speaker 1: wrong stuff? Y'all, Uncle, help me preach a bit today.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to do this by myself. The world
Speaker 1: will hand out trophies always for what is seen. But
Speaker 1: we have a God who celebrates the unseen. He is
Speaker 1: the king of a kingdom where what is unseen is
Speaker 1: often more important than what is seen. The unseen is
Speaker 1: often more important than the scene in the kingdom, but
Speaker 1: the world celebrates the scene, and so people will congratulate
Speaker 1: you for a new car, even though what they don't
Speaker 1: know is you can't afford the payments. And the world
Speaker 1: will celebrate you for getting a promotion. And it's good
Speaker 1: if you get a promotion. I pray you get every
Speaker 1: promotion God wants you to have this year. But people
Speaker 1: will never come up to you and congratulate you for peace. Hey,
Speaker 1: congratulations for your peace. They can't celebrate it because they
Speaker 1: can't see it, and you can't celebrate what you don't see.
Speaker 1: If you lose weight, people will celebrate you even if
Speaker 1: you put it back on and lose it again year. Look,
Speaker 1: if you really want people to celebrate you, let me
Speaker 1: give you a fool proof way. Every year, gain thirty
Speaker 1: pounds and lose it, and at least half of the
Speaker 1: year people will tell you how much better you look.
Speaker 1: But if you lose the weight and keep it off,
Speaker 1: nobody walks up to anybody and says you still look
Speaker 1: all right because they can't see that. So people don't
Speaker 1: celebrate consistency. Can I teach a little bit before I preach?
Speaker 1: One of the ways that I tell our staff that
Speaker 1: you can know you're getting good at your job is
Speaker 1: when people stop giving you compliments. In fact, one of
Speaker 1: the ways that you can tell you're a good parent
Speaker 1: is when your kids don't thank you for keeping the
Speaker 1: heat on. They just walk up to the refrigerator like
Speaker 1: stuff is supposed to be there. Am I right about her?
Speaker 1: If your child ever tells you, hey, thank you for
Speaker 1: indoor plumbing, that probably means you're not providing very well
Speaker 1: at this moment in time, and it needs to get better.
Speaker 1: And often the greatest proof that you're doing good in
Speaker 1: God's sight is that you are taken for granted in
Speaker 1: people's sight. And I know what I'm preaching about today
Speaker 1: because when I first started preaching, people would pinch my cheeks.
Speaker 1: I was seventeen years old and they would pinch my cheeks.
Speaker 1: Now I got this beard, and my cheeks aren't so
Speaker 1: soft to pinch anymore. And I figure that if I'm
Speaker 1: really doing my job preaching, you'll stop thinking about how
Speaker 1: good the preacher was, and you'll start being able to
Speaker 1: hear what God is saying to you. But now I
Speaker 1: need you to know that In Matthew chapter six, Jesus
Speaker 1: says that there is a tremendous temptation to do things
Speaker 1: to be seen by people and whether that means that
Speaker 1: we live our lives like a reality TV show through
Speaker 1: the vehicles of Instagram and Facebook, showing people certain scenes
Speaker 1: of our life that present an image that we would
Speaker 1: like them to think is really us, while secretly feeling
Speaker 1: lonely because the discrepancy between our real life and our
Speaker 1: projected life is becoming more distant, and that distance creates
Speaker 1: the illusion of feeling like an impostor. Even though you
Speaker 1: are doing the best that you can, you are showing
Speaker 1: something that is better than what you are, and so
Speaker 1: people will congratulate what they think you are, but secretly
Speaker 1: who you are is dying inside because nobody sees it.
Speaker 1: And I'm preaching this whole series because our need to
Speaker 1: be seen by others can keep us from being known
Speaker 1: by God. I don't mean that God doesn't know you.
Speaker 1: He knows everything about you. He's the only one who does.
Speaker 1: But we see the contrast in Matthew Chapter six, Let's
Speaker 1: look at it again. He says, be careful when you
Speaker 1: do what you do that you don't do it to
Speaker 1: be seen. How many things in my life am I
Speaker 1: doing to be seen? There is no worse feeling than
Speaker 1: that of invisibility. You know, when you are doing your
Speaker 1: very best and it goes unrecognized, it makes it kind
Speaker 1: of harder to want to keep doing it. And when
Speaker 1: you feel unseen, especially by the people whose attention and
Speaker 1: approval you crave the most, it can create a compulsion
Speaker 1: in your life to start doing things that are not
Speaker 1: even really consistent with your character in order to receive
Speaker 1: from people a confirmation that can be taken away just
Speaker 1: as easily as it was given. But we are not
Speaker 1: citizens of this kingdom, which celebrates and compliments all the
Speaker 1: things that are seen. We are citizens of the kingdom
Speaker 1: where Jesus has things like this. When you do something
Speaker 1: in secret, your father sees it, and he will reward
Speaker 1: you according to what he sees. So my message is,
Speaker 1: if you have felt unappreciated, uncelebrated, unnoticed, and insignificant in
Speaker 1: this kingdom, what is unseen is often what is most significant.
Speaker 1: Now not in the world. In the world, we we
Speaker 1: correlate scene with significant. But I'll tell you what. You
Speaker 1: could take this pulpit away and I could still preach
Speaker 1: my sermon because I really don't need my notes. They're
Speaker 1: just like Linus's blankets, just like a security thing for me.
Speaker 1: I really have the message in my heart. So you
Speaker 1: could take this away and I could still preach. But
Speaker 1: if the signal that's causing this microphone to make a
Speaker 1: sound were to drop out, you could no longer hear
Speaker 1: the message. Why because what is invisible is often what
Speaker 1: is most valuable. And yet can I keep going. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it, whether you want me to or not.
Speaker 1: I got you now, Whether we will admit it or not,
Speaker 1: we are so good at celebrating the wrong stuff. People
Speaker 1: will always, especially the crowd, give us rabbits. The crowd
Speaker 1: will always celebrate the wrong thing. People will always celebrate
Speaker 1: what they can see. And another thing that people will
Speaker 1: always do is celebrate a gift rather than celebrating character.
Speaker 1: We celebrate the wrong stuff. Now, if you do it
Speaker 1: in secret, and this could refer to anything in your life.
Speaker 1: If you do, if you do what you do according
Speaker 1: to your values, not according to external validation, then you
Speaker 1: understand the meaning of the Father. Saw the sacrifices that
Speaker 1: you made that no one else really pointed out, the stuff,
Speaker 1: Nobody gave you a trophy for. What would it be
Speaker 1: like this year for us to live with God as
Speaker 1: our audience and not our dysfunctional friends and family members
Speaker 1: who are secretly so caught up in their own crap
Speaker 1: that they can't celebrate us because they're waiting for us
Speaker 1: to celebrate them. Now. I struggle with this because it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to live my life for an invisible audience.
Speaker 1: And they used to sing a song in the children's
Speaker 1: church where I grew up that said, be careful, little eyes,
Speaker 1: what you see? Did you all have this song in
Speaker 1: children's church? Be careful, little ears, what you hear? The
Speaker 1: creepiest children's Bible song ever for the father up above
Speaker 1: is looking down with love. It's like this doesn't feel
Speaker 1: very loving. This steals invasive. Okay, so you remember the song.
Speaker 1: Every move I'm made, every breath take, I'll be watching you.
Speaker 1: It was like the beat was so good to the song.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it's a stalker. But he said, your father,
Speaker 1: who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Speaker 1: Say this out loud, my reward. Y'all can't mumble this part.
Speaker 1: Y'all are so loud about the wrong stuff. Get loud
Speaker 1: about this shot us say my reward is from the
Speaker 1: Lord touch. Somebody say I don't need a trophy. I
Speaker 1: don't need a trophy. I don't need a trophy for
Speaker 1: everybody who was not appreciated, for everybody who was not celebrated,
Speaker 1: for everybody who was unwanted, even abandoned. I want you
Speaker 1: to know your father saw who left you, He saw
Speaker 1: who should have been there. And when my father and
Speaker 1: mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me off.
Speaker 1: My father saw when people mistreated me, and I could
Speaker 1: have got even, but I put it in his hands.
Speaker 1: He saw it, and my reward is with the Lord.
Speaker 1: Ten seconds to celebrate the presence of God in your life.
Speaker 1: Come on from the front to the back, nephews Toakaston,
Speaker 1: give him praise if you know he was watching. So
Speaker 1: how good are you at celebrating the unseen? Do you
Speaker 1: celebrate those moments in your life where God is making
Speaker 1: you stronger but your biceps aren't getting bigger. People will
Speaker 1: celebrate your biceps. Oh man, you go tickets to give
Speaker 1: you the ticket to the gun show. People have fifty
Speaker 1: thousand cliches to compliment your because people celebrate what they see.
Speaker 1: But nobody ever came up to me and said, hey man,
Speaker 1: your contentment is like gains bro and we all know
Speaker 1: which is more valuable. But we live in a world
Speaker 1: where what is visible is celebrated more than what's valuable.
Speaker 1: So if you move toward the clap of the crowd,
Speaker 1: they will lead you right off the cliff. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stop right here, but you see the illustration. If I
Speaker 1: keep following that clap, where am I going to end up?
Speaker 1: If you keep chasing clout right now, what's it going
Speaker 1: to be like when the people that you live to
Speaker 1: please are no longer even paying attention. Your friend might
Speaker 1: move to Alabama. Now the person that was your whole
Speaker 1: soul source for affirmation is gone to another nation, I
Speaker 1: mean state. And the Lord said to tell you that
Speaker 1: he saw it. Now, we don't need to be afraid.
Speaker 1: This is not a verse about retribution. You know your
Speaker 1: father who sees what is done in secret. Some people
Speaker 1: hear that like a threat. And when I said that
Speaker 1: your father sees what is done in secret, you were like,
Speaker 1: oh God, oh no, that's the worst news I heard
Speaker 1: all day. He's not speaking about punishment, he's speaking about reward.
Speaker 1: He's trying to get us to see that we're seeing
Speaker 1: whether people do or not. Okay, I get it, Pastor,
Speaker 1: he sees me I get it, Do you really? Or
Speaker 1: are you still buying stuff? Are you still giving away things?
Speaker 1: Are you still One thing that I've learned is we
Speaker 1: don't graduate from our need to be approved by people
Speaker 1: when we graduate high school. We still live for approval.
Speaker 1: It just gets more expensive. I can't preach it any
Speaker 1: harder than this. I dressed like a highlighter and everything
Speaker 1: so y'all can see me today. And when God gave
Speaker 1: me this message, he said, call it the father saw
Speaker 1: the father saw, because they thought nobody saw, but I did.
Speaker 1: And since you can't see the father visibly or hear
Speaker 1: the father audibly, I want to deliver the message today
Speaker 1: that he saw. He saw what you didn't get. He
Speaker 1: saw that integrity that you had. He saw when you
Speaker 1: didn't go off Now Wednesday you did, but then Thursday
Speaker 1: you got it together and you didn't do it again.
Speaker 1: So see, we got to celebrate the times where we
Speaker 1: do get it right now, I'm bad at this. Stand up.
Speaker 1: If you're like me and you have a hard time
Speaker 1: celebrating your successes. Stand up if you're like me and
Speaker 1: you have a heart time celebrating your successes. Stand up
Speaker 1: if you let me have a hard time celebrating your successes.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a moment. Since we're so hard
Speaker 1: on ourselves and we have a hard time celebrating ourselves
Speaker 1: on every location, let's celebrate the fact that we had
Speaker 1: the self awareness to stand up and know that we're
Speaker 1: hard on ourselves. See how weak that was, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not clapping for that. Sit down, I gotta work on
Speaker 1: y'all for a minute. We are so bad at this.
Speaker 1: Me and Holly went on a hike to Crowder's Mountain Friday,
Speaker 1: and while I was busy beating the imaginary opponent to
Speaker 1: the top of the hill, I was thirty steps ahead
Speaker 1: of her and she was looking at the view. She said,
Speaker 1: she said, I said you. I said you need to
Speaker 1: keep up. She said, you need to slow down. The
Speaker 1: views getting good, and I was like, I know it.
Speaker 1: But she was talking about the the landscape, and I
Speaker 1: realized it was an analogy for what she brings to
Speaker 1: my life that is so irreplaceable. Holly is great at
Speaker 1: celebrating herself. She really is. She does not need lessons
Speaker 1: in this. She came downstairs the other day celebrating her
Speaker 1: workouts and that she had, you know, made it to
Speaker 1: a certain point in her workouts, and I'm the kind
Speaker 1: of person that you know, I'll do the workout and
Speaker 1: then think about the fact that you know, somebody else
Speaker 1: could have lifted more, and I'll just do this all
Speaker 1: the time. Really, I struggled to celebrate myself, and I
Speaker 1: used to think that was godly, because, after all, the
Speaker 1: Bible says, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.
Speaker 1: You notice people who quote that verse are never really
Speaker 1: that humble, and they don't even know what verse it is.
Speaker 1: The next time somebody quotes the Bible verse that you
Speaker 1: to beat you over the head with it, ask them
Speaker 1: what chapter and verse, ninety nine percent chance they'll shut up.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about pride. I'm talking about process and
Speaker 1: progress and being able to say, in certain moments of
Speaker 1: your life, nobody else saw it, but the Father saw. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you're going to be waiting for people to give you
Speaker 1: trophies that don't even exist. Oh, by the way, if
Speaker 1: they gave the trophy real quick example, they can take
Speaker 1: it back. They can change their mind about you. So
Speaker 1: I have to get calibrated. I feel annointed to preach today.
Speaker 1: Is it just me? I feel annointed to get us
Speaker 1: set free? Watch this. We talk about getting set and
Speaker 1: free from sin and shame. We need to get set
Speaker 1: free from people. Not that we don't care about them,
Speaker 1: but we can't be controlled by them. I can't even
Speaker 1: let you control this message, because what if the best
Speaker 1: thing I say is the thing you're not ready to hear.
Speaker 1: What if you don't like the taste of the medicine,
Speaker 1: I gotta mash it up in the apple sauce and
Speaker 1: give it to you anyway, because I cannot be controlled
Speaker 1: by a crowd and deliver God's word. Now, you cannot
Speaker 1: be controlled by a cultural ideal of success and really
Speaker 1: receive the affirmation that comes from God alone. And today
Speaker 1: is the day for somebody that you get a different audience,
Speaker 1: not the audience that is external, because they will always
Speaker 1: clap for what is visible. But if you know you
Speaker 1: have a God on the inside of you that is
Speaker 1: the treasured possession of your life and the strength of
Speaker 1: your soul, give in praise right now and celebrate his
Speaker 1: presence in your life that if you don't have anything else,
Speaker 1: you've got him and he is enough. Y'all do what
Speaker 1: you wanna do. I'm gonna take twenty seconds and celebrate
Speaker 1: that word. Thank you Lord for loving me. Thank you
Speaker 1: Lord for choosing me. Thank you Lord for keeping me.
Speaker 1: Thank you Lord for forgiving me. Thank you that you
Speaker 1: didn't just see my mistakes, but you saw my potential.
Speaker 1: The father saw, The father saw, He saw the tears
Speaker 1: you cried while you were waiting because you wouldn't compromise
Speaker 1: just to fit in. The father saw, the father saw.
Speaker 1: And so when we when we celebrate the unseen, write
Speaker 1: that down on your page. Celebrate the unseen, because what
Speaker 1: is most seen is not always what's most significant. You know,
Speaker 1: the devil can't defeat you, right, He's a defeated foe.
Speaker 1: Now if it were you against him and be like
Speaker 1: Connor McGregor, you know, be over in forty seconds. But
Speaker 1: did y'all see that I need my money back? That
Speaker 1: was sixty dollars for forty seconds of fighting. If I
Speaker 1: do the math on that, and I can't do it
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, that's a very expensive
Speaker 1: dose of violence that I purchased last night on the
Speaker 1: UFC fight. If you'll know what I'm talking about, don't worry.
Speaker 1: I was praying. But when we say that that that
Speaker 1: the devil, you know, the devil is doing this and
Speaker 1: that in my life. There's only two things he can do.
Speaker 1: He can't defeat you the Cross of Jesus. Christ defeated
Speaker 1: the devil once and for all. He is a defeated foe.
Speaker 1: You don't run from him. He runs from you. You
Speaker 1: resist him, and he flees. But and this is really important,
Speaker 1: because this is where it happens before I take you
Speaker 1: over and into this next section of the teaching. Understand
Speaker 1: that since he can't defeat you, he will always try
Speaker 1: to distract you or discourage you. Because he can't defeat you,
Speaker 1: because greater is He that is in you than he
Speaker 1: that is in the world. Now, he can't defeat you,
Speaker 1: but he can distract you. Distract you with what others
Speaker 1: are doing. He could distract me as a pastor with
Speaker 1: how other churches reach people. He could distract me as
Speaker 1: a man of how other parents are raising their family.
Speaker 1: And certainly I can learn from that. But if I
Speaker 1: get so distracted by how you're doing it, I might
Speaker 1: miss the uniqueness of how God made me to do it,
Speaker 1: and then I become discouraged, distracted and discouraged. He wants
Speaker 1: to distract you so you crash, or discourage you so
Speaker 1: you quit. This message finds many of us distracted and discouraged.
Speaker 1: And when we come to this point, it is the
Speaker 1: revelation that the Father saw that enables us to get
Speaker 1: our focus back. You cannot preach a message like this
Speaker 1: about the unseen celebration without at least bringing up the
Speaker 1: parable of the prodigal son. I don't think the message
Speaker 1: would be complete without Luke fifteen. For Jesus, it was
Speaker 1: difficult to get the people to perceive what he was
Speaker 1: saying when he preached sermons. So he would preach on
Speaker 1: the kingdom of having blessed, are the porn spirit for
Speaker 1: their kingdom, of having blessed and meet for them inherit
Speaker 1: the earth, blessed those more of the to bless those
Speaker 1: who hunger, thirst rusts. They'd be feel blessed peacemakers. They
Speaker 1: be called chidren of God. He would teach about the kingdom.
Speaker 1: It was a very different kind of kingdom. It was
Speaker 1: an invisible kingdom. It was an unseen kingdom. But he
Speaker 1: would use these things called parables. How many of you
Speaker 1: have heard of parables? Yeah, you've heard of them. But
Speaker 1: Jesus is the one who created that format of teaching
Speaker 1: or adopted it and elevated it to his highest level
Speaker 1: to show us what something looks like that we can't
Speaker 1: see with our eyes. So he would take something that
Speaker 1: we can see and use it to illustrate something that
Speaker 1: we can't see, in order to help us to understand
Speaker 1: that what is unseen is often more real than what
Speaker 1: is seen. So a lot of times, the things that
Speaker 1: you can't measure are the things that are actually that
Speaker 1: actually matter the most. Right, joy matters more than money.
Speaker 1: I promise you, it does. I promise you it does.
Speaker 1: I'm not rich enough to know this, but I do
Speaker 1: know some people who have everything and nothing simultaneously, because
Speaker 1: if you can't enjoy it, why have it? So what
Speaker 1: is unseen is more important than what is seen. You
Speaker 1: can see the boat, but you can't see the fact
Speaker 1: that the people riding on it don't even like each other.
Speaker 1: What is unseen is more important than what is seen.
Speaker 1: This is the principle of the kingdom, the kingdom of God,
Speaker 1: not the kingdom of the world. The kingdoms of this
Speaker 1: world clapp for what they can see. Oh you got followers, Ah,
Speaker 1: you got status, Ah, you got a BMW. All of
Speaker 1: that is fine, But I want to know what's happening,
Speaker 1: not under the hood of your car, but in the
Speaker 1: interior of your soul. Do you have something that can't
Speaker 1: be taken away? Now? Jesus' most famous parable was about
Speaker 1: a son who went to his father and took his
Speaker 1: share of the inheritance before his father died, and Jesus
Speaker 1: was illustrating two different things in this parable. The first
Speaker 1: one was about the father and the second thing was
Speaker 1: about us. And I want to read it to you.
Speaker 1: I'll read it not in its entirety, but enough where
Speaker 1: you get a sense, because it's very powerful to see
Speaker 1: what the father saw. You know, we often preach this
Speaker 1: passage just to talk about how this young man in
Speaker 1: the passage is, as you'll see, making some bad decisions,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about how no matter what you've done,
Speaker 1: you can always come home to God. And all of
Speaker 1: that is true. I hope you know that that in
Speaker 1: this kingdom you're always welcome. The times where you feel
Speaker 1: like you deserve God the least are the times when
Speaker 1: you need his presence the most. It's so important you
Speaker 1: pray when you're struggling, not just when you feel like
Speaker 1: you're on top of it. Is so important that if
Speaker 1: you struggle with an addiction that you pray even while
Speaker 1: you're drunk, even while you're high. You need to pray
Speaker 1: even when you're in the middle of it, because he's
Speaker 1: the god of the mountain and the god of the valley.
Speaker 1: But the primary point of this passage is not about
Speaker 1: what the son did. It's about what the father saw.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is teaching about this concept of the outcast
Speaker 1: being welcomed into his kingdom. And he continued in verse eleven.
Speaker 1: There was a man who had two sons. The younger
Speaker 1: one said to his father, father, give me my share
Speaker 1: of the estate. So he divided his property between them.
Speaker 1: I never noticed the word them, but it means that
Speaker 1: both brothers got their share. And you know what else.
Speaker 1: The older one got more by Jewish law, he got
Speaker 1: two thirds of the estate. Younger brother got a third.
Speaker 1: Which one's more two thirds or one third? Your kid,
Speaker 1: I know we went to public school. But come on, now,
Speaker 1: the older brother got more. But I want you to
Speaker 1: notice that the younger brother left. Says that he set out,
Speaker 1: got together all he had Verse thirteen, set out for
Speaker 1: a distant country, and there squandered his wealth. And while
Speaker 1: living after he spent everything. There was a severe famine
Speaker 1: in that whole country, and he began to be in need,
Speaker 1: so he went and hired himself out to a citizen
Speaker 1: of that country. I need those of you who really
Speaker 1: know God to pray for someone who needs to hear
Speaker 1: this next part, because it's just where they are. He
Speaker 1: hired himself out to a citizen of that country who
Speaker 1: sent him to his fields to feed pigs, and it
Speaker 1: got so bad for him when he got disconnected from
Speaker 1: what his father's resource had made available to him. He
Speaker 1: had the seene resources of his father, but he no
Speaker 1: longer had the unseen reality of his relationship to him,
Speaker 1: and he longed to fill his stomach with the pods
Speaker 1: that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
Speaker 1: He's waiting for something to be given to him by
Speaker 1: people that only his father has. So he's eating what
Speaker 1: the pigs eat. He's feeding off of what the world
Speaker 1: feeds off of. He's scrolling and clicking and liking and
Speaker 1: deleting and filtering and cropping and snapping and clicking and
Speaker 1: liking and loving and clicking and checking and subscribing and
Speaker 1: unsubscribing and everything that is in his feed is only
Speaker 1: making him more hungry. What people are most likely to
Speaker 1: celebrate is often what is least likely to satisfy. And
Speaker 1: while he was in this starved state, the Bible says
Speaker 1: that verse seventeen, he came to his senses. He's waiting
Speaker 1: for something to be given that he had all along.
Speaker 1: And he came to the point that I'm praying we
Speaker 1: come to during this series where we realize that they
Speaker 1: can't give it. It can never come from outside. It
Speaker 1: has to come from within. Do you hear me preaching
Speaker 1: to you today. It has to come from within. It
Speaker 1: has to come from spirit, It has to come from source.
Speaker 1: It has to come from Father. It cannot come from
Speaker 1: your friends. Your friends can be a conduit, but they
Speaker 1: cannot be the sole content of what your soul receives.
Speaker 1: And if they give it, they can take it. But
Speaker 1: when he came to his senses, he realized something. My
Speaker 1: father has what I'm hungry for. My father has what
Speaker 1: I'm starving for. Look here we have church what the
Speaker 1: world needs. But if we act like the world acts
Speaker 1: and chase what the world says, we cannot celebrate the
Speaker 1: fullness of what we've been given. He said, my father's
Speaker 1: minimum wage employees are better off than I am. They're
Speaker 1: throwing food away and I'm begging for scraps. So the
Speaker 1: Bible says, because he was hungry. You know it is
Speaker 1: good when you get hungry. Blessed are those who hunger
Speaker 1: and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. But
Speaker 1: the wrong appetites can never be satisfied. And when you
Speaker 1: are starving for status, you will stuff your soul with
Speaker 1: what can never satiate the true need. But he got
Speaker 1: up and he decided, I don't have to live like this.
Speaker 1: I don't have to chase this. I don't have to
Speaker 1: beg for it. I don't have to wait for it.
Speaker 1: It's not mine by behavior, it's mine by birth. And
Speaker 1: I have a father, and I'm nowhere he lives, and
Speaker 1: he didn't move, and I can go back right now,
Speaker 1: KINGO the kingdom is in ann So he said, I'm
Speaker 1: starving to death. I will set out and go back
Speaker 1: to my father, and I will say to him, father,
Speaker 1: he practiced his speech. Well, it's just he's practicing what
Speaker 1: he's gonna say. He's writing a speech he will never
Speaker 1: even need. You're gonna see it. He makes his speech
Speaker 1: in his mind. He never makes it with his mouth. Father,
Speaker 1: No I say it like this, Father, No, I say,
Speaker 1: father practicing, practicing in the pig pin. Father. By the way,
Speaker 1: the Bible never says that the boy's heart was repentant.
Speaker 1: It just says he was hungry. Even if you come
Speaker 1: to God for the wrong reasons, he has what you need.
Speaker 1: One brother told me one time, I don't mean to judge,
Speaker 1: which is a clear indication that what they are about
Speaker 1: to say is going to be the most religiously phariseical
Speaker 1: thing that's ever come out of a human beings mouth.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to judge you. But over there at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church, you've got a lot of sinners. I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you want to come? I wish you would
Speaker 1: categorize somebody else sloppy, messy, petty self talking about you
Speaker 1: got a lot of sinners. He said, some of them
Speaker 1: just come to church because there's pretty girls at Elevation.
Speaker 1: So you don't think pretty girls need pretty men to
Speaker 1: get married and have pretty babies and serve a pretty god.
Speaker 1: I don't care what you come for, care what you
Speaker 1: get when you get here. Amen, Thank you Jesus. I
Speaker 1: came for the music. But I got the message. Amen,
Speaker 1: and he came on home. He came home. You come
Speaker 1: home and your soul. You know, he came home physically.
Speaker 1: Some of us need to come home mentally home. True,
Speaker 1: you we keep wanting to be seen, but we're not
Speaker 1: really known because we're only showing the parts of us
Speaker 1: that we think are acceptable. But then you come to
Speaker 1: this place in life and you go. I got to
Speaker 1: go where I'm known. It was fun getting approval from
Speaker 1: people while I was the one paying the bills. But
Speaker 1: now I'm broke, and now I know where I can go.
Speaker 1: And having that home base is so important for a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old, a fifty year old, an eighty year old.
Speaker 1: So he comes on over. He says, h I have sinned.
Speaker 1: Going His speech goes on and on forever. You know
Speaker 1: all these ways we beat ourselves up, that God never
Speaker 1: beats us up. I sinned against Heaven and against you.
Speaker 1: I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Speaker 1: You see it. He is connecting his belonging to his behavior.
Speaker 1: He's connecting his sense of self worth to his decisions.
Speaker 1: But why I wanted to preach this message is what
Speaker 1: happens next. All of that is good But verse nineteen
Speaker 1: and twenty is why I stood up to preach today
Speaker 1: for you. I am no longer worthy to be called
Speaker 1: your son. Make me like one of your hired men.
Speaker 1: So he got up and went to his father. But
Speaker 1: while he was still a long way off, his father saw.
Speaker 1: The father saw, can you put my title back up
Speaker 1: on the screen. The father saw, while he was still
Speaker 1: a long way off, his father saw him. He saw
Speaker 1: past his clothes that were dirty, He saw past the
Speaker 1: stench of the pigs that he had been living with,
Speaker 1: and the decisions that he had made. He saw past
Speaker 1: the offense and the foolishness and the waste, and he
Speaker 1: saw him. God sees you, and he was filled with compassion.
Speaker 1: I ran to him. A rich man doesn't do this
Speaker 1: in Jewish culture. But he saw him. He saw his son,
Speaker 1: even though he looked like a slave at the moment.
Speaker 1: He saw his son. God sees his daughter. God sees
Speaker 1: the unique you underneath all the layers and labels. The
Speaker 1: father saw. The word of the Lord to you today
Speaker 1: is The father saw. He saw the mistakes that you
Speaker 1: were going to make before you made them, and he
Speaker 1: called you anyway. He saw every sin you would commit
Speaker 1: after he forgave you, and he forgave you anyway. The
Speaker 1: Father saw. When he looks at your life, he doesn't
Speaker 1: see the decisions you made. He sees the death of
Speaker 1: his son and the righteousness of Christ, and he no
Speaker 1: longer sees you through the lens of any of your
Speaker 1: life's lowest moments. The Father saw me through the finished
Speaker 1: work of his son, Jesus Christ. The Father saw, and
Speaker 1: the Father said, I see, my son, I see the
Speaker 1: next of your life. I see this turning around. I
Speaker 1: see how I'm gonna use this thing in your life.
Speaker 1: I see how this dry season that you've been through.
Speaker 1: I've been preparing the ground. I've been telling the ground've
Speaker 1: been breaking up the ground. The Father saw. Now, now,
Speaker 1: do you have the faith to celebrate what you cannot see,
Speaker 1: to know that God sees something in you that people
Speaker 1: don't see in you, That your father sees in you
Speaker 1: what you might not even see in yourself. The Father saw,
Speaker 1: and he embraced his son because he saw who he
Speaker 1: really was. With everyone standing all over the church and
Speaker 1: no one moving, I want you to see for a
Speaker 1: moment what the Father saw, because it comes a point
Speaker 1: in your life where people have said so much about you,
Speaker 1: and you've said so much about yourself that you no
Speaker 1: longer see what the Father saw. You know. I was
Speaker 1: asking God last year, in a moment of doubt, self doubt,
Speaker 1: what do you see in me? Why do you use me?
Speaker 1: Not special, not that holy, so far from perfect? What
Speaker 1: do you see in me? And I didn't hear a
Speaker 1: voice out loud, and never have, But it was an
Speaker 1: impression that he said, I see myself. I put a
Speaker 1: piece of me in you. In fact, I put all
Speaker 1: of me in you. And the moment you can see
Speaker 1: past the patterns of behavior that identify you as a
Speaker 1: sinner and a slave, and begin to see yourself as
Speaker 1: the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, that I am
Speaker 1: a child of God. It is that revelation that's what
Speaker 1: changed my life. It was not changing my behavior. It
Speaker 1: was the revelation that God sees the real me, and
Speaker 1: he loves the real me, and he chose the real me,
Speaker 1: the quirky me, the weird me, the goofy me, the
Speaker 1: dumb me, to make the same mistake over and over again. Me.
Speaker 1: He sees past all that people see. He sees past
Speaker 1: every pretense, every pretension. He sees past every surface construct
Speaker 1: and he sees me. The Father saw. Maybe nobody else did,
Speaker 1: but he saw. He sees the desires of your heart.
Speaker 1: He sees where you're weak. He is compelled to come
Speaker 1: closer in that place. Jesus said that God, every hair
Speaker 1: on your head. What a picture to me that speaks
Speaker 1: of proximity. You can't count the hairs on my head
Speaker 1: unless you're close. God doesn't just see me at a distance.
Speaker 1: He sees me up close, and he sees himself and me.
Speaker 1: Some of us here have a hard time receiving that word.
Speaker 1: It sounds like syrup. It sounds like a fairy tale.
Speaker 1: It sounds like something that belongs to another world. But
Speaker 1: there is something on the inside of you trying to
Speaker 1: tell you right now. What that man is saying is
Speaker 1: truth from heaven. This is the bread of Heaven. This
Speaker 1: is the word of God. He sees you. And I
Speaker 1: know people don't notice. And I know a lot of
Speaker 1: times you feel uncelebrated, unappreciated, and ineffective. In fact, some
Speaker 1: of you have been thinking, even this week, would it
Speaker 1: really even matter if I was here? Would the people
Speaker 1: in my life be better off without me? The Father saw,
Speaker 1: My father saw, he saw something in you that looked
Speaker 1: like him, and he brought you into this situation, this
Speaker 1: space and time. I just want to pray for you
Speaker 1: for a moment, because you're gonna leave here and see
Speaker 1: all kinds of images of things that make you think
Speaker 1: your life is down here. But I want you to
Speaker 1: see something for a moment in your spirit. Close your eyes,
Speaker 1: lift your hands. We celebrate your presence. God, you have
Speaker 1: really really been there for us. Your arms stayed open,
Speaker 1: your fridge stayed full, you kept our bed ready for
Speaker 1: us for when we came back to this moment, and
Speaker 1: we're coming home and our souls this year. We're coming
Speaker 1: home and our souls this year. We're not eating pig
Speaker 1: food this year. We're not just gonna stuff ourselves with
Speaker 1: whatever is most available. But we're coming to your table today. God,
Speaker 1: not in a matas forracle sense, but really now, in
Speaker 1: this moment, I asked that you would fill us, be
Speaker 1: full of You, full of truth. I really want to
Speaker 1: pray for the teenagers. God. I don't want them living
Speaker 1: with pigs. I don't want them feeding on the pods
Speaker 1: that come from the plants that they would have never
Speaker 1: even looked at before. But now they got so desensitized
Speaker 1: to it. God, I prayed that they would, that they
Speaker 1: would move back to the place where the Father sees.
Speaker 1: We thank you that even if we're at a distance,
Speaker 1: you see us. I call that one home today that
Speaker 1: you know by name. Lord, I don't know the name,
Speaker 1: but you do. And as somebody who's hearing this message,
Speaker 1: and it's like, Oh my God, that's just for me,
Speaker 1: that's just for me. That's what I needed in this moment.
Speaker 1: Would you see your word? Heads bowed, eyes closed, with
Speaker 1: everyone praying, I want to invite somebody to come home
Speaker 1: to the God who made you in this moment, he's
Speaker 1: already running towards you. My father saw his son in
Speaker 1: the distance. He so loved the world, and he so
Speaker 1: loved you that he gave his only son that whoever
Speaker 1: believes in him will not perish, would have everlasting life.
Speaker 1: And it's by grace that we're saved through faith, not
Speaker 1: of works. It's a gift of God, so that no
Speaker 1: one can boast. And in this moment, whether watching online
Speaker 1: or here in one of our buildings, if you're ready
Speaker 1: to come home today and place your full faith in
Speaker 1: the work of Jesus Christ, what he accomplished on the
Speaker 1: cross when he died for your sin and believed that
Speaker 1: he was raised from the dead so you could have
Speaker 1: new life. I want to pray with you right now.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do it one on one, but God,
Speaker 1: God is God is right there with you in this moment,
Speaker 1: and He's been calling you and you know it. I
Speaker 1: want to pray for you right now, and I want
Speaker 1: you to pray with me. This is a prayer of faith,
Speaker 1: and if you will pray this from your heart, we're
Speaker 1: going to pray it out loud. God will hear you,
Speaker 1: and your sins will be forgiven and you'll be a
Speaker 1: new creation in his name. The Word of God says,
Speaker 1: so he is more than enough. With heads about and
Speaker 1: eyes closed, praying out loud as a church family together
Speaker 1: for the benefit of those who are coming to God
Speaker 1: or coming back to the Father. Let's pray together, Heavenly Father.
Speaker 1: I am a sinner in need of a savior, and
Speaker 1: today I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I
Speaker 1: believe he died that I would be forgiven and rose
Speaker 1: again to give me life. I receive this new life.
Speaker 1: This is my new beginning. I am a child of God.
Speaker 1: If you pray that shoots your hand up on the
Speaker 1: count of three to one, two three, I'm gonna celebrate
Speaker 1: you all over this church. Come on, shoot it up high,
Speaker 1: not tim and shoot it shoot it up high. Come on,
Speaker 1: can we celebrate everybody who just came home? Thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who
Speaker 1: give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that
Speaker 1: this ministry is possible. You can click the link in
Speaker 1: the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org
Speaker 1: slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 1: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.