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: I really have to tell y'all. The first time Pastor
Speaker 1: Stephen and Holly invited me to come to Elevation, I
Speaker 1: thought they were confused, because I love this house. Pastor Tim,
Speaker 1: you fat move like dance. I thought he's only been
Speaker 1: a believer for a short period of time, because that's
Speaker 1: that's some BC rhythms from before Christ rhythm right there, brother.
Speaker 1: But the first time, really, I want like I need
Speaker 1: a little bit of training between service. My my baby
Speaker 1: can dance, but mama ain't got no rhythm. The first
Speaker 1: time I got to come be with y'all, I was
Speaker 1: so excited because you have taught me. I've learned so
Speaker 1: much about Jesus through your house. And I thought, surely
Speaker 1: Pastor Stephen has got me confused with Lisa Bevie. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all know who Lisa Bevie is,
Speaker 1: but a woman can preach where about the same age,
Speaker 1: but she has much more authority than I do. And
Speaker 1: she wears leather pants a lot of times when she preaches,
Speaker 1: and I thought, uh, oh, to keep up the charade,
Speaker 1: I might have to wear leather pants to elevation. And
Speaker 1: when I wear leather pants, it sounds like ducks are
Speaker 1: being killed. So I'm not quite as lean as the
Speaker 1: other Lisa, and I thought, oh, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable. So I was thrilled to find out that
Speaker 1: they lowered the bar, that they actually knew. I wasn't
Speaker 1: that Lisa. And so to get to to get to
Speaker 1: be with y'all. Now, it's pure grace, y'all. It's pure
Speaker 1: grace that I get to come back and run hard
Speaker 1: towards Jesus with this house. I love me some elevation deeply,
Speaker 1: deeply respect. That's my cousin right there, so deeply respects
Speaker 1: what God has done and is doing through your house,
Speaker 1: through pastor Steven Holly, the whole team here. I just
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of a forty day fast on sugar,
Speaker 1: and when Chunks called me, I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get some sugar after all, baby, I get to go
Speaker 1: to Elevation. Not too many sweeter houses that I've been
Speaker 1: to in the world. I do want to make just
Speaker 1: a couple of qualifications before we dive into the message.
Speaker 1: The first is I'm a spitter, and so I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna call it a baptism. E fam y'all
Speaker 1: can breathe a sigh of relief that you're not in
Speaker 1: the room. I will not sprinkle you, but anybody with
Speaker 1: about fifteen feet y'all just plan to get wet. And
Speaker 1: then my second qualification is for the tech tech team.
Speaker 1: This is the first time I've been to Elevation that
Speaker 1: I actually have a title. They always have to make
Speaker 1: up a title for me. I'm creatively challenged, but I
Speaker 1: have a title. So for those of you who are
Speaker 1: enneagram ones or threes or eights, y'all are note takers,
Speaker 1: I know you are. Heaven forbid. Here's the title. The
Speaker 1: title for our message this morning is Mick Jagger was wrong.
Speaker 1: You with me? Mick Jagger was wrong. I'll explain that
Speaker 1: in a minute. I even have a secondary title, Bruce
Speaker 1: Springsteen was right. Mick Jagger was wrong. Bruce Springsteen was right. Now,
Speaker 1: for those of you gen zers who don't know who's
Speaker 1: Sir Jagger or the Boss who they are, y'all need
Speaker 1: to rectify your spotify because they're two of the best.
Speaker 1: But theologically Mick Jagger was wrong, and light of that title,
Speaker 1: we probably need to pray before we dive into God's word.
Speaker 1: And so since we've loosened up a little bit on
Speaker 1: the restrictions, and y'all are sitting next to your beloved,
Speaker 1: reach out and touch them. If they're not your beloved,
Speaker 1: don't grow. But let's pray. Those of y'all who are
Speaker 1: listening to this online and you're driving, please don't close
Speaker 1: your eyes while you pray. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, King
Speaker 1: of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Lion and the Lamb,
Speaker 1: the Lily of the Valley, Mighty God, wonderful counselor Messiah, Oudai,
Speaker 1: the Christ, the Anointed One. Jesus. Thank you for your mercy,
Speaker 1: Thank you for your compassion, Thank you for your accessibility.
Speaker 1: Thank you that what we saying was not just inspirational.
Speaker 1: Thank you that you actually do meet all of our
Speaker 1: needs according to your riches and your glory. Thank you
Speaker 1: that you stick closer than a brother. Thank you that
Speaker 1: we can cast all our anxiety on you because you
Speaker 1: care for us. Thank you, Jesus that when you ascended
Speaker 1: into heaven is sit at the right hand of God
Speaker 1: the Father, you did not leave us as orphans. That
Speaker 1: even during those seasons when we feel missed or marginalized,
Speaker 1: your presence is palpable. Thank you that when we look
Speaker 1: back over our lives we don't see you are back,
Speaker 1: that you are present, that you left us your holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: who even this morning reminds us that we have the
Speaker 1: right to call the God who breathe the universe into existence. Dad.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, thank you, and thank you for
Speaker 1: your word. As Chris said, we need it. Lord. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we forget it's a love story. We forget that we
Speaker 1: can find ourselves on these paper thin pages, and we
Speaker 1: can find over and over and over and over again
Speaker 1: that you're a God who condescends to embrace his people.
Speaker 1: That you're not a far away, unibrowed librarian. You're an
Speaker 1: up close, personal, compassionate savior. Jesus, we ask for more
Speaker 1: of you this morning. We asked that you would give
Speaker 1: us eyes to see more clearly and ears to hear
Speaker 1: louder and hearts that would really believe, really believe that
Speaker 1: you love us, Teach us what it is to know that,
Speaker 1: to rest in that, to live out of that reality.
Speaker 1: We ask these things Jesus, by the power and authority
Speaker 1: of your name, and we ask it for your purposes.
Speaker 1: A men and a men. I feel so close to
Speaker 1: y'all and so affectionate with y'all because you have become
Speaker 1: like a family of cousins for me, Holly has become
Speaker 1: just a dear, dear friend. I don't like standing next
Speaker 1: to her because her waist is about the size of
Speaker 1: my ankle. But other than not wanting to stand in
Speaker 1: close physical proximity, I love Holly, and so I feel
Speaker 1: safe enough to tell y'all a story that I have
Speaker 1: never told before publicly, because it's a story that is, well,
Speaker 1: it's just a little too revelatory. It's about one of
Speaker 1: my most recent blind dates gone horribly awry. For those
Speaker 1: of you who've been here before, you might remember that
Speaker 1: I'm old and single. I'm fifty seven, My husband is
Speaker 1: lost and won't stop to ask for directions, and do
Speaker 1: you have a daughter? By the miraculous kindness of God,
Speaker 1: I got to bring my baby girl home from Haiti
Speaker 1: the year I turned fifty and she was four, so
Speaker 1: I went through menopause and motherhood at the same time.
Speaker 1: But we don't have a baby daddy, and so I
Speaker 1: actually told her one day. I was teasing with her
Speaker 1: and we were talking about prayer request, and I said, baby,
Speaker 1: it's okay for us to pray for a baby daddy.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, God brought you to me, but
Speaker 1: it'd be cool if we had a daddy with skin
Speaker 1: on in our house. And she went right to her
Speaker 1: little Christian school and gave that as a prayer request,
Speaker 1: got met in the drive through pickup line by the headmaster,
Speaker 1: who was not at all pleased that I told a
Speaker 1: kindergartener to make her prayer request. I need a baby daddy,
Speaker 1: so anyway, be careful, be careful who you use that
Speaker 1: terminology with. But I've gotten so content that I really
Speaker 1: have kind of stopped even thinking much about marriage. And
Speaker 1: part of it is I lost all my estrogen after menopause,
Speaker 1: so it's just like life for the most part, is
Speaker 1: really good, except I can't wear pants with zippers anymore.
Speaker 1: And so I was explaining this to a friend recently.
Speaker 1: I was telling her how excited I was because I've
Speaker 1: been dreaming about a John Deere tractor for about fifteen years.
Speaker 1: We live out in the country south of Nashville. I
Speaker 1: got a little tiny farmat five acres, and I've just
Speaker 1: been jones in for John Deere and I finally found
Speaker 1: one that was used on sale, and I was just
Speaker 1: so fired up about this John Deere tractor. So I'm
Speaker 1: telling this friend of mine, who's much more mature in
Speaker 1: her walk of faith, of how I just I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm finally content because I got my John Deere.
Speaker 1: And she said, Lisa, you need help, And she began
Speaker 1: to lecture me about the fact that I I wasn't
Speaker 1: praying about marriage again, that that I wasn't praying for
Speaker 1: a husband, And she lectured me so effectively that she
Speaker 1: finally manipulated me into signing up for a three month
Speaker 1: trial membership with a Christian online dating organization. Please hear me,
Speaker 1: I'm not dissing them. I've seen the advertisements. I've seen
Speaker 1: the cute couples gazing adoringly at each other. Maybe some
Speaker 1: of y'all met through online dating, which is a cult,
Speaker 1: but other than that, I know it can work. I
Speaker 1: know it can work. And so she said the reason
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't even try it was because of my pride.
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, you know, my prides got me
Speaker 1: in trouble before past tim and so I thought, she's
Speaker 1: probably right. I'll sign up. It was only seventy nine
Speaker 1: dollars for three months, and I thought, that's good. You know,
Speaker 1: it's about Starbucks, you know price, I can do it.
Speaker 1: So I sign up, and for some reason, I'm set
Speaker 1: up with a lot of men who live in their
Speaker 1: mother's basements and are unemployed. Not that there's a thing
Speaker 1: wrong with that, nothing at all wrong with that, but
Speaker 1: my preference would be preference, just preference would be a
Speaker 1: man who who doesn't live with his mama, because we're
Speaker 1: in our fifties and and you know, if he had
Speaker 1: a part time job, that would be cool. And so
Speaker 1: I was really excited that one of the men I
Speaker 1: was matched with had had a full time job and
Speaker 1: had a place he lived by himself. So I thought,
Speaker 1: this is amazing. Well, we start, you know, just communicating
Speaker 1: back and forth on email, and he had sent a picture,
Speaker 1: but you know, we all lie on our pictures more
Speaker 1: over fifty anyway, you should see my filters. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: Colleen takes pictures, I'm like, please stand on a ladder
Speaker 1: so I can you have So I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't care if he doesn't have to have hair money,
Speaker 1: as long as he you know, doesn't live with his mama.
Speaker 1: And so he was super witty, and I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: this is awesome because humor is just Humor's it for me?
Speaker 1: Humor's like wits, like an aphrodisiac. I'm like, man, this
Speaker 1: is awesome. I like this guy and ladies aim in
Speaker 1: me on this. He could spell. That's amazing. I mean
Speaker 1: to get a guy and guys, I love men, Please
Speaker 1: hear me. I'm not trying to throw shade at y'all.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot of times on email, guys are
Speaker 1: less than grammatically correct. And so if you get a
Speaker 1: guy who's witty and he can spell, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, is light Romeo with you know, amazing? And
Speaker 1: so I thought, I'm kind of starting to feel myself
Speaker 1: kind of lean toward this fella. And so he sent
Speaker 1: me an email that happens in online dating. That is okay.
Speaker 1: Let's move to the next step. Let's meet face to face,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I would love to you.
Speaker 1: That would be a delight. And then he sent me
Speaker 1: a disclaimer. It's rather lengthy disclaimer, and I won't tell
Speaker 1: you everything in his disclaimer, but I will tell you
Speaker 1: he explained. And this part didn't funny, so hear me.
Speaker 1: He explained that he had extreme social anxiety and so
Speaker 1: he did not leave his home, that he worked from home,
Speaker 1: that he had not left his home in years except
Speaker 1: for rare occasion, and that I mean that that's not funny.
Speaker 1: That kind of broke my heart. And then he said
Speaker 1: he was also very hesitant to ever leave his home
Speaker 1: because he really really loved his pets. I love my pets.
Speaker 1: I mean I do. I have two dogs. I don't have,
Speaker 1: you know, a T shirt with air picture on it
Speaker 1: or anything. Don't sleep with him, but I love my dogs.
Speaker 1: I really love my dogs. And so he went on
Speaker 1: to explain he loved his pets Nean thirty eight cats,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: really want to be open. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: too picky, but Missy, my little girl is allergic to cats,
Speaker 1: and I'm very much an extrovert, and so I thought
Speaker 1: to stay inside all day with that many cats, I
Speaker 1: don't think I can do it. I don't think, you know, miss,
Speaker 1: he'd be sneezing, I'd be bored. I just I don't think.
Speaker 1: Probably this is a match made in heaven. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to be really careful about telling this guy probably,
Speaker 1: probably this isn't going to go anywhere, because I thought
Speaker 1: I don't want to be unkind or say anything that
Speaker 1: would be offensive to him. I was thinking about it
Speaker 1: all afternoon. I was really kind of worried as to
Speaker 1: how to explain to this fella. Because you don't leave
Speaker 1: your home and because you're a catboy, it's we're probably
Speaker 1: not going to connect. And I had to go to
Speaker 1: my doctor because I had bronchitis and a double air
Speaker 1: infection at that time, and my doctor gave me. He
Speaker 1: gave me some pretty strong steroids, and then he gave
Speaker 1: me Ambient because he said, Lisa, the steroids are going
Speaker 1: to keep you from sleeping, so you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: take Ambient tonight. And y'all may be able to guess
Speaker 1: the rest of the story. I took Ambient. I've only
Speaker 1: taken Ambient a few times. Last time I took ambian.
Speaker 1: I am signed up for a coffee club that I
Speaker 1: couldn't get out of it. It had an ironclad contract,
Speaker 1: and I almost bought a condo and cabo because I
Speaker 1: get real liberated when I'm on Ambient, and so I
Speaker 1: took that ambient and then I forgot what I did next.
Speaker 1: So I can kind of I can kind of identify
Speaker 1: with people who party too much, because those few little
Speaker 1: ambients I've taken in my life have just sent me
Speaker 1: right to the edge of appropriate behavior. I woke up
Speaker 1: the next morning after this sweet man's missive, and I
Speaker 1: woke up in a panic because my iPad was next
Speaker 1: to me in my bed and I just had this oh,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I think I messaged him while I
Speaker 1: was ambient Loopy, and so I, just as quick as
Speaker 1: I could, went to that you know, Christian online dating app,
Speaker 1: and I went to my scent messages, and sure enough
Speaker 1: I had messaged him the night before when I was
Speaker 1: out of my mind, and I wrote him a dear
Speaker 1: John letter that was that had bad grammar, and at
Speaker 1: the end of the note I said, as I was
Speaker 1: basically saying goodbye, I said, maybe someday I'll be able
Speaker 1: to sit on your lap, y'all. I meant to write,
Speaker 1: maybe someday I'll meet your cats, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: To this day, I am like, I am old, have
Speaker 1: not dated him forever. I am not sleazy. I do
Speaker 1: not say some things like that. It was some kind
Speaker 1: of horrible, ambient fueled Freudian slip. I meant to say,
Speaker 1: maybe I would meet his cats. And when I saw
Speaker 1: it there blinking on my screen, maybe someday I'll send it,
Speaker 1: I just went. I just I pinnicked. I got completely
Speaker 1: out of the dating app. I've never been on one since.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is just so awful, and
Speaker 1: I had to tell my friend I'm never doing it again.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm never It was so awkward. Maybe not
Speaker 1: as awkward as you know, renting a plane to fly
Speaker 1: a banner one eight hundred and five A eight please
Speaker 1: call Lisa for a date, but awkward nonetheless. And I
Speaker 1: said that just doesn't do it for me. I said,
Speaker 1: we were sharing stuff about ourselves, but we were sharing
Speaker 1: it digitally. I said, even if we had sent pictures,
Speaker 1: they would have been filtered. I said, that's not the
Speaker 1: kind of relationship that I'm craving. I want to face
Speaker 1: to face relationship. I want a real relationship. I want
Speaker 1: an authentic relationship. I want them to be able to
Speaker 1: see the spanks poking out of my stretchy pants. I
Speaker 1: want that kind of Guys, if you don't know what
Speaker 1: they are, don't google it because you can't unsee it.
Speaker 1: But I want intimacy. I want to be known. And
Speaker 1: the older I get, the more I crave that With Jesus,
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want a superficial relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: I don't want to just accrue information about Jesus. I
Speaker 1: want intimacy with Jesus. If you brought your bibley, you
Speaker 1: have your phone, turn to Genesis chapter one. You'll know this.
Speaker 1: I've actually heard Steven preach on this multiple times. Chapter one,
Speaker 1: verses twenty six and twenty seven. Then God said, let
Speaker 1: us make man in our image, after our likeness, and
Speaker 1: let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
Speaker 1: and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock,
Speaker 1: and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
Speaker 1: that creeps on the earth. So God created man in
Speaker 1: his own image, in the image of God. He created
Speaker 1: him male and female. He created them those verses are
Speaker 1: what we get the theology Imago Day from Imago Day
Speaker 1: comes from two Latin words meaning image and God. And
Speaker 1: what this basically means is every single one of us
Speaker 1: here in South Carolina, listening online in South Africa, every Epham,
Speaker 1: everybody outside of the family of God, every single human being,
Speaker 1: regardless of ethnicity or gender, or age or status socioeconomically.
Speaker 1: Everyone was made in God's image. They beare his thumbprint.
Speaker 1: That means they are inherently worthy of dignity and respect
Speaker 1: and compassion. It also means we were wired for relationship
Speaker 1: because God makes it clear in Genesis One that he
Speaker 1: fashioned us after himself. He's a trinitarian god. God the Father,
Speaker 1: got the Son and got the Holy Spirit. Saint Augustine says,
Speaker 1: only the Christian God is a perfect community unto himself,
Speaker 1: and we were made in that image. That means we
Speaker 1: were hard wired for relational intimacy. We were hardwired for intimacy.
Speaker 1: We were not hardwired for social media. We were not
Speaker 1: hardwired for distance. We were not hardwired for filters. We
Speaker 1: were not hardwired to curate who we are so someone
Speaker 1: else will approve. And I'm not dising social media I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I think we've become content with what we were not
Speaker 1: made to crave. I think we call intimacy what is
Speaker 1: really merely information, both about each other and about God. A. W.
Speaker 1: Tozier puts it like this. For millions of Christians, God
Speaker 1: is no more real than he is denied Christians. They
Speaker 1: go through life trying to love an ideal and be
Speaker 1: loyal to a mere principle. R. Springsteen says it possibly better.
Speaker 1: He says, everybody has a hungry heart. Everybody has a
Speaker 1: hungry heart. Blaze Pascal who have a massive platonic crush
Speaker 1: on and can't wake to hug in heaven. He was
Speaker 1: a brilliant physicist, philosopher, and theologian in the eighteen sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: He says it best, there is a God shaped vacuum
Speaker 1: in the heart of each man, which cannot be satisfied
Speaker 1: by any created thing, but only by God, the Father
Speaker 1: made known through Jesus Christ. I'm in the latter stages
Speaker 1: of a doctorate, and so I have been reading voraciously
Speaker 1: because I get graded on that. And I've been reading
Speaker 1: a lot of papers about the spiritual condition of post
Speaker 1: post postmodern society. And one of the things that both theologians,
Speaker 1: scholars and sociologists sociologists that's a hard work, socio smart
Speaker 1: people have noted is that there has been an uptick
Speaker 1: in spiritual curiosity, so that in this era, I would say,
Speaker 1: the modern era, there has been an increased curiosity about
Speaker 1: spiritual things. The latest survey, I said, said that has
Speaker 1: been increased dramatically as a result of the pandemic. Because
Speaker 1: of the isolation, people are going, I want to have
Speaker 1: an encounter with something or someone transcendent. But those exact
Speaker 1: same polls, those exact same PhD papers and dissertations point
Speaker 1: to the fact that contentment is at an all time low,
Speaker 1: all time low, that most people feel missed, Most people
Speaker 1: feel like, no matter how many likes I get on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I still feel like nobody really knows my heart. We
Speaker 1: weren't made for that, y'all. We were made for more
Speaker 1: than what most of us are living in. Information about
Speaker 1: God is a really, really poor substitute for intimacy with God.
Speaker 1: I love this book. I built my life on this
Speaker 1: inscriptated revelation. But I'm telling you, if all you know
Speaker 1: is this as a rule book or a textbook or
Speaker 1: an ancient tomb with morality tales. Goodness, gracious, you're not
Speaker 1: going to have intimacy at its core. This is a
Speaker 1: love story. At its core. This is about the compassion
Speaker 1: of God. Turn to John four. I know you know
Speaker 1: this story. You've read it a thousand times. If you
Speaker 1: were raised half Baptists like me, you have seen it.
Speaker 1: Flannel Graft John chapter four. Now when Jesus learned that
Speaker 1: the Pharisees has heard, Now when Jesus learned that the
Speaker 1: Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more
Speaker 1: disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but
Speaker 1: only as disciples. He loved youd and departed again for Galilee.
Speaker 1: And he had to pass. That's actually not a great
Speaker 1: English translation. He didn't have to pass. He chose to
Speaker 1: pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of
Speaker 1: Samaria called Sikhar, near the field that Jacob given to
Speaker 1: his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, weird
Speaker 1: as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.
Speaker 1: If you are comfortable writing in your bibles, those of
Speaker 1: you have brick and mortar bibles, and those of you
Speaker 1: who don't own a brick and mortar Bible, this is
Speaker 1: because I'm old. But let me bring an old sister
Speaker 1: word to you. If your only Bible, hear me, if
Speaker 1: your only Bible, because I know most of the times
Speaker 1: we don't bring our Bibles to settings like this. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy you have your iPads and your phones. But
Speaker 1: if you don't have a brick and mortar Bible somewhere
Speaker 1: in your home, in your apartment, that's like an old
Speaker 1: man in short shorts. That's sad. You need a brick
Speaker 1: and mortar Bible. And I'm telling you as an older sister,
Speaker 1: those of y'all who still have tight skin and high metabolisms,
Speaker 1: there will be seasons in your life when you go
Speaker 1: I got to be close to the promises to remember him.
Speaker 1: I need to go back through the pages of my
Speaker 1: Bible and see the notes I made in my Bible
Speaker 1: and go, oh, he was there, he was there, he
Speaker 1: saw me. So no shame, no condemnation. If you're new
Speaker 1: to the Family of God, if you don't know Jesus yet,
Speaker 1: you're still just kind of circling the church wondering if
Speaker 1: this is true. Please talk to somebody in your EPAM,
Speaker 1: somebody here in brick and Mortar Elevation and just say
Speaker 1: I'd really love to be hooked up with a Bible,
Speaker 1: because we would love to get you an actual brick
Speaker 1: and mortar book to take home with you. But if
Speaker 1: you're comfortable writing those underscore underscore that Jesus was sitting
Speaker 1: by the well, I'll come back to that in just
Speaker 1: a minute. It was about the sixth hour. That means
Speaker 1: it was blazing hot because it was the middle of
Speaker 1: a Middle Eastern day. There came a woman of Samaria
Speaker 1: to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a
Speaker 1: drink for his disciples. He had gone away to the
Speaker 1: city to get chick fil a. The Samaritan woman said
Speaker 1: to him, how is that that you you asked for
Speaker 1: a drink from me, a woman from Samaria. I won't
Speaker 1: go into great detail, but most of you know that
Speaker 1: Samaritans were considered half breeds in the most goodness, the
Speaker 1: most misunderstood, most demeaning way, because they were half jew
Speaker 1: and half Assyrian. When Israel was defeated and Northern Israel
Speaker 1: was carried away by the Assyrians, Assyrian warriors married Jewish
Speaker 1: widows they'd killed their husbands, and they didn't do that
Speaker 1: because they loved them. They did that to further subjugate
Speaker 1: them under water down Jewish lineage. And so a Samaritan
Speaker 1: was considered by a jew to be just way way way,
Speaker 1: way way way down on the social totem pole. And
Speaker 1: there was even mishnah. There was even application of Torah
Speaker 1: the Jewish Bible that said, if you have a Samaritan
Speaker 1: in your home for a meal, you've heaped coals of
Speaker 1: judgment on your family's head. So the persecution of Samaritans
Speaker 1: was like the persecution of some persecuted people groups we've
Speaker 1: seen in our era. So this woman saying, how in
Speaker 1: the world would a guy like you talk to a
Speaker 1: girl like me? And Jesus answered, if you knew the
Speaker 1: gift of God verse ten, and who is it that
Speaker 1: is saying, do you give me a drink? You would
Speaker 1: have asked him and he would have given you living water. Well,
Speaker 1: they go on to have this beautiful discussion about theology,
Speaker 1: which again was highly unlikely. This is in the first century.
Speaker 1: This is the era in history that women were considered
Speaker 1: lower than a second class citizen, whether they're Samaritan or not.
Speaker 1: One of the most common rabbinic proverbs during the first
Speaker 1: century was better that tora be burned than read by
Speaker 1: a woman. Woman wasn't even allowed to engage with the
Speaker 1: Jewish Bible. Women weren't allowed in the part of synagogue
Speaker 1: where teaching happened. They could go to the other part
Speaker 1: and cross stitch and share recipes, but they couldn't be
Speaker 1: in the part where they were talking about how God
Speaker 1: loves us, how he meets all our needs. Another rabbinic
Speaker 1: proverb was thank the vow Jehovah, who did not make
Speaker 1: me a woman. And so it's highly unlikely for you
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with a Samaritan, even more unlikely
Speaker 1: for a rabbi to have a theological conversation with a woman.
Speaker 1: And yet here's Jesus. He always turns culture upside down.
Speaker 1: Here's Jesus join to someone everyone else would ostracize or
Speaker 1: marginalized had it's this conversation with her, and y'all remember
Speaker 1: later on in John four he talks to her about worship.
Speaker 1: And I know y'all have such amazing musical worship. Here
Speaker 1: Chris could probably he could probably stand up and recite
Speaker 1: all of John four it's one of those kind of
Speaker 1: orthodox walls about worship. It's foundational. But it's even better
Speaker 1: than we read in the Black, White, and Red, because
Speaker 1: when Jesus talks to this woman about worship, do y'all
Speaker 1: remember any other facts about her besides the fact that
Speaker 1: she's a Samaritan? You'll can talk about exactly she's been
Speaker 1: married multiple times. Anybody remember exactly how many times? Five times?
Speaker 1: And what's her current living conditions living with a man
Speaker 1: who won't do her the dignity of marriage. Perhaps had cats,
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure, but she's living with a man.
Speaker 1: She's living with a man who won't marry her. Now,
Speaker 1: I've heard from my earliest memories in church, I started
Speaker 1: going to church when I was in utero. My mom
Speaker 1: was there every time the doors were open, and so
Speaker 1: from my earliest memories, I remember this story, and I
Speaker 1: remember this woman always being castigated, not for being Samaritan,
Speaker 1: but for being sleazy, because goodness gracious, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like she got marriage mixed up with Cinco demayo im
Speaker 1: and she just gets married over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: And so she's castigated, even in modern evangelical culture, as
Speaker 1: being a woman of loose morals, y'all, we've gotten it wrong.
Speaker 1: If you study Judeo Christian history and culture in the
Speaker 1: first century, it's highly unlikely for a woman to be
Speaker 1: married twice because once a man gave a woman a
Speaker 1: certificate of divorce, it was also a label of shame.
Speaker 1: Rabbi Hellel, who preceded Jesus. He died I think five
Speaker 1: years after Jesus was born, but one of the most
Speaker 1: authoritative rabbis in Jewish history. Rabbi Hellel had such a
Speaker 1: disregard for women that he taught Jewish men it is okay,
Speaker 1: it is okay with God for you to divorce your
Speaker 1: wife if you don't like the way she cooks. That's
Speaker 1: in Mishnah. They get to divorce their wives. And once
Speaker 1: they divorce her, what that man has said to his
Speaker 1: community is she's not worth it. Pick somebody else. She's
Speaker 1: not worth it. She's been married and divorced five times.
Speaker 1: No Jewish man is going to marry a woman who's
Speaker 1: been divorced rarely once, but two times three times. There's
Speaker 1: no way. That just flies in the face of first
Speaker 1: century Jewish protocol. What modern conservative theologians assert is that
Speaker 1: not only did she not have loose morals, it's much
Speaker 1: more likely that she was beautiful with a tremendous character.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that would justify men being willing
Speaker 1: to take the unnecessary risk, because they could have slept
Speaker 1: with her but not given her a certificate of marriage.
Speaker 1: And yet five guys said, she's worth it to me.
Speaker 1: She's worth it to me. So stop and think she's castigated.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite theologians believes we can't prove this
Speaker 1: until we get to Gloria met her, but believe she
Speaker 1: probably struggled with infertility because that was also a reason
Speaker 1: to divorce a woman. So stop and think she's been
Speaker 1: taken for test drives over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine at twelve when she got married the
Speaker 1: first time, which was common in their culture, and so
Speaker 1: for the first time in front of her friends and family,
Speaker 1: she says, I do. There's no way she would think
Speaker 1: at thirty, I'm going to have been married five times
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to be living on the outskirts
Speaker 1: of men with a guy who drinks and beats me,
Speaker 1: because otherwise I would starve or else be sold as
Speaker 1: a slave. There's no way she considered that her lot
Speaker 1: in life. It's so interesting how other people's assumptions often
Speaker 1: cause us to step back from not only intimacy with
Speaker 1: each other, but intimacy with God. This woe is completely
Speaker 1: completely ostracized. She's at the well heat of the day.
Speaker 1: We know all those parts of the story. We just
Speaker 1: didn't know that she may be innocent of the gossip
Speaker 1: that has milinded her. Jesus engages with her. He has
Speaker 1: an intimate conversation with her. He doesn't give her a
Speaker 1: meme that's, you know, inspirational. He doesn't give her a
Speaker 1: WWJD bracelet. They have an intimate conversation and he talks
Speaker 1: with her about worship. Y'all, there are ten words in
Speaker 1: the Greek translated into the word worship. Ten words in
Speaker 1: the Greek Jesus, Jesus one. It's pross cnuo, so often
Speaker 1: translated in Bibles as to bow down, But it's better
Speaker 1: than that. Pross in Greek means to move toward anybody.
Speaker 1: Guess what qunua means means to kiss, means to kiss.
Speaker 1: Stop and think about her story. She's been married five times.
Speaker 1: Every time she hopes, maybe he'll see beyond my flaws.
Speaker 1: Maybe even if I can't have a baby this time,
Speaker 1: he'll still say I belong to him. He'll still love me.
Speaker 1: Maybe if I burn his burrito, he won't kick me
Speaker 1: to the curb. Maybe, just maybe this love will last.
Speaker 1: And it never does. And she finds herself dried up
Speaker 1: in her thirties on the outskirts of town, and she
Speaker 1: meets this man named Yashua, and he looks into her eyes.
Speaker 1: He doesn't ignore, he's not condescending to her, and then
Speaker 1: he essentially says, if you'll move toward me with your kisses,
Speaker 1: you won't be thirsty for affection anymore. So intimate. It's
Speaker 1: so intimate we tend to read scripture as punitive. God
Speaker 1: is holy, perfectly holy. He gives us parameters for holy lives.
Speaker 1: I give Missy parameters. When I first brought her home
Speaker 1: from Haiti, I told her that she had to hold
Speaker 1: my hand when we're in the target parking lot. And
Speaker 1: I said, baby, you have to hold my hand because
Speaker 1: you're little, and so when other cars drive past, they
Speaker 1: can't see you, and so if you're not holding my hand,
Speaker 1: they could run over you accidentally, and you would be
Speaker 1: a pancake. And she said, oh, what a pancake, mama.
Speaker 1: And so I took her home that night and I
Speaker 1: made pancakes for dinner and I flipped a pancake under
Speaker 1: her plate. She's like her mama. She loves her some carbs.
Speaker 1: And as she was eating that pancake, I said, baby,
Speaker 1: that is a pancake. And that's what you'll look like
Speaker 1: if you don't hold my hand. Walking into target, I said,
Speaker 1: you'll get flat and she said I'll get flat and
Speaker 1: I said you will and she said, well, I get
Speaker 1: dead and I said you will. Was that being a hateful,
Speaker 1: cruel mama? No, I love that kid than I can
Speaker 1: wrap words around. I love her more than I knew
Speaker 1: I had the capacity love. God changed the topography of
Speaker 1: my heart through becoming her mama. I adore this child,
Speaker 1: but I am determined to keep her safe. I'm going
Speaker 1: to protect her. I want her to live her best life.
Speaker 1: We are not created by a unibrow librarian who's just
Speaker 1: waiting to step out of heaven and smack us over
Speaker 1: the head with a Bible. We were created by an
Speaker 1: up close, personal redeemer who longs for real relationship with us.
Speaker 1: You know, when John explains that she's the first, the
Speaker 1: very first evangelists to instigate a citywide revival. That's in
Speaker 1: verse thirty nine. Many Samaritans from that town believed in
Speaker 1: him because of the woman's testimony, So the whole town
Speaker 1: is changed by her testimony. And then John says that
Speaker 1: she says, he told me everything I ever did. Do
Speaker 1: you think she said that with her head bowed in shame.
Speaker 1: It was amazing because he knew what I knew. That's
Speaker 1: how we tend to think God relates to us. That
Speaker 1: he goes Lisa, I know sometimes in your singleness, you've
Speaker 1: had naughty thoughts and you're tempted to watch sex in
Speaker 1: the city. That's not how he relates to me. That's
Speaker 1: not at all. He is holy, and he even disciplines
Speaker 1: me because I need it, But he does it with
Speaker 1: such kindness. He puts his hands on the side of
Speaker 1: my face and he says, look at me, I what
Speaker 1: you crave. You think that guy on some social media
Speaker 1: site if he said I'm okay, you're a little fluffy
Speaker 1: and you're old, but I'll marry you and i'll love
Speaker 1: your daughter, you think that would satisfy you. Honey, It
Speaker 1: won't because you were made for more than that. If
Speaker 1: he has a husband for me, hallelujah. If y'all have
Speaker 1: older brothers who are employed, hallelujah. But you know that's
Speaker 1: not my hope anymore. That's not my hope. My hope
Speaker 1: is intimacy with Jesus. I want to be able to say,
Speaker 1: like this woman, he knows everything about me, and he
Speaker 1: loves me unconditionally. When you reveal your sin to Jesus,
Speaker 1: it's not because he doesn't already know it. It's for
Speaker 1: our good. It's for our healing. When we reveal our
Speaker 1: sin to him and he goes, I know, honey, I know.
Speaker 1: We go Oh, he still loves me, and he knows
Speaker 1: that Jesus knows us completely and yet still loves us unconditionally.
Speaker 1: Turned to the end of the book to John chapter
Speaker 1: twenty one to bring you up to speed those of
Speaker 1: you who haven't heard this story. Peter, who is one
Speaker 1: of the original twelve Disciples. He's the one I identify
Speaker 1: with the most because he's always stepping in it, always
Speaker 1: make mistakes, always doing stuff before he prays about it.
Speaker 1: He is just like caffeinated ad d and this close
Speaker 1: to being a prodigal. Every day of his life just
Speaker 1: a stinker for Jesus. And I love that the stories
Speaker 1: we read, y'all, these are not perfect paleo kind of
Speaker 1: spiritual people. I mean, there are people who eat too
Speaker 1: much sugar and who struggle and sometimes say bad words
Speaker 1: in traffic. And I'm not justifying sin. Sin separates us
Speaker 1: from God. If sin was no big deal, Jesus could
Speaker 1: have just done attention. Sin is a big deal, But
Speaker 1: his grace is greater still. He's a kind God, He's
Speaker 1: a good God. Y'all remember the story. You remember the story.
Speaker 1: You remember that Peter throws Jesus under the bus at
Speaker 1: the point of Jesus' most urgent, poignant need. It's just
Speaker 1: prior to the cross. And first Pete falls asleep outside
Speaker 1: the garden of Guessimone, and then Peter denies that he
Speaker 1: even knows Jesus. He's afraid he's going to get caught
Speaker 1: up in the uproar and maybe he's going to be
Speaker 1: martyred as well. And he panics and he goes, no,
Speaker 1: I don't know the man. I don't know the man
Speaker 1: three times, and then he throws in expletives to convince
Speaker 1: the crowd. Y'all know this well, the next time he
Speaker 1: meets Jesus after throwing Jesus under the bus. Basically, it's
Speaker 1: the coolest story because the first time Peter meets Jesus,
Speaker 1: he's fishing, doesn't catch any fish. It's repeated, it's it's
Speaker 1: the exact daja vous moment. It's so sweet. He's fishing
Speaker 1: same light. John calls it Sea of Tiberius for political reasons.
Speaker 1: It's the Sea of Galilee Lake. Gonna see it. Pete's
Speaker 1: back out on a boat. He's fishing, hasn't caught anything.
Speaker 1: A stranger appears on the shore and says, have you
Speaker 1: caught any fish? And he says, nope, not a one.
Speaker 1: He says, throw your nets to the right side of
Speaker 1: the boat. Same exact thing as Luke five. They throw
Speaker 1: the nuts the right side of the boat. Fish begin
Speaker 1: a catapult into the net. I mean, Pete, even as
Speaker 1: slow as he was, you know, Pete went. This feels familiar.
Speaker 1: Something about this feels familiar. And then he recognizes it's Jesus. Now,
Speaker 1: remember the context, Remember the context. Last time he saw
Speaker 1: his savior, he has betrayed him horrifically. This is the
Speaker 1: next time. It's a week and a half later, only
Speaker 1: a week and a half. You'd think that Pete would go,
Speaker 1: I need to back the bus up. I need to
Speaker 1: get in a twelve step program. I need to go
Speaker 1: to John mac twell conference. I mean, I need to
Speaker 1: get myself to gether before I engage again with Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's not what he does. Instead, he dives out of
Speaker 1: the boat. Scholars tell us they're only about one hundred
Speaker 1: yards from shore. I mean, he could have waited two
Speaker 1: or three minutes, but he doesn't. He can't wait to
Speaker 1: get up close to Jesus, even though he's carrying horrific betrayal.
Speaker 1: But he knows what he'll find with the fee of Jesus.
Speaker 1: He knows he'll find mercy because he's spent three years
Speaker 1: with Jesus, even though he totally messed up. He knows
Speaker 1: he'll find mercy he gets to Jesus. You remember the story,
Speaker 1: Jesus eats a fish to show it really is me.
Speaker 1: I'm not a mirage. And then they have a conversation.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the last conversation, Pete, how with Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's when I was real familiar conversations in church, Jesus
Speaker 1: says to Peter John twenty one, He says to him
Speaker 1: when they had finished breakfast, Simon's son of John, do
Speaker 1: you love me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord,
Speaker 1: you know that I love you. He said to him,
Speaker 1: Feed my lambs, he said to him. Second time, Simon,
Speaker 1: son of John, do you love me? Said to him, yes, Lord,
Speaker 1: you know that I love you. He said, feed my sheep.
Speaker 1: He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John,
Speaker 1: do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said
Speaker 1: it the third time? Do you love me? And he said, Lord,
Speaker 1: you know everything, You know that I love you. Now
Speaker 1: y'all have heard why Jesus posed the question three times?
Speaker 1: Why have y'all heard Jesus pose that question three times?
Speaker 1: Talk about louder exactly because he denied him three times.
Speaker 1: We're almost always taught that it's kind of a biblical
Speaker 1: quid pro quo that because Pete denied him three times,
Speaker 1: Jesus kind of resets Peter's faith by asking the quote, Oh, y'all,
Speaker 1: it's so much better than that. We cried at Superico
Speaker 1: last night talking about the love of Christ over this
Speaker 1: one passage that we tend to miss so often. We
Speaker 1: miss the compassion in God's word. The first time, Jesus
Speaker 1: asked Peter the question on the heels of one of
Speaker 1: the world's biggest betrayals. He says, Simon, son of John
Speaker 1: and Pete, do you aga payo me? Three words in
Speaker 1: the Greek for love. Aga payoh means sacrificial love. You
Speaker 1: love him more than anything? Fialao is a brotherly kind
Speaker 1: of facebook friend kind of love. And then eiros is
Speaker 1: what I never get to experience. That's a frisky kind
Speaker 1: of love. And so Jesus says to Peter, Peter, do
Speaker 1: you aga payem? We just translate them all love. It's
Speaker 1: so much better, It's so much more intimate. Do you
Speaker 1: I could pay me? Do you love me more than anything?
Speaker 1: Pete says, Lord, you know me? You know I just
Speaker 1: threw you under the bus. You know I totally blew it.
Speaker 1: You know I fail you. You know I love you
Speaker 1: like a friend on my best day. That's all I've got.
Speaker 1: Second time, Jesus says Peter, do you I could pay me?
Speaker 1: Do you love me more than anything? Do you love
Speaker 1: me with a sacrificial love? Have you laid it all down?
Speaker 1: Are you living what you sing every Sunday at elevation, No, sir, no, sir.
Speaker 1: You know me, Jesus. A week and a half ago,
Speaker 1: while I was flinging the fort and telling people I
Speaker 1: had never seen you in my life. You know me, Jesus.
Speaker 1: You know how fickle my faith is. You know how
Speaker 1: many times I've messed up. You know me, Jesus. You
Speaker 1: know I flail you on my best day. All of
Speaker 1: God is a brotherly kind of love. Third time, our Savior.
Speaker 1: Don't you imagine Pete now, just kind of staring at
Speaker 1: his feet, you know, probably wearing chocko's and that Middle
Speaker 1: Eastern sand. He's hot, he's grimy, just staring at his feet,
Speaker 1: thinking I am the worst of the worst. And I
Speaker 1: imagine Jesus. I don't know for sure, but I always
Speaker 1: get pictures in my head when I read these true stories,
Speaker 1: and I imagine Jesus grinning, and I imagine him taking
Speaker 1: his hands that have recently had spikes driven through the wrist,
Speaker 1: and I imagine him just taking that rough fisherman by
Speaker 1: the face and tilting his attention up toward him, looking
Speaker 1: deep into his eyes, those eyes that at that point thought,
Speaker 1: no one's ever gonna look into my soul again, because
Speaker 1: all they'll find his failure and Jesus saying, Pete, do
Speaker 1: you filail me? Peter goes Lord you you know me,
Speaker 1: and jesusays no, I know you and Peter right now,
Speaker 1: that's enough. I'm not kicking you off the team. I'm
Speaker 1: naming you team captain. I'm going to build a new
Speaker 1: Testament Church on your shoulders. Peter, I know you, and
Speaker 1: I love you. I love everything about you. Y'all, we've
Speaker 1: been deluded into thinking that our performance activates and accelerates
Speaker 1: intimacy with Jesus, and it doesn't. Intimacy with Jesus is
Speaker 1: not accelerated. It's not activated by our performance, by our
Speaker 1: deservedness or lack thereof. It's his kindness. He closes the gap,
Speaker 1: He pursues us. Most of what it takes to have
Speaker 1: intimacy with Jesus is just recognizing you can't make it
Speaker 1: by yourself. One of the reasons I love Peter so
Speaker 1: much is my faith has been solidified in failure. Twelve
Speaker 1: years ago, I lost everything that mattered to me two
Speaker 1: primary relationships, one to death, and I was diagnosed with cancer,
Speaker 1: which at first looked very serious, all in the same week,
Speaker 1: and I've always been one of those girls who preaches grace,
Speaker 1: but I don't really believe it. For myself, it's been
Speaker 1: like what soap. It's been hard for me to hang
Speaker 1: on too, and so I talk about it. I can
Speaker 1: thrown across the cup about it. I can even give
Speaker 1: you the Greek about it. But I am in the
Speaker 1: corner of my heart thought that I definitely wasn't good
Speaker 1: enough for God, and I actually wondered if God was
Speaker 1: enough for me. I thought, if I don't have somebody
Speaker 1: with skin on, I'm not really sure I can make it.
Speaker 1: And I lost hope and I got to a point
Speaker 1: of such deep desperation disappointment. I lived in a little
Speaker 1: cottage south of Nashville by myself that I remember waking
Speaker 1: up one morning and thinking, I've got Ambien from a
Speaker 1: time I was sick. I'm going to take to Mbian.
Speaker 1: Not because I want to die. I was too afraid
Speaker 1: of the mess I'd leave behind for people. But I
Speaker 1: just can't be conscious. I just don't. I just want
Speaker 1: don't want to wake up and remember that I don't
Speaker 1: feel like anybody really knows me, and I don't feel
Speaker 1: like if they did, they'd really love me much less Jesus,
Speaker 1: and he spoke to me during that season more clearly
Speaker 1: than he has ever spoken to me. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was an audible voice. I would by myself
Speaker 1: it certainly felt audible. But he said, Lisa, you've been
Speaker 1: running your whole life. You've been running scared your whole life.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to take you to the basement and
Speaker 1: I'm going to sit there with you in the dark
Speaker 1: until fear doesn't own you anymore. I had already been
Speaker 1: to seminary the first go around. I could pose that
Speaker 1: I had intimacy with Jesus, but most of the time
Speaker 1: that's all it was. I was running scared, and I
Speaker 1: had a lot of information about God, intimacy with God
Speaker 1: I just couldn't hang on to. And it was there
Speaker 1: in the dark. It was there, this smack dab in
Speaker 1: the middle of my failure, my ineptitude, that Jesus held me,
Speaker 1: and I learned how to be held. I learned to
Speaker 1: lean against his breath breast and quit trying to perform
Speaker 1: for his affection. Nine weeks ago, I was hospitalized with
Speaker 1: COVID and I had a very very severe pneumonia, and
Speaker 1: the first night I overheard too medical personnel. They didn't
Speaker 1: know I could hear. They thought I was unconscious. I
Speaker 1: just had my eyes closed because I was so so tired.
Speaker 1: And I overheard them lamenting the fact that they didn't
Speaker 1: think they could stabilize me. And I knew I was
Speaker 1: in trouble based on the numbers. I knew that I
Speaker 1: couldn't breathe. I didn't realize how close I was to death,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh goodness, gracious, I'm about to die.
Speaker 1: And I'm fifty seven and I have an eleven year
Speaker 1: old daughter, and I certainly didn't want to die. But
Speaker 1: y'all the presence of Christ in my hospital room. He
Speaker 1: was palpable, and he held me again, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: afraid because leaning into him is who I am now.
Speaker 1: He's my hope, he's my breath, he's my joy, he's
Speaker 1: my love. He's the reason I get up in the morning.
Speaker 1: I've been long winded. Some people wish I didn't get
Speaker 1: my breath back after that pneumonia, and I apologize for
Speaker 1: going a little over, But I want to actually end
Speaker 1: with a question. The last thing you say was I
Speaker 1: shall not want. In Mark chapter ten, Jesus encounters a
Speaker 1: man who's been totally missed. He doesn't have intimate relationships.
Speaker 1: He's blind, he's ostracized. He's alone in the dark, and
Speaker 1: Jesus puts Easter on pause. He's walking to Easter and
Speaker 1: he stops and he says, bring him to me. He's
Speaker 1: that kind. He is that kind. He would pause everything
Speaker 1: for you. It's not a corporate grace that you're experiencing.
Speaker 1: At elevation. He sees you, he knows you, he loves you.
Speaker 1: He sings to you in the dark. You may not
Speaker 1: feel it, but he is closer than your next breath.
Speaker 1: And he says to Bartimaeus, what do you need? I
Speaker 1: shall not want. Some of are gonna sing that I
Speaker 1: am gonna walk out of service this morning, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get in your car and you're gonna feel overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by disappointment and loneliness. You're gonna go back to your
Speaker 1: condos and your apartments, and you're gonna say, I'd love
Speaker 1: to be with a guy with cats. I'd love to
Speaker 1: have somebody who pursues me. I'm tired of carrying the
Speaker 1: weight of my life by myself. Now ask God to
Speaker 1: bow your heads and close your eyes again. If you're
Speaker 1: driving listening to this, obviously, stay alert, but I would
Speaker 1: ask you the same question, what do you need from Jesus?
Speaker 1: What do you need from Jesus? A veneer of relationship
Speaker 1: with Jesus is not going to satisfy your soul, our
Speaker 1: soul's crave intimacy. He created us that way. He created
Speaker 1: us to long to be held, to long to be
Speaker 1: seen by him, to have ongoing conversation with him every day,
Speaker 1: to walk with him. What do you need from Jesus?
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us special thanks to those of
Speaker 1: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 1: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 1: link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch
Speaker 1: dot org slash podcast for more information and if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it
Speaker 1: with your friends. You can click the share button, take
Speaker 1: a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
Speaker 1: tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
Speaker 1: bless you