Speaker 1: You didn't just buy a ticket. You such something in
Speaker 1: motion just by being here tonight. Some of you bought
Speaker 1: somebody else a ticket tonight, and it's going to change
Speaker 1: their life to know that God loves them and has
Speaker 1: not forsaken them, and He is for you and not
Speaker 1: against you. Hey, my name's Larry Bribe, but everybody calls
Speaker 1: me LB, one of the pastors here at Elevation, and
Speaker 1: I get the joy of opening up God's word with
Speaker 1: you today here at Elevation Show. So welcome all of
Speaker 1: our locations online. Family. My wife and I were one
Speaker 1: of the original families that helped start this church over
Speaker 1: sixteen years ago, and it's been the biggest joy of
Speaker 1: our life to see what God has done through this ministry.
Speaker 1: And I just want to show you just a little bit,
Speaker 1: just a visual. It's really good to look back and
Speaker 1: remember God's faithfulness because in a moment you're like, well, God,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? Just look back. What he
Speaker 1: did in your past is probably what He's gonna do
Speaker 1: in your future. He's been good to you, and we
Speaker 1: have so many new people here at Elevation, and I
Speaker 1: just want to give you just a glimpse of maybe
Speaker 1: some of the things that you might know about that
Speaker 1: that God established in their past. So here at Valentine,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get everybody on the floor to help me.
Speaker 1: Everybody else stays standing. All the locations stay standing by
Speaker 1: everybody on the floor here, just take a seat. Elevation
Speaker 1: began with eight families selling their homes and quitting their
Speaker 1: jobs back in two thousand and five. My wife and
Speaker 1: I were one of those original eight families. Just to
Speaker 1: give you a point of reference, have the front row
Speaker 1: stand up here, stand out and then one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: six you six stand up so right there. So February
Speaker 1: tap on the shoulder. There you go. February two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. This is the size of Elevation Church. Do
Speaker 1: not despise the day of small beginnings. Look how good
Speaker 1: our God is. A year later, a year later February
Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, February fifth, we'd have our
Speaker 1: very first worship experience at Elevation Church. Center section. It's
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty people stand up just the center
Speaker 1: section right here now. We had one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: one that day, So jj I need you to stand
Speaker 1: up as well. This was our very first church service
Speaker 1: at Elevation Church. Look what God did one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty one people. So when I tell you we had
Speaker 1: sixteen people, now we've got twenty physical locations at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy what God has done? When I show
Speaker 1: you that one hundred and twenty one that first Sunday.
Speaker 1: Now every weekend we have one hundred and forty nine
Speaker 1: different countries logging into watch one of our worship services.
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing? Now? Take take the wide shot Balantine.
Speaker 1: Everybody stand up on the floor. Now take the watch
Speaker 1: up so everybody, what you see on the screens, this
Speaker 1: represents the number of people that had been baptized this
Speaker 1: year at Elevation Church. One thousand, five hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: seven people. Come on once, you praise God for that.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Look at his son sixteen years. Maybe God's
Speaker 1: been very good to our ministry. But also we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be here today. We're not for our pastors, Pastor Stephen,
Speaker 1: Pastor Holly Ferdick. And I've been following Pastor Stephen for
Speaker 1: twenty years. I figured it out. I've listened to about
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred different sermons or teachings. Or preachings over
Speaker 1: that twenty years from Pastor Stephen, and he is annointed
Speaker 1: on the stage here. There's not a better preacher on
Speaker 1: the planet. He is a general in the army of God,
Speaker 1: and he is speaking into this world. It's amazing. But
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, when I was first getting to know him,
Speaker 1: when my brother passed away from cancer, he was the
Speaker 1: first one that called me. When I was getting ordained.
Speaker 1: He was the one that came alongside me, put his
Speaker 1: arm around and said, I see God's hand on your life.
Speaker 1: When my wife and I went through miscarriage, he was
Speaker 1: the first one that called and said, you're gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: My dad passed away a couple of years ago, called
Speaker 1: me every day just to check in on me. As
Speaker 1: good as a preacher as he is, he's an even
Speaker 1: better pastor. You're in a good house. You're in a
Speaker 1: good place. Would you help me? Thank Pastor Stephen and Holly.
Speaker 1: We love you, we honor you. I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: one versus scripture and then I'll let you sit down.
Speaker 1: This is our verse for the day, and I pray
Speaker 1: that God would use it in a mighty way. Two
Speaker 1: Timothy Chapter four, Verse seven, it says I have fought
Speaker 1: the good fight. I have finished the race. I have
Speaker 1: kept the faith. The title for today's sermon it was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was a good fight. Look at your neighbor.
Speaker 1: Put your dukes up, say it was a good fight.
Speaker 1: You could put some boxing gloves in the chat. You
Speaker 1: guys can have a seat after you have threatened to
Speaker 1: hurt somebody with violence. Thank you, Worship team. I love
Speaker 1: a good fight. I'm a big MMA fan, you know
Speaker 1: McGregor Diaz. I loved it one and two. I'm praying
Speaker 1: for a trilogy. I would love the my generation. The
Speaker 1: greatest boxing match of all time is hol of Field.
Speaker 1: Evander Holafield and Mike Tyson won not two with the
Speaker 1: ear thing. That wasn't so good. The best fight my
Speaker 1: wife and I had, it was amazing. It was at
Speaker 1: our one year anniversary. We'll celebrate twenty two years this year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my girl. At our one year anniversary, I made dinner,
Speaker 1: I had music on. I am trying to score up
Speaker 1: mortal merital points for marital blessings, and at dinner, I said, baby,
Speaker 1: in a word, how would you describe our first year marriage?
Speaker 1: She said, like flowers? It was like beautiful and before
Speaker 1: I tell you and I said, please don't judge me.
Speaker 1: I was young, I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Jane said, well how about you, how would you describe
Speaker 1: it in a word? I said hard, Like she was
Speaker 1: all being married to me is hard. I'm like, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what I've meant. That was a good fight.
Speaker 1: But when we read this text, I have fought the
Speaker 1: good fight, I have finished the race. I've kept the faith.
Speaker 1: It's really important that you understand the context in which
Speaker 1: that's written. Whenever you study the Word of God, to
Speaker 1: always study it in context. It's one thing of a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old looks at you when you're in a
Speaker 1: really difficult season, and that sixteen year old looks at
Speaker 1: you and says, I know it's hard, but stand strong,
Speaker 1: you can do it. You're gonna make it okay. It's
Speaker 1: like my sixteen year old comes home and says, it
Speaker 1: was a really hard day, work day. I'm like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really real hard. Now, when a sixty one
Speaker 1: year old looks at you, who's a military veteran who
Speaker 1: spent time in prison of war camp, who's got all
Speaker 1: the scars, looks at you, and says, I know it's hard,
Speaker 1: but stand strong. You can do it. You're gonna make it.
Speaker 1: Cares a little bit of weight there, doesn't it. So
Speaker 1: as we read these words out of Tewod Timothy, we
Speaker 1: need to understand the person who wrote it is a
Speaker 1: guy named Paul. Paul is a super possible. He wrote
Speaker 1: thirteen books of the New Testament. It's funny. In the
Speaker 1: New Testament there's twenty seven books. All the other people
Speaker 1: who wrote books in the New Testament, the names of
Speaker 1: the books are written by the person who wrote them. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,
Speaker 1: you know first and second Peter, but Paul's. They're all
Speaker 1: identified by who'd receive them. Otherwise we'd be reading thirteenth
Speaker 1: Paul today. He wrote that many books of the Bible.
Speaker 1: And when he writes this book of the Bible, you
Speaker 1: need to understand context is who wrote it, who'd they
Speaker 1: write it to? And then why did they write it?
Speaker 1: Paul writes this to Timothy as protege he'd left in
Speaker 1: charge of ephesis. Paul is in prison, and prison is
Speaker 1: actually an understatement. He's in a dungeon at this point.
Speaker 1: If you go to Rome, you could actually see the
Speaker 1: place that's a hole in the ground that's sunken down there,
Speaker 1: and it's a dungeon. That's where he's last spent the
Speaker 1: last days of his life. So as he pens this
Speaker 1: letter to his protege Timothy, he writes two books to him,
Speaker 1: first Timothy, second to me. Second to me is the
Speaker 1: last book he writes. And as he writes it, and
Speaker 1: he writes these words, I have fought the good fight.
Speaker 1: I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Speaker 1: He knows he's going to die. These are his last words,
Speaker 1: and he writes his last letter to his favorite person.
Speaker 1: And if you and I were at the end of
Speaker 1: our life and we are coming to the last words
Speaker 1: we would speak, who would we speak them to? What
Speaker 1: would we tell them? There's something in the text that
Speaker 1: speaks to us about the fight that you're facing today.
Speaker 1: Because Paul wasn't just admonishing Timothy. He's speaking to us
Speaker 1: in this moment today, and he's telling it was a
Speaker 1: good fight. And Paul knew the difference between a good
Speaker 1: fight and a bad fight. As he writes the Book
Speaker 1: of Philippians, he writes that one in prison that's more
Speaker 1: like an air. It wasn't a Dungeon. That was a
Speaker 1: really nice place to be in prison. He writes that one,
Speaker 1: and people are talking trash about him, and they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: look at Paul. He's not annoying it. If he were,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be in prison. But they're preaching the right gospel.
Speaker 1: Paul said, that's a bad fight. He said, false motives
Speaker 1: are not in the gospels preached. I rejoice. I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna fight that fight. But chapter three of Philippians, there's
Speaker 1: some people that are judaizers that are telling all the
Speaker 1: new Christians, hey, yes, follow Jesus, plus also get circumcised.
Speaker 1: Paul comes on glooe. He calls them those evildoers, those mutilators,
Speaker 1: those dogs. He says, that's a good fight. So we
Speaker 1: need to understand the difference between in a good fight
Speaker 1: and a bad fight, because if you don't know how
Speaker 1: to differentiate, you fight everything, and some of you are
Speaker 1: fighting everything, and you're fighting battles that God has never
Speaker 1: told you to fight. So when he pens this letter
Speaker 1: to Timothy, he says these words and Tewod Timothy two
Speaker 1: twenty two. It's my probably one of my favorite verses.
Speaker 1: Tewod Timothy two twenty two two two two two, He says,
Speaker 1: flea the lustful desires of your youth. Some of you
Speaker 1: are fighting the battle by continuing to go to your phone,
Speaker 1: and you're getting defeated every time. And God is saying,
Speaker 1: how about you just throw that thing away? Don't even
Speaker 1: fight that one, stay away from that fight any worth it?
Speaker 1: He then he says in verse twenty three, he says,
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with foolish or stupid arguments, for
Speaker 1: you know they lead to nothing but quarrels. Some of
Speaker 1: you that needs to be your screensaver, some of you
Speaker 1: that needs to be put on your computer. And the
Speaker 1: next time you want to go to Facebook and you
Speaker 1: want to post that because you know you're waiting for
Speaker 1: a fight, and you know you're about to get into
Speaker 1: an argument, May the word of God convict you? Bad fight?
Speaker 1: Bad say bad fight? Why would you keep fighting that one?
Speaker 1: So I love the way that Paula sets this up.
Speaker 1: But the fight he's talking about here isn't people. It's
Speaker 1: the fight of faith, because he says, I have kept
Speaker 1: the faith, and the word he uses their fights fought
Speaker 1: is It's in the original language. It says agonisomy. It's
Speaker 1: not in the time restaurant Ago nees O Mine. There
Speaker 1: was a TV show in the eighties, the ABC Wide
Speaker 1: World of Sports. They would talk about the thrill of
Speaker 1: victory and the agony. That's where we get a word
Speaker 1: agony from Paul is giving you a lesson from the
Speaker 1: battle he's facing that it's gonna have agony connected with it.
Speaker 1: And this wasn't just something Paul realized at the end
Speaker 1: of his life as he's sitting in a dungeon. It
Speaker 1: was something he knew what happened him thirty years earlier
Speaker 1: when he started following Jesus. It wasn't he got to
Speaker 1: the destination like, oh, I'm glad I kept the faith.
Speaker 1: He said, no, No, there is a race from the
Speaker 1: moment he came to a relationship with Jesus and he said,
Speaker 1: this is the race. It is to testify. It is
Speaker 1: about faith in Jesus. That's the race. That's the fight.
Speaker 1: It's the fight of faith. In fact, in Acts chapter twenty,
Speaker 1: Paul says this. In verses twenty two to twenty four,
Speaker 1: he says, and now, compelled by the spirit, I'm going
Speaker 1: to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.
Speaker 1: I only know than in every city. The Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However,
Speaker 1: I consider my life worth nothing compared nothing to me.
Speaker 1: My only aim is to finish the race and complete
Speaker 1: the task the Lord Jesus has given me the task
Speaker 1: of testifying to the good news of God's grace. You See,
Speaker 1: a good fight does not need a good result, because
Speaker 1: what he says there is I'm going to Jerusalem. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's gonna happen to me there. It might
Speaker 1: be good, it might be bad. But he goes, I
Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen. I'm gonna face prison and hardships
Speaker 1: in persecution along the way. So when Paul writes to Timothy, goes,
Speaker 1: everybody who follows Jesus is going to suffer persecution. It's
Speaker 1: going to happen. See, a good fight is about the
Speaker 1: good news, because he says there the task of testifying
Speaker 1: to the good news of God's grace. A good fight
Speaker 1: is always connected to the good news. It's not about
Speaker 1: a good outcome. But it begs us to ask the question,
Speaker 1: what is your faith in? Is it in the good
Speaker 1: news or is it in a good outcome? Because when
Speaker 1: we start throwing around the word I got faith. Really, really,
Speaker 1: what's your faith in? I got faith and my vikings
Speaker 1: are gonna win the Super Bowl this year. I got
Speaker 1: faith my knee is going to feel better, and I
Speaker 1: got faith that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.
Speaker 1: Praise God, Heaven. And we we cheapen the word faith
Speaker 1: by connecting it to infeariorr things. That's why I love Jesus,
Speaker 1: he says. If anyone would follow me, he says, he
Speaker 1: will hate his father and mother. He's not saying you'll
Speaker 1: literally hate them. What he is saying, when you compare
Speaker 1: the love you have for me, it will make everything
Speaker 1: else look like hatred. May we make faith a top
Speaker 1: shelf issue? Would you become so legalistic in your own
Speaker 1: life that you would, really you would only let faith
Speaker 1: be connected to Jesus Christ and the good news, not
Speaker 1: a good outcome. Is my faith that God is with
Speaker 1: me in the middle of it? Or is my faith
Speaker 1: that I'll eventually get out of it? See? A good
Speaker 1: is all about faith. What do you have faith in?
Speaker 1: Let me ask it to you this way. If you
Speaker 1: want to know what your faith is, look what you're
Speaker 1: fighting for. If your faith is in your reputation, your
Speaker 1: Lawy's been fighting for how you look. If your faith
Speaker 1: is in your career, you'll fight by cutting corners to
Speaker 1: get ahead. If your faith is in the political party,
Speaker 1: well that's not good. Don't do that one. But what
Speaker 1: I think Paul does, and I want to categorize there's
Speaker 1: three fights I think that we can learn from the
Speaker 1: life of Paul that I want to give you today
Speaker 1: that are good fights. Say, good fight, You're going to
Speaker 1: fight something in life. I want the Holy Spirit to
Speaker 1: give you discernment. Is this a good fight? And so
Speaker 1: the first fight is this is how you see Jesus.
Speaker 1: Here's the fight is how can you go through a
Speaker 1: bad situation and cling to the promise that God is
Speaker 1: a good God. How can you go through something bad
Speaker 1: and believe that He is still good? That's the fight
Speaker 1: of faith. And some of you would get the gold
Speaker 1: star and a sticker because you've been to Bible camp.
Speaker 1: Yay Jesus, you know. But is he a historical figure?
Speaker 1: Is he a fairy tale? Is he a fictional character?
Speaker 1: Is he a prophet? Is he a princh? Or is
Speaker 1: he a savior? And Lord, I don't know. That's for
Speaker 1: you to decide, how do you see Jesus. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We were created in his image. In Bigo day he
Speaker 1: made the male and female. He created us in his image.
Speaker 1: But will shape God into the image of who we
Speaker 1: think he should be? When you think about how you
Speaker 1: see God? Does who God is shape the way you
Speaker 1: see the world? Or does your experience with the world
Speaker 1: shape how you see God? Because I'm talking about the lens.
Speaker 1: This is the lens of faith. Here is Christ my lens.
Speaker 1: That everything I see I see it through that lens.
Speaker 1: Or is this the world? Then now I start to
Speaker 1: put it on in Well, God, I guess you're not
Speaker 1: good because this bad thing happened. That's the faith. That's
Speaker 1: the fight of faith that's happening right now in your life.
Speaker 1: And it's very insidious. You don't even know what's happening.
Speaker 1: Because the word agonizoma I wasn't Paul talking about his
Speaker 1: bad knees. It was the agony it was. But agonizem
Speaker 1: I also suggests an antagonist, an adversary, an accuser that
Speaker 1: wants to keep you from faith in God, because you
Speaker 1: really don't have Rocky unless you got Ivan Drago, you
Speaker 1: really don't have Rocky the hero unless you got somebody
Speaker 1: who's a villain. And in the opening act of humanity,
Speaker 1: the stage is set, Adam and Eve are in the
Speaker 1: garden and the serpent steps into the scene. Question, can
Speaker 1: you tell when the serpent steps into the scene of
Speaker 1: your life? Are you aware when the advocate, the adversary,
Speaker 1: the accuser steps into the scene of your life? And
Speaker 1: this is the crazy part, because if you can't spot it,
Speaker 1: you're setting yourself up to follow his script. Why didn't
Speaker 1: Eve spot this serpent stepping into the scene Because God
Speaker 1: created a bunch of snakes, and so if snake comes
Speaker 1: along that he's crafty. We often think that he's like, uh,
Speaker 1: he's shown up with a pitchfork and horns. No, he
Speaker 1: doesn't show in up like that. He doesn't come in
Speaker 1: kicking things over. He comes in asking questions, and he's
Speaker 1: stepping into the scene of the story, and he's blending
Speaker 1: in with the background of everything else. So before we
Speaker 1: impugne the character of Eve, we need to realize we're
Speaker 1: having conversations with snakes all the time, and he's crafty.
Speaker 1: He's blending in because the Bible says and he's like
Speaker 1: a roaring lion, raw it's easy to spot. Iful lion
Speaker 1: rolls in. Sometimes the enemy the accuser, Hey, babe, hey,
Speaker 1: that's how Sometimes they enter the scene of your life.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's it's just a dm that says what you're doing,
Speaker 1: because they don't come in kicking stuff over. They come
Speaker 1: in asking questions. Because if you can't spot the devils
Speaker 1: step into your scene, there's a good chance you'll start
Speaker 1: operating according to his script. Because he steps in and
Speaker 1: he asks a question, did God really say? All he's
Speaker 1: trying to do is to get a conversation going, and
Speaker 1: what he's trying to do is to control the script.
Speaker 1: He's trying to control the narrative. Did God really say, Oh,
Speaker 1: come on, Eve, you won't certainly die. It goes from
Speaker 1: asking a question to making a statement you won't die.
Speaker 1: Then it goes down into making an indictment. All sin
Speaker 1: casts a shadow of doubt on the character of God,
Speaker 1: because what the enemy is trying to do is to
Speaker 1: start at a very subtle shade of doubt that just
Speaker 1: slowly gets you creeping into compromising your view of God.
Speaker 1: And then you eat the apple. Can you identify with
Speaker 1: the devil sneaking in and say, did God really say, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, she's nice. Oh it's not that bad. No
Speaker 1: one will ever know everybody else is doing it. And
Speaker 1: then when you do it, you dirty dog. We see
Speaker 1: the script of the Evil One. Can you identify where
Speaker 1: the devil has stepped into the scene and he's tried
Speaker 1: to get you to operate according to his script. But
Speaker 1: what Eve failed to do. Jesus redeemed because as he
Speaker 1: is out in the desert forty days of fasting, the
Speaker 1: Evil One comes to him. He slithers into the scene
Speaker 1: and he comes up to Jesus, who is hungry. He says, hey,
Speaker 1: if you really got turn those rocks into bread, because
Speaker 1: I know you're hungry, And Jesus says, it is written,
Speaker 1: man does not live by bread alone, but every word
Speaker 1: that comes from the mouth of God. Then he tempts
Speaker 1: him again, if you really got to step off, and
Speaker 1: he goes, no, no, it is written, don't put the
Speaker 1: Lord your God to the tests. And it refuses him
Speaker 1: each time, not by having a conversation, but by speaking truth.
Speaker 1: That's the difference. So when Paul he writes to Timothy,
Speaker 1: he says this to him earlier and two Timothy he
Speaker 1: says to me, he says Timothy. How you have known
Speaker 1: the scriptures from infancy, which you are able to make
Speaker 1: you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Jesus, he
Speaker 1: says to him. He says, all scripture is God breathed,
Speaker 1: profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. All
Speaker 1: scripture is God breathed. So when God wanted to make man,
Speaker 1: he took dirt and he he breathed into it. When
Speaker 1: he wanted to make the Word, he took it and
Speaker 1: he he breathed into it. And this is different than
Speaker 1: every other book you read, every other book you read.
Speaker 1: This is the only book that reads you. It is
Speaker 1: the living word of God. And he tells Timothy, Timothy,
Speaker 1: I need your life immersed in this because when persecution
Speaker 1: comes and the devil comes along, he's going to try
Speaker 1: to get you operating according to his script or you
Speaker 1: can operate according to the scriptures. So yes, it's easy
Speaker 1: to get the gold star. Say yeah, I know who
Speaker 1: Jesus is. It is written this persecution is relentless. It
Speaker 1: is the seas on the shore of your life, the
Speaker 1: relentless attack of the evil one who's always beating against
Speaker 1: your boat, trying to sink you, but you can anchor
Speaker 1: yourself in the word of God. Say no, it is
Speaker 1: written all scripture is God Breathe profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting,
Speaker 1: and training in righteousness. And that's what God wants to
Speaker 1: do today. Did God really say? Because when persecution comes,
Speaker 1: it's your faith that will sustain you. Because whatever your
Speaker 1: faith is in, that's what you'll be fighting for. And
Speaker 1: God will use persecution to refine your faith, or the
Speaker 1: animal will use that same persecution to get you to
Speaker 1: forfeit your faith. Persecution is not optional. The great pugilist
Speaker 1: and theologian Mike Tyson said, everybody's got a plan until
Speaker 1: they get punched in the mouth. Fight number two is
Speaker 1: how Jesus sees you. How Jesus sees you. The first
Speaker 1: fight is how you see Jesus now. The second one
Speaker 1: is how Jesus sees you. And I want to rewind
Speaker 1: a little bit to Paul, and I want to show
Speaker 1: you the first time he suffers persecution as he's following Jesus,
Speaker 1: because he had this radical encounter some thirty years earlier.
Speaker 1: And I want to rewind to that his first missionary
Speaker 1: trip in actually chapter fourteen and In actual chapter fourteen,
Speaker 1: he's going on his very first missionary trip, and you're
Speaker 1: about to read it about the very first miracle that
Speaker 1: ever happens through the ministry of Paul. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of firsts there, and some of you know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be first, first in your family to come
Speaker 1: to faith, or first to graduate high school. It's always
Speaker 1: hard being first, isn't it, Because you come up against resistance,
Speaker 1: and some of us quit because the resistance was more
Speaker 1: than what we thought. And what I want to see
Speaker 1: you is Paul have a perseverance to push through, because
Speaker 1: if he doesn't push through, he doesn't get to the
Speaker 1: end of the race. And I'm telling you, there's the
Speaker 1: race that God has marked out for you, and he
Speaker 1: wants you to run it. But the adversary is trying
Speaker 1: to stop you from that race. So Paul starts on
Speaker 1: his very first of four missionary trips. In actual chapter
Speaker 1: fourteen he can read about. He goes to Antioch and
Speaker 1: he gets kicked out because they're preaching Jesus. They don't
Speaker 1: like him. Then they go to Iconium. They kick him
Speaker 1: out there because he's preaching Jesus there. So he shows
Speaker 1: up in ash fourteen, Verse eight says in Leestra, there
Speaker 1: said a man who was lame, who had been that
Speaker 1: way from birth, and he had never walked. He listened
Speaker 1: to Paul as he was speaking, and Paul looked directly
Speaker 1: at him and saw that he had the faith to
Speaker 1: be healed, and he called up, stand up on your feet.
Speaker 1: At this the man jumped up and he began to walk.
Speaker 1: That's the first miracle through Paul's ministry. When the crowd
Speaker 1: saw that Paul of what Paul had done, they shouted
Speaker 1: into the Laconian language, the gods have come down to
Speaker 1: us in human form. Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul
Speaker 1: they called Hermes because he was the chief spreaker. The speaker,
Speaker 1: the priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city,
Speaker 1: brought bulls and reason the city gates because he and
Speaker 1: the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. You see,
Speaker 1: the people in Lystra had an image of what they
Speaker 1: thought God was, So when Paul and Barnabas show up,
Speaker 1: they look at them through their lens of who they
Speaker 1: think God is, and they try to form the God
Speaker 1: into what their image of them was. We do that
Speaker 1: all the time. It's so insidious. We do that everything
Speaker 1: God doesn't do that. People don't know who they think
Speaker 1: they are. We will always use our definition of what
Speaker 1: we think is right to conform everybody else into the
Speaker 1: image of it. We were created in his image, not
Speaker 1: to conform him into our image, and that's what they're
Speaker 1: trying to do in this point. So how does Paul
Speaker 1: respond to this? Is funny, he says. But when Paul
Speaker 1: and Barnabas heard this, heard this, they tore their clothes
Speaker 1: and they rushed out to the crowd, shouting, friends, why
Speaker 1: are you doing this? We two are only humans like you.
Speaker 1: We're bringing you good news. This whole fight that Paul
Speaker 1: has been running for thirty years. Before we get to Tewod,
Speaker 1: Timothy is all about the good news. Everywhere he went
Speaker 1: it was spreading the good news. A good fight is
Speaker 1: always connected to the good news. That was funny. This
Speaker 1: crowd flips really quickly on Paul. If you jumped down
Speaker 1: to verse nineteen. Then some Jews came from Antioch and
Speaker 1: Iconium and they won the crowd over. Remember the towns
Speaker 1: he just came out of, and they kicked him out.
Speaker 1: They showed up on the scene and they stoned Paul
Speaker 1: and dragged him outside the city thinking he was dead.
Speaker 1: And that's not the modern recreational version of stoning. This
Speaker 1: is Old Testament version of stoning. This is where they
Speaker 1: drag him outside the city, and stoning in that point
Speaker 1: it really served two purposes. They take him outside the
Speaker 1: city because you are stirring up and you're trying to
Speaker 1: create a God that's different than our God, and we
Speaker 1: don't like that. We want to conform you to the
Speaker 1: image of what we think God's supposed to be. So
Speaker 1: they drag him outside the city. And now they start
Speaker 1: grabbing rocks and they start throwing out at him, and
Speaker 1: the rocks are meant to kill him, but then this
Speaker 1: also meant to bury him. There's two purposes in those rocks.
Speaker 1: You want to get him outside the city because you
Speaker 1: don't want to file the city by having a dead
Speaker 1: body in the city, so you'd take him outside the city.
Speaker 1: And now they start throwing rocks at him. And imagine
Speaker 1: Paul getting hid by every one of these rocks. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if he had a thought, but God, I'm
Speaker 1: serving you. God, you told me. They're like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: spread the good news. Why is this happening to me?
Speaker 1: I'm a good person. Why is this all happening? And
Speaker 1: we all know what it's like to have things thrown
Speaker 1: at us that we feel like should never have been thrown.
Speaker 1: And Paul, imagine the weight of the stones that are
Speaker 1: now starting to lay on top of him, on top
Speaker 1: of him, on top of him. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: at any point the devil snuck onto the scene said hey, Paul,
Speaker 1: where's your God? Now Paul gets a choice there, he
Speaker 1: gets his choice to say, how am I going to
Speaker 1: respond in this situation. That's the first time Paul is stoned.
Speaker 1: In the scriptures, he would beaten, he would be flawed,
Speaker 1: But that's the first time he faced major persecution. But
Speaker 1: it was not the first time he had an experience
Speaker 1: with stoning, because it was not the first time we
Speaker 1: read of Paul in the scriptures. The first time we
Speaker 1: read of Paul is in Acts chapter seven. And I
Speaker 1: want to show you a glimpse of Paul's past because
Speaker 1: I think as the weight of the rocks is starting
Speaker 1: to accumulate on top of Paul, I think he has
Speaker 1: a flashback and he starts to make the connection between Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm being stoned. But I remember a point that I
Speaker 1: did this to somebody else, because the devil will always
Speaker 1: try to use your past to disqualify your future. And
Speaker 1: then think Paul's having a flashback. So if we jump
Speaker 1: back to Acts chapter seven, you're gonna get a scene
Speaker 1: of a man named Stephen, because at this point, a
Speaker 1: couple of years earlier, Jesus had been crucified. He was killed,
Speaker 1: and the Jewish leaders thought, that's the end of this Christianity. Yes,
Speaker 1: we win, you're dead, let's move forward. But like a fire,
Speaker 1: they tried to stop out, and the ember started to
Speaker 1: spread other places. And now you got little fires and
Speaker 1: little fires and little fires of faith that are burning
Speaker 1: inside the walls of Jerusalem. And you got this man
Speaker 1: named Stephen that is filled with the spirit, and now
Speaker 1: he's going he is performing miracles and signs and wonders.
Speaker 1: And the religious leaders like, oh, I thought we ended
Speaker 1: this thing when we killed Jesus. So Paul, Stephen in
Speaker 1: here too, because we need to end this thing. Because again,
Speaker 1: the Jewish leaders, like the Laconian people, had an image
Speaker 1: of how they saw God. And if you don't fit
Speaker 1: my image, we will kill you because you we will
Speaker 1: either conform you, or we will break you. So Stephen
Speaker 1: gets hauled in and in verse eight of chapter six
Speaker 1: is where I want to start. Well, I'm sorry, I apologize.
Speaker 1: Chapter seven, verse fifty one, Paul is in front of
Speaker 1: the Jewish leaders, the same ones that had sentenced Jesus
Speaker 1: to death, the Sanhedrin, and he's standing in front of them,
Speaker 1: filled with the spirit, and he's about to fight, to fight.
Speaker 1: This is good news. It's not going to have a
Speaker 1: good outcome, because a good fight is connected to the
Speaker 1: good news, not a good outcome. And he says, you
Speaker 1: stiff necked people. Good way to start a conversation, easy
Speaker 1: way to win him over. Just start with that one.
Speaker 1: Your hearts and your ears are still uncircumcised, just like
Speaker 1: your ancestors. You resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever
Speaker 1: a prophet? Your ancestors did not persecute. They even killed
Speaker 1: the predicted, those who predicted the coming of the righteous One.
Speaker 1: That's Jesus. Now you have betrayed and murdered him. You
Speaker 1: have received the law that was given through the angels,
Speaker 1: but did not obey it. Verse fifty four. When the
Speaker 1: members of this Anahedron heard this, they were furious. They
Speaker 1: gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory
Speaker 1: of God in Jesus standing by the right hand of God. Look,
Speaker 1: he said, I've seen heaven opened, and the son of
Speaker 1: Man standing at the right hand of God. At this,
Speaker 1: they covered their ears and started and yelled at the
Speaker 1: top of their voices, and they washed him, dragging him
Speaker 1: outside the city. We've seen this fo heavenly dragged him
Speaker 1: outside the city, and they began to stone him. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: some of the witnesses laid their coats at the feet
Speaker 1: of a young man named Saw. So Paul that we
Speaker 1: just read about started as Saw. And now you have
Speaker 1: these people that are stoning Stephen, that all take their
Speaker 1: coats and they take them over and they throw them
Speaker 1: at the feet of Saw. Two purposes. In taking off
Speaker 1: the coat, physically, I get much better range of motion
Speaker 1: to throw a rock. It's a big thick coat. It's
Speaker 1: a practical reason. I'm going to work up a lot
Speaker 1: of sweat here. I need to have a better range
Speaker 1: of motion so I can throw this thing at maximum velocity.
Speaker 1: So if I don't throw that a maximum velocity, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna inflict maximum pain. So they leave their coats
Speaker 1: at the feet of Jesus. And now they started to
Speaker 1: stone Stephen, this man filled with the Holy Spirit. And
Speaker 1: picture Paul Saul standing there just watching this scene go down.
Speaker 1: He's just watching it. And now fast forwards to Paul
Speaker 1: underneath the weight of all the rocks. I wonder if
Speaker 1: he remembered that moment where he heard Steven's voice, forgive them,
Speaker 1: for they know not what they do. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if there's a moment between those things that Paul is
Speaker 1: like flashing back to go, like when he's underneath the
Speaker 1: weight of his own sin because he was being persecuted
Speaker 1: in Acts fifteen. I wonder if he's over here going
Speaker 1: I deserve it. I deserve it. I did it all.
Speaker 1: I persecuted all the speeple. But what's amazing in this
Speaker 1: story is Paul, the poster child for persecuting Christians, would
Speaker 1: be the become the one the primary voice to deliver
Speaker 1: Christianity to new people. Paul would flip from Saul the
Speaker 1: persecutor to Paul the preacher. And he was in these
Speaker 1: moments going back and put forth between these two where
Speaker 1: I started to see something. But something stuck out to
Speaker 1: me as I was reading this while they were stoning him.
Speaker 1: Verse fifty nine. Stephen prayed, and he says, and Saul
Speaker 1: approved of their killing of him. First Chapter eight, Verse
Speaker 1: one says, on that day a great persecution broke out
Speaker 1: against the Church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles
Speaker 1: were scattered throughout Judea as Samaria. So what happened on
Speaker 1: that day is the Gospel needed to go beyond the
Speaker 1: walls of Jerusalem. God had given a promise. Jesus had
Speaker 1: given a promise earlier in Acts one to eight. He says,
Speaker 1: when I leave, the Holy Spirit will come upon you,
Speaker 1: and you will receive power, and you will be my
Speaker 1: witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samri and to the ends of
Speaker 1: the earth. Up until that point of Acts chapter eight,
Speaker 1: the first seven chapters of the Book of Acts, the
Speaker 1: Christians were content to keep the Christianity inside the walls
Speaker 1: of Jerusalem, because the reality is most of us will
Speaker 1: keep it to ourselves unless something forced us to get
Speaker 1: it beyond ourselves. And so God comes along and he
Speaker 1: uses a great persecution. And one famous theologian said, persecution
Speaker 1: is the wind that God uses to scatter the seed.
Speaker 1: So in Acts eight one, it's a fulfillment of Acts
Speaker 1: one to eight. Acts one eight says you will receive
Speaker 1: power and you'll be my witnesses. For the first seven
Speaker 1: chapters they kept inside the walls of Jerusalem, Acts eight one.
Speaker 1: But now he takes it beyond the walls of Jerusalem,
Speaker 1: and he takes it to Judea and Samaria. And what
Speaker 1: I want to tell you, persecution always serves a purpose.
Speaker 1: Why did that thing happen to you? Why did you
Speaker 1: end up in that other city? I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I know that God needed to get the good news
Speaker 1: to that place over there. What happened to Stephen was
Speaker 1: not good, but what God did with it was good.
Speaker 1: He works all things for the good of those who
Speaker 1: are called according to his purposes. That's what he does.
Speaker 1: He uses all things. But when I think of Stephen
Speaker 1: being stoned, flash forward to now Paul is underneath the
Speaker 1: weight of the stones in actually chapter fifteen. Have you
Speaker 1: ever been in a space where the weight of your
Speaker 1: shame almost collapsed you, It almost killed you. Picture him
Speaker 1: underneath the weight of all these stones. Picture him lying
Speaker 1: there in just this weight on him, and he's having
Speaker 1: these flashbacks that I called Stephen to die, and I
Speaker 1: would cause many other Christians to die, and I was
Speaker 1: to post a child for persecution. And I bet he's
Speaker 1: in that place to feel like I deserve it, and
Speaker 1: I get it, and this is what I should deserve,
Speaker 1: and this is what you should have brought me God,
Speaker 1: And I did it all. And Paul had this amazing
Speaker 1: ability to take it to the bottom of something. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been in a place where you felt like
Speaker 1: you forfeited everything because of your past? He ever been
Speaker 1: in a place where the weight of something was so
Speaker 1: immense you to feel like you could get back up.
Speaker 1: That's where Paul's a what gave him the ability to
Speaker 1: do this. Paul had this ability in First Timothy, and
Speaker 1: this is where he writes to Timothy these two letters.
Speaker 1: In First Timothy, Paul had a realization of who he
Speaker 1: was in Christ, and he was able to take this
Speaker 1: thing to the bottom of it. In f one Timothy
Speaker 1: one fifteen, it says here is a trustworthy saying that
Speaker 1: the deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world
Speaker 1: to save sinners, of which I am the worst. But
Speaker 1: for this very reason I was shown mercy, so that
Speaker 1: in me the worst of sinners. Christ Jesus might display
Speaker 1: his immense patience as an example for those who would
Speaker 1: believe in him and receive eternal life. Paul has this
Speaker 1: amazing ability to say, I'm not actually a good person,
Speaker 1: I'm the worst of them all. Because here's the power
Speaker 1: of what if. The devil will always get you to
Speaker 1: live in a place to cover something of because of
Speaker 1: what if? What if they knew about you? What God
Speaker 1: knows about you? What if they were to find out
Speaker 1: that you did that? What if they were to find
Speaker 1: out that you actually said those things, did those things?
Speaker 1: And the fear of what if is paralyzing. And I
Speaker 1: think in this story I see Paul living underneath the
Speaker 1: weight of what if? What if? What if? My favorite
Speaker 1: sermon for Pastor Steven was twenty twelve. He preached a
Speaker 1: sermon called Fear's Greatest Hits and he said you always
Speaker 1: have to take it to the bottom. Paul said, I'll
Speaker 1: take it to the bottom because I'm just the worst
Speaker 1: of all sinners. Now what you've got, devil, Now what
Speaker 1: you got. Paul also would say this, He would say,
Speaker 1: I will boast about my weaknesses, for in my weaknesses
Speaker 1: he has made strong. Paul said, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: boast about it because the fear of what if is dissipated.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to bring it out here. Pastor preached
Speaker 1: a sermon he said, take it to the bottom. It's
Speaker 1: three steps. First step is what if what if that happened?
Speaker 1: What if the report came back and said it's cancer?
Speaker 1: What if you lose your job? Step two? That would
Speaker 1: that would be hard, that would be horrible. The third
Speaker 1: step that's when he preached last week. But God, but God,
Speaker 1: see but God, what if that would? But God, when
Speaker 1: we started this ministry sixteen years ago, I would have
Speaker 1: such anxiety attacks backstage that it wouldn't I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to walk out on stage and talk like this because
Speaker 1: the weight of the rocks of your past weigh you
Speaker 1: down to the point that you feel like you don't
Speaker 1: have a future. I didn't grow up around church. Sometimes
Speaker 1: when you look at somebody in ministry, oh look at them,
Speaker 1: they got it all together. No, we don't. People say like, hey,
Speaker 1: you've got everybody's got skeletons in their closet. I got
Speaker 1: cemeteries in my closet like Everett, and so I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up around church. I grew up with a lot
Speaker 1: of alcohol and bad choices and all those things, And
Speaker 1: at five years old, I remember going to a wedding
Speaker 1: dance and pulling glasses off the top of the table
Speaker 1: and drinking them, and every thought, oh, it's really funny.
Speaker 1: Look at tipsy five year old. Oh it made me
Speaker 1: connect alcohol and laughter and people's approval. Great. So it's
Speaker 1: set a stage in life. And now I'm eleven having
Speaker 1: a keg party. I'd pay for college one red solo
Speaker 1: cup at a time, I was really good at leading
Speaker 1: people a direction. But with that lifestyle comes all the
Speaker 1: choices that come with it. And there times I'd wake
Speaker 1: up and I'd be like, I don't know where I'm at,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got here, and I don't
Speaker 1: even know who's next to me. And the anxiety I
Speaker 1: would have is what if what if you knew about me?
Speaker 1: What God knows about me? So the anxiety attack I
Speaker 1: would have backstage for the weight of all of the
Speaker 1: shame that was saying on top of me was what
Speaker 1: if one of those women from one of those knights
Speaker 1: is sitting on the third row. And I would stay
Speaker 1: backstage and I would have a panic attackers like I
Speaker 1: can't even go out there because what if? And Pastor
Speaker 1: Stephen preaches a sermon Fear's great ast its what if,
Speaker 1: I guess I would go up and say, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Would you please forgive me? I've given my life to
Speaker 1: a man named Jesus, and I'd love to tell you
Speaker 1: about him. What if that would? But what if that would?
Speaker 1: But God? What if that would? But God, what if
Speaker 1: that would? But God? So at the end of the story,
Speaker 1: asks chapter fourteen, Verse twenty, and this is the verse
Speaker 1: I want to give you the story. That's the pivot
Speaker 1: point in Paul's journey. He's on this race to finish
Speaker 1: the faith, but now he gets persecuted for the very
Speaker 1: first time. And the lynchpin in the story is verse twenty.
Speaker 1: And this is the verse. I want to speak over
Speaker 1: you because some of you are living buried underneath the
Speaker 1: weight of your past. Some of you are living in
Speaker 1: this place and you're like, God, I know you don't
Speaker 1: love me. I know you don't even see me. But
Speaker 1: Paul says, in this moment, but for these things, God
Speaker 1: used me to show his grace. How does God see you?
Speaker 1: In that moment? He sees you he loves you, He
Speaker 1: forgives you. And if he can use Paul, the one
Speaker 1: who's standing giving approval for killing all of these Christians,
Speaker 1: he can use you. He could use you asks fourteen,
Speaker 1: Verse twenty. But after the disciples said, gathered around hi.
Speaker 1: Remember they left him for dead. Remember they said, you're dead,
Speaker 1: You're dead, You're dead. Verse twenty. But after the disciples
Speaker 1: said gathered around him, he got up and he went back.
Speaker 1: And that's the verse I want to speak over you
Speaker 1: today because there is a situation in your past that
Speaker 1: has left you buried. And what God is saying is
Speaker 1: to get up and go back. I needs you to
Speaker 1: go back and get your blessing. I need you to
Speaker 1: go back and see how God sees you in that moment,
Speaker 1: because Paul, I did it. How do you see me
Speaker 1: God in this moment. It's one thing if somebody does
Speaker 1: something to me for me to say, yep, God still
Speaker 1: loves me. It's totally different from me when I do
Speaker 1: it myself, and I know I did it. Now God,
Speaker 1: how do you see me now? The first fight? How
Speaker 1: you see Jesus? The second fight? How Jesus sees you?
Speaker 1: And here's the challenge. I want to give you is
Speaker 1: to go back to that place where it's buried, because
Speaker 1: the devil's script is, hey, just forget about it. It's
Speaker 1: over and done with. And every time that memory comes back,
Speaker 1: it hunts you and the fear of what if? What if?
Speaker 1: What if? And some of you are destroying your present
Speaker 1: because of the uncertainty of the past. And what I
Speaker 1: want to challenge you to do is to go back
Speaker 1: to this place and say, God, here's the fight. How
Speaker 1: did you see me? How did Paul in the moment
Speaker 1: that you are giving approval? How did Jesus seize you?
Speaker 1: He says, I'm going to use that what made me
Speaker 1: really good at at leading keg parties makes me great
Speaker 1: as a pastor. Get up and go back, Get up
Speaker 1: and go back, Get up and go back. It happened
Speaker 1: thirty years ago. Get up and go back, Get up
Speaker 1: and go back. You gotta go back and fight. This
Speaker 1: is the fight to say, I'm gonna go back. It's
Speaker 1: just enough fair and tales and unicorns and Jesus loves me.
Speaker 1: Go back to the moment that hope nobody sees, and say, God,
Speaker 1: how did you see me in this moment? Paul ends
Speaker 1: his first missionary trip, and he starts his second one
Speaker 1: in Acts chapter sixteen. What does he do? He goes
Speaker 1: back Act sixteen when Paul came to Derby and then
Speaker 1: Lestra where he met a disciple, where a disciple named
Speaker 1: Timothy lived. What's amazing about this. The place of Paul's
Speaker 1: greatest persecution would be the place of his greatest provision,
Speaker 1: His greatest resource would become the place come out of
Speaker 1: the place of his greatest pain. I am telling you
Speaker 1: there are blessings waiting for you. They're not all in
Speaker 1: the future. It is you gotta go to your past.
Speaker 1: You gotta get up, and you gotta go back and
Speaker 1: get it. Paul had to go back to Derby, He
Speaker 1: had to go back to Lestra. Anywhar when he rolls
Speaker 1: into the cities, those same people that had tried to
Speaker 1: stone him were all there. How did he walk through?
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was hiding his editor He's like, oh, so,
Speaker 1: not what you got. But he got up and he
Speaker 1: went back and he found Timothy, his greatest resource, the
Speaker 1: one he would write his last letter to that guy.
Speaker 1: And so when he writes these letters to Timothy, he
Speaker 1: had left Timothy in charge of the church in Ephesus,
Speaker 1: Paul is going to go on and continue the missionary journey.
Speaker 1: And if you're Timothy, you've been following You've been following
Speaker 1: Paul for fifteen years. You At the time we see
Speaker 1: Paul take Timothy underneath his wing, he's about sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: He's a teenager, and he's been following Paul his whole life.
Speaker 1: And in First Timothy, he's it's a letter that's all
Speaker 1: about fighting, and he writes First Timothy says, Timothy, my son,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you this command and keeping with the prophecies
Speaker 1: once made about you step by recalling to him, he
Speaker 1: may fight the battle. Well. So he starts on Timothy like,
Speaker 1: it's a fight. You gotta remember where you've been. You
Speaker 1: got to remember what you come from. It's a fight.
Speaker 1: Then in First Timothy, chapter six, he writes this, he says,
Speaker 1: fight the good fight of Faith. Chapter six is a
Speaker 1: fighting letter. It is all about fighting. What is the
Speaker 1: thing that Timothy needs to fight. It's the third fight.
Speaker 1: It's how you see you, that's the third fight, how
Speaker 1: you see you. Without being sacrilegious, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: God says unless you believe it. Unless you believe it
Speaker 1: the powers in the application. What was Timothy's struggle. I
Speaker 1: think Timothy's struggle was how he saw himself. One of
Speaker 1: the famous verses out of First Timothy as one Timothy
Speaker 1: four to twelve. It's this. Every youth group, every youth
Speaker 1: ministry in the world has this as their mantra. He says,
Speaker 1: do not let anyone look down on you because you're young,
Speaker 1: but set an example in believers in speech, don't let
Speaker 1: anyone look down on you because you're young. Timothy is
Speaker 1: a grown man, thirty two years old with a beard.
Speaker 1: The problem was not his chronological age, it was his
Speaker 1: identity age. It was how he saw himself. How you
Speaker 1: see yourself determines what you become. What you believe is
Speaker 1: what you become. Some of you are have such an
Speaker 1: inferior view of who God says you are. So when
Speaker 1: Paul writes two Timothy the last letter, he's gonna write
Speaker 1: his most important words, his last words, and he's going
Speaker 1: to admonish his protege, his man he found fifteen years
Speaker 1: earlier that he would follow and he'd leave in charge
Speaker 1: of the city in Ephesus. And he says, if I
Speaker 1: want to reach the city of Ephesus. I've got to
Speaker 1: reach how Timothy sees himself. If I want to reach
Speaker 1: the home, I need to reach the dad, because how
Speaker 1: the dad sees himself determine what's the home to becomes.
Speaker 1: If I want to reach a people group, I need
Speaker 1: to reach the leader. And I'm speaking to every one
Speaker 1: of you, because when you believe that about yourself, you
Speaker 1: punish the people that are following you. Stop it, Stop it, Timothy.
Speaker 1: Quit thinking small of yourself. This is the battle. How
Speaker 1: you see you. It's one thing how you see Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's another thing how Jesus sees you. But how you
Speaker 1: see you matters. And Paul gives these final words in
Speaker 1: tewod Timothy two Timothy, Chapter two, verses one, Chapter two,
Speaker 1: verse one. He says, you, then, my son, be strong.
Speaker 1: That is the grace is in you in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: Seven times in first and second Timothy, Paul would call
Speaker 1: him son, my true son, my spiritual son. He is
Speaker 1: validating the relationship before he ever gives him any instruction.
Speaker 1: There's something for some of you. God has given you
Speaker 1: too much experience that you're wasting and you're not being
Speaker 1: appalled to another Timothy. I'm calling on those of you
Speaker 1: that got some experience out there to put sitting on
Speaker 1: the sidelines and to start getting into the game and
Speaker 1: use the experiences of your life to bless Timothy. Every
Speaker 1: one of you need a Timothy in your life. Now,
Speaker 1: every one of you need a Paul in your life.
Speaker 1: And when you got a Paul on this side and
Speaker 1: a Timothy on this side, you've got somebody to help
Speaker 1: you get up and go back. It's hard for you
Speaker 1: to get up and go back by yourself. I need
Speaker 1: a Paul, and I need a Timothy to help me
Speaker 1: get up and go back. You, then, may my son
Speaker 1: be strong. The grace said is in you, in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: And what Paul is gonna give me. The next few
Speaker 1: verses is ways Paul needs to Timothy needs to see himself.
Speaker 1: Verse three, he says, join me with join me with suffering,
Speaker 1: like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving
Speaker 1: as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather
Speaker 1: tries to please as committing officer. Think of a soldier. So, Timothy,
Speaker 1: when you when you're gonna lead the church in Ephesus
Speaker 1: and you're tempted to run from the battle, lines. No, no, no.
Speaker 1: How you see yourself matters here, Timothy. And if you
Speaker 1: see yourself as a kid, as a teenager, you'll always retreat.
Speaker 1: But if you see yourself as a soldier, you'll go
Speaker 1: towards the battle lines. That's when I need you to do, Timothy.
Speaker 1: You can't see yourself as small. You're not a kid anymore.
Speaker 1: See yourself as a soldier. How do you see yourself?
Speaker 1: Draw a picture and start labeling with the real words,
Speaker 1: how you see yourself? No one serving as a soldier
Speaker 1: gets entangled in civilian affairs. Verse five. He says, similarly,
Speaker 1: anyone serving or who competes as an athlete does not
Speaker 1: receive the victor's crown except by compete eating according to
Speaker 1: the rules. And what Paul was telling link Timothy, this
Speaker 1: is not a recreational league where everybody gets a participation trophy.
Speaker 1: This is an athlete. I need to see yourself as
Speaker 1: an elite, hardworking athlete. And then the third analogy says
Speaker 1: the hardworking farmer should be the first one to receive
Speaker 1: his share of the crops. He says, I need you
Speaker 1: to see yourself as a farmer. How do you see yourself?
Speaker 1: It's just a kid as a teenager. You're a grown man.
Speaker 1: You're leading your family. How you see you matters. I
Speaker 1: remember a couple of years ago and I preached. I
Speaker 1: preached the Saturday night. This was BC before COVID, and
Speaker 1: I get done preaching on the Saturday night, I go
Speaker 1: back to my green room and I'm getting messages from
Speaker 1: around the country saying that was a good sermon. But
Speaker 1: there's only one message I wanted from Pastor Stephen that
Speaker 1: never came. I preached the Sunday morning, the nine thirty
Speaker 1: cand of be honest. I need to tell the full story.
Speaker 1: I go home Saturday night, I don't sleep the whole
Speaker 1: night because I stay up the who night reworking my sermon.
Speaker 1: So he didn't text me, so it means he hated it.
Speaker 1: So I preached nine thirty crickets nothing, preach eleven thirty nothing.
Speaker 1: By the time I got to the office Monday morning,
Speaker 1: I expect my keyfob not to work because I've been fired,
Speaker 1: and like I've been fired, like I've and it was
Speaker 1: it was so bad. In my head. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: such a failure, i am such an idiot, I am
Speaker 1: such a dork. I'm such I'm never gonna get this
Speaker 1: opportunity again. Finally, Pastor Stephen text me on Wednesday. He says,
Speaker 1: thank you forgiving me a gift. No one else could
Speaker 1: have given me a weekend off in more than a
Speaker 1: decad where I didn't have to preach or take care
Speaker 1: of a guest. And I just watched your sermon. You
Speaker 1: crush it. I'm proud of you. I'm like, oh God, okay,
Speaker 1: I am blank. It's called filling the blank. I failed
Speaker 1: to silence test. I am blank in that space I insecured,
Speaker 1: inserted my insecurity, my doubt, all of my past, and
Speaker 1: I put it into that space that says I am blank.
Speaker 1: What you put in that blank determines who you become.
Speaker 1: When I didn't get the message from Pastor, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I am an idiot. I am horrible. No, no no, no.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to interpret the silence as approval.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to interpret the silence as his
Speaker 1: greatest compliment to me. Who are you? I am blank?
Speaker 1: And the only reason I can say I am forgiven
Speaker 1: is because of the finished work of Jesus Christ. The
Speaker 1: only way that I can say I am whole is
Speaker 1: because of what Jesus did on the cross. And when
Speaker 1: Jesus was on the earth, he said, I am I
Speaker 1: am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I am
Speaker 1: the bread of life, I am the Gate. I am
Speaker 1: the good Shepherd. And so Jesus, as he comes to
Speaker 1: the earth, he establishes the greatest fight of all time.
Speaker 1: There was a gap between us and God. And the
Speaker 1: gap was so great we could have never filled it
Speaker 1: in our own action and her own behavior. Once you
Speaker 1: stand your feet of all of our locations. And the
Speaker 1: fight was this. We were separated from God because of sin.
Speaker 1: And Jesus came to the earth and he said, I
Speaker 1: will fight. I will fight for you. I will fight
Speaker 1: for your forgiveness. I will fight to make you whole.
Speaker 1: And the three fights we identified today. How you see Jesus,
Speaker 1: Who is he? To you? Who is he? Is he
Speaker 1: just the historical figure? Is he your savior? And for
Speaker 1: some of you have never trusted him as your lord
Speaker 1: and savior. You've never been forgiven of your sins, You've
Speaker 1: never been made new. The race that's marked out before
Speaker 1: you that Paul talked about begins with Jesus Christ. It's
Speaker 1: about the good news. It's about following him. As you
Speaker 1: go through life, people are always going to throw stones
Speaker 1: at you, trying to pile them on you to get
Speaker 1: you to die underneath that shame. Some of you need
Speaker 1: to get up and you need to go back, Go
Speaker 1: back to that moment, Say God, who did you say that?
Speaker 1: I was right now in the stillness of this moment,
Speaker 1: without anybody moving. Then you should buy your heads and
Speaker 1: close your eyes. And if you have never placed your
Speaker 1: faith in Jesus, this is the moment that God has
Speaker 1: set aside for you. He didn't bring you here by
Speaker 1: mistake or by accident. It's by divine appointment because there's
Speaker 1: something that He needs you to hear in this moment.
Speaker 1: It's that you're forgiven that you're his son, that you're
Speaker 1: his daughter, that he loves you even though you did that,
Speaker 1: He's got a plan for you. I need everybody saying
Speaker 1: this prayer out loud with me for the benefit of
Speaker 1: somebody who's about to begin this relationship with Jesus. I
Speaker 1: believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God who
Speaker 1: died on the cross and rose from the grave to
Speaker 1: forgive me of my sin. I give you my life,
Speaker 1: I give you my sin, I give you my shame.
Speaker 1: Forgive me, and I'll spend my life following you with
Speaker 1: your head still bouting, your eyes still close. If you
Speaker 1: just place your faith in Jesus or you're coming back
Speaker 1: to him, I'm going to count to three when I
Speaker 1: get there, without hesitation, I want you to boldly shoot
Speaker 1: your hand into the air. One, two, three, should your
Speaker 1: hand up? Come on all across our locations. Come on,
Speaker 1: there we go. Come on, suit that hand up well.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy today's podcast, there are a couple things
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review this podcast. You can also help us reach
Speaker 1: others by investing today at Elevation Church dot org, slash
Speaker 1: give and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation
Speaker 1: Podcast