Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast and I wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you.
Speaker 1: Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective
Speaker 1: to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Are you ready now? Ask the person next to you,
Speaker 1: are you ready now? I remember when my dad told
Speaker 1: me when I was a little boy. I was probably
Speaker 1: Abby's age. I was probably nine one night when Friday
Speaker 1: Night he popped some popcorn and told me, I think
Speaker 1: you're ready for Rocky. He'd been waiting until my spiritual
Speaker 1: maturity and infrastructure emotionally could handle Ivan Drago. Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you start your kids on Rocky, you start him
Speaker 1: on Rocky four. You don't start them in the Old
Speaker 1: Testament with Apollo, Creed. You start them with Matthew, Mark, Luke,
Speaker 1: and John. I have a whole theory on this, and
Speaker 1: he started me with Rocky four. He walked me back
Speaker 1: to Rocky one. I'm glad that I was out of
Speaker 1: the house before Rocky five came out, because that's like
Speaker 1: an apocryphal book that didn't really make the canon. In
Speaker 1: my estimation, but I think you're ready. What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say to you is I think you're ready now
Speaker 1: for Acts chapter twenty seven. When all this bull craft
Speaker 1: started in the world, I wrote down a list of
Speaker 1: sermons that I wanted to preach from, and it was
Speaker 1: amazing to me how all of the texts that I've
Speaker 1: seen so many times before it took on a new relevance.
Speaker 1: Almost said, reverence like a revelation with it becomes relevant.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know something, but until you go through something,
Speaker 1: you don't have to put into practice what you know.
Speaker 1: And so revealence maybe that's a word revealance. It's when
Speaker 1: something that you already knew, that had already been revealed
Speaker 1: becomes relevant to your situation. Is when you get a
Speaker 1: chance to put into practice what you've been preaching. And
Speaker 1: I just want to encourage you today with a story
Speaker 1: of Bible story that that may be the best story
Speaker 1: that I could preach from. When Paul went through a storm,
Speaker 1: not crazy, man, I was just thinking, it's my favorite
Speaker 1: Bible story and it started with a storm. Do the
Speaker 1: biggest storms make for the best stories in our lives?
Speaker 1: I think sometimes they do. I think sometimes they do.
Speaker 1: When we were on vacation, we took a hundred bike rides.
Speaker 1: But the only one y'all remember is when we were
Speaker 1: riding in the rain. That's the only one y'all talk
Speaker 1: about is the one where it rained. We rode to
Speaker 1: the store, We rode to the bowling we rode, We
Speaker 1: rode up and down the streets. Often when we were
Speaker 1: riding all around. We remember the bowling alley over at
Speaker 1: the other place we went there. We were, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: do when we went bowling into little thing Graham. You
Speaker 1: don't remember the little bowling alley that I took you to, say,
Speaker 1: They don't remember any of that. They don't remember the
Speaker 1: bowling alley hall I paid like one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: dollars for us to bowl. They don't even remember it.
Speaker 1: But ask them about the rain riders. Ask them about
Speaker 1: when we were out and we got caught in the
Speaker 1: rain and the torrential downpour started, just started out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and they can remember with vivid detail when we got
Speaker 1: caught in the rain. The greatest stories usually revolve around
Speaker 1: the biggest storms. If you are new to Christianity, we
Speaker 1: like our metaphors so you hear us always talking about mountains,
Speaker 1: but we're not talking about land masks. When we say mountains,
Speaker 1: we're talking about other stuff. You know. When we say
Speaker 1: God's going to move them ountain, they can mean almost anything.
Speaker 1: In church. God's gonna move them mountain in my life.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? It's gonna get me
Speaker 1: a job. It's just a metaphor. You know, whatever's in
Speaker 1: your way, God's gonna move it. We like these kind
Speaker 1: of things. The Bible uses them and we like them too.
Speaker 1: What's another one that we like. We're big on metaphors. Chains. Oh,
Speaker 1: we love chains in church. Almost every elevation worship song
Speaker 1: I've ever been a part of has a chain in it. Somewhere.
Speaker 1: We love to break chains and shake chains and sometimes
Speaker 1: we get creative the Sourus theology and call it a shackle.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is we love to sing about
Speaker 1: this stuff, and we love to talk about storms, and
Speaker 1: it's really just a metaphor for whatever we're going through.
Speaker 1: I'm going through a storm right now. Old Country preacher said,
Speaker 1: you're either you're either here's the thing about storms. You're
Speaker 1: either in a storm, you're going through a storm, you're
Speaker 1: about to go through a storm, or you've just been
Speaker 1: through a storm, and I think that's true. And so
Speaker 1: the storm that we'll see in Acts chapter twenty seven
Speaker 1: is physical, but it doesn't have to be physical for
Speaker 1: it to be practical in your life. Do y'all remember
Speaker 1: when I preached on it will happen. Do you remember
Speaker 1: when I preached it had to happen. Remember when I preached,
Speaker 1: I'm glad it happened. Now you're ready for Rocky four.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know what to call it, so I
Speaker 1: made two titles. I'm super indecisive right now, and I
Speaker 1: don't know whether you want to call this message. Well,
Speaker 1: let me read the text and then I'll give you
Speaker 1: the titles. In Acts, chapter twenty seven, Verse twenty, the
Speaker 1: Bible says, when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days,
Speaker 1: and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all
Speaker 1: hope of being saved. And after they had gone a
Speaker 1: long time without food, after they had gone a long
Speaker 1: time cooped up in the apartment, after they had gone
Speaker 1: a long time without going out to a restaurant, I'm
Speaker 1: preaching to somebody, after they had gone a long time
Speaker 1: without putting on pants with a button, I'm just preaching
Speaker 1: to quarantine situations, modernizing the text. After they had gone
Speaker 1: a long time without good news, after they had gone
Speaker 1: a long time without an increase, Paul stood up before
Speaker 1: them and said, men should have taken my advice not
Speaker 1: to sail from crete. We're gonna come back to that
Speaker 1: in a minute. We're gonna talk about how sometimes you
Speaker 1: give good advice, but you have bad timing. Holly's teaching
Speaker 1: a study called missus betterhef on Wednesdays about being a wife,
Speaker 1: and I think she should use that verse in there. Men,
Speaker 1: you should have taken my advice. Paul had good advice,
Speaker 1: but he had bad timing. But watch this in the text,
Speaker 1: because the scripture says, then you would have spared yourselves
Speaker 1: to this damage and loss. So, in other words, that
Speaker 1: could have been avoided. But now, now, now, now, now, now,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting on y'all to shout back. Now, come on.
Speaker 1: If y'alln't want to shout, I'm not gonna let you
Speaker 1: come back because there's a lot of This is a
Speaker 1: harder ticket to get to come to church right now
Speaker 1: than the bulls in ninety eight. So you need to
Speaker 1: shout now. Okay, now, he said, even though this could
Speaker 1: have been avoided. There is something that you can do now,
Speaker 1: and it does not really revolve around the situation. It
Speaker 1: revolves around your state of mind. So watch this. Keep
Speaker 1: up your courage, because not one of you will be lost,
Speaker 1: only the ship will be destroyed. Last night, an angel
Speaker 1: of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve,
Speaker 1: stood beside me and said, do not be afraid, Paul.
Speaker 1: You must stand trial before Caesar, and God has great
Speaker 1: faciously giving you the lives of all who sail with you.
Speaker 1: So keep up your courage. Men, or I have faith
Speaker 1: in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: we must run aground on some island. On the fourteenth night,
Speaker 1: we were still being driven across the Adriatic Sea, which
Speaker 1: is the Mediterranean Sea, when about midnight the sailor sense
Speaker 1: they were approaching land. They took soundings and found that
Speaker 1: the water was one hundred and twenty feet deep. A
Speaker 1: short time later they took soundings again and found it
Speaker 1: was ninety feet deep. In case you're not following, they're
Speaker 1: getting closer to crashing. The water's getting more shallow. That
Speaker 1: means a crash is inevitable. And Paul already told them that,
Speaker 1: but now they are experiencing the thing that he said.
Speaker 1: And it's one thing to be told you're going to
Speaker 1: go through a storm. It's one thing to see it
Speaker 1: on a weather app It's another thing to get caught
Speaker 1: in one. It's one thing to say everything happens for
Speaker 1: a reason when someone that you don't really care about dies.
Speaker 1: It's another thing to believe that when you have to
Speaker 1: live without them. Oh, I'm going to preach in an
Speaker 1: empty room. So he said that we're going to crash,
Speaker 1: and then they were about to crash. And this is
Speaker 1: what I wanted to share with you about today, because
Speaker 1: I've never really paid much attention to this part of
Speaker 1: the text. He said. Fearing that we would be dashed
Speaker 1: against the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern
Speaker 1: and prayed for daylight. In an attempt to escape from
Speaker 1: the ship. The sailors let the lifeboat down into the sea,
Speaker 1: pretending they were going to lower some anchors from the bow.
Speaker 1: We're getting out of here. We're not staying around to
Speaker 1: see what happens. If it's one hundred and twenty feet,
Speaker 1: it's ninety. We're about to crash. And we're out. But
Speaker 1: watch what Paul says that this is what I want
Speaker 1: to appreach about today. Then Paul said to the centurion
Speaker 1: and the soldiers. Unless these men stay with the ship,
Speaker 1: you cannot be saved. So the soldiers cut the ropes
Speaker 1: that held the lifeboat and let it drift away. The
Speaker 1: thing I want to preach to you about today is
Speaker 1: staying power, staying power. Spirit of God, We receive your
Speaker 1: grace for the preaching of your word to every situation.
Speaker 1: There is not a single situation I can think of
Speaker 1: in my mind that you are not greater than. There
Speaker 1: is not a wave that tosses in the sea that
Speaker 1: does not know the vibration of your voice. And when
Speaker 1: you speak, waves die down. And when you speak, fear
Speaker 1: bows down, and when you speak waters part. You are
Speaker 1: God of the elements, You are God of all flesh.
Speaker 1: You are the God of this moment. And we worship you.
Speaker 1: Receive your word in Jesus' name. Put it in the chat. Amen. Amen,
Speaker 1: come on, David Patten, say Amen, staying power. Chase Colby,
Speaker 1: staying power. Now. A lot of people have starting power.
Speaker 1: They did keto last week and they'll be on weight
Speaker 1: Watchers next week. But Paul had starting power, he also
Speaker 1: had staying power. People used to tell me it must
Speaker 1: have taken a lot of faith to start this church.
Speaker 1: I guess. So the truth is I was just stupid,
Speaker 1: didn't take a lot of faith, just had to be really,
Speaker 1: really ignorant. That's all. Just do it in your twenties,
Speaker 1: that's all you gotta do. Put it in the chat.
Speaker 1: Do it in your twenties, because really, starting power is
Speaker 1: celebrated so much more, and even sometimes people will celebrate leaving.
Speaker 1: I've seen so many times in this church where someone
Speaker 1: might leave from a ministry position and we throw a
Speaker 1: party for him, and I'm thinking, like, well, that's great.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably polite to throw a party for
Speaker 1: somebody who leaves. And God calls different people to different
Speaker 1: things in different seasons. But can we have some Can
Speaker 1: we have some staying parties too? You know, just bring
Speaker 1: a cake into the office. You've been here eight hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy one days. Here's cake. You start your diet tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You know, starting power, leaving power, staying power, staying get sexier.
Speaker 1: The longer you live, it gets sexier. I don't think
Speaker 1: you have to say it's sexy. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: the problem is, we have such a hard time celebrating
Speaker 1: the right things in our culture. I need to say
Speaker 1: it just like that, because we live in a culture
Speaker 1: where starting is sexy. Oh I'm gonna start a church.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm gonna start a business. Oh I'm an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm gonna start a Bible reading plan. You started
Speaker 1: fourteen Bible reading plans in twenty twenty before January was over.
Speaker 1: You know which plan of the Bible plan God is
Speaker 1: gonna bless the one you stay with, the one you
Speaker 1: stay with. Do you know what situation you're gonna see
Speaker 1: God work in the one you stay with? So I said, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know which workout to do you know which
Speaker 1: one's gonna work the one you stay with, stay with?
Speaker 1: And I thought it was interesting that the apostle Paul
Speaker 1: who showed us the power of starting. Now, you got
Speaker 1: to remember, Paul knew how to get something started. He
Speaker 1: started by some calculations fourteen churches in a time when
Speaker 1: the concept of church was foreign junk. Somebody need some
Speaker 1: different people in the room this week is kind of
Speaker 1: out there. He knew how to start a church in
Speaker 1: a city that had never even heard the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: He would walk into a church, and step into a
Speaker 1: synagogue and start preaching, and before you know it, there
Speaker 1: would be such an uproar in the city that it
Speaker 1: would start a riot in the streets. Paul can start
Speaker 1: a church, Paul has start a riot. Paul has starts
Speaker 1: something in a minute. But yet, in Acts chapter twenty seven,
Speaker 1: he shows us that the greatest power is often not
Speaker 1: in what you have the faith to start, but what
Speaker 1: you have the faith to stay with. And when we
Speaker 1: think about storms in the Bible, we think about Peter
Speaker 1: who stepped out of the boat to walk on water,
Speaker 1: and we never preach about John, who stayed in the boat.
Speaker 1: But I've been wondering as a forty year old man
Speaker 1: who has seen people come and go, and emotions come
Speaker 1: and go, and moods come and go and and and
Speaker 1: and fads and trends come and go, and the zeit
Speaker 1: guy slips all around, and you never really know what's
Speaker 1: going to be popular or in fashion one day to
Speaker 1: the next, And church members come and go and and
Speaker 1: and songs come and go and and and seasons come
Speaker 1: and go, and trials come and go. As someone who
Speaker 1: has seen this. I'm wondering, does it take more faith
Speaker 1: to step out of a boat that Jesus told you
Speaker 1: to get into or to stay in it believing that
Speaker 1: if He called you to the other side, you can
Speaker 1: stay through any storm. You can sleep through any storm,
Speaker 1: you can praise through any storm. I got staying power.
Speaker 1: I love Paul because he gave advice to the men
Speaker 1: in the ship and he wasn't even a he wasn't
Speaker 1: even a nautical expert. Is maybe some type of commentary
Speaker 1: on the arrogance of preachers that he's up there telling
Speaker 1: someone who owns the ship what he ought to do
Speaker 1: with it. And I used to tell them all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to preach a parenting sermon until my
Speaker 1: kids are fifty, until I'm out of the window of
Speaker 1: where God can like boomerang my own teaching back on me.
Speaker 1: I'm not teaching anything about parenting. I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm not writing a parenting book. I'm not preaching a
Speaker 1: parenting series. You can preach this is us if you
Speaker 1: want to. I'm not preaching any of it. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it. And I really found out that most of
Speaker 1: the time people don't really want you to give them
Speaker 1: advice when they ask for it. They just want you
Speaker 1: to affirm what they already decided to do. And if
Speaker 1: you don't give them the advice, I'm gonna save you
Speaker 1: a lot of time. Right now, you're ready. It's not
Speaker 1: that they really want advice. They usually want either attention
Speaker 1: or affirmation. Now, what Paul says is true. He says
Speaker 1: this storm could have been avoided because he told them
Speaker 1: to stay. He did. They were loaded up for Rome.
Speaker 1: They went in a small boat and they stopped at
Speaker 1: an island where they were transported to a larger boat.
Speaker 1: Because this is a long voyage. Man, we're going all
Speaker 1: the way to Rome. Somebody say, we're going all the
Speaker 1: way to Rome. We're going all the way to Rome.
Speaker 1: Paul always wanted to go to Rome. That's the interesting thing.
Speaker 1: He wanted to go to Rome. But what God doesn't
Speaker 1: tell you is that you don't always get to choose
Speaker 1: your transportation. Deeper, you know, the scripture says that God
Speaker 1: is taking us from glory to glory. I believe that
Speaker 1: we go from glory to glory, strength to strength. I
Speaker 1: believe that I believe God is taking you somewhere. I
Speaker 1: believe God is moving you forward. I believe that God
Speaker 1: has promised that we will go from glory to glory,
Speaker 1: but he just didn't tell us exactly how we're going
Speaker 1: to get there. So when we pray for something in
Speaker 1: our lives, we don't get to choose transportation. This is
Speaker 1: not uber x uber black uber extreme. God does not
Speaker 1: let you choose the luxury of the transportation. And so
Speaker 1: Paul is doing something he always wanted to do, going
Speaker 1: to room to preach the gospel. But he's headed there
Speaker 1: in a ship as a prisoner in chains, not how
Speaker 1: we say change, where it can mean just anything, and
Speaker 1: not just how we say storm, where it could mean
Speaker 1: I have a headache and I can't find that advilo.
Speaker 1: There it is. He's in physical chains, in a literal storm,
Speaker 1: but he has an appointment to go to Rome. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you something that nobody's told you
Speaker 1: in a few weeks. You're ready, you have an appointment.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since you've heard that, right, I
Speaker 1: want to tell you something that you haven't heard for
Speaker 1: a while. You have an appointment, and just by faith,
Speaker 1: go ahead and say it right now in this chat
Speaker 1: on YouTube on Facebook, say I have an appointment. Come on,
Speaker 1: I'm preaching to somebody because you have an appointment. Now,
Speaker 1: what happens in our hearts is that we get disappointed.
Speaker 1: We get disappointed in the way that God does certain things.
Speaker 1: We get disappointed in the people that don't help us
Speaker 1: along the way. But just because you're disappointed in people,
Speaker 1: don't jump off the ship and drown in the sea.
Speaker 1: Did you hear me? Just because people let you down,
Speaker 1: don't give up on God, who never will just because
Speaker 1: you lost a job, don't stop trusting that God is
Speaker 1: my provider. Jehovah Jirah, that's still his name, Jehovah Rafika.
Speaker 1: He's still a healer. I'm still gonna get there. I'm
Speaker 1: still going to Rome. I got an appointment. Some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're going through right now is getting
Speaker 1: you to the places that you ask God to take you,
Speaker 1: but you just don't like how you're getting there. So
Speaker 1: we could preach a series on this, how many want
Speaker 1: me to preach a whole series on the appointment in
Speaker 1: the storm? Did you know that you have an appointment
Speaker 1: in the storm? Paul knew something in the storm that
Speaker 1: the other people didn't know. What did he know? How
Speaker 1: could you stand up and tell people after they've been
Speaker 1: through fourteen days of the tempest and the billows and
Speaker 1: you know what other words for a storm, the lightning
Speaker 1: and the thunder and the breakers? How can you tell
Speaker 1: them when the winds are blowing knocking you sideways? You know,
Speaker 1: and and and and and and Peter's wig comes flying
Speaker 1: off in the storm. How are you going to tell me?
Speaker 1: How are you going to tell me in the storm
Speaker 1: to stay with the ship when you already told me
Speaker 1: it was going to break apart? How could God call
Speaker 1: you to stay with something that is breaking, and yet
Speaker 1: it is staying with the breaking that produces the blessing.
Speaker 1: It's breaking. It's breaking, not my boat, my heart, my heart.
Speaker 1: My heart is breaking. Did you know that the place
Speaker 1: God promises to dwell not visit, it's the broken and
Speaker 1: contrite heart. What does that mean? That means that when
Speaker 1: my heart is breaking, it is important that I abide
Speaker 1: in God's love so that I can experience his presence
Speaker 1: in a greater measure. It may not be your boat
Speaker 1: that is broken today. It may be your heart. It
Speaker 1: may be your business. It may be it may be
Speaker 1: the number in your bank account that is screaming, you
Speaker 1: are broke, all right, So I am broke. God's not right,
Speaker 1: all right? So this is how I want to preach
Speaker 1: to get people through a storm, Isn't that? Isn't that
Speaker 1: what we've been saying, that that we're in the same storm.
Speaker 1: But we're not in the same boat. And you will
Speaker 1: remember that it is not what you go through that
Speaker 1: determines where you end up. Many people went through betrayal
Speaker 1: worse than you went through, and they're not bitter and
Speaker 1: you are. Many people were disappointed more than you were disappointed,
Speaker 1: and yet they still have strong faith and you don't.
Speaker 1: Many people are struggling with their daily needs more than
Speaker 1: you are, and they're less worried than you are about it.
Speaker 1: It is not what I go through that determines where
Speaker 1: I end up. It's not it's who I listened to.
Speaker 1: Paul said, you should have taken my advice. I told you,
Speaker 1: I told you to stay in the harbor. They set
Speaker 1: out to go to Rome. They got caught up in
Speaker 1: a storm, they lost their course, and this is what happens, right,
Speaker 1: you get blown off course. Oh no, this was not
Speaker 1: on our GPS. Back in the day we had tripped.
Speaker 1: What was called trip tick and triple A. They didn't
Speaker 1: put this on my trip tick. This wasn't on my itinerary.
Speaker 1: You get blown off course, then you start freaking out
Speaker 1: and now you're like, oh my god, I was going
Speaker 1: to retire in twelve years, but now I see this situation.
Speaker 1: When you get blown off course, you have got to
Speaker 1: decide at that point, who will I listen to? And
Speaker 1: what will I guide by? Who will I listen to?
Speaker 1: What will I guide by? Now? These are the questions
Speaker 1: that you must answer in this crisis of your life.
Speaker 1: This is the heart of what God is asking today.
Speaker 1: Who will you listen to? And what will you guide by?
Speaker 1: Paul said, this is not a good time to sail,
Speaker 1: and they sailed anyway. Paul said, we ought to stay
Speaker 1: here in this harbor. For the reason they didn't want
Speaker 1: to stay in the harbor when Paul told them to
Speaker 1: stay is because it says it was undesirable to winter there.
Speaker 1: So rather than stay in a place they didn't like,
Speaker 1: they sailed into something that would destroy them. Rather than
Speaker 1: stay in a place that they didn't like, they sailed
Speaker 1: into something that would destroy them. See, it's not the
Speaker 1: first storm that you have to worry about the first
Speaker 1: storm is the storm that you can't control. It started
Speaker 1: raining Friday here in Charlotte. It looked like God got
Speaker 1: sick of everybody. And I was like, oh, the governor
Speaker 1: led us to stay at home order. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, this storm comes out of nowhere, and I'm like, Lord,
Speaker 1: are you speaking? I'll stay inside. I'm sorry, Lord, Oh,
Speaker 1: I know what to do. Out of nowhere. Storms are
Speaker 1: like that one text message can change the next three
Speaker 1: years of your life in eighty characters. Out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: That it's the first storm, the when you can't control
Speaker 1: and you can't do anything about the current crossing, the
Speaker 1: current and the stormy conditions. I mean, some storms are
Speaker 1: just seasonal. Some storms can't be avoided. Some storms. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't control what happens in China, or I can't
Speaker 1: even control what somebody does in Michigan. I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't control certain things. But God said to tell you,
Speaker 1: don't create a second storm by your decisions. See, you
Speaker 1: can ask God to protect you in the first storm. God,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. You do, God, I
Speaker 1: can't do anything about this. You can. But what a
Speaker 1: lot of us have been doing in this season of uncertainty.
Speaker 1: We have been creating second storms that are worse than
Speaker 1: the first. So let me break this down all the way.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, I'm cutting up some filet mignon where
Speaker 1: the two year old can eat it. This is a
Speaker 1: This is a good word for anybody who you've been
Speaker 1: you've been dealing with depression, but you've been you've been
Speaker 1: drinking to get through it. Now, depression is something that
Speaker 1: happens to a lot of us. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know anybody who hasn't had a season of darkness in
Speaker 1: their life. But if I try to drive out darkness
Speaker 1: with darkness and I depend on something in the darkness
Speaker 1: that is going to make me addicted to something even
Speaker 1: when the light comes up, the second storm is worse
Speaker 1: than the first. I have to be really careful, Like
Speaker 1: if my kids do something that makes me mad, I said,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't preach a parenting sermon, but here's a little
Speaker 1: technique that I've learned. Don't let your response be a
Speaker 1: bad example for the behavior you're trying to correct. Screaming.
Speaker 1: I think this is contradictory. I think my kids are
Speaker 1: confused right now. Now. Now, a lot of us are
Speaker 1: dealing with loneliness right now in this season. That's a
Speaker 1: storm that you can't always control. But if you run
Speaker 1: to places in the storm that are more dangerous than
Speaker 1: the storm itself. How many times have you left a
Speaker 1: place that you didn't like? Some of you all loved
Speaker 1: the church you didn't like. And the problem is you
Speaker 1: can't change if you never stay staying power, staying power.
Speaker 1: Paul was a church planter. Anything you plant is only
Speaker 1: as good as the roots starting power without staying power.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm excited about this quarantine. I'm excited. I'm
Speaker 1: got time to spend with the Lord. Now you and
Speaker 1: the Lord got lonely. And now I don't know who
Speaker 1: this is for, but I'm going to say it because
Speaker 1: I feel like this by the spirit of God. Don't
Speaker 1: run to a relationship to solve loneliness. That is a
Speaker 1: compromise of your character. The second storm might be worse
Speaker 1: than the first. Don't run to something because you're lonely.
Speaker 1: That is ultimately that is ultimately going to put you
Speaker 1: in a condition where you end up like the sailors
Speaker 1: in verse twenty. We have no hope. We have no hope. See,
Speaker 1: because what they were guiding by went away. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you saw this in verse twenty, I'd love
Speaker 1: it if we could put it back on the screen,
Speaker 1: please Act twenty seven to twenty, because I think this
Speaker 1: is where it gets tricky to steer. You know, as
Speaker 1: long as you kind of have a reference point to
Speaker 1: know what's normal, or what's good, or how much time
Speaker 1: these things really help in life. But in verse twenty,
Speaker 1: I felt it was relevant to our situation. He said,
Speaker 1: when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, When
Speaker 1: neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the
Speaker 1: storm continued raging. Now the storm could rage and they
Speaker 1: could keep believing, But when the stars disappeared, they lost hope.
Speaker 1: When what you were guiding by goes away and every
Speaker 1: day just looks the same and feels the same, now
Speaker 1: I get the feeling like this is endless. Now I
Speaker 1: get the feeling like maybe these chains are never going
Speaker 1: to break, this storm is never going to cease. They
Speaker 1: lost hope, And we know they lost hope because Luke
Speaker 1: says they lost hope. And the only way Luke could
Speaker 1: know they lost hope is because they must have been
Speaker 1: saying there's no hope. I mean, come on, it's not
Speaker 1: like hope is something that you can see on someone's forehead.
Speaker 1: How's your hope? You know there's no meter for that.
Speaker 1: It's not a video game. You don't have a little
Speaker 1: power bar. Right. They must have been saying it's hopeless.
Speaker 1: They must have been saying that. Paul stands up and
Speaker 1: he decides that what you go through doesn't determine where
Speaker 1: you end up. What you go through doesn't determine where
Speaker 1: you end up. Who you listen to determines where you
Speaker 1: end up. Because I think right now you are walking
Speaker 1: through a valley between two voices. One is wisdom, one
Speaker 1: is worried, one is gratitude, one is grum blame, one
Speaker 1: is blame. One is faith. Now wait, pastor Steve, Wait
Speaker 1: Pastor Stephen with a pH Wait, wait a minute. The
Speaker 1: opposite of faith is doubt. No no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1: Doubt doesn't keep you from having faith. Doubt gives you
Speaker 1: something to have faith for it. But blame will block
Speaker 1: faith every time. Blame will always block faith. So Paul
Speaker 1: watch him shift. He's like, y'all still listen to me.
Speaker 1: But if I blame you, I can't trust God. If
Speaker 1: I blame you, it is going to block me from
Speaker 1: receiving what I need from God in this moment. So
Speaker 1: you should have listened to me. We could have avoided this.
Speaker 1: How many know and will be honest to say, there
Speaker 1: are some storms I went through in my life that
Speaker 1: I could have avoided. Come on, points your fingers up
Speaker 1: to the air like this. It could have been avoided.
Speaker 1: It could have been avoided. I mean, some of the
Speaker 1: things in my life that I blamed on the devil
Speaker 1: were really a decision. They both start with the letter D.
Speaker 1: But some storms can be avoided. Ask Jonah, Ask Jonah
Speaker 1: if some storms can be avoided. The only reason Jonah
Speaker 1: went through a storm is because he had an appointment.
Speaker 1: God said, I'd rather take you to us through a storm.
Speaker 1: I'd rather take you through a hard time than have
Speaker 1: you waste your life in the wrong place. Now, we
Speaker 1: gotta get you there. If I have to send a
Speaker 1: storm to get you there, if I have to shut
Speaker 1: it down to get you there, if I have to
Speaker 1: remove people and comfort to get you there, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get there if you listen to the right voice. Paul
Speaker 1: stood up and said, I hear you talking about how
Speaker 1: there's no hope, and I hear you talking about how
Speaker 1: it's gonna get worse, and I hear you talking about
Speaker 1: how it's just this and it's just that. And I
Speaker 1: hear Democrats talking, and I hear Republicans talking, and I
Speaker 1: hear people using this for a political purpose, and I
Speaker 1: hear all this. But let me tell you, I have
Speaker 1: an appointment. As a matter of fact, last night I
Speaker 1: had an appointment. I didn't see it on my calendar.
Speaker 1: It was off the books. Paul said, last night, an angel,
Speaker 1: an angel, an angel. Come on, I have an appointment
Speaker 1: with an angel, with an angel. I got angels all
Speaker 1: around me, protecting me and keeping me. I got angels
Speaker 1: on my side. I've got glory out a head. I
Speaker 1: got angels. I'm here because my angel said, you have
Speaker 1: an appointment with an angel, and you got an angel
Speaker 1: telling you right now you're gonna make it. In fact,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be better. Ignore my button puffed open in
Speaker 1: my shirt. I'm trying to binge press the word of God.
Speaker 1: Today is getting rough up here. But tell somebody, I
Speaker 1: got an angel. It's all right, it's all right. I
Speaker 1: got an angel. I got an angel. I got an angel. Now,
Speaker 1: who you're gonna listen to? Your angel or your enemy.
Speaker 1: My angel said, I'm gonna make it. My angel said,
Speaker 1: I'm right out time. My angel set is working for
Speaker 1: my I got staying power. I got staying power. I
Speaker 1: love what the angel said to Paul. You can't die
Speaker 1: in this storm. You have an appointment in Rome. You
Speaker 1: have to stand trial and Caesar. Can I give you
Speaker 1: the good news? You're not gonna die in this trial.
Speaker 1: Can I give you the bad news? You got a
Speaker 1: bigger one ahead, greater things, bigger storms, better stories. I
Speaker 1: got an angel, I got an appointment. So Paul's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't die. Did you ever watch a TV show
Speaker 1: and you knew? I remember we started watching that zombie
Speaker 1: show back before that looked just like the news. What
Speaker 1: was it called The Walking Dead? And the trailer used
Speaker 1: to come on, don't send me a thing about the
Speaker 1: Word of God in the Walking Dead. It's in the Bible,
Speaker 1: the Walking Dead, the Third Day, Jesus, Christ, Lazarus, all
Speaker 1: of us all in there, same stuff, All right, edit
Speaker 1: this out. But I saw the trailer and I saw
Speaker 1: that the same guy that was in the first episode,
Speaker 1: he was still in it because we watched it later.
Speaker 1: But I saw that he was still in it in
Speaker 1: the current season, so he took some of the suspense
Speaker 1: out of the first season, the second season, the third season,
Speaker 1: the fourth season, the fifth season. Now, when you have
Speaker 1: a word from God concerning your life, and it could
Speaker 1: be simple, he said he would never leave me nor
Speaker 1: forsake me. So if he's going to stay with me,
Speaker 1: then whatever happens in this storm, I already saw. I
Speaker 1: already saw season six. They can't kill Rick. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how many walkers, they can't kill him. He's gonna
Speaker 1: I saw the season finale. I got the deck zum,
Speaker 1: I got them, I got it, I got him, that
Speaker 1: got saying power, I got the Holy Ghost. I wish
Speaker 1: we could high five our neighbors, but tell somebody, I'm
Speaker 1: in the season finale, staying power. Staying power. That's why
Speaker 1: we're celebrating today, not that we avoided the storm, but
Speaker 1: that we stayed in the storm. Gouds were amazed his
Speaker 1: teacher because he does one of the authority and now
Speaker 1: was one of their teachers of the law and showed
Speaker 1: them a parable certain men build a house. Do you'all
Speaker 1: know this story. It's kind of like the Big Bad Wolf,
Speaker 1: but it's the Big bad storm. He said, two men
Speaker 1: build a house. I'll say, I'll show you what he's like.
Speaker 1: Who comes to me and puts my words into practice.
Speaker 1: He's like a wise man who build his house on
Speaker 1: the rock. The rains came down streams, rose, the winds
Speaker 1: blue and beat against that house. Yet it did not
Speaker 1: fall because I had a sound foundation on the rock.
Speaker 1: You got that. Rains came down streams, rose, winds blew
Speaker 1: and beat up the house. That's what happened to the
Speaker 1: first house. That's the man who had faith. Somebody say,
Speaker 1: I have faith, I have faith. I have faith. I
Speaker 1: have faith, I have faith, I have faith. But let's
Speaker 1: what happen to a second man. He was foolish. He
Speaker 1: didn't do what Jesus had instructed. Instead, he built his
Speaker 1: house on a sandy foundation, now a strong foundation. He
Speaker 1: built his house on something that was not stable. And
Speaker 1: it says that the storm came, the winds blew, rains
Speaker 1: came down streams, rose, winds blom, beat against the house.
Speaker 1: Rank came down streams, rose, winds blow and beat against
Speaker 1: the house. Rank came down. What happened to win? That's
Speaker 1: what happened to the man who did the right thing.
Speaker 1: Same storm, same storm, same storm. What I wanted to
Speaker 1: preach today was the storm is over. I thought that
Speaker 1: would be cool. I thought that would get a lot
Speaker 1: of views on YouTube, the storm is over. But the
Speaker 1: Lord said, you can't preach that in good conscience because
Speaker 1: like these men who were headed to Rome, and they
Speaker 1: didn't know how much longer the storm would rage. You've
Speaker 1: got to teach people how to keep their hope in
Speaker 1: a storm. The Lord said, you've got to preach on
Speaker 1: staying power. You've got to tell people to stay in faith.
Speaker 1: And doesn't it take faith to stay Huh? Come on,
Speaker 1: be honest. It's just us. There's not even anybody else
Speaker 1: in the church. It's just you and somebody you live with.
Speaker 1: And you can't even be honest with me like this.
Speaker 1: How are you ever going to survive in the real world?
Speaker 1: Doesn't it take faith to stay, to stay grateful when
Speaker 1: everything in you wants to complain. To stay grateful, that
Speaker 1: takes faith. Come on, man, step out of the boat.
Speaker 1: I know this message is probably going to be my
Speaker 1: least dude sermon of all time, but stay because that's
Speaker 1: not the only thing I can control right now. And
Speaker 1: that's what he said. Would save them. If you stay,
Speaker 1: you will be saved. That's when they tunted Jesus. They said,
Speaker 1: come down on that cross, do something amazing. He said,
Speaker 1: I am, I am, and see he couldn't come down
Speaker 1: and save you at the same time, and God send
Speaker 1: me with the word. You can't come down right now.
Speaker 1: You are like Neo Mayah rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: He said, I can't come down. I hear what Sandbalad
Speaker 1: is saying. I hear what they're saying. I hear, but
Speaker 1: I can't come down right now. I'm doing a great work,
Speaker 1: and the spirit of God says I'm doing a great
Speaker 1: work in your life. You can't come down now to
Speaker 1: a lower level. You can't come down now. You can't
Speaker 1: give up hope now, not now. Somebody said, now now,
Speaker 1: I gotta stay in this moment and let patience habits
Speaker 1: perfect work. The proof of faith is not change, it's patience.
Speaker 1: Patience is the active ingredient in faith. Patience. He decided
Speaker 1: to stay. He could have called legions of angels and
Speaker 1: they would have come at his beckon call, but he stayed.
Speaker 1: He stayed. He stayed, I wonder who will be saved?
Speaker 1: If you stay, you'll save your own life if you stay,
Speaker 1: if you stay praising. It was a little bit of
Speaker 1: oil on that. Stay praising, stay praising. Pretend to touch
Speaker 1: three people socially distanced, touch your neighbor, and say, I
Speaker 1: stay praising. I stay praising. I stay praising because because
Speaker 1: I've decided that that is my survival. That you hear me.
Speaker 1: This is not this is not This is not some
Speaker 1: sort of extracurricular activity where I appreciate the President and
Speaker 1: the governor saying that we are essential, you know, essential business.
Speaker 1: But I knew that way before the President said it.
Speaker 1: I knew that way before the governor said it. I
Speaker 1: knew we were essential. This is essential for me. I
Speaker 1: have to praise him. I've got to praise him. I'm
Speaker 1: under obligation to praise him. He gave me life itself.
Speaker 1: If I don't praise him, the rocks will cry out.
Speaker 1: I got to praise him. I stay praising. It takes
Speaker 1: faith to stay. It takes faith to stay. To stay
Speaker 1: encouraged while the storm is raging, to stay optimistic when
Speaker 1: the world is pessimistic, To stay expectant when you've been disappointed,
Speaker 1: To stay sweet when the world is sour. But staying power.
Speaker 1: That's what they experienced on the day of Pentecost, because
Speaker 1: before Jesus left, he said, I need you to do
Speaker 1: something that's going to be hard for you to do.
Speaker 1: Right now. Stay in Jerusalem Jeru Salem, Salem Peace. Stay
Speaker 1: in the city of peace, even though there's a riot
Speaker 1: in the streets. Stay in the city of peace. Takes
Speaker 1: faith to stay in a state of peace, takes faith
Speaker 1: to stay in a boat when a storm is raged,
Speaker 1: and takes faith to stay in the middle of the sea.
Speaker 1: Is said that they weren't saved until they cut the ropes.
Speaker 1: The Lord told me to tell you cut the opes.
Speaker 1: Quit trying to escape the stuff God is using to
Speaker 1: change you. You can't be changed unless you stay. You
Speaker 1: can't be saved unless you stay. You gotta stay. You
Speaker 1: can't bear more fruit when he's pruning you unless you
Speaker 1: abide in the vine, if you cut yourself off. But
Speaker 1: if you stay, he said, I'm gonna make you more fruitful.
Speaker 1: And that's what Paul had in mind, right because he
Speaker 1: always wanted to go to Rome. So no matter how
Speaker 1: the storm raged, no matter how the boat rocked, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to Rome. I have an appointment would you
Speaker 1: say it by faith? I have an appointment, the Lord said,
Speaker 1: I've appointed you. I've chosen you to bear much fruit.
Speaker 1: And the proof that I've appointed you to bear more
Speaker 1: fruit is that I am pruning you. Staying with the
Speaker 1: ship means cutting the ropes. But if I keep on
Speaker 1: trying to find a way out of it, how can
Speaker 1: I be changed through it? Lord? I thank you for
Speaker 1: the faith to stay, the faith to stay. You gave
Speaker 1: me this word, and you told me when I studied
Speaker 1: that someone was hearing two voices right now, and they
Speaker 1: don't see any stars to guide by. The calendar has changed,
Speaker 1: their rhythm has changed. They can't even go to the
Speaker 1: stores they used to go to. Right now. When they
Speaker 1: go there, it looks like the rapture, the apocalypse. Don't
Speaker 1: know what to do. Do I go in? Do I
Speaker 1: go out? I don't have any answers for that. Lord,
Speaker 1: I'm just a preacher. But you told me to tell
Speaker 1: them that if they will stay in Jerusalem, they will
Speaker 1: receive power. So God give us the faith to stay.
Speaker 1: Look at me, look at me, look at me. You
Speaker 1: stayed with this whole sermon. Don't click off now. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I hear the kids in the background,
Speaker 1: Come shut up, stop scraming, stay with me, because the
Speaker 1: thing I want to show you this so powerful, is
Speaker 1: that the only way they could receive the power of
Speaker 1: God was to stay in the place of peace. Keep
Speaker 1: your peace, Keep your peace. You hear me. You got
Speaker 1: six hundred employees and you don't know how to rebuild
Speaker 1: the organize to accommodate the new situation. God has given
Speaker 1: you the power not only to survive the storm, but
Speaker 1: he gave you the power for miracles on the other side.
Speaker 1: Now I have the faith to believe that if we
Speaker 1: cut the ropes today, whether that's someone who's without a
Speaker 1: job and just trying to raise their own family, or
Speaker 1: whether you are looking for wisdom as a leader and
Speaker 1: you don't know how to lead the people because you've
Speaker 1: lost what you are guiding by. I hear the spirit
Speaker 1: of God saying what Paul said, stay with the ship.
Speaker 1: Stay with the ship. Now you say, how can I
Speaker 1: stay with it when it's breaking? No, no no, no, Paul
Speaker 1: didn't promise that the ship was going to look the
Speaker 1: same when they got to the shore. He didn't say
Speaker 1: it would look the same. He said, you're gonna make
Speaker 1: it anyway. The disciples that accompanied Jesus through his ministry
Speaker 1: did not follow him to the cross, except John. But
Speaker 1: he made it anyway. What he started with he did
Speaker 1: not finish with on the cross, but he made it anyway.
Speaker 1: And now we look to Jesus and we hear the
Speaker 1: echo of Paul preaching to us, saying, last night an
Speaker 1: angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve,
Speaker 1: he will never leave me, nor for say there was
Speaker 1: an angel beside me. That's how I have staying power.
Speaker 1: That's how I can make it. Because this boat, this
Speaker 1: boat is not going to ever sail again. It's going
Speaker 1: to break apart. You know what's crazy. God got them
Speaker 1: there on the pieces of the boat, even though the
Speaker 1: storm broke it apart. I promise you I'm about to
Speaker 1: close this message and you won't have to put up
Speaker 1: with me again for another week. But I want to
Speaker 1: show you that the same boat that broke apart. Look
Speaker 1: at verse forty. You want verse forty I may preach
Speaker 1: this again next week. It said I'm way off. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Verse forty four is the one because the rest were
Speaker 1: to get there. Someone I said, you're gonna get there.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get there. You're gonna get there. Make eye
Speaker 1: contact with somebody. Y'all are looking at each other. Say
Speaker 1: you're gonna get You can't catch Corona looking at somebody.
Speaker 1: All right, you can look at you can still look
Speaker 1: at people. That's still legal. It's still legal to look
Speaker 1: at somebody. All right, you're gonna get there. You're gonna
Speaker 1: get there on planks or other pieces of the ship.
Speaker 1: In this way, everyone reached land safely. So the revelation
Speaker 1: is this, It was still the same ship. It just
Speaker 1: looked different. And he is still the same God in
Speaker 1: this season of your life, even if it looks different,
Speaker 1: and he is still the God of all grace. It
Speaker 1: just looks different. And listen to the Elevation Church, Blatney
Speaker 1: River Walk, Gaston. I don't forgot the names of all
Speaker 1: the campuses. It's been so long, but we're still the church.
Speaker 1: It just looks different. I do need to tell the
Speaker 1: devil though we're still here. We're still here. We're still here.
Speaker 1: I might be watching in a bath robe buss me,
Speaker 1: but I'm still blessed. I'm still here. So you'll get
Speaker 1: huffed and you can pump and you can blow the
Speaker 1: house down, But I got the faith to flow. I
Speaker 1: got the faith some Megan, I got the fath some Megan, i'
Speaker 1: gonna make it, Bob Faith, I'm gonna do it by faith,
Speaker 1: ip gonna make it. I've restarted this video seven times,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you
Speaker 1: for being a part of our ministry. Our family loves you.
Speaker 1: You're grateful for you. On behalf of all the people
Speaker 1: who are being blessed by this ministry. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for staying, for being planted in the House
Speaker 1: of God in this season of so much uncertainty. Those
Speaker 1: of you who give you know who you are. Those
Speaker 1: of you who pray you know who you are. Those
Speaker 1: of you who share the message you know, just something
Speaker 1: so simple as to share on your social media it
Speaker 1: really makes a difference, And I just want to thank
Speaker 1: you for it. They always tell me to remind you
Speaker 1: to subscribe, So subscribe. I reminded you that way we
Speaker 1: can stay connect. Staying power. There's power and connection. There's
Speaker 1: power in the Word of God. And if you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: seeing Graham over here in my left shoulder, let us
Speaker 1: know in the comments, let me know in the comments
Speaker 1: where you're watching from and what God spoke to you.
Speaker 1: I see you next time. Where'd you go? Nice going,
Speaker 1: See Sa