Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: How awesome, How awesome, What a wonderful, wonderful time of worship. Amen,
Speaker 1: do me a favor real quick before you take your seat.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of torn. I'm going to preach in just
Speaker 1: a moment. I'm excited to preach. I'm in a little
Speaker 1: bit of a dilemma. I have two different scriptures. One
Speaker 1: is from the Old Testament and one is from the
Speaker 1: New Testament, and I kind of can't decide which one
Speaker 1: I want to give you. So I thought we put
Speaker 1: it up for a vote. Huh. She said both. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing because my message to is the
Speaker 1: blessing of both. Let's do it. Let's do it. You
Speaker 1: may be seated. God bless you, God bless you, Choir,
Speaker 1: God bless you, Anna, God bless you, Matt, God bless you.
Speaker 1: Pastor Shawn see in the house from Athens Church. Let's
Speaker 1: thank God for this great Man of God. Thanks for
Speaker 1: stopping by. It's good to have my brother, Pastor Mike
Speaker 1: Todd on the second row representing the Oakland Athletics. You're
Speaker 1: not a fan at all, are you? Oh man, that's terrible.
Speaker 1: You just watch Moneyball and bought in Oakland A's had
Speaker 1: Is that what happened? Oh man? This feels good. So
Speaker 1: if I'm not preaching good I can throw the mic
Speaker 1: on the first row the second row and somebody else
Speaker 1: can pick it up. So good to be here and
Speaker 1: just touch somebody and say I. If Pastor had time,
Speaker 1: he would say thank God for you and mentioned your
Speaker 1: name too. Let me do that if they had time.
Speaker 1: Many wonderful things to share from the Word of God. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you for serving this love week, whatever you did,
Speaker 1: if you did something this week, or really what I
Speaker 1: like to thank God for is consistency, because it's not
Speaker 1: just one week out of the year that builds a
Speaker 1: great church. And so while this week there are many
Speaker 1: people we could highlight and thank for their contribution, I
Speaker 1: want to say thank you to those of you who
Speaker 1: never make a lot of noise, but you just contribute
Speaker 1: in meaningful ways prayer giving service. It's a big deal
Speaker 1: and you lead an e group, whether it's a spectacular thing,
Speaker 1: whether it's forty people or four people, you just do it.
Speaker 1: That's really how you can know that you're doing it
Speaker 1: for God and not for the approval of others or
Speaker 1: the praises of people. It's just really beautiful and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I don't know how to say it any
Speaker 1: more than that, but I appreciate you, and I hope
Speaker 1: you can feel that that's sincere from my heart. Thank
Speaker 1: you to those of you. You don't blow a trumpet
Speaker 1: or anything like that. You don't announce it, just do it,
Speaker 1: and that means a lot. It's not just a Nike slogan.
Speaker 1: It's the way that a great local church is built
Speaker 1: when people are just willing to do it and not
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be known for it. But I thank
Speaker 1: God for each and every one of you on every location.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say that, and in the spirit
Speaker 1: of love, I wore pink. Now let's get into the Bible.
Speaker 1: Let me read you this from Ecclesiastes, chapter eleven, verses
Speaker 1: five and six. Now I'm gonna take my time because
Speaker 1: I've been waiting to preach these passages since the beginning
Speaker 1: of June, and I couldn't figure out how God wanted
Speaker 1: me to preach them. But today I saw it. And
Speaker 1: I've just been pacing all day waiting for you to
Speaker 1: put on your makeup and get here so we could
Speaker 1: talk about it together. And now I can't find Ecclesiastes
Speaker 1: in the Bible. Everything's falling apart. Here it is, it's
Speaker 1: right there, I said. Verse five is you do not
Speaker 1: know the way the spirit comes to the bones in
Speaker 1: the womb of a woman with child. So you do
Speaker 1: not know the work of God who makes everything. In
Speaker 1: the morning, So your seat and at evening withhold not
Speaker 1: your hand, for you do not know which will prosper
Speaker 1: this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
Speaker 1: There's our word both. Go over to Matthew chapter thirteen,
Speaker 1: verse twenty four for my second scripture. You told me
Speaker 1: you wanted both, so I'm fulfilling your request. He put
Speaker 1: another parable before them, verse twenty four, saying, the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed
Speaker 1: good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping,
Speaker 1: his enemy came and sowed weeds among the weed and
Speaker 1: went away so when the plants came up and bore grain,
Speaker 1: then the weeds appeared. Also. By the way, by the
Speaker 1: time something destructive appears in your life has been planted
Speaker 1: for a little while. There's a difference between the time
Speaker 1: when it was deposited in the soil and the time
Speaker 1: it showed up in your life. So when they woke
Speaker 1: up to the weeds, he said, the servant said, Master,
Speaker 1: did you not sow good seed in your field? I
Speaker 1: thought you raised your kids right, you know things like that.
Speaker 1: I thought you went to church. I thought you prayed.
Speaker 1: But he said, if you sowed good seeds, how then
Speaker 1: does it have weeds in the field? And he said
Speaker 1: to them an enemy has done this. So the servants
Speaker 1: said to him, then do you want us to go
Speaker 1: and gather them? Take care of it, sort it out.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, you got to You got to be
Speaker 1: careful because less gathering the weeds, you root up the
Speaker 1: wheat along with them. Let both, everybody say both. Let
Speaker 1: both grow together interesting until the harvest. And at harvest time,
Speaker 1: I will tell the reapers gather the weeds first, bind
Speaker 1: them in bundles to be burned, But gather the wheat
Speaker 1: into my barn. When Jesus was teaching about the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God, it was a new phrase and an entirely
Speaker 1: new concept for his hearers. It had never been said
Speaker 1: that way before the Kingdom of God. Now, Israel thought
Speaker 1: of themselves as a kingdom in a military and nationalistic sense.
Speaker 1: But to think of the Kingdom of Heaven or the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of God in an invisible realm required Jesus to
Speaker 1: not only explain it, but to demonstrate it, and both
Speaker 1: are always necessary. Everybody say both. That's why Love Week
Speaker 1: was so important in our church. Those one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: hours that we served validated the message that we preach.
Speaker 1: It is one thing to explain love, but it's another
Speaker 1: thing to hand somebody some warm food or a blanket,
Speaker 1: or to be with somebody in their time of need.
Speaker 1: And so Jesus had to do both. And he had
Speaker 1: quite a challenge on his hands because he would demonstrate
Speaker 1: something by working a miracle, but then he would have
Speaker 1: to explain it because the people who saw the miracle
Speaker 1: would miss the point I told you about one last
Speaker 1: week when he took the happy meal and fed everybody,
Speaker 1: and they thought that the point of the miracle was
Speaker 1: that their stomachs were full, and because they wanted him
Speaker 1: to be their burger king, he had to shut that
Speaker 1: whole thing down and say, eat my flesh, drink my blood.
Speaker 1: You've missed the entire point. So he's always having to
Speaker 1: explain it. He was always having to demonstrate so they
Speaker 1: could see it, and then explain it so they could
Speaker 1: understand it. He said, if you see it but don't
Speaker 1: understand it, it'll be like a seed that was sown,
Speaker 1: but the bird snatches it up before it has the
Speaker 1: opportunity to hit the soil. And so if you don't
Speaker 1: get the lesson in your heart through the power of demonstration,
Speaker 1: then you will miss the intention of the message. But
Speaker 1: if you only see the demonstration and don't hear the explanation,
Speaker 1: then you'll understand the miracle on the wrong level, and
Speaker 1: you'll always live your life thinking that the physical thing
Speaker 1: is the real thing, and you'll not understand what's really
Speaker 1: pointing to. So you'll engage in behavior modification to try
Speaker 1: to fix your life, not understanding that every habit in
Speaker 1: your life started with something in your heart. And until
Speaker 1: God turns the soil of your heart and weeds out
Speaker 1: the stuff that is choking the seed of his word.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's a lot in the text. And
Speaker 1: Jesus must have felt overwhelmed because in the crowd he
Speaker 1: had his disciples and he needed them to take the
Speaker 1: message after he left. And then there were the people
Speaker 1: who were just coming just to see the show and
Speaker 1: just to eat the fries. And he had to separate
Speaker 1: the two out. And he would often have to pull
Speaker 1: the disciples aside and say, now, when I said this,
Speaker 1: this is what I meant. He had to not only
Speaker 1: teach to the crowds, but he had to teach his
Speaker 1: disciples too. He had to do both. I relate to
Speaker 1: that challenge because some of you in this church know
Speaker 1: so much of the Bible. You know, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: Matthew thirteen twenty four wait in the tears, Wow. And
Speaker 1: then others are like Matthew, who is at his brother's name?
Speaker 1: What are we doing? And it's like all over the
Speaker 1: place in terms of knowledge and just frame of reference, right.
Speaker 1: But Jesus was always able to speak to both, unless
Speaker 1: they thought he could only do one or the other.
Speaker 1: He'd do stuff like this, He'd say to a paralytic sins,
Speaker 1: your friend, your sins are forgiven, and then when the
Speaker 1: people doubted if he had the power to forgive sins,
Speaker 1: he would tell him, now get up and take up
Speaker 1: your bed and walk. The reason that he told him
Speaker 1: to get up and take up his bed and walk
Speaker 1: was to give them a physical demonstration of his spiritual authority.
Speaker 1: So it's demonstration and explanation, and Jesus is doing both.
Speaker 1: In the context of the Kingdom of God. He would
Speaker 1: often have to teach this principle of the already and
Speaker 1: not yet eschatological twenty dollars word, the eschatological tension of
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God, And so it simply means that
Speaker 1: some things have already come, the Kingdom of God is here,
Speaker 1: and then some things are still coming. Isn't it that
Speaker 1: way in our life to know that if we have
Speaker 1: trusted in Christ, we are saved, We have been saved,
Speaker 1: and yet we are being saved and we will be saved.
Speaker 1: Because there are certain things in my life right now
Speaker 1: that God has already done. I can see the fruit
Speaker 1: of it, but there are other changes that are still
Speaker 1: taking root in my life. And what I've noticed about
Speaker 1: this is that as my devotion to Christ grows, so
Speaker 1: do the things that distract me, to try to pull
Speaker 1: me away from that pure devotion and simple childlike faith
Speaker 1: in the grace of God. And Jesus is using a
Speaker 1: parable so he can use an earthly symbol to convey
Speaker 1: a spiritual truth. He said, it's like if a man
Speaker 1: was planting weed, weeds with the plural. Uh. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: might be legal, but it isn't always just the best
Speaker 1: thing to do. But that's a different sermon. But he said,
Speaker 1: it's like if he was planning wheat and then somebody
Speaker 1: else planted weeds. He said, I want you to know
Speaker 1: that both grow together, which is symbolic of how as
Speaker 1: the ministry of Jesus increased, so did the opposition. The
Speaker 1: more that his popularity grew, the more vocal his opponents became,
Speaker 1: because both grow together. In the church I grew up
Speaker 1: in Monk's Corny United Methodist Church, we used to go
Speaker 1: upstairs to the youth room. Rick Burnett would lead us
Speaker 1: in praise and worship songs like it only takes a
Speaker 1: spark to get a fire going. Shine, Jesus, Shine. What
Speaker 1: was the other one he used to love so much? Oh?
Speaker 1: I remember the other one. I'm not gonna tell you
Speaker 1: what it was I'll tell you know how James Taylor
Speaker 1: sang the Carol King song You've Got a Friend. He
Speaker 1: would do, You've got a friend, but then he would
Speaker 1: go into what a friend we have in Jesus, and
Speaker 1: it was like a medley, and then he would stop
Speaker 1: after he played the songs. And it was only about
Speaker 1: ten of us in the youth group, but he would
Speaker 1: always say, and now it's time for praise reports and
Speaker 1: prayer requests. So it's a bunch of teenagers, right, So
Speaker 1: what you would usually happen is everybody that would raise
Speaker 1: their hand would raise their hand and say, I have
Speaker 1: an unspoken, unspoken his code for is probably about a girl,
Speaker 1: or it's about a guy. I have an unspoken But
Speaker 1: you know, maybe every once in a while, somebody will
Speaker 1: raise their hand and give a praise report about a
Speaker 1: test that they pass, or a prayer request about a
Speaker 1: test that they were taking. Here's us weird, And I
Speaker 1: wonder if you've experienced this in your life, is that
Speaker 1: in our lives we will often see the cycle that
Speaker 1: what will be our prayer request in one season of
Speaker 1: our life will become our praise report in the next season,
Speaker 1: only to become our prayer request. Again, there's probably a
Speaker 1: couple in here who right now is pregnant with child,
Speaker 1: and you probably prayed that God would enable you to
Speaker 1: have a child, and maybe in like five months, three months,
Speaker 1: seven months, you will give birth to your prayer request.
Speaker 1: You had your friends praying, probably even in a crowd
Speaker 1: this size, somebody who had trouble conceiving, and maybe even
Speaker 1: through the course of many different miscarriages. This may be
Speaker 1: the third or fourth or fifth time you tried, and
Speaker 1: now you're on the way to giving birth to what
Speaker 1: you prayed about. Others are still waiting for that, and
Speaker 1: we're all at different places. But let me tell what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. Because I've had She's had three babies,
Speaker 1: and you pray for it, and then you have it,
Speaker 1: and you praise God for it, and then you start
Speaker 1: praying about it all over again. So watch this, y'all. Pray.
Speaker 1: We're trying to have a baby. Y'all pray. We haven't
Speaker 1: slept in thirty four days, y'all pray. Our toddler is
Speaker 1: now showing some developmental delays. Y'all pray. We're trying to
Speaker 1: get him into this school, but we can't get him
Speaker 1: with the right teacher. Y'all pray he's got his driver's license.
Speaker 1: Y'all better pray for yourselves. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: y'all might want to stay off the road for the
Speaker 1: next few years. Y'all pray. It was your prayer request
Speaker 1: that became your praise report that turned back into your
Speaker 1: prayer request. So here's what I'm trying to say. You
Speaker 1: prayed for your problems, Yes you did. You prayed for
Speaker 1: the promotion on the job, and the promotion came with people,
Speaker 1: and people are stupid and lazy and late and tardy.
Speaker 1: You prayed for that. Touch somebody say you prayed for it.
Speaker 1: You asked for it. Don't get mad about it now.
Speaker 1: You prayed for it. You prayed for a man. I
Speaker 1: heard one girl praying for a husband one time. She
Speaker 1: was praying for a future husband. She had a whole
Speaker 1: list about it. She was praying. She was like, God,
Speaker 1: I pray that he would be godly, and I pray
Speaker 1: that he would be tall. But God, I'd rather than
Speaker 1: be godly than tall. But God, if he could be both,
Speaker 1: if he could be both, if he could be Oh,
Speaker 1: it's both, you need both. You need both. It's in marriage. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, don't marry somebody you're attracted to. Marry somebody
Speaker 1: that you know loves the Lord. You better be attracted
Speaker 1: to him too. It better be both, now, for real
Speaker 1: about this. Most preachers won't say these things because they
Speaker 1: sound carnal and unspiritual, but it needs to be both.
Speaker 1: You need to like to look at each other. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be looking at each other all the time in
Speaker 1: this thing. Y'all gonna be prayer partners. Don't have to
Speaker 1: get married. You gotta have some chemistry and christ. So
Speaker 1: it goes back to the idea that humans are always
Speaker 1: wanting to categorize, and we always want to divide things.
Speaker 1: You want us to get the you want us to
Speaker 1: get the wheat, Separate from the weeds. That's what we
Speaker 1: always want to do. We always want to separate the
Speaker 1: good from the bad. You know, we want to talk
Speaker 1: about I'm in a season of blessing right now, or
Speaker 1: I'm going through a really hard season right now. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you the truth, all of us are going
Speaker 1: through a season of blessing right now, and all of
Speaker 1: us are going through a really hard season right now.
Speaker 1: It just depends on which angle that you catch me
Speaker 1: from as to what season I look like I'm going through.
Speaker 1: If you see me from one side, from my good side,
Speaker 1: I might look like the most blessed man in the
Speaker 1: United States of America, in the continental United States of America.
Speaker 1: But on the other side, I yelled at one of
Speaker 1: my kids, who shall remain nameless, right before I came
Speaker 1: to preach to you. But you didn't have to see that.
Speaker 1: So now I'm a man full of the spirit and
Speaker 1: wisdom up here. Give him a praise. Let it be done,
Speaker 1: receive your reign. We're like a flood. I was coming
Speaker 1: through like a flood, but a different kind of flood.
Speaker 1: Just a few minutes before I out on the stage.
Speaker 1: Just both I could preach the Bible and I want
Speaker 1: to beat your behind, both in the same two hour period,
Speaker 1: in the same one hundred and twenty minutes. Because I'm
Speaker 1: a pastor, but I'm also a daddy. And if you
Speaker 1: disrespect my wife, I will turn into something else. Because
Speaker 1: I'm a transformer, I'm a go by. I'm both. You
Speaker 1: didn't know how to be both. WHOA wasn't in my notes?
Speaker 1: But he kept trying to describe the kingdom. He said,
Speaker 1: it's like the seed was good and the weeds were bad.
Speaker 1: But they both grow together. And that's so true. They
Speaker 1: both grow together. The opportunities grow, and so do the responsibilities.
Speaker 1: God take me deeper in my walk with you. Okay,
Speaker 1: as you go deeper, you're gonna gain intimacy with Christ.
Speaker 1: And then you are gonna also gain awareness of your ignorance,
Speaker 1: because the closer to Him you get, the more you're
Speaker 1: gonna realize how much you don't know. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I want to know you more, but the more you
Speaker 1: come to know Christ, the more you're going to know
Speaker 1: that you didn't know him at all. That's why I
Speaker 1: liked the Ecclesiastes eleven. I was reading that how Solomon
Speaker 1: had chased things that he called vanity or meaningless. It
Speaker 1: was like the sense that, in the context of having
Speaker 1: success and fulfillment, if you have one without the other
Speaker 1: as problematic, what you really want is both. See like,
Speaker 1: if you have success but not fulfillment or wholeness, that
Speaker 1: will feel to you like the ultimate failure because to
Speaker 1: chase what you thought you wanted and to get it
Speaker 1: and it didn't do what you needed done makes you
Speaker 1: feel like, well, what do I do now? That's the
Speaker 1: point that he was writing from where he said that
Speaker 1: there are certain things that you just don't know, and
Speaker 1: he mentions two things an Ecclesiastes eleven. Because all of
Speaker 1: us struggle from time to time when we are sowing,
Speaker 1: when we are investing, when we are living our lives
Speaker 1: and doing the things that we believe that God has
Speaker 1: called us to do, without knowing whether it's making a
Speaker 1: difference at all. There's so much you don't know. Solomon says,
Speaker 1: if you watch the wind to see if it's blowing right,
Speaker 1: you will never sow. And if you watch the clouds
Speaker 1: to see if it's dry enough, you will never read.
Speaker 1: Your mind will always find an excuse for you. We'll
Speaker 1: always find a reason, will always find an indication that
Speaker 1: this is not the right time. And so Solomon is
Speaker 1: giving advice. He's saying, just like you don't know how
Speaker 1: the breath enters the bones of a woman in the womb. Now,
Speaker 1: granted we have ultrasounds now, but it's still is still
Speaker 1: true to be said today that there is a part
Speaker 1: of the process of human life that we can't put
Speaker 1: on a sonogram. There's a part of it, he says,
Speaker 1: there's the bones, and then there's the spirit or the
Speaker 1: breath Hebrew word rua. It's the same way that God breathed.
Speaker 1: It's the spirit of God, the ruh of God. In
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, he said, there's the bones, and there's
Speaker 1: the breath. There's the structure, and there's the spirit. And
Speaker 1: if you have structure but not spirit, you don't have life.
Speaker 1: If you have spirit but you don't have structure, you
Speaker 1: don't have life. In a few weeks, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be teaching our staff on our annual staff Advance, and
Speaker 1: I'm doing a whole session just around this verse for leadership,
Speaker 1: because in church you can pray for the spirit of
Speaker 1: God to come. But if you don't have structure, if
Speaker 1: you don't have any capacity to manage what God brings you,
Speaker 1: it will simply be irresponsibility and wishful thinking. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, you can have organizational charts and resources and
Speaker 1: all of the things that would tend to make people
Speaker 1: think you are successful, but without the spirit, just without
Speaker 1: that thing that only God can do. Can I tell
Speaker 1: you something? I can get up here with an outline
Speaker 1: and an outfit and think that I have something to say,
Speaker 1: but there's a part of me that knows because I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for fourteen years now on this stage,
Speaker 1: well not this when we had different buildings, but at
Speaker 1: this church as the pastor, and there is a certain
Speaker 1: thing that God has to do that I can't do,
Speaker 1: and I don't always know what He's going to do.
Speaker 1: So there's a part of me that came in today
Speaker 1: excited to preach to you because I had a structure,
Speaker 1: I have some scriptures. But there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that knows that God, if you don't blow on this,
Speaker 1: if you don't breathe on this, if you don't do
Speaker 1: that thing that you do that I can't do, if
Speaker 1: you don't tear open somebody's facade and speak down deep
Speaker 1: in the places of their heart, then I'll just be
Speaker 1: a clanging symbol. I'll just lose my voice, but I
Speaker 1: won't say anything. God. I need you to breathe on
Speaker 1: my life. I need you to breathe peace. I need
Speaker 1: you to breathe joy, because God, I can get a
Speaker 1: big house, a nice car, the right clothes, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people. But if you don't breathe, I won't
Speaker 1: be fulfilled. If you don't do it, it won't be done.
Speaker 1: I need bone I need the bones and the breath.
Speaker 1: I need the structure and the spirit I need Here's
Speaker 1: what I love about it. I need the friends and
Speaker 1: the enemies. I need both. I was amazed how Jesus,
Speaker 1: when he was putting together his Kingdom dream team, knew
Speaker 1: that one of them was a devil and kept him anyway. John,
Speaker 1: I understand the disciple that Jesus loved, at least that's
Speaker 1: what he put in his own bio. Of course you
Speaker 1: chose John. He's going to take care of your mama
Speaker 1: when you're gone. And of course he chose Judas because
Speaker 1: Judas was the one who got him to the cross
Speaker 1: where he paid the price that he came to pay.
Speaker 1: You need both. You need wheat and weeds, and if
Speaker 1: you try to pull them up. He tried to get
Speaker 1: the stuff out of your life that you don't like.
Speaker 1: You'll tear out the wheat, the substance. You'll tear out
Speaker 1: the thing that God is growing. Because see what would
Speaker 1: happen if you planted this particular type of weed, or
Speaker 1: some versions call it the tears. The wheat and the tears.
Speaker 1: It looked the same on the surface, but where it
Speaker 1: was really difficult was underground. Where the tears would intermingle
Speaker 1: with the wheat and the root systems would get intertwined.
Speaker 1: And sometimes what God is doing in your life beneath
Speaker 1: the surface, the pain is intertwined with the purpose. You
Speaker 1: hear me. The thing that you don't like about yourself
Speaker 1: is sometimes the thing that God is using. And we
Speaker 1: ask God to use us, and we ask God to
Speaker 1: do as will in our lives unless we don't like it,
Speaker 1: and then we want to root that out. And so
Speaker 1: then it's like, well, God, I want you to do this,
Speaker 1: but not that. And what Solomon said is what Jesus said,
Speaker 1: you don't know which one is which, And so we
Speaker 1: have to be very careful when we are trying to
Speaker 1: do our own gardening. Because I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I am not a horticulturist. I don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of agriculture experience. I was preparing this message and
Speaker 1: I had this weird memory of being a little boy
Speaker 1: and my mom had this little flower bed outside our house.
Speaker 1: And one day I decided to be helpful and I
Speaker 1: came back to the door and I was so proud.
Speaker 1: I was like mom, and I had my hands full,
Speaker 1: and I said, I got all the weeds out of
Speaker 1: your flower bed. And she looked like she wanted to
Speaker 1: slap me, but she restrained herself. She said, those were
Speaker 1: the flowers. But I didn't know the difference because I
Speaker 1: was too immature to know the difference. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: are spiritually immature, and we are running from things and
Speaker 1: removing things and resisting things. And in the process of
Speaker 1: trying to pluck out the weeds, you're removing the wheat.
Speaker 1: If God answered every prayer your brain right now, I'm sorry, Bruce.
Speaker 1: Almighty was a pretty good movie. It would screw up
Speaker 1: the universe. It would ruin your training. Look, can I
Speaker 1: teach you a little bit? All right? So I used
Speaker 1: to not be able to do a pull up. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie to you. I was twenty two years
Speaker 1: old and I had never done a pull up in
Speaker 1: my life. So I start training to do pull ups,
Speaker 1: and I could do some pulloups. One day, this guy
Speaker 1: told me that I had to do not only pull ups,
Speaker 1: which was a feat of accomplishment for me. I work
Speaker 1: my whole life tour to this point, a culmination of
Speaker 1: my entire life's effort in the rum of X. He's like,
Speaker 1: now I need you to do a negative. I said,
Speaker 1: what's a negative? He said, well, there's two parts to
Speaker 1: every rep. There's when you're going up and there's when
Speaker 1: you're coming down. But there's just as much benefit in
Speaker 1: coming down as there is in coming up. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you seven seconds, because if that hits you right,
Speaker 1: you will start to see that the things in your
Speaker 1: life right now that you perceive as negative might be
Speaker 1: a crucial function in building your strength and your stamina
Speaker 1: and your hope. There are some things about God that
Speaker 1: you can only learn going down. Ask Peter beginning to
Speaker 1: sink when he felt the grip of the grace of
Speaker 1: God through the hand of Jesus of Nazareth, and he said,
Speaker 1: now I know that, your Lord. It's the blessing of both.
Speaker 1: And you don't know touch Somebody say you don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know the difference between wheat and wheat. You
Speaker 1: can't do the angel's job. Let God sort that out.
Speaker 1: I heard the Lord say, keep sewing and stop sorting.
Speaker 1: Sr T I n G. Keep sewing and stop sorting.
Speaker 1: Stop judging the experience the moment it happens, Give it
Speaker 1: some time to see what it is. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact. I don't know if you have experienced this,
Speaker 1: but some of my successes have been the fruit of
Speaker 1: my failures. Some of the things that have produced the
Speaker 1: most in my life were the things that, honestly, at
Speaker 1: the time I was the most embarrassed about some of
Speaker 1: the things that have Actually, I know that most of
Speaker 1: you in this church know the song, Oh, Come to
Speaker 1: the altar, the song that almost never was. There were
Speaker 1: twelve versions of that song. All of them sucked. All right,
Speaker 1: write this down. You want a deep revelation. Success starts
Speaker 1: with sucks, he says. Sow it in the morning, sow
Speaker 1: it in the evening, because you don't know. Seeds can
Speaker 1: be deceiving. Seeds can look awfully small. Seeds can look impotent,
Speaker 1: and they may be dormant for a while. And when
Speaker 1: you sew them, they go away for a little while.
Speaker 1: But they didn't go to die. They went to multiply.
Speaker 1: Some of the things in your life that you said
Speaker 1: goodbye to, you need to say see you later. I'm
Speaker 1: expecting you to come back up again. Because I believe
Speaker 1: in resurrection, the blessing of both both. I need both
Speaker 1: in my life. Paul needed both. I guess I do too.
Speaker 1: Paul had this thing. He called it thorn, and he
Speaker 1: kept trying to weed it out. Ask God three times,
Speaker 1: take it away. Now, if you've ever asked God to
Speaker 1: take something away, that's fine. But if he doesn't do it,
Speaker 1: leave it alone. And here's why you can leave it alone,
Speaker 1: because the presence of weeds will not cancel out the
Speaker 1: power of the week. What is supposed to grow will grow.
Speaker 1: Leave it alone for a little while and see what
Speaker 1: it becomes. See if it will be the fruit this
Speaker 1: failure that you're processing right now. Some of you started
Speaker 1: the business, you did the thing, you took the step,
Speaker 1: and you made a mess out of it. See if
Speaker 1: maybe that might be the seed of something that becomes
Speaker 1: something that people will celebrate in the future. And you
Speaker 1: will know, and God will know that you almost gave up,
Speaker 1: and the enemy was there telling you stop sewing it.
Speaker 1: It's not working. But you kept sewing, and you sewed
Speaker 1: in the morning, and you sewed in the evening, and
Speaker 1: you loved any way, and you forgave any way, and
Speaker 1: you showed up anyway, and you did it anyway, and
Speaker 1: you memorized a scripture and quoted it any way, even
Speaker 1: though it wasn't happening in your life. But you kept
Speaker 1: quoting it, and you kept sewing, and you didn't try
Speaker 1: to sort it out, and you didn't try to root
Speaker 1: it up, and you didn't get impatient and immature. But
Speaker 1: you waited for the will of God to come to
Speaker 1: pass in your life. Once you ever stopped sewing. Because
Speaker 1: you don't know. Solomon said, you don't know the way
Speaker 1: that the breath enters the bones, and you don't know
Speaker 1: the way God works either. You don't know. We don't
Speaker 1: know which sermons God's going to use to touch people.
Speaker 1: Then you ever preach one you hate it, and then
Speaker 1: everybody wanted to talk about it for the next year,
Speaker 1: and you preached one you loved and nobody ever remembered it.
Speaker 1: It'll make you mad, but that's how the breath operates.
Speaker 1: So you'll be reminded that you need the spirit of God,
Speaker 1: not just structure and skill and some things in your life.
Speaker 1: It's gonna surprise you because you don't know. He said
Speaker 1: one might work and one might not, or both might
Speaker 1: do equally well. In fact, he said in the ESV
Speaker 1: both may be good. Now that made me think of
Speaker 1: Joseph Naturally Old Testament Joseph with the coat Joseph, the
Speaker 1: coat that got him beat up, the coat that got
Speaker 1: him thrown in a pit, The coat that represented the
Speaker 1: favor of his father. The coat that was kind of
Speaker 1: loud and obnoxious, but he wore it anyway. The coat
Speaker 1: that let him know he was chosen even if people
Speaker 1: didn't like him. Remember, you need both. Everybody's not supposed
Speaker 1: to like you. If everybody likes you, you are doing nothing.
Speaker 1: If everybody likes you, you stand for nothing. If everybody
Speaker 1: agrees with you, you are saying nothing. You don't need
Speaker 1: everybody to like you, and like a true prophet now,
Speaker 1: because one time I was going through some criticism and
Speaker 1: I asked God to make it stop. He said, well,
Speaker 1: if I stop that, then I got to stop the
Speaker 1: blessing that created the criticism to begin with. Because both
Speaker 1: grow together. Both grow together. Oh, I want to be
Speaker 1: used by God, and I want everybody to agree with
Speaker 1: all of my decisions and validate my existence. Both grow together.
Speaker 1: And so when Joseph did get pushed in a pit,
Speaker 1: it was no surprise to me that the Ishmaelit caravan
Speaker 1: was the one that picked him up. It didn't surprise
Speaker 1: me at all. Because that's just like God. He always
Speaker 1: uses both. Ishmael was the son that Abraham had doing
Speaker 1: it his own way. Isaac was the one that he
Speaker 1: had doing it God's way. But guess which one God used.
Speaker 1: Guess which one God used both? You mean God will
Speaker 1: use my mistakes to bring about a deliverance in my future.
Speaker 1: You mean God will use the dumb thing I did.
Speaker 1: I'm saying absolutely, if he's sovereign, he will, if it's
Speaker 1: his field, if it's his harvest, if it's his job
Speaker 1: to superintend your life. Even the ishmaelite served a purpose.
Speaker 1: When David slept with Bathsheba after the child died. The
Speaker 1: next son he had was named Solomon, who was the
Speaker 1: wisest man who ever lived, who wrote Ecclesiastes eleven. His
Speaker 1: dumbest decision led to the world's greatest wisdom. I'm gonna try.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try because I saw it in my mind
Speaker 1: like this. I saw that God is using both in
Speaker 1: your life right now. He's using both. So when Joseph
Speaker 1: gets thrown in prison, it's not good. But God uses
Speaker 1: that to introduce him to somebody who is going to
Speaker 1: bring him before Pharaoh. When he comes before Pharaoh. Pharaoh
Speaker 1: was telling him about a dream that means there's going
Speaker 1: to be a famine in the land. Well, the femine
Speaker 1: isn't good, but God is using the famine to create
Speaker 1: a position of favor for his people. Now, when they
Speaker 1: finally got there, Joseph is standing before his brothers and
Speaker 1: he has a revelation that everything that has happened in
Speaker 1: his life wasn't good, But everything that happened in his
Speaker 1: life has been held in the hand of God. So
Speaker 1: God wasn't just using the stuff that felt good to you,
Speaker 1: not just the stuff that you praised him for, not
Speaker 1: just the stuff that you thanked him for. Paul finally
Speaker 1: came to the point where he said, I learned to
Speaker 1: thank God for my thorn. I learned to thank him
Speaker 1: for the things that he is using that I did
Speaker 1: not choose for myself, the things that he is using
Speaker 1: that tormented me at one time. But the tormentor was
Speaker 1: my mentor that transformed me into who I needed to
Speaker 1: be so that I would rely on the grace of God.
Speaker 1: It's the blessing of both. It's both. So when Joseph said,
Speaker 1: you meant it to harm me, but God meant it
Speaker 1: for good. He's not speaking out of both sides of
Speaker 1: his mouth. It's both. They meant it, but God used it.
Speaker 1: God is going to use both. I promise you he is.
Speaker 1: I promise you he is. That's what the cross represents,
Speaker 1: after all, is two beams, one vertical that's you and God,
Speaker 1: one horizontal that's you and people. Is both. Love the Lord,
Speaker 1: your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, Love
Speaker 1: your neighbor as yourself. It's both. It's not one or
Speaker 1: the other. It's both. I praise God when I feel it.
Speaker 1: I pray God. When I don't feel it. I praise
Speaker 1: God when I sense him. I praise Him when it's
Speaker 1: so distant that I wonder sometimes as any of this
Speaker 1: even real. I praise him in the good times. I
Speaker 1: praise him in the bad times. I praise him when
Speaker 1: he does what I ask. I praise him when he
Speaker 1: runs a little late to lazarus funeral, because I know,
Speaker 1: even on the fourth day, he can say something. And
Speaker 1: Joseph said, oh, it's both. Is pain and purpose. It's both.
Speaker 1: And we keep waiting to this day when everything in
Speaker 1: our life will be stable, and all of our relationships
Speaker 1: will be harmonious, and God said, I need you to
Speaker 1: learn how to celebrate the wheat even while you're looking
Speaker 1: at the weeds. Even the enemy serves a purpose. Even
Speaker 1: the devil works for God. The devil's not in charge
Speaker 1: of what happens in my life. God doesn't do everything
Speaker 1: that happens to me, but he uses everything that happens
Speaker 1: to me. There is nothing that is happening in your
Speaker 1: life that will not have to pass through the hand
Speaker 1: of God by the time is said and done. And
Speaker 1: so I saw this picture that really moved me of
Speaker 1: how Joseph's father, Jacob, at the end of his life,
Speaker 1: was sitting on his deathbed. And Jacob was an interesting
Speaker 1: character because he had two names, Jacob Deceiber Israel Prince,
Speaker 1: which one was he If you'll be really honest, you're
Speaker 1: both too. So please don't judge people just because their
Speaker 1: shortcomings are exposed. If it weren't for the grace of God,
Speaker 1: who knows where you would be. Come on, how many
Speaker 1: know what you're capable of. I didn't have a problem.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a problem preaching in that prison the
Speaker 1: other day because I'm not in that same situation. But
Speaker 1: I could be. There's nothing better about me than anybody
Speaker 1: that I was preaching to. It wasn't a problem for
Speaker 1: me to preach. It's the power of both, it's the
Speaker 1: blessing of both. And when Jacob was about to die,
Speaker 1: Joseph wanted to get his kids in front of Jacob
Speaker 1: so that they could be blessed. And he brought these
Speaker 1: two sons that he had in Egypt. The oldest one
Speaker 1: was named Manassa, the younger one was named Ephraim. And
Speaker 1: they sat on Jacob's knees for a minute. Jacob couldn't
Speaker 1: see very well. And after all that Joseph has been through,
Speaker 1: God has blessed him. Anyway, these two sons have significant names.
Speaker 1: Manassa means to forget, because he said, I'm going to
Speaker 1: forget the shame and the pain of Egypt. God has
Speaker 1: made me forget. And then Ephraim means fruitful, not beautiful.
Speaker 1: How God can produce fruit and even the hardest and
Speaker 1: worst situations. Well, anyway, when Jacob was sitting up to
Speaker 1: bless the boys, he did something weird. I want to
Speaker 1: show you this real quick. I don't know who this
Speaker 1: is for, but in Genesis forty eight thirteen, you got
Speaker 1: it forty eight thirteen. Please they said in Joseph took them.
Speaker 1: He took both of them, Ephraim in his right hand
Speaker 1: toward Israel's left hand, and Manassa in his left hand.
Speaker 1: God's gonna bless both, and he brought them near him
Speaker 1: next verse and Israel stretched out his right hand laid
Speaker 1: it on the head of who was the younger, and
Speaker 1: his left hand on the head of Manassa, crossing his
Speaker 1: hands for Manassa was the firstborn. Now understand when he
Speaker 1: did that, it broke every protocol and violated every expectation,
Speaker 1: because he was supposed to bless the oldest one first.
Speaker 1: But God doesn't do things the way we think that
Speaker 1: he should do things, and we don't get what we
Speaker 1: deserve from God. We get so much more. We get
Speaker 1: his grace and his mercy. And when he crossed his
Speaker 1: hands over to bless the younger, when first do any
Speaker 1: of you know that God has blessed you in ways
Speaker 1: that you don't deserve and didn't earn. And there's no
Speaker 1: way in the world you could have built a resume
Speaker 1: to afford it. So when he did it, Joseph got
Speaker 1: really upset. It said, when Joseph saw verse seventeen that
Speaker 1: his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim.
Speaker 1: It displeased him, and he took his father's hand to
Speaker 1: move it from Ephraim's head to Manassa's head. Watch the
Speaker 1: next verse, and Joseph said to his father, not this way,
Speaker 1: my father, This one was the firstborn. You know, I
Speaker 1: know you're getting old and you can't. You used to
Speaker 1: do this when you were a little kid. You've been
Speaker 1: trying to switch things up your whole life. But put
Speaker 1: your right hand on his head. Watch the next verse.
Speaker 1: But his father refused and said, I know, my son.
Speaker 1: I know he shall also become a people. He shall
Speaker 1: also be great. In other words, he said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bless both. You know why I don't ever have to
Speaker 1: be jealous of anybody else's life. You know why I
Speaker 1: don't ever have to worry about comparing myself to what
Speaker 1: God does for somebody else, because God is big enough
Speaker 1: to bless both of us. And when you know that,
Speaker 1: come on, when you know that this is the blessing
Speaker 1: of both. To know that what I call good, what
Speaker 1: I call bad, God is going to bless both, don't
Speaker 1: you go trying to pluck stuff yourself that's above your
Speaker 1: pay grade. Don't you go on a self improvement project
Speaker 1: without God's help, You'll mess up the masterpiece. God said,
Speaker 1: it's all working together for the good. I'm gonna bless both.
Speaker 1: They were singing a minute ago. Come here, Tiff. She
Speaker 1: was singing, you never lost the battle, You never lost
Speaker 1: a battle. I felt that when when we were writing
Speaker 1: that song, I felt it. We were just singing that
Speaker 1: you never lost the battle, never lost the battle, and
Speaker 1: we just started singing that. Yes, oh man. I was like, yes, Lord,
Speaker 1: the church is gonna want to sing this. And then
Speaker 1: I was like keeping it. But then I was like, Chris,
Speaker 1: why don't you, uh, won't you help her? And then
Speaker 1: she's sang it. I said, if they what if they both?
Speaker 1: If they what if they bone? Yeah? What if they bone?
Speaker 1: What if? What if it? What if Paul is silas
Speaker 1: start praising God together? What if we come together in
Speaker 1: his name? Can't begin to lift him off? What if
Speaker 1: we praise him? Things work together? Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 1: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 1: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org. Slash podcast for more
Speaker 1: information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends. You can click
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Speaker 1: your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening. God bless you.