Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 1: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2: Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
Speaker 2: in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message. In Romans chapter one, verse twenty five.
Speaker 2: There's a scripture I've been thinking about for quite a
Speaker 2: while now, and I've been looking forward to the opportunity
Speaker 2: to preach it, and this weekend Live as the appropriate time.
Speaker 2: And God has really been using it this weekend. You're
Speaker 2: not the first group that I've seen this weekend, and
Speaker 2: yet I believe that God has saved the best for
Speaker 2: last and that He desires to minister to you in
Speaker 2: a specific way today. And I'll read this verse and
Speaker 2: this will give you the premise for our message. And
Speaker 2: it's found in Romans chapter one, verse twenty five. It
Speaker 2: says that they exchanged the truth about God for a
Speaker 2: lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the
Speaker 2: Creator who is forever praised Amen. They exchanged the truth
Speaker 2: about God for a lie. And as people say that
Speaker 2: the Bible is not relevant to today's culture. But let
Speaker 2: me read this again. It sounds like it was written
Speaker 2: on Twitter last night. They exchanged the truth about God
Speaker 2: for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather
Speaker 2: than the Creator. Have you ever got your priorities mixed
Speaker 2: up and started serving something that God gave to you
Speaker 2: and forgotten about the God who gave them?
Speaker 1: And that's what happened.
Speaker 2: They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and
Speaker 2: began to serve created things rather than the Creator who
Speaker 2: is forever praised.
Speaker 1: Amen. The subject heading I want to use today is.
Speaker 2: Trading truth, and I want to talk to you on
Speaker 2: this topic Trading truth. Lord, I thank you that your
Speaker 2: word is truth. Illuminate it now and help us to
Speaker 2: receive it with courage to obey it. In Jesus name, Amen,
Speaker 2: you may be seated, God bless you. I lie in
Speaker 2: my cai. Sometimes you have to do it. Sometimes, you
Speaker 2: know what we're all doing in they were taking a nap.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's just for their own while it was the
Speaker 2: door locked safety dangerous criminals. You have to do it sometimes.
Speaker 2: Don't look at me judgmentally. You if you never lied
Speaker 2: to your kids, you haven't had them yet. But sometimes
Speaker 2: it's really a matter of survival.
Speaker 3: And even a few days ago, we were at the
Speaker 3: beach for the kid's spring break and they had talked
Speaker 3: me out into the ocean.
Speaker 2: They talked me out of the hot tub into the ocean.
Speaker 2: I'm too old for this crap. It was a fifty
Speaker 2: one degrees outside. But I'm hey, hey, I'm Dad of
Speaker 2: the year. Don't worry about it. I already got the
Speaker 2: I'm Dad of the Year. I went out in that
Speaker 2: cold ocean with all three kids, and Abby was hanging
Speaker 2: onto my arm the whole time, just every time. It
Speaker 2: was really it was a really rough ocean, but it
Speaker 2: made it kind of fun until until it wasn't fun anymore.
Speaker 2: You know how it is when you're kind of playing out,
Speaker 2: you kind of stepping.
Speaker 3: Further and further out, and you don't even know how far,
Speaker 3: how far out you've gotten, and then you kind of
Speaker 3: get carried away, and you don't really realize how far
Speaker 3: you've been carried away until you're looking and kind of
Speaker 3: look at the original point where you were, which would
Speaker 3: be a whole sermon in itself, but that's not what
Speaker 3: I want to preach about.
Speaker 2: What I wanted to tell you is we're kind of
Speaker 2: getting carried away, and then the undercurrent got really strong
Speaker 2: and started just pulling all of us, all four of us.
Speaker 2: The only one who had good enough sense to be
Speaker 2: in the house was Holly. She's not as committed to
Speaker 2: parenting and making memories as I am. She was on
Speaker 2: her phone, and I'm out there realizing in this moment, wait,
Speaker 2: nobody else is in the ocean.
Speaker 1: It's just us.
Speaker 3: Everybody who knows anything about safety in the water is inside.
Speaker 2: Right now, this is dangerous. And then it really got scary.
Speaker 2: I couldn't touch the bottom, and Abby's on my arm,
Speaker 2: and her being on my arm and is a problem.
Speaker 1: I can curl her all day long.
Speaker 2: She's just very well below my curling maximum weight ability,
Speaker 2: trust me. But when she's on my arm and I
Speaker 2: can't touch, and then Graham jumps on my back and
Speaker 2: we're all simultaneously being pulled, and I realized, like, well,
Speaker 2: we're way further out than I intended us to be.
Speaker 2: And Abbey's on my arm and Graham's on my back,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, Graham, I love you, dude, but you got.
Speaker 1: To swim right now. It's every verdict for himself right now.
Speaker 2: I need to take at least two of us back
Speaker 2: in the house for your mom. We start swimming back in.
Speaker 2: Abby's on my arm and Graham's swimming. Now Elijah's the
Speaker 2: bravest one. He's out way past all of us, and
Speaker 2: he's screaming at me to come get him or something,
Speaker 2: and I can't come get him.
Speaker 1: His sister's on my arm and it's my favorite.
Speaker 2: And so I just kidding, I kidding, but this calmness
Speaker 2: came over me, or at least I pretended that it did.
Speaker 2: I said, Elijah, it's fine, son, And secretly I'm looking
Speaker 2: at him, thinking this is our last time talking together,
Speaker 2: you know, But I knew I had to keep him swimming.
Speaker 1: It was just a leadership instinct that came over me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's fine, just swim, You'll be fine.
Speaker 2: It's not that bad here where we are if you
Speaker 2: can just get here.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, I'm dying, you know. And so we made it.
Speaker 2: We made it back to the shore, aren't you glad?
Speaker 1: Thank you for praying me through.
Speaker 2: And then Elijah said something really funny to me. I
Speaker 2: thought this was really really profound. He's like, you didn't
Speaker 2: even seem scared. Were you not worried about me. Were
Speaker 2: you were you just gonna let me stay out there?
Speaker 2: You know, well, of course I was. Your sisters only
Speaker 2: had eight years to live, you've had thirteen. And it's
Speaker 2: just but but I I think he was.
Speaker 1: I think he was amazed.
Speaker 2: He was like you, you just didn't even seem worried
Speaker 2: about it, And to which I told him, well, son,
Speaker 2: I was lying. I was lying for your own good.
Speaker 2: I knew if you knew how bad it was, you'd
Speaker 2: stop swimming. And so the best thing I could do
Speaker 2: for your survival was to lie to you. It's like
Speaker 2: a rahab lie. It's a lie for the purposes of God.
Speaker 2: Don't judge me. Don't judge me. But sometimes I lie
Speaker 2: to myself. It's a survival instinct. It's just that sometimes
Speaker 2: my feet can't find the bottom, and life it's a
Speaker 2: little bit turbulent, and I find myself drifting and in
Speaker 2: the new reality that I'm trying to embrace according to
Speaker 2: what God says I am. Sometimes what I used to
Speaker 2: be feels more solid, more stable, and more comfortable. And
Speaker 2: sometimes it's easier for me to lie to myself and
Speaker 2: tell myself a story. I got good at it, even
Speaker 2: as a little boy. It wasn't that my childhood was
Speaker 2: bad or anything like that. But all of us experience
Speaker 2: things in life that teach us to lie to ourselves.
Speaker 2: When we read a scripture like Romans chapter one, verse
Speaker 2: twenty five that says they exchange the truth about God
Speaker 2: for a lie, a part of us says, who would
Speaker 2: do that? Who would trade a perfectly good truth for
Speaker 2: a lie? And yet the fact is, there are some
Speaker 2: lies that we have learned so well that they feel
Speaker 2: true even more than the truth does. Can I preach
Speaker 2: like I've been out of the pulpit for three weeks
Speaker 2: and I've got something to say. I want to show
Speaker 2: you today an illustration from the life of Jesus, and
Speaker 2: I want to show you how sometimes the enemy doesn't
Speaker 2: sabotage your life with a lie. He tells you a
Speaker 2: truth and he twists it just enough. And I believe
Speaker 2: that the Lord desires to set us free today. But
Speaker 2: only by the truth can we be set free. You know,
Speaker 2: Jesus knew the truth because he was the truth. He
Speaker 2: knew the word of God because he was the word
Speaker 2: of God. And when the enemy came to Jesus and
Speaker 2: Matthew Chapter four in the Wilderness, to Timptim, he made
Speaker 2: the crucial mistake with the son of God of debating
Speaker 2: the word of God. And it's a bad idea to
Speaker 2: debate the word of God with the word of God.
Speaker 2: John chapter one says, in the beginning was the Word,
Speaker 2: and the word was with God, and the Word was God.
Speaker 2: He's not arguing with someone who knows about the Word
Speaker 2: of God. He is arguing with the embodiment of the
Speaker 2: Word of God. And it gives us a pure picture
Speaker 2: of the principle that is illustrated in Romans one twenty five,
Speaker 2: but only in reverse in Matthew chapter four, verse one.
Speaker 2: Our perspective is immediately challenged because it says that Jesus
Speaker 2: was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be
Speaker 2: tempted by the devil. And that is a strange construct,
Speaker 2: that Jesus was led by God to be tempted by
Speaker 2: the devil. If you've been told that God won't lead
Speaker 2: you into difficult situations, you've been lied to. If you've
Speaker 2: ever been told, or it's ever been implied or inferred,
Speaker 2: that the will of God will always lead to the
Speaker 2: path of least resistance, you've been lied to. If you've
Speaker 2: ever been told that the proof of the favor of
Speaker 2: God on your life is that situations become less difficult
Speaker 2: and more agreeable. You've been lied to because Jesus, before
Speaker 2: his ministry was fully announce was let into the wilderness
Speaker 2: to be tempted by the devil. And yet I want
Speaker 2: us to see that this passage is as much about
Speaker 2: trust as it is about temptation. Now let me say
Speaker 2: this real quickly. It's not the truth that you can quote,
Speaker 2: it's not the truth that you know mentally, but it
Speaker 2: is the truth that you do that guides your life
Speaker 2: to its ultimate outcome. I will never forget watching y'all
Speaker 2: when I was a kid with the Jane Fond to
Speaker 2: work Out DVDs, eating a bowl of ice cream watching
Speaker 2: the Jane Fond to work Out DVDs. And when I asked,
Speaker 2: why aren't you doing the DVDs? I'm only like eight
Speaker 2: years old and my mom and dad are eating briars
Speaker 2: watching Fonda. They said, well, we've got to know what
Speaker 2: to do before we can do it. But sometimes if
Speaker 2: you would do what you knew, I might get it
Speaker 2: worth it for me. After fasting forty days and forty nights,
Speaker 2: he was hungry. I nominate this for most obvious verse
Speaker 2: in the Bible. The Tempter came to him at his
Speaker 2: weakest moment. The tempter came to him in the area
Speaker 2: of his appetite. The tempter came to him at a
Speaker 2: place of great vulnerability and said, if you are the
Speaker 2: son of God, tell these stones to become bred. And
Speaker 2: how many times in my life have I been tempted
Speaker 2: in this exact way. It's a good thing Jesus knew
Speaker 2: the truth. It's a good thing Jesus had just been
Speaker 2: baptized by John and the Jordan River. It's it's a
Speaker 2: good thing that Jesus had just heard his father say,
Speaker 2: this is my beloved.
Speaker 1: Son, and whom I'm well pleased.
Speaker 2: It's a good thing he had just been told the truth,
Speaker 2: because when you just encountered truth, when you know who
Speaker 2: you are, when you have a full understanding of who
Speaker 2: you are in God's eyes, you don't have to prove
Speaker 2: it in anybody else's.
Speaker 1: How many times have I been.
Speaker 2: Susceptible to the temptation to prove who I am by
Speaker 2: what I do? But when you know that who you
Speaker 2: are is not dependent on what you do, your value
Speaker 2: is not assessed by others. Then you don't have to
Speaker 2: post stuff to prove stuff. You're going to set somebody
Speaker 2: free today. You don't have to post stuff to prove
Speaker 2: stuff when you know the truth about it. And Jesus answered,
Speaker 2: it is written men shall not live on bread alone,
Speaker 2: but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Speaker 2: One of the hardest years of my life was twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: My dad was our church was under heavy criticism in
Speaker 2: the media, and I was going through so many things
Speaker 2: at once. I felt like Rocky when he said, I
Speaker 2: don't know which one to hit. I see three of
Speaker 2: them out there, and they said hit the one in
Speaker 2: the middle. And there were so many things going on
Speaker 2: around me. I didn't know what to do. But it
Speaker 2: was really comforting to me that the things I had
Speaker 2: preached to you I was able to live off of.
Speaker 2: For me, the proof that something is true in your
Speaker 2: life is not that you can understand it or say
Speaker 2: amen to it, but that you.
Speaker 1: Can live on it. That you can live on it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we're too impressed with cliches, and sometimes we think
Speaker 2: something is true just because it rhymes.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I found out in preaching sometimes you can make something
Speaker 2: rhyme and.
Speaker 1: It can be totally totally opposite.
Speaker 2: You know, you can make something start with the same letter,
Speaker 2: curiosity killed the cat.
Speaker 1: That's good, meow amen.
Speaker 2: Actually, the original saying wasn't curiosity killed the cat.
Speaker 1: It was care killed the cat.
Speaker 2: And it was used to mean that they fed the
Speaker 2: cat too much and he died because he was too fat.
Speaker 1: They cared too much.
Speaker 2: And then they changed it from care meaning they over
Speaker 2: fed him to care he was too worried. So now
Speaker 2: it means that worry killed the cat. But then one
Speaker 2: day it just became curiosity killed the cat. Now there
Speaker 2: are no statistical evidences of dead felines based on inquisitive natures.
Speaker 1: But it just sounds good. And some stuff sounds good,
Speaker 1: but it ain't true.
Speaker 2: Just because it sounds good doesn't mean it is. Just
Speaker 2: because it rhymes, just because it is aligned with your
Speaker 2: life experience up to this point doesn't make it true.
Speaker 2: Just because it's the way it's always been for you
Speaker 2: and your mom and it doesn't make it true. And
Speaker 2: so then we get really bad advice and we say
Speaker 2: really bad things that that sound good on the surface,
Speaker 2: but beneath them they're really bad belief systems. I thought
Speaker 2: about calling this message what's your BS for belief system?
Speaker 2: What's your belief system? And I wanted to call it
Speaker 2: that because that's what's driving your life. They say, live
Speaker 2: your truth. I heard that before. Live your truth. That's
Speaker 2: the important thing. Just live your truth. And it sounds good.
Speaker 2: But what if my truth is a trap? What if
Speaker 2: your truth isn't the truth? Do you have to stay
Speaker 2: stuck in a story and call it the truth.
Speaker 1: Let me go back to Matthew four.
Speaker 2: Jesus said it is written men shall not live on
Speaker 2: bread alone, but on every word.
Speaker 1: That comes from the mouth of God.
Speaker 2: So then the devil he does something that I was
Speaker 2: very interested to study this out. And if I've preached
Speaker 2: on this passage ten times before, I apologize to the
Speaker 2: other ten that.
Speaker 1: I never pointed this out because I never saw it.
Speaker 2: We always assume that the enemy comes to us with lies,
Speaker 2: and then we quote the word of God, which is
Speaker 2: the truth, and then the lies go away.
Speaker 1: Okay, fine, whatever, But.
Speaker 2: Many of us love God too much to just believe
Speaker 2: a lie if we see it as a lie, and
Speaker 2: so then what the enemy does is he presents you
Speaker 2: not with a lie, but with a truth. The next
Speaker 2: thing the enemy does to Jesus. Remember he's hungry. He's
Speaker 2: in a week in physical state. He's on the verge
Speaker 2: of three years of ministry that will shake the world
Speaker 2: and overturn the Roman Empire. He's in a period of preparation.
Speaker 2: He knows who he is. He not only knows truth,
Speaker 2: but he is truth. And so the enemy knows that
Speaker 2: the only way that he can fight truth is with truth.
Speaker 2: And I promise you I'm not just trying to be confusing.
Speaker 2: A lot of times, what the enemy will attack you.
Speaker 1: With is a truth, a truth.
Speaker 2: And in this particular instance, the devil took him to
Speaker 2: the Holy City verse five and had him stand on
Speaker 2: the highest point of the temple. If you are the
Speaker 2: son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written.
Speaker 2: The enemy doesn't attack Jesus with a lie. He attacks
Speaker 2: him with a Bible.
Speaker 1: Verse.
Speaker 2: He quotes to Jesus this Psalm ninety one, verse eleven
Speaker 2: and twelve. He quotes the word of God to the
Speaker 2: Word of God.
Speaker 1: For it is written.
Speaker 2: He will command his angels concerning you, and they will
Speaker 2: lift you up in their hands, so that you will
Speaker 2: not strike your foot against a stone. That's true, That's
Speaker 2: actually true. This is not made up. This is not imaginary,
Speaker 2: it is It is the word of God.
Speaker 1: It is the truth.
Speaker 2: So here's what I'm realizing in my life. A lot
Speaker 2: of times I'm not deciding.
Speaker 1: Between a lie and the truth.
Speaker 2: A lot of times I'm stuck between two truths. One
Speaker 2: is the truth of my situation and one is the
Speaker 2: truth of my revelation. I told you, Holly, this was
Speaker 2: going to be the best one. That's the truth of
Speaker 2: what I'm going through, and the other is the truth
Speaker 2: of who's standing with me in the fire as I
Speaker 2: go through it. So I've got two truths. I've got
Speaker 2: two truths. And what Jesus said was so powerful. When
Speaker 2: the enemy tried to get him to turn the stones
Speaker 2: into bread, he said, it is written because he knew
Speaker 2: the temptation to turn something into something that it's not.
Speaker 2: A lot of times we try to do this with relationships.
Speaker 1: We try to turn them into something that they're not.
Speaker 2: We turn people into our God, and we need their
Speaker 2: approval more than we need God's approval. And then when
Speaker 2: they disappoint us, we lose our hope because we tried
Speaker 2: to turn stones into bread. You know, some of us
Speaker 2: try to turn money into security, but your trust was
Speaker 2: never supposed to be in resources. Your trust was supposed
Speaker 2: to be in the one. Your help comes from the source,
Speaker 2: you are supposed to lift your eyes to him. Your
Speaker 2: trust was never supposed sposed to be in the stuff.
Speaker 1: Your trust was supposed to be in the source.
Speaker 2: But when you don't know the truth of who you are,
Speaker 2: you will try to turn stones into bread, and you
Speaker 2: will try to.
Speaker 1: Live off of people's compliments.
Speaker 2: And then so you die by their criticism because you tried.
Speaker 1: To turn it into what it was not.
Speaker 2: And you trade the truth for a lie, and you
Speaker 2: trade the truth of God's God's assessment of you for
Speaker 2: someone else's opinion of you, serving created things rather than
Speaker 2: the creator who is forever blessed a man Roman's won
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: I love what Jesus said. I never saw it before.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see it this before? I appreciate it
Speaker 1: A nine thirty.
Speaker 2: I never saw it because first time he said it
Speaker 2: is written, But this time he said something different. He said,
Speaker 2: verse seven, it is also written. You just said, is true,
Speaker 2: But I know something truer. It's true I made some
Speaker 2: mistakes in my life. But it's also true that my
Speaker 2: greatest mistake has the potential to become my greatest miracle.
Speaker 1: It's true, but it's also true.
Speaker 2: Somebody's shout, it's also true. Come on, shout it from
Speaker 2: river Walk to Roanoke. It's also true, Paul said, I'm pressed.
Speaker 2: It's true, but I'm not crushed. See, I know how
Speaker 2: to stand between two truths. One is what I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: One is what I'm feeling. One is what the doctor said.
Speaker 2: One is what I'm experiencing. But it is also true,
Speaker 2: not crushed. I'm persecuted. It's true, but I'm not abandoned.
Speaker 2: It's also true. I'm struck down for a minute. But
Speaker 2: it's also true. I'm not destroying. I'm lonely, but I'm
Speaker 2: not alone.
Speaker 1: I'm weak but he's strong. I'm poor but he's rich.
Speaker 2: I'm It is also written, I've got a better word
Speaker 2: on the situation. I did it, but I'm not it.
Speaker 2: I got a new truth. I got a new truth.
Speaker 2: I've got a new truth. That means I know the
Speaker 2: difference between my truth and my story. So when Jesus
Speaker 2: was confronted by the Jews, he had a conversation with
Speaker 2: them about truth, and it says that many of the
Speaker 2: Jews had believed in him because of what he did,
Speaker 2: but they didn't fully understand who he was, and they
Speaker 2: were putting their faith in him, but they were still
Speaker 2: attached to.
Speaker 1: The old story. The old story. You know, the old story,
Speaker 1: the one you.
Speaker 2: Tell yourself about why people reject you. And you did
Speaker 2: it as a means of survival, because it is sometimes
Speaker 2: easier for you to reject yourself in advance than to
Speaker 2: put yourself out there and risk rejection again. So when
Speaker 2: you can't touch the bottom, you tell yourself a story
Speaker 2: for survival. It's called prejection. It's when instead of dealing
Speaker 2: with the reality of rejection and healing from it, you
Speaker 2: begin to tell yourself a story about how worthless you are.
Speaker 2: And now you stay alone because to really be loved
Speaker 2: requires vulnerability for the sake of connection. So you would
Speaker 2: rather stay stuck in an old story than embrace a
Speaker 2: new truth. And Jesus said to the Jews who believed
Speaker 2: in him, watch this In John eight thirty two. He said,
Speaker 2: you will know the truth, and the truth will set
Speaker 2: you free. Now see the second part of that does
Speaker 2: not work without the first.
Speaker 1: You will know the truth.
Speaker 2: This is not a propositional statement. This doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: will be able to quote the truth. To know the
Speaker 2: truth is not to quote the truth. It's to trust
Speaker 2: in it. It's to trust in the truth. And what
Speaker 2: you trust in is what is true to you. What
Speaker 2: you trust in is what is true to you. That's
Speaker 2: why he wouldn't turn the stone to bread. It wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been a sin for him to do it have
Speaker 2: been a substitute.
Speaker 1: I don't live by that. I don't trust in that.
Speaker 1: That's not my truth.
Speaker 2: And when you know the truth, and a lot of
Speaker 2: times we think we know the truth better than we do.
Speaker 2: We think we know what other people are like because
Speaker 2: we've never traded truth with them.
Speaker 3: We think, we think we know what we would do
Speaker 3: if we were them.
Speaker 2: Sit down with a single mom. You know what you
Speaker 2: would do if you were them. You would have a
Speaker 2: pill addiction. You wouldn't make it out of bed in
Speaker 2: the morning. You wouldn't you wouldn't be strong enough to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 4: Well, if I were them, well, i'll tell you what
Speaker 4: right now, if I was running that elevation church, i'd
Speaker 4: do a few things differently. I'm sure we'll say that
Speaker 4: right now. Jesus trading truth. Oh, it is written.
Speaker 2: It is also written Okay, I'm accepting it, but it's
Speaker 2: not It's not my truth.
Speaker 1: It's just my story.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you can live in a story so long that
Speaker 2: you become a slave to it. Have you become a
Speaker 2: slave to your own story to the extent that you
Speaker 2: now think it's the truth? The Jews had Jesus said,
Speaker 2: you will know the truth, and the truth will set
Speaker 2: you free. And the next thing they said, the response
Speaker 2: that they had to that shows us just how embedded
Speaker 2: their identity had become.
Speaker 1: In their story.
Speaker 2: Because you gotta remember, these are people who had spent
Speaker 2: four hundred and thirty years in Egypt as slaves making
Speaker 2: bricks without straw under Pharaoh.
Speaker 1: They had been taken captive by the.
Speaker 2: Babylonians the Assyrians multiple times before Jesus came onto the sea,
Speaker 2: and when he said you will know the truth, and
Speaker 2: the truth will set you free, it offended them. So
Speaker 2: they looked back at him in verse thirty three and said,
Speaker 2: we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.
Speaker 2: The same people who had spent centuries as slaves had
Speaker 2: told themselves a story that had become so true to
Speaker 2: them they.
Speaker 1: No longer knew the difference.
Speaker 2: A lot of times in my life, I've lied to
Speaker 2: myself so much that my lies.
Speaker 1: Became truer than my truth. It is pretty good.
Speaker 2: I don't willingly exchange the truth for a lie. It's
Speaker 2: just that certain lives I tell myself. I've learned a love.
Speaker 2: I like self pity. It's comfortable. It's my snuggie for
Speaker 2: my soul to feel sorry for myself.
Speaker 1: No one's checking on me, No one cares about me.
Speaker 2: You know why, because I don't want to check on anybody.
Speaker 2: So rather than face the fact of the truth that
Speaker 2: I'm not checking on anybody, I would rather tell myself
Speaker 2: the story that nobody's checking on me. I've never seen
Speaker 2: every collective head nod in the church like it just
Speaker 2: happened at Valentine. When you become a slave to your story,
Speaker 2: you die a death between two truths. I'm preaching to
Speaker 2: somebody today who's standing between two truths. One is the
Speaker 2: old story, the way you always saw yourself. You know,
Speaker 2: if David had stayed stuck in his old story, he
Speaker 2: never would have thrown that stone at Glide's forehead, because
Speaker 2: the way his brother saw him was, You're just down
Speaker 2: here to make trouble and you didn't even get anybody
Speaker 2: to keep the sheep.
Speaker 1: There comes a.
Speaker 2: Time when you have to challenge your old stories so
Speaker 2: that the truth can set you free. They used to
Speaker 2: train us in evangelism that we would ask people, how
Speaker 2: do you know if you're going to heaven when you die?
Speaker 2: And when they said their answer, you were to ask
Speaker 2: them the follow up question, if you were wrong, would
Speaker 2: you want to know? What? A powerful question if the
Speaker 2: story you've been telling yourself about where you are and
Speaker 2: why you are, and what you can and what you
Speaker 2: can't remember the Israelites stayed stuck in the wilderness, not
Speaker 2: for forty days like Jesus was tempted forty days. They
Speaker 2: were there forty years, all because of the story they
Speaker 2: told themselves. They're bigger than us, they're stronger than us,
Speaker 2: they're greater than us. None of it was true. But
Speaker 2: when it becomes true to you, it will keep you stuck.
Speaker 2: And you are not stuck in your reality, You're stuck
Speaker 2: in your story. But if the sun sets, you free,
Speaker 2: If you get this truth, you will be free.
Speaker 5: Indeed, so I want.
Speaker 2: You to stand up on your feet right now, because
Speaker 2: the spirit of the Lord is in this place and
Speaker 2: where the Spirit is, there is freedom. Where the spirit
Speaker 2: of the Lord is, there is freedom. And the Spirit
Speaker 2: of the Lord is leading you today into the wilderness
Speaker 2: to set you free from the story you've been telling yourself,
Speaker 2: perhaps your whole life long. And I realize sometimes it's
Speaker 2: easier to tell yourself a story of why you fail,
Speaker 2: and tell yourself a story that you're a disappointment, because
Speaker 2: then you don't have to actually step out and try,
Speaker 2: because you've already told yourself a story that I'm a disappointment.
Speaker 2: But that's why Jesus went into the wilderness, not only
Speaker 2: to be tempted by the devil, but to rewrite a story.
Speaker 2: What Moses couldn't do in forty years, Jesus did in
Speaker 2: forty days. He wasn't just fasting, he was directing a
Speaker 2: new story. The Gospel is a new story. The Cross
Speaker 2: is a new ending. And you don't have to turn
Speaker 2: stones into bread, and you don't have to trade truth
Speaker 2: for lies, and you don't have to own the story
Speaker 2: that you were handed if it does not match the
Speaker 2: reality of what.
Speaker 6: God has spoken. Not another day, and.
Speaker 2: We say things that locate us and let us know
Speaker 2: that we've embraced our story and turned it into truth.
Speaker 2: Than bad happens, and we say us the story of
Speaker 2: my life. This is the story of my life. This
Speaker 2: is the story of my life. You need a new editor.
Speaker 2: You've been letting the enemy edit the story of your life.
Speaker 2: But it is also written. It is also written this
Speaker 2: tension between two truths. Well, I feel in what I know,
Speaker 2: what I was, and what I'm becoming. This tension between
Speaker 2: two truths is exactly how faith grows. I've been waiting
Speaker 2: to preach this message for a year and a half,
Speaker 2: and today was the day that God wanted me to
Speaker 2: preach it, perhaps so that you could hear it and
Speaker 2: be set free from your old story. Are you trapped
Speaker 2: in an old truth when God has given you a
Speaker 2: new one, a higher one, a greater one. You know
Speaker 2: the Law was true all of sin and fallen short
Speaker 2: of the glory of God. But in Jesus was given
Speaker 2: grace and truth. Both are true. I don't deserve the
Speaker 2: blessings of God. Nothing I could do could earn it.
Speaker 2: But it is also written that I am the righteousness
Speaker 2: of God in Christ, through faith and helm. God brought
Speaker 2: you here today to give you a new truth and
Speaker 2: to receive your new truth. You're going to have to
Speaker 2: let go of your old story. You let go of
Speaker 2: that old story, you will know the truth, and the
Speaker 2: truth will set you free. With your head bowt and
Speaker 2: your eyes closed at every location, no one moving and
Speaker 2: disturbing this moment. What is the story that God needs
Speaker 2: to set you free from today?
Speaker 1: The key is your belief.
Speaker 2: That it is also written and that the blood of
Speaker 2: Jesus has spoken a better word. There's a new covenant,
Speaker 2: a new baptism, a new reality.
Speaker 1: Father.
Speaker 2: I thank you for each person who you brought here today,
Speaker 2: whether they're physically in a church building or watching on
Speaker 2: their phone, whether tears are streaming down the face because
Speaker 2: they're facing a situation right now that's too great for them,
Speaker 2: or whether they're in a place in their life where
Speaker 2: they've actually accepted the lie and no longer even feels
Speaker 2: like a lie anymore.
Speaker 1: I pray that you would disturb.
Speaker 2: Places of disbelief and dysfunction in our lives so that
Speaker 2: we can know the truth and be set free. We
Speaker 2: choose the unpredictability of freedom over the comfort and the
Speaker 2: certainty of slavery. Today we want to be set free.
Speaker 2: Thank you for telling us the truth. Thank you for
Speaker 2: speaking over our lives a true identity. I ask now
Speaker 2: Lord that in this moment, that you will speak your
Speaker 2: word in that personal way, whether it's an area of
Speaker 2: bitterness or resentment, or maybe it's something much more subtle
Speaker 2: than that that we've been telling ourselves to keep ourselves
Speaker 2: in a cycle of failure.
Speaker 1: We believe that you have called.
Speaker 2: Us overcomers, and we will only overcome as we embrace
Speaker 2: that truth.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 2: now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast.
Speaker 1: For more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2: You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
Speaker 2: share it on your social stories and tag us at
Speaker 2: Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you.