Speaker 1: Hello evam, especially our West Coast family, we have an
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Speaker 1: be me Holly, elevation Worship. It's gonna be amazing, unbelievable
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Speaker 1: See let's go to the message, y'all. I feel so
Speaker 1: excited to preach this word, but I feel settled about it.
Speaker 1: I don't feel spastic like that. I feel just settled
Speaker 1: about so cool, so beautiful what the Lord selected for
Speaker 1: us to study today. And I'm excited about it. Since
Speaker 1: they're baptized in half of the county, I got to
Speaker 1: go a little quicker today, So y'all listen good, would you?
Speaker 1: If y'all will listen better, I can finish sooner. When
Speaker 1: I go too long, it's at least half your fall.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit selected a text today. It's really like
Speaker 1: a song, and I'm drawn to it, not only because
Speaker 1: I love music, but because there's a truth in it
Speaker 1: that I want to point out to you. It's found
Speaker 1: in First Chronicles. Don't have a panic attack trying to
Speaker 1: find it in your Bible. That's not one of the
Speaker 1: books you normally look. If I say Genesis, you're good, Revelation,
Speaker 1: I think that's towards the bat But First Chronicles in
Speaker 1: the Hebrew Bible, it was kind of considered the whole
Speaker 1: Old Testament and capitulate some of the things that you'll
Speaker 1: read in First and Second Samuel. But it goes further.
Speaker 1: It starts with Adam, and then by the time it ends,
Speaker 1: we're in the exile. In the middle of all that,
Speaker 1: we read a lot about David. We read a lot
Speaker 1: about King David. And there's one thing I want to read.
Speaker 1: I need to read verses seven through at least twenty,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty four, just to give you the flow of it.
Speaker 1: So let's read this together in first Chronicle sixteen. There
Speaker 1: is a message in this for me. Say it out loud.
Speaker 1: There is a message in this for me, maybe not
Speaker 1: for the person next to you. Let's say for me,
Speaker 1: I want you to personalize this today. I want you
Speaker 1: to personalize this word today. The scripture says that day
Speaker 1: David first appointed Asaf and his associates to give praise
Speaker 1: to the Lord in this manner. Give praise to the Lord,
Speaker 1: proclaim his name, make known among the nations what he
Speaker 1: has done. Sing to him, Sing praise to him. Tell
Speaker 1: of all his wonderful acts, Glory in his holy name.
Speaker 1: Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Speaker 1: Look to the Lord and his strength, seek his face.
Speaker 1: Always remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, the
Speaker 1: judgments he pronounced. You his servants, the descendants of Israel,
Speaker 1: his chosen ones, the children of Jacob. He is the Lord,
Speaker 1: our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He
Speaker 1: remembers his covenant forever, the promise he may, I love
Speaker 1: that I might come back and nibble on that a
Speaker 1: little later. Y'all hold on to that, the promise he
Speaker 1: made for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham,
Speaker 1: the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to
Speaker 1: Jacob as a decree to Israel, as an everlasting covenant.
Speaker 1: Now that was the neighborhood. Let's pull up to the door.
Speaker 1: Now these verses are the door to you. I will
Speaker 1: give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.
Speaker 1: Shout over what God gave you. Nah, y'all aren't grateful.
Speaker 1: Shout over what God gave me to you. I will
Speaker 1: give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.
Speaker 1: When they were but few in number, few indeed, and
Speaker 1: strangers in it, they wandered from nation to nation, from
Speaker 1: one kingdom to another. He allowed no one to oppress them.
Speaker 1: For their sake, he rebuked, kings, do not touch my
Speaker 1: anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm. Sing to the
Speaker 1: Lord all the earth, proclaim his salvation day after day,
Speaker 1: to clear his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds
Speaker 1: among all peoples. Go back to verse nineteen. When they
Speaker 1: were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we'll call this message when we
Speaker 1: put it online, But for now let's call it faithful
Speaker 1: with a few. Faithful with a few, you may be
Speaker 1: seated faithful with a few. We stepped into a celebration
Speaker 1: when we opened first chronicle sixteen. Did you notice they
Speaker 1: were glorifying God. They had instruments set up in verses
Speaker 1: one six. I didn't read you that part. Symbols and
Speaker 1: harps and liars, stringed instruments, all these sounds celebrating something
Speaker 1: that must have looked really strange if you didn't know
Speaker 1: the whole story, all of this commotion, all of this glorifying,
Speaker 1: and all this praise about something that you may have
Speaker 1: heard of but may not know much about, called the
Speaker 1: Arc of the Covenant. The Arc of the Covenant, not
Speaker 1: Noah's arc. That's a boat, not a story arc, like
Speaker 1: in a movie where a character development as arc. But
Speaker 1: the Arc of the Covenant was a piece of furniture
Speaker 1: made of acacial would only four feet long, two and
Speaker 1: a half feet wide, two and a half feet high.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do it in meters for our
Speaker 1: international audience. But see, we're here in the United States
Speaker 1: of America, and we will not convert to the metric
Speaker 1: system until Gus comes back and makes us do it,
Speaker 1: and all this celebration over what appeared to be just
Speaker 1: the piece of furniture. Of course, we understand that it's
Speaker 1: a symbolic representation of the presence of God. Because in
Speaker 1: that acacia wood which was overlaid with gold, with a
Speaker 1: chair of Him on the top of it, with the
Speaker 1: four holes so they could carry it by poles wherever
Speaker 1: they went, was the manna that God gave us people,
Speaker 1: the law that he gave us people, and Aaron's rod,
Speaker 1: which represented the priesthood. In that arc of the Covenant,
Speaker 1: was represented God's provision, God's protection, and God's precepts. Three
Speaker 1: things in that arc, yet it symbolized one thing, which
Speaker 1: is this God was with us. They carried it wherever
Speaker 1: they went. In their mind it was the actual housing
Speaker 1: place of the presence of God. But really we understand
Speaker 1: that God is everywhere. We know that because of Jesus,
Speaker 1: Emmanuel God with us. And when Emmanuel God with us,
Speaker 1: left the earth, he gave us the counselor the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: not just to be with us, but to be in us.
Speaker 1: We don't live in the Old Covenant, but we can
Speaker 1: learn from it. We don't live in it, but we
Speaker 1: can learn from it. The presence of God is inside
Speaker 1: of you. It's inside of me. So when the Bible
Speaker 1: says that God was with his people and he did
Speaker 1: all these things for him, how much more will he
Speaker 1: do for you? If the spirit of His son lives
Speaker 1: inside of you. This is our confidence in Christ, not
Speaker 1: in our selves. It's really not a celebration about furniture.
Speaker 1: It's a celebration about faithfulness faithfulness, not their faithfulness, because
Speaker 1: that would have been a sorry celebration indeed, But God's faithfulness.
Speaker 1: Big difference what you praise God for. Do you praise
Speaker 1: him for the furniture or for his faithfulness? Because if
Speaker 1: you praise him for the furniture, the things that you
Speaker 1: can see, it can be taken away. If you praise
Speaker 1: him for the furniture, if he moves it to the
Speaker 1: other side of the room, you might get mad. When
Speaker 1: things change in your life, your praise goes down. But
Speaker 1: you have to learn what David did here, and I
Speaker 1: think is such a good lesson for us. He made
Speaker 1: them praise God. He made them praise God. Reminded me.
Speaker 1: When I was in college, I was a worship leader
Speaker 1: before I was a pastor. I preached and led worship
Speaker 1: all at the beginning of the church. I did all
Speaker 1: of it, and I'm really glad that we have so
Speaker 1: many gifted people who can do it now. But in
Speaker 1: a panchroc, I could still get it done if I
Speaker 1: had to, Okay, I promise you. Okay. I don't know
Speaker 1: all the songs anymore, but I remember a few of them,
Speaker 1: and I could. I could get this done if everybody
Speaker 1: on the worship team went and ate Mexican food and
Speaker 1: it was a bad digestive situation. It kind of gross, right,
Speaker 1: But I'm not saying it would be as good, but
Speaker 1: I would get it done. I could get it done.
Speaker 1: I could get it done because I was doing that
Speaker 1: in college. When people ask Colly, when did you first
Speaker 1: know that you wanted to marry Stephen? Sometimes she'll mention
Speaker 1: in reference. She won't say the first time she saw me.
Speaker 1: She talked about the first time she saw me. Still
Speaker 1: I was crazy. I was wearing a a big Superman
Speaker 1: T shirt, a DOUBLEXL Superman T shirt, running around thinking
Speaker 1: I was Superman or something like that, playing in a
Speaker 1: punk rock band. But then in our college I became
Speaker 1: the worship leader for a ministry North Greenville, university, not
Speaker 1: a big school, not a big school. But I believe
Speaker 1: God put me there if for no other reason than
Speaker 1: to win her. And how I won her through my leadership.
Speaker 1: Through my leadership. Through my leadership, I found out spiritual
Speaker 1: leadership is sexy to a spiritual woman. So, not that
Speaker 1: I was thinking it, but y'all, I made a praise
Speaker 1: team and I put her on my praise team. I
Speaker 1: didn't audition her for her vocal ability. That really wasn't
Speaker 1: why she got the job, but it was okay to
Speaker 1: me if she thought that, and she could sing pretty good.
Speaker 1: But we had a good time because when I first
Speaker 1: told her about it, the worship team was just two people.
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all were around in the nineties
Speaker 1: and churches, but everybody was beaten on a gym bay,
Speaker 1: big drum like this, and everybody was beating on a
Speaker 1: gym bay. Everybody was beating on Jim Bay's in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and so it was just a Jim Bay
Speaker 1: and an acoustic guitar. And I told her when I
Speaker 1: take it over next year, it's gonna be huge. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have a choir. It's gonna be probably one hundred
Speaker 1: people in the choir by the time I'm done with it,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have a band, and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: real drums, not percussion. I'm go'a have a kit, a
Speaker 1: drum kit. I'm gonna have bass guitar. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: maybe two keyboards, maybe one with a synth and one
Speaker 1: with a piano. Sound getting wild and crazy. Believe in
Speaker 1: God for big things. Now went to him who was
Speaker 1: able to do and measurable anymore. I got big vision,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I did that because
Speaker 1: God helped me do it, because he called me, and
Speaker 1: because he helped me, and because he was with me.
Speaker 1: There were one hundred kids in that choir by the
Speaker 1: time it was over, and the school wasn't that big.
Speaker 1: But God did it. But God did it. I preached
Speaker 1: two weeks ago about but God. And I'm telling you
Speaker 1: when I told her that, I didn't know how, I
Speaker 1: didn't know who, I didn't know, I had no idea
Speaker 1: how I would accomplish it. But I spoke it by
Speaker 1: fail and I worked toward it, and God did it.
Speaker 1: And so I heard her telling the kids the other day.
Speaker 1: I never doubted something that your dad told me he
Speaker 1: was going to do after that, because when he said it,
Speaker 1: I thought he was crazy. And then guess what, it
Speaker 1: came to pass. And we've seen God do that just
Speaker 1: over and over again now in our ministry, in this church.
Speaker 1: Some of you have been here for a lot of it,
Speaker 1: some of you have been here for all of it.
Speaker 1: You have seen God do that over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. So when the baptisms were happened, why were
Speaker 1: some people sleeping through it and some people were weeping
Speaker 1: through it? Why? Why on that screen was somebody crying
Speaker 1: about somebody getting in water? How many of y'all got
Speaker 1: in water before you came to church today, or at
Speaker 1: least in the last twenty four hours, your neighbor hopes.
Speaker 1: So watching online, it doesn't really matter. But if you're
Speaker 1: in the building, please have the consideration with some water
Speaker 1: and some soap and some shampoo. And yet none of
Speaker 1: that really made you cry? Did it? Did you cry
Speaker 1: in the shower? I mean maybe you did, but that's
Speaker 1: not the common thing. Is it singing the shower? But
Speaker 1: cry in the shower? But why are they crying? They
Speaker 1: didn't hit me. I was watching the baptisms. I thought
Speaker 1: we gotta be careful where we dumped that water. We
Speaker 1: ought to have a special you know, they have these
Speaker 1: big containers for radioactive stuff, not the dirt off the people.
Speaker 1: I'm not am not physical. I'm talking about all the
Speaker 1: shame that Jesus washes away, all the bad choices that
Speaker 1: he steps into, all the things that you did that
Speaker 1: you couldn't get over, but his blood forgave them. There's
Speaker 1: a lot in that water. There's a lot in that water.
Speaker 1: Somebody put it in the chat. There's a lot in
Speaker 1: that water. When Jesus saved me, he saved me from
Speaker 1: a lot. And I don't even mean that I was
Speaker 1: on drugs and in prison. I mean even from the
Speaker 1: people who lived so good. You weren't so good. You
Speaker 1: weren't so good. You were not so good. I know
Speaker 1: you weren't so good. How do I know that you're
Speaker 1: not so good? Because Jesus did not die for pretty
Speaker 1: good people or really bad people. He died for really
Speaker 1: dead people who needed to be made alive in his name.
Speaker 1: So when we celebrate, we're not celebrating I got a race,
Speaker 1: because tomorrow I might get a drop. When we celebrating
Speaker 1: God's presence, we're not celebrating because I got a lot
Speaker 1: of sleep, because tomorrow we might be tired. Y'all. The
Speaker 1: dog woke Cally up at three point thirty in the
Speaker 1: morning this morning. I just had to tell you that.
Speaker 1: So when she was praising God today, she wasn't doing
Speaker 1: it on much sleep because she had to have a dog.
Speaker 1: And she's got a dog. Now, yes, she's got a dog. Now.
Speaker 1: When I preach to you, I'm not preaching these things
Speaker 1: because I always feel them. I'm preaching what I believe
Speaker 1: by faith. If I could teach you one thing, it
Speaker 1: would be to celebrate by faith, to praise by faith,
Speaker 1: to worship by faith, to decree by faith, to rejoice
Speaker 1: by faith, to walk by faith, to talk by faith,
Speaker 1: to live by faith, to give by faith, to structure
Speaker 1: by faith, to establish back faith, to stand after you
Speaker 1: have done all, to stand back faith on the faithfulness
Speaker 1: of God. This is not about furniture. He's celebrating the
Speaker 1: faithfulness of God. And he made them praise God because
Speaker 1: sometimes you've got to make yourself you don't believe me.
Speaker 1: David made Asaf praise God, and he wrote the song
Speaker 1: and he said, praise him like this. I want you
Speaker 1: praising him just any way. You can't talk about his glory,
Speaker 1: his name, his strength, his face. Don't start talking about
Speaker 1: how good you didn't oh oh oh, they just got
Speaker 1: the arc back to Jerusalem, and He didn't want them
Speaker 1: celebrating their strength when they did it. They did a
Speaker 1: good job, but that's not what they glorified. Is the
Speaker 1: good job that they did. And I'm not saying don't
Speaker 1: patch yourself on the back or get yourself a cupcake
Speaker 1: or a crumble cookie or whatever you do, do it,
Speaker 1: but don't forget to praise God. Can I say it
Speaker 1: this way? For the few? For the few, every day
Speaker 1: is not going to be an amazing day. Every day
Speaker 1: is not going to be a special event. Every day
Speaker 1: is not Field Day. Every day is not Field Day.
Speaker 1: But every day needs to be Faith day. Kind of corny,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to help you remember it when you
Speaker 1: get out of here. Because they got the arc back. Now,
Speaker 1: the Ark of the Covenant had been in Shiloh for
Speaker 1: a long time, the Philistines, the enemies of God. They
Speaker 1: got the Ark of the Covenant, and then God started
Speaker 1: cursing everything because they weren't supposed to have it. It
Speaker 1: is always a curse to carry what God did not
Speaker 1: call you to. Remember that the next time you start
Speaker 1: comparing yourself, I wish I had theirs, or I wish
Speaker 1: I did that, or I wish I did this. It
Speaker 1: is a curse to carry what God did not call
Speaker 1: you to. God spoke to the Jewish people. He said
Speaker 1: to Abraham, remember I will bless you, and you will
Speaker 1: be a blessing. Remember they were meant to carry the blessing,
Speaker 1: not to contain it. God said, I'm gonna bless all
Speaker 1: the earth through you, through you, So what you're carrying
Speaker 1: is not meant for you to contain. And that's why
Speaker 1: David said, you need to praise God for what just happened.
Speaker 1: They go get the ark, they try to bring it
Speaker 1: back on a cart because that makes sense because it's heavy.
Speaker 1: And while they're busy making sense, not doing what God
Speaker 1: told them to do, which was carry it on your shoulders.
Speaker 1: And the Levites, the priests were supposed to be the
Speaker 1: only ones who could carry it, and nobody could touch it,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't just walk around looking at it because
Speaker 1: it was too special for that. So when they tried
Speaker 1: to put on a cart what God called them to carry,
Speaker 1: something terrible happened. The oxen stumbled, and when the oxen stumbled,
Speaker 1: a man named us Are reached out trying to help God.
Speaker 1: Have you ever tried to help God? Have you ever
Speaker 1: manipulated somebody trying to help God? Have you ever held
Speaker 1: onto something you were supposed to take your hands off
Speaker 1: of because you were trying to help God? And when
Speaker 1: he went to help God, he died, and David was angry.
Speaker 1: He was mad because I need the presence of God back,
Speaker 1: because he's just been annoyed King of the whole kingdom.
Speaker 1: Saul is dead. He's not fighting Saul anymore. The kingdom
Speaker 1: is united for now. There'd been a civil war when
Speaker 1: he was rising to the king shop, but now he's
Speaker 1: settling into Jerusalem. Yet he doesn't want to be there
Speaker 1: in the seat of his power without the ark of
Speaker 1: the Covenant, which represents God's power. I don't want it
Speaker 1: without you, God. I can't do it without you God.
Speaker 1: It's impossible for me to do it without you God.
Speaker 1: About every time I try to prepare a message, I
Speaker 1: come to a point where I say I can't do it,
Speaker 1: and the Lord usually says, finally, would you like me
Speaker 1: to do it? Through you. God is just waiting for
Speaker 1: you to get to the point where you take your
Speaker 1: hands off of some stuff. I'm not gonna being irresponsible.
Speaker 1: This does not apply to your steering wheel unless you
Speaker 1: drive a tesla, keep your hands on that. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, we got to understand that the glory
Speaker 1: goes to God. It has to, it's too heavy for you.
Speaker 1: Must have seemed strange to see all this celebrating David's wife.
Speaker 1: Her name was McCall. She was so appalled that David
Speaker 1: was dancing because he was happy when they finally got
Speaker 1: the arc back, because they did it God's way, because
Speaker 1: they did it God's way, not the logical way, God's way,
Speaker 1: not the way that made sense, but the way that
Speaker 1: takes faith. Two different ways, the way that makes sense
Speaker 1: and the way that takes faith. One is called self
Speaker 1: sufficiency and it's a sin. The other one, the faith way.
Speaker 1: It is when you understand that for you to carry
Speaker 1: what God has given you to carry in this life,
Speaker 1: you will have to do it His way, even when
Speaker 1: his way seems strange, even when it makes no sense.
Speaker 1: You know what David did that must have seemed strange.
Speaker 1: Every time they got the art six steps, he stopped
Speaker 1: and sacrificed a bull every six steps. Now, want you
Speaker 1: think about this. This is the representation of the presence
Speaker 1: of God, and we already had it start to fall
Speaker 1: one time, and now you're making us stop every six steps,
Speaker 1: which every time we stop it increases the chances that
Speaker 1: we'll have another stumble. But David said, I have faith
Speaker 1: that if we do it like this, and we take
Speaker 1: only six steps and then stop and praise God and
Speaker 1: offer to him the sacrifice of praise, he will give
Speaker 1: us the strength, the wisdom, the protection, the direction. God
Speaker 1: will sustain us if we stop and celebrate every six steps,
Speaker 1: because if we wait until we get to Jerusalem to
Speaker 1: do it, we might not make it. If I wait
Speaker 1: till I get there to thank God, I may not
Speaker 1: make it because there is a long way. Now, when
Speaker 1: I get to heaven, I'm gonna follow his feet. You
Speaker 1: better follow at his feet before this Friday because the
Speaker 1: devil will be in heaven and you won't have to
Speaker 1: fight him there. But you're going to fight him now
Speaker 1: and if you don't stop, you might stop. So let's
Speaker 1: do it. Six steps praise him. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, that's six days. This is Sunday. Let's praise
Speaker 1: him right now. Let's praise him. If you do six
Speaker 1: steps this week, he was with you six steps. This week,
Speaker 1: he was with you on the job. This week he
Speaker 1: gave you your daily branch. Sixth week sat up from heaven,
Speaker 1: had a run and a scat pad. If praise him
Speaker 1: every six whoa, oh the Philly. They get to art,
Speaker 1: they get to art, they get to art the presence
Speaker 1: of God, and they get six steps. And there was
Speaker 1: a stop. How far we have to go? We just
Speaker 1: took a few, there was a no. But he was
Speaker 1: faithful for those few. He was faithful in those few.
Speaker 1: He was faithful with a few. I was meeting with
Speaker 1: a pastor one time, and Chunks and Buck were with me.
Speaker 1: Y'all know, Chunks and Buck sound like a WWF tag
Speaker 1: team from nineteen ninety three. Sound like they thought the
Speaker 1: Legion of Doom, don't they? But they didn't. They're just
Speaker 1: church staff members, that's all. And the man was going
Speaker 1: on and on about everything he had done. And he
Speaker 1: is a great man. So it was a long list.
Speaker 1: The in and out burger was getting cold, and we
Speaker 1: don't have those in North Carolina, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: eat mine anyway. The man says this, he says this line,
Speaker 1: He says, how do we do this? He's talking about
Speaker 1: world peace or something like that. He said, how do
Speaker 1: we do this? Well, there are nineteen ways? I thought, nineteen.
Speaker 1: Here's a fly buzzing around the burger by this point,
Speaker 1: because we can't eat because he's still talking. He's already
Speaker 1: been going two hours. He said, there are nineteen ways.
Speaker 1: I won't list them all. I said, shit, he said,
Speaker 1: but let me name a few. And an hour later
Speaker 1: he was on number nineteen and he stopped and he said,
Speaker 1: I think I should stop now. It looks like I
Speaker 1: put your guys to sleep. My back was turned to them.
Speaker 1: These two jokers were sleeping on the other end of
Speaker 1: the table with their heads on their deck, not like
Speaker 1: nodding off like I am a second grader in class
Speaker 1: playing heads up, seven up, drooling all over the table.
Speaker 1: I can't list all the ways, but let me name
Speaker 1: a few. So sometimes I'm just going to give you
Speaker 1: a little pro tip here for praising God. You have
Speaker 1: to just list a few, Just list a few, list
Speaker 1: a few. You know what, I don't know everything God
Speaker 1: is calling me to But I do know a few things.
Speaker 1: God has called me to love and honor my wife.
Speaker 1: God has called me to be there for my kids.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that's all I know about being a dad
Speaker 1: is be there is the science of showing up that produces,
Speaker 1: in my mind, the experiment of good kids. And it
Speaker 1: is an experiment. Fatherhood is not a formula A few
Speaker 1: A few. You know, anytime you want to, you can
Speaker 1: make yourself praise God. You don't think you can. You
Speaker 1: associate praise with a feeling. I didn't see anything in
Speaker 1: First Chronicles sixteen about feelings. I heard about God's sovereignty.
Speaker 1: I heard about God's shepherding. I heard about God's glory.
Speaker 1: I heard about his strength, heard about his face. Nothing
Speaker 1: about feelings. And that's why it's not dependent on feelings.
Speaker 1: So in any bad mood, you can pivot to praise,
Speaker 1: pivot to praise. David knew how to do this. That's
Speaker 1: what David knew how to do. That's why the Bible
Speaker 1: called him a man after God's own heart, not because
Speaker 1: he was perfect. You think that means he was perfect?
Speaker 1: Then what's Bethsheba all about? Why did he sleep with
Speaker 1: a woman while he was supposed to be at warf
Speaker 1: he was a man after God's own heart. It is
Speaker 1: not about his perfection, It was about his praise. He
Speaker 1: gave God glory in all of those things. Because if
Speaker 1: you don't learn how to pivot to praise in situations,
Speaker 1: two things will happen. When times are good, you're running
Speaker 1: into pride if you don't pivot to praise. And then
Speaker 1: when time are bad, if you don't pivot to praise,
Speaker 1: you'll be in a prison of your circumstance, pride or
Speaker 1: prison if you don't learn to pivot. David made them
Speaker 1: praise God. He said, Asaf, get me twelve men station
Speaker 1: and appoint them. And this is what I want them
Speaker 1: to say. I want them to start talking about the
Speaker 1: glory of God and the great things that He's done.
Speaker 1: And I want us to get our attention off of
Speaker 1: how we stumbled, and I want us to get our
Speaker 1: attention even of how we succeeded. And I want us
Speaker 1: to start singing about and thinking about all the things
Speaker 1: that God did, all the ways that God made, even
Speaker 1: the strange ways that God made. And the praise only
Speaker 1: seems strange if you don't understand the process that they
Speaker 1: went through to get it there. The praise only seems
Speaker 1: strange if you don't understand the process that you went
Speaker 1: through to get there. It only seems strange because you
Speaker 1: didn't see the struggle that led to the praise. It
Speaker 1: only seems strange from the outside when you have been
Speaker 1: without the ark, and when you've tried to do it
Speaker 1: without God, and when you've ended up on your own
Speaker 1: bathroom floor. I remember when my dad came to me
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, and he gave his life
Speaker 1: to Christ, and he said, you don't know how. I
Speaker 1: was standing in the shower and cry every morning, wondering
Speaker 1: how am I going to fake it another day because
Speaker 1: I'm so low? But this poor man cry to the Lord.
Speaker 1: Had he heard me from heaven, had he reached out,
Speaker 1: had he saved me? You don't know. Stop trying to
Speaker 1: make sense to people who don't even know your story.
Speaker 1: Stop trying to conform Christians not supposed to make sense
Speaker 1: to people who don't know God. We don't even worship God.
Speaker 1: Most of us. We say Jesus is Lord, but we
Speaker 1: live like logic is Lord. Because every time we get
Speaker 1: in a situation, the first thing we consult is our circumstance.
Speaker 1: The first thing we can soul is our energy. The
Speaker 1: first thing we consul is our feelings. The first thing
Speaker 1: we can soul is our mood. The first thing that
Speaker 1: we that we consult is something somebody told us on
Speaker 1: some god forsaken news channel. I rebuke the spirit of
Speaker 1: fear that's running your life today. Does you keep running
Speaker 1: to the wrong place? I rebuke it. I tell it
Speaker 1: to dry up. But for that to happen, you gotta
Speaker 1: do it. Like David said, y'all gotta praise God. So
Speaker 1: when I would leave the choir back in college, I
Speaker 1: used to get real. My hero at the time was
Speaker 1: Kirk Franklin, and most of the people at the college
Speaker 1: were white. That was interesting. And I have always believed
Speaker 1: I don't mind telling you to praise God. You have
Speaker 1: to tell me to praise God. Yes I do, Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. I don't need you to scream at me.
Speaker 1: Yes you do. Sometimes not all the time, but sometimes
Speaker 1: this man came over to the praise service one night.
Speaker 1: I used to get down off the stage. All I
Speaker 1: was wild. While try to turn the Baptist school into
Speaker 1: a Pentecostal worship service. I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: so I had to make them. I'd get down off
Speaker 1: the stage. I start walking over chairs and stuff. And
Speaker 1: this one guy that was there, that was he had
Speaker 1: been at the school forever. He was a ministrator, our student.
Speaker 1: And I could tell he came one night. I could
Speaker 1: tell he didn't like it. And I went to him
Speaker 1: next day and I said, I don't think you liked it.
Speaker 1: He sounded like it at all. I said, well, didn't
Speaker 1: you like Did the speaker say something said I didn't
Speaker 1: like you. I don't like you. I said, well, was
Speaker 1: it something I said he said about everything you said
Speaker 1: and what you did? Cause I don't need At the time,
Speaker 1: I was nineteen with some old navy turtle. He said,
Speaker 1: I don't need some nineteen year old with a turtleneck
Speaker 1: coming down. He was real country too. I don't need
Speaker 1: some nineteen year old with a turtleneck coming down there
Speaker 1: off the stage and telling me to praise the Lord,
Speaker 1: telling me y'all don't want to praise him. I do
Speaker 1: want to praise him. That's why I can't. I don't
Speaker 1: need you to make me, no, but I think you
Speaker 1: do sometimes. I think you do sometimes. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think one better than that. You need to awaken your
Speaker 1: inner David like he did in some one o three.
Speaker 1: So when we're not here to do it, because we're
Speaker 1: gonna lead you to worship God. I'm not gonna just
Speaker 1: get up here and preach like this, Oh, turn in
Speaker 1: your bible. I'm gonna take you, clap your hands. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna write and remind you to do some stuff that
Speaker 1: you know. I'm not one of these lifeguards that smokes
Speaker 1: weed and lays there and doesn't watch. If I see
Speaker 1: you drowning in doubt, I'm gonna pull you out. Does
Speaker 1: that my job, dude? That is my job. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I don't even break for everybody. Just a few. Hey,
Speaker 1: if I can find five people in the room who
Speaker 1: don't care and are not a shame and who know
Speaker 1: it was the blood but the real secret news, can
Speaker 1: you say bless the Lord, oh my soul? Because David
Speaker 1: did that. He didn't just make them praise God, he
Speaker 1: made him self praise God. Why are you so much
Speaker 1: better telling everybody else what to do than you are
Speaker 1: telling you what to do? I never saw a service
Speaker 1: go from so high to so low in one sentence.
Speaker 1: But look at it. Look at the scripture he said,
Speaker 1: Glory to God, Praise God. He gets Shimamurathaiah and Jayahel
Speaker 1: and Matitataya and the Lord and all these guys. Right,
Speaker 1: but it's not so many. When he went to get
Speaker 1: the ark, he took thirty thousand with him. David didn't
Speaker 1: always have thirty thousand. David didn't always have thirty thousand.
Speaker 1: At one point, after God had annointed him to be king,
Speaker 1: he has six hundred. And the Bible describes him men
Speaker 1: who were in crippling dead. Crippling dead, that's the only
Speaker 1: reason they came to David. What they needed from him.
Speaker 1: That's who he had. Ruffians, they were, Yeah, that's who
Speaker 1: he had. God has gathered to David all these armies,
Speaker 1: and he takes them all down to get the ark
Speaker 1: thirty thousand. And they can't do it because they don't
Speaker 1: do it God's way. Because sometimes you start thinking that
Speaker 1: you need more of something more, you get smarter than God,
Speaker 1: don't you. Hagar. That was Abraham's wife. She thought if
Speaker 1: she helped God out having a baby, it would help,
Speaker 1: because look, can we admit it was a strange way
Speaker 1: for God to start a nation, to pick a woman
Speaker 1: with a bear and wound. If you're going to need
Speaker 1: a nation, you need a son, so you find somebody
Speaker 1: with the sun and you start there. No, God's gonna
Speaker 1: do it in a strange way, so it can be
Speaker 1: his strength. God has a strange way. The next time
Speaker 1: you seeing waymaker, make sure you understand that the way
Speaker 1: that he makes will seem strange. As he's making it,
Speaker 1: you'll look back and say, miracle worker, promise keeper, light
Speaker 1: in the darkness. That's who you are. Only thing you'll
Speaker 1: be thinking while you're going through it is this is weird.
Speaker 1: This is weird. How many have been there the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks in your life, just going this is weird,
Speaker 1: this is crazy. Yeah, this is crazy, this is heavy,
Speaker 1: this is dark. Well, when David gets to the other
Speaker 1: side of this journey with the Arc, he does something
Speaker 1: really fantastic, really beautiful. He said, God remembers his covenant
Speaker 1: and the promise he made. Now a lot of times
Speaker 1: we are trying to hold God to our preferences, not
Speaker 1: his promises. So that's where the disappointment is. A lot
Speaker 1: of times, what we are trying to get God to
Speaker 1: do in our life, he never said he would do it.
Speaker 1: GI you an example of that take your stress away.
Speaker 1: He didn't say I'll take your stress. He said I'll
Speaker 1: give you strength. In order for God to take your
Speaker 1: stress away, he's got to take your breath away. Nice
Speaker 1: way of saying he's got to kill you. How many
Speaker 1: y'all want God to take their stress away? Don't raise it.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to die like USA right here
Speaker 1: in front of me. God is good. God is good,
Speaker 1: But the ways that he shows his goodness seems strange.
Speaker 1: It seems strange what you're going through right now, doesn't
Speaker 1: That certainly seems strange to me. The Lord told me
Speaker 1: ready for this. The Lord told me in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: Was that when I did surround twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: run about there, he said, you're going to reach one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people every week when you preach. That didn't
Speaker 1: happen until COVID hit and the buildings closed. I am
Speaker 1: not saying God sent COVID so I could hit a
Speaker 1: number that I made up in my mind. Don't hear
Speaker 1: it like that. Don't hear it like that. But the
Speaker 1: first day we ever reached that number of people live
Speaker 1: in service, not through podcasts and later stuff. The first
Speaker 1: day we reached that number of people in service, there
Speaker 1: were five people in the room, and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is strange. This is strange because when you're standing there
Speaker 1: in it, it just looked like we went backwards. And
Speaker 1: to your senses is strange, and to your feelings is strange,
Speaker 1: and to your rational mind is strange. And to those
Speaker 1: watching you carry the arc is strange. Why don't you
Speaker 1: put it on a cart? Why don't you do it
Speaker 1: the easy way? Why don't you just sell out to this?
Speaker 1: Why don't you just give up on that. Some people
Speaker 1: in your life think you're strange for coming to this church.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to hurt my feelings, so
Speaker 1: you just kind of what we're talking about clearly normal.
Speaker 1: Holly says something funny the other day. I'm planned to
Speaker 1: share this, so we'll take it out later if it
Speaker 1: doesn't come out right. One time they did a parody
Speaker 1: article of us. They said we put a water slide
Speaker 1: on our stage for baptisms. Why I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: I just had people texting me, what's up with the
Speaker 1: water slide? Now, that's a weird text to get if
Speaker 1: you don't know the contact Some good the water slider
Speaker 1: you in my backyard. What's going on? I don't have
Speaker 1: a slide. You mean in the church. You think I
Speaker 1: have a water slide in the church. And people were
Speaker 1: saying that she said something the other day because we
Speaker 1: were reflecting on God's faithfulness to our ministry. She said,
Speaker 1: now that I look back on it, I kind of
Speaker 1: like that this church is crazy enough that when they
Speaker 1: said we would put a water slide in the church
Speaker 1: for people to get baptized, it was believable. Don't y'all
Speaker 1: love Holly Fernick. Because I'm sitting there one to sue somebody,
Speaker 1: you can't say that about me. She took the insult
Speaker 1: as a compliment that they thought we were just that
Speaker 1: crazy that if God said put a water slide, or
Speaker 1: if God said feet a crowd with five loaves and
Speaker 1: two fish. No, I'm not announcing the water slide. Don't
Speaker 1: get the illustration twisted. It's just an illustration. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that it's a weird way to make an to
Speaker 1: pick a barren womb. It's a weird way to deliver
Speaker 1: a nation with a staff over a sea. It's a
Speaker 1: weird way to feed a crowd with a little boy's lunch.
Speaker 1: It's a weird way to attend a funeral four days
Speaker 1: late and then tell the man to get up. It's
Speaker 1: a weird way to stop a storm, to sleep through
Speaker 1: it and wait till the last watch of the night.
Speaker 1: But sometimes weird works. Sometimes when I start praising God
Speaker 1: for the few I have, he hadsn to me. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love him, I love him, I love it.
Speaker 1: I was so weird when I was in college. I
Speaker 1: was so weird. I was so weird. I used to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom between classes sometimes so I could
Speaker 1: get my Bible reading in because I wasn't disciplined enough
Speaker 1: to wake up early. I'll say, if I get five
Speaker 1: minutes in the bathroom, nobody will bother me in this bathroom.
Speaker 1: Nobody will bother me in this bathroom. And if I'd
Speaker 1: had a phone, I would have probably wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: I would have scrolled something, but I would take just
Speaker 1: a few. I think the enemy wants you to think
Speaker 1: that you don't have enough of stuff. David not only
Speaker 1: said that it was God who gave you Canaan. That's
Speaker 1: the promised land. We're not talking about land, We're talking
Speaker 1: about the lives God has given us the lives. You
Speaker 1: are living in what God has given you. That's the
Speaker 1: difference between me and the person who says I'm a
Speaker 1: self made man. I don't claim that everything I have
Speaker 1: got is the result of something. God gave me everything everything,
Speaker 1: So I don't want to apologize for it, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to be proud about it because God gave
Speaker 1: it to me. You are living in something that was
Speaker 1: given And if you don't believe that, you will be prideful.
Speaker 1: And if you believe that, if you don't believe that
Speaker 1: long enough, you'll be powerless because you'll lean on your
Speaker 1: own understanding, because you will say Jesus is Lord, but
Speaker 1: you will live like logic is Lord, and you'll always
Speaker 1: be counting. We only have five, we only have two.
Speaker 1: This won't go so far. It's too few. It's too few.
Speaker 1: I've been studying the Bible for over half my life
Speaker 1: seriously to teach it, not just to learn it. And
Speaker 1: I've been studying the Bible over half my life not
Speaker 1: just to preach it, but to live it. One thing
Speaker 1: I found out in the Bible is that generally speaking,
Speaker 1: you can find some exceptions, but as a general principle,
Speaker 1: listen to this. God never looks at your life and
Speaker 1: says I can't do it because you have too few
Speaker 1: of anything. God never looks at people. He never I
Speaker 1: can't find in the Bible very many times. There are
Speaker 1: a few a few, But this is one of those
Speaker 1: cases where the exception proofs the rule that mostly the
Speaker 1: Bible is about a seventy five year old man named
Speaker 1: Abraham who became a great nation. When you're seventy five,
Speaker 1: you only have a few years left when you're I
Speaker 1: could go on and on with this, y'all. When you're
Speaker 1: making a plan to save the world and you start
Speaker 1: at thirty and you're going to the cross. Why didn't
Speaker 1: Jesus die at age seventy five? Why did he do
Speaker 1: everything that he was sent to do in three years?
Speaker 1: Even better? Why didn't he run a big campaign so
Speaker 1: he could get a big number of disciples so he
Speaker 1: could have a lot of followers if he's leaving. Why
Speaker 1: did he spend so much time with twelve men and
Speaker 1: one of them was Judas? Why did he do it
Speaker 1: in three years with twelve men and change the world.
Speaker 1: Maybe he wanted to set the model so you could
Speaker 1: see what he can do through a few because he knew. Listen, listen,
Speaker 1: he knew that you would be in this situation in life,
Speaker 1: and you'd be saying, I don't have enough. I don't
Speaker 1: know enough, I don't have enough, I don't have enough time,
Speaker 1: I don't have enough talent. I don't have a big
Speaker 1: enough team. I'm not I don't that song. I got
Speaker 1: a really big team. I didn't make that song. I
Speaker 1: have a really small team. In fact, some of you
Speaker 1: are here today being like I have nobody, and that's
Speaker 1: not true. But the enemy always seeks to diminish what
Speaker 1: you've been given. That's his strategy, over and over, and
Speaker 1: how many times will he do it? As many times
Speaker 1: as you'll believe it. He'll take what you have given
Speaker 1: and diminish it and shrink it, and diminish it and
Speaker 1: shrink it until you can't focus on it, until all
Speaker 1: you see in your life is what others carry, until
Speaker 1: all you see in your life is the things you
Speaker 1: don't have, until you forget the few that you do.
Speaker 1: I want to preach to you today about the few
Speaker 1: that you do have. If that's finances, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the few dollars you have, If that's years that you
Speaker 1: have with your kids left in the house. I want
Speaker 1: to speak about the few that you do have. If
Speaker 1: that's friends that you have who really love you, really
Speaker 1: believe in you. I want to talk about the few
Speaker 1: that you do have. If that's the things that you're
Speaker 1: good at versus the things that you're not. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the few that you do have. That's
Speaker 1: why God used David. He knew what to do with
Speaker 1: the few. Do you are you always waiting for something else,
Speaker 1: more and more and more, God give me more wisdom.
Speaker 1: And sometimes, God says, the problem is not that you
Speaker 1: have have too few, You got too much. You got
Speaker 1: too much. God give me more wisdom, more wisdom, more wisdom.
Speaker 1: God said. The problem isn't the absence of wisdom. The
Speaker 1: problem is that you have too many opinions. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have too much information. God just need to know more
Speaker 1: than I can do it now, you don't need to
Speaker 1: know more some way, leave at church on time, says
Speaker 1: I knew. I knew all that today before I came
Speaker 1: some of y'all here, like I knew all about the
Speaker 1: Ark of the Covenant. You didn't even get to the
Speaker 1: good part about tabernacle looking made for it that was awesome.
Speaker 1: Youn't talk about obid eedom we go obed, seem blessed
Speaker 1: me brought back down. You talk about that I was good.
Speaker 1: I knew all that. You knew it already. But do
Speaker 1: you do it already? It's what you do with the few.
Speaker 1: I learned this over and over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: that sometimes I had more faith with a few than
Speaker 1: I have with more. What's that about? As few went
Speaker 1: too many, eighth went from big to little? What's that about?
Speaker 1: Because I start depending on the cart I think I
Speaker 1: need more. So I'm just challenging you this week to
Speaker 1: take what David said to your own heart when he
Speaker 1: said that God gave it to them. Look at verse
Speaker 1: nineteen again, I gave them so many scriptures today. Yo,
Speaker 1: my fear in preaching is running out of stuff. So
Speaker 1: you should see all the scriptures we don't get to.
Speaker 1: It would give you heart palpitations to know what all
Speaker 1: they're looking through back there, because the last thing I
Speaker 1: want to get up here is fifteen minutes in and
Speaker 1: go and uh, well, I guess sir. So I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking that I don't have enough to say. Sometimes my
Speaker 1: biggest mistake in preaching is I try to say too much.
Speaker 1: I do too much? Is the ark of covenant is
Speaker 1: to book a revelation in this temple of Daggon. And
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I just had my first cup of coffee. See,
Speaker 1: it could be just as bad to do too much.
Speaker 1: Here's David, from a shepherd to a king. And what
Speaker 1: does he go? Back to verse nineteen? He said, God
Speaker 1: spoke it when they were but what's the word few?
Speaker 1: But few? And then he emphasizes it, watch this few. Indeed,
Speaker 1: just in case you think he's overstating it, He's like, nah,
Speaker 1: it was nothing but Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and
Speaker 1: the patriarchs, and God did all this out of that.
Speaker 1: Don't get it twisted to think that I'm so great
Speaker 1: as a king. David said, no, no no, no, He did
Speaker 1: it when they were but few, so he could prove
Speaker 1: that he was faithful. And he couldn't prove that he
Speaker 1: was faithful if he didn't do it through. If he
Speaker 1: did it through a lot, you would consult a lot
Speaker 1: of your logic and the lot of your resources. So
Speaker 1: God has you in a season right now where he
Speaker 1: is striping away some things and subtracting some things, and
Speaker 1: some people are leaving, and some things are disappearing, and
Speaker 1: some certainties are evaporating, and some things you depended on
Speaker 1: all your life are no longer able to hold you up.
Speaker 1: So God can show you what he can do a few.
Speaker 1: It is almost like Gideon in the Old Testament, where
Speaker 1: he had thirty two thousand warriors, and the Lord said,
Speaker 1: I can't use you yet to deliver my people. Look
Speaker 1: at Judge seventy two. Why because you're not strong enough,
Speaker 1: Why because you're not smart enough. Why because you're not
Speaker 1: experienced enough? No, no no, no, He said, you have too many.
Speaker 1: So why are you praying about too few when God
Speaker 1: is talking about too many? God said, take them down
Speaker 1: to the water. I'll find them out. I'll send home
Speaker 1: who needs to be sent home, and you'll deliver the
Speaker 1: people with three hundred men. I'm not good at math,
Speaker 1: but that's backwards. I went from thirty two thousand to
Speaker 1: three hundred. And it feels bad to go backwards. And
Speaker 1: you've been going backwards, and you've been feeling bad about it.
Speaker 1: But praise the Lord, because praise paves a way for
Speaker 1: the provision of God to be revealed in your life
Speaker 1: through the few, through the few, say it through the few,
Speaker 1: through the few. I don't have that much. You don't
Speaker 1: need that much. You don't need what you think you need.
Speaker 1: I promise you, I promise you. You don't need what
Speaker 1: you think you need to do what God has called
Speaker 1: you to do. Because if you needed what you think
Speaker 1: you need to do what God had called you to do,
Speaker 1: and he's the one who called you to do it,
Speaker 1: he would have given you what you think you need
Speaker 1: to do what He's called you to do, because he's
Speaker 1: the one who called you to do it. He doesn't
Speaker 1: promise stuff that he doesn't provide for. Oh, if I
Speaker 1: was more even tempered, No, no, no, you need a
Speaker 1: little bit of that oom. All right, we're gonna subdue
Speaker 1: it and submit it and we're going to train it
Speaker 1: to the Holy Spirit. But you need some of that.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get some self control, but you need some
Speaker 1: of that. Oh, if I could do this, if I
Speaker 1: could do that, if I could be more like this.
Speaker 1: I went to when I first went to Shelby, I
Speaker 1: went to a music director. This guy was a legend.
Speaker 1: He was the best musician that at that point in
Speaker 1: my life I had ever met. He played in studios,
Speaker 1: he played on people's albums. And here I was asking
Speaker 1: him to come be my keyboard player at a church
Speaker 1: of just a few hundred people, just a few hundred.
Speaker 1: Everybody around me told him he won't do it. He
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be on some church band. He won't
Speaker 1: play on a church stage. I said, well, let me
Speaker 1: just go talk to him, and I said, I know
Speaker 1: that you probably won't do it. You know, by the way,
Speaker 1: you'll never get a date if you come up with
Speaker 1: this kind of confidence. I was like, I know you
Speaker 1: probably don't want to do it. But before I finished,
Speaker 1: she said, yeah, I'll do it. I said, I can
Speaker 1: only pay you this much, and it was just a
Speaker 1: few I was gonna pay him for a week what
Speaker 1: he could get in an hour. He saw, I do it.
Speaker 1: I've been praying about that. Okay, just start doing Every week.
Speaker 1: I go over to his house. And it was such
Speaker 1: a trip, y'all because I would teach him the songs. Now,
Speaker 1: let me explain to you, I don't have much musical training.
Speaker 1: Just the chords I learned on my guitar when I
Speaker 1: was a boy, and that's it. Now. I know those
Speaker 1: four chords really well. But I learned to play guitar
Speaker 1: off Green Day, Huh not Boch Hootie and the Blowfish.
Speaker 1: That's how I learned to play guitar. But I know
Speaker 1: what I know. So I'd go over to his house.
Speaker 1: He had a little studio in his house, and I
Speaker 1: would sit down with him. His name was Richard, still
Speaker 1: is Richard. But I sit down with Richard and I
Speaker 1: take the little chord charts over. I say, let's go
Speaker 1: over these songs for the week. Not because he needed
Speaker 1: to learn him just we were getting it all charted
Speaker 1: out and he would chart it for me and everything.
Speaker 1: I would always apologize to him. I always felt bad
Speaker 1: because he's such a great musician. I mean, he knows jazz,
Speaker 1: he knows rock, he knows country. He can play anything
Speaker 1: by ear or by sight. And here I am with
Speaker 1: a G and a C and D and A and
Speaker 1: that's the whole song. And I say, I'm so sorry, Richard.
Speaker 1: I know this is so simple, this is so stupid
Speaker 1: me sitting here a great musician like you. I don't
Speaker 1: even know all the chords that you know. And one
Speaker 1: day he stopped me. He says, Stephen, stop thinking. Everybody
Speaker 1: I am personate has a country accent, right, Stephen. He said,
Speaker 1: you don't need to know more chords, the right four.
Speaker 1: And then he started. He gave me a tutorial. He
Speaker 1: started playing songs with the four chords that I used
Speaker 1: over and over again. And he showed me at least
Speaker 1: twenty songs that use those four chords only, and every
Speaker 1: time he would do it would drive the message home
Speaker 1: a little bit more. You only need four, You only
Speaker 1: need four. Then he played again. It was just a one, five, six, four.
Speaker 1: That's the notation the Nashville number system, right, It's the one,
Speaker 1: the five, the six, and the four. And he showed
Speaker 1: me with those four chords, you can write a number
Speaker 1: one hit. It's not how many chords you know, it's
Speaker 1: how you use the ones you know. Hey, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: not preaching to everybody today. Few, just a few that
Speaker 1: had been going around saying, God, I don't know enough,
Speaker 1: i don't have enough. I have been trained enough. I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough. I'm not sleeping enough. That must be
Speaker 1: a parent of a newborn or a dog. God, I'll
Speaker 1: have enough. And Richards showed me you only need four chords.
Speaker 1: You only need four. I'll prove it. When God got
Speaker 1: ready to turn on the lights of the solar system.
Speaker 1: He said, four words, let there be light. Four words,
Speaker 1: and the lights came on. Four words, and the world
Speaker 1: was illuminated four words, and the darkness had to back up.
Speaker 1: You only need four. You only need four. You only
Speaker 1: need for play a DLJ. You only need four. You
Speaker 1: could do more with four. You could be faithful with you,
Speaker 1: He taught me. Four chords can do so much. So
Speaker 1: follow me. I'm gonna do it on the spot, and
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna close. But I'm gonna show you before
Speaker 1: I close, what you can do with four. If everybody
Speaker 1: on the worship team went out and got Salmonila, just
Speaker 1: keep making up horrible stuff to happen to the worship team,
Speaker 1: all right, And I knew four chords, What could I do?
Speaker 1: I could say, tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Speaker 1: just to take him at his word, four course, just
Speaker 1: to rest upon his promise, Just to know th saith
Speaker 1: the Lord. Four course Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him,
Speaker 1: how I've proved him? Or and or Jesus, Jesus prayscious Jesus,
Speaker 1: this is what we need more of, Oh for grace,
Speaker 1: to trust him more. You don't need more stuff. You
Speaker 1: need more faith, h fourpos purpose, one name, my Jesus.
Speaker 1: I love THEE. I know Thou art mine for THEE
Speaker 1: all the fires of sin. I resign my gray suss redeemer,
Speaker 1: my Savior are if I love my Gesus? Just now
Speaker 1: see four course and we could go. What a friend
Speaker 1: we haven't changed keys four courts. You don't need more courts.
Speaker 1: You need more faith, you'll need more time, you need
Speaker 1: more focus. You might not even need more money. You
Speaker 1: might just even need better priorities. What a friend we
Speaker 1: have in Geesus, all our sense and griefs to bear.
Speaker 1: What a privilege to carry h e fathing to God
Speaker 1: in prayer. Here's the problem listen. Oh, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: know where the courts go. Oh what peace we often
Speaker 1: for fit? And oh what needless pain? Me ben, And
Speaker 1: here's why we've been stressed out, Oh, because we do
Speaker 1: not give everything to God in prayer. I know a few.
Speaker 1: I know a few courts, I know a few truths.
Speaker 1: I know a few things. I know what to do
Speaker 1: with a few. I know what to do with the few.
Speaker 1: He was faithful with the few. God will give you
Speaker 1: what you need. Here. I am to worship here, I
Speaker 1: am too bout here I am to say that you're myga.
Speaker 1: You're all together, loving, all together, worthy, all together wonderful
Speaker 1: to me. I need a few of you to stand
Speaker 1: and see it. Here. I am to worship here, I
Speaker 1: am here. You say you're host ah, A few of
Speaker 1: you really been carrying a lot. Lift your hands up
Speaker 1: and give it to God. Here rides here. Here say
Speaker 1: your send chords new songs, say and exhaustthy ah. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's livet Jesus high in this place today. Come on,
Speaker 1: He's worthy of praise. Well. If you enjoyed today's podcast,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things I'd love for you
Speaker 1: to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also help us reach others by investing today
Speaker 1: at Elevation Church dot org, slash give and thanks again
Speaker 1: for joining us on the Elevation Podcast