November 29, 2024 • 48 mins
In “Don’t Waste Your Angel,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church turns to the book of Exodus to give us insight into God’s promises. He promises to protect you along the way, position you where you need to be, and prepare you for what is to come. But we can waste His promises if we aren’t willing to walk in them
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message. I want to read your scripture from
Exodus chapter twenty three, verses twenty through thirty one, and
it's a scripture.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
About how God makes away in our life.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We're in this series called Waymaker, and this scripture has
a subheading in my Bible that says God's Angel to
prepare the way. God's Angel to prepare the way. God
says this verse twenty. See, I am sending an angel
ahead of you to guard you along the way. If
you don't think it's sacrilegious to write in your Bible
(00:46):
circle that phrase along the way, it's important. I am
sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along
the way and to bring you to the place I
have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what
he's says.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Do not rebel against him.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
See, God can send things into your life that you
don't access because your attention is elsewhere. Come on, God
can send you instruction, wisdom, and provision, but you miss
it because you were paying attention on something stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I'm not talking about fantasy football. I'm talking about other
stupid stuff you pay attention to.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I wouldn't rebuke you for that, It's fine. But he says,
do not rebel against him. He will not forgive your rebellion,
since my name is in him. If you listen carefully
to what he says and do all that I say.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I will be an enemy to your enemies.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
This is God speaking how he feels about his people.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I will be an enemy to your enemies. Now touch
your neighbors, say you better be nice to me.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I got back up. Be careful how you talk about me.
God likes me a little bit. I mean, how do
you act when somebody talks about your child. Imagine how
God feels about it. Imagine how God feels about it. Well,
that's what he said. He said, I will be an
enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.
(02:08):
My angel, here's this angel again, will go ahead of
you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Parazites, Canaanites, Hivetes,
and Jepizites, and I will wipe them out. Get them
out of your way. Now, do not bow down before
their gods or worship them, because after I get them
out of your way, don't get in your own way
(02:30):
by doing what they did. Sometimes God removes something from
your life and you trip over it like it was
still there because.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You can't change your mind and be renewed according to
your new reality.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Okay, this is not I'm just kind of flowing right now,
not in my notes, and I'm gonna let you sit
down in a minute. But there's a lot in this passage,
and I've been excited about it, and I was eating
cranberry sauce and thinking about just if we could get
here together, I could share this with you because I
was really excited about it. But really, here's where it starts.
Skip all the way down to verse twenty eight. I
(03:04):
will send the hornet, because God's a Charlottean, I will
send the hornet.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I've been trying to tell you all that.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive
out the Hiites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your way. Okay,
I'm gonna take away all those Ipeshites, Canaanites, sell you lights,
all of them. They gotta go, somebody said, they gotta go.
As I bring you into the place that I promised you,
(03:33):
I'm gonna get them out of your way. But I
will not drive them out in a single year, because
the land would become desolate and the wild animals too
numerous for you. Little by little, I will drive them
out before you until you have increased enough.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Until you you're.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Waiting on God to show up, and he's waiting for
you to grow up, my little and you don't even
notice the things that are growing right before your eyes.
That's why it takes a grandparent to tell you that
your kids have grown, because you're with.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Them every day.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But God is doing things incrementally in our lives, and
so he says, little by little, I will drive them
out before you until you have increased enough to take
possession of the lamb.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Can I give you one more verse? It's not rhetorical.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to
the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River.
I will give into your hands the people who live
in the land, and you will drive them out before
you say man for the word of God. Hey, those
of you in a control, don't throw my title because
(04:54):
I'm changing it and the one you have is the
wrong one. I want to preach a message to you
from my heart today, and I want you to look
at your neighbor and give them my title that I
just thought of right now, but I want to share
it with you, and I believe it's a message for
you today. Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, don't
waste your angel, please be seated. The sense that I
(05:17):
get from the text is that God is giving his
people the resources that they need for the responsibility that
they are facing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And I love that about God is.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That he always has the resource ready before he gives
the assignment. In fact, I've learned this and I would
love for you to write it down. If you are
the note tape taking type, realize that the greater the assignment,
the greater the assistance.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Now, if you are married.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
To someone who is a little difficult, perhaps that will
be good news to you. My brother from the United
States Air Force is visiting with us today.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You help me.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Thank God for my brother visiting all the way from
New Jersey. He's married now and we're thankful I had
the great privilege to perform their wedding. If I do
a wedding, which I don't get to do them very
much because usually people like to get married on Saturdays,
(06:22):
and I preach on Saturdays. So when I get to
do it, I like to make it creative because I
don't know how to do it the right way because
I don't do.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It that much.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And I almost did something when I performed your wedding.
I never told you this, because you got all the
typical sections of a wedding where you have the exchange
of the rings and the exchange of the vows. I
almost did a whole section called realistic expectations, and.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Maybe one day I'll get that opportunity, but it would
be the part of the wedding ceremony that's not poetic.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It'd be the part that's practical.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And I would have told you things like, you know,
be prepared for this woman whom you love to bring
items into your bathroom that you have never seen before
or known of their existence.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Be prepared, make.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Space on your counter for a pharmacy, and don't be surprised.
Little things like that I would have put into it.
If they would have done this for being Holly's they
would have said a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Fifty extra minutes.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
When you are telling your wife what time to be
ready for an event, lie to her, put her on
daylight savings time and back it up an hour, and
you might possibly be on time.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
My wife, now something has shifted in the balance of
our marriage relationship.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And she's usually the one telling me.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
You're looking to see how she's responding to this part
of the sermon, aren't you with that? As she walked out,
what would that say about the pastor's spiritual life? So
she's actually the one who's usually telling me. Now she's
usually telling me, if you can believe this, she says
something to me the other day. I never thought i'd
(08:09):
hear this out of my wife's mouth. She said, I'm
ready when you are.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It's just things you never think you're going to hear.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You never think like that's like hearing your teenager say I'll.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Do it, Like.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's just stuff you never expect to hear from that person.
But it's true nine times out of ten. Now she's
ready before I am. Something has shifted in the relationship.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
And I pointed out.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Because in Exodus twenty three, it's not a marriage relationship,
but it's a covenant relationship between God and his people.
And they have waited now for over four hundred years
for God to deliver them out of their slavery and
their cruel bondage. But now something has shifted. They are
(08:54):
so used to waiting on God, and now a bus
there are turn of events. God says to his people
through Moses, I'm ready when you are. Now, he's already
brought them out of Egypt. He's already brought them out
of slavery. But there is a difference between coming out
physically and coming out mentally.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Some people are perpetually stuck.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
In the stage of their life. Even though God has
set them free, they still dragged the shackles of a
situation that God long since delivered them from. So he
gives them several gifts, several gifts, several gifts. I'll mention
a few the Ten commandments. He gives them the ten commandments.
Thou shalt, thou shalt not not to prohibit them, not
(09:42):
to prohibit them.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
How many of you have a dog.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Did you put in a fence in your yard for
the dog? Why so he could run around? So he
could run around without getting killed. The fence brings freedom right.
When God establishes parameters for your life, what He's really
(10:05):
doing within those parameters is giving you permission to enjoy
his promises, within the parameters of his principles, so that
you are not destroyed by the very thing that God
intended to bless you with. And then he gives them
some laws, regulations, and statutes for living with one another
in relationship as a community. He speaks about social injustice.
(10:29):
He speaks to them about treatment of one another and foreigners.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
He speaks to them specifically.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
About festivals that he wants them to keep, and three
times a year he says, I want you to send
all the men to the sanctuary, and nobody should come
empty handed.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I want you to bring me an offering.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I want you to bring me an offering because I
want you to be protected. There's a keyword protected from
trusting in your provision. So every time I bless you,
I want you to engage in the discipline of intrusting
to me what I've invested in.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
In that context, God makes his people a promise because
He has given them a great assignment, a great assignment
to occupy this land that's full of enemies, enemies that
are bigger and stronger, more skilled and experienced in warfare
than this nation, who.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Has barely become a nation at this point.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
In this he gives them three promises from verse twenty.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I'll lift them now, write them down, put them on
a sticky note, because these three promises apply to you. Two.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
These are three things God has promised you. I'll hit
them one by one. See, I am sending an angel
ahead of you. In the Jewish tradition, it is mostly
believed that the angel is Moses. However, most of us
would think that the qualifications that are listed here as
in my name is in him, and the ability to
(12:00):
forgive sins goes beyond Moses. So this must be a
foreshadowing of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.
I will send my angel ahead of you to guard
you along the way and to bring you to the
place I have prepared.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
They're all three right there.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
The first one is God promises to protect his people.
God promises to protect his people, and specifically he says,
I will guard you along the way. I was interested
in that phrase because a lot of times God is
guarding you from things in your life that you don't
even know you need to be guarded from. And so
(12:41):
the way it works, you can follow me real quick
with the cameras. God will guard you along the way,
but you will only see it looking back. That's how
life works, is that God is doing it for you
along the way. Now, notice, in order for God to
protect you, you have to be an motion. God cannot
guard you until you.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Are along the way.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And so when you are praying for God to protect you,
but you're sitting on your couch doing it instead of
obeying the instruction that he's given you, God cannot dispatch
his assistance for an assignment that you are not present for.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
This.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
One intern was asking me recently on the subject how
do I deal with feeling insecure? And I shocked myself
the answer I gave her because I usually say, quote
the Bible and confessions of faith, and you are the
righteousness of God in Christ. But I found something coming
out of my mouth was kind of weird.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I said, do the work.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Do the work, because it is in completing your assignment
that you receive your assistance. It's the best thing you
can do. If you feel insecure like I can't do it,
to do it. And as you do it, you will
receive the strength for the assignment.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But let me tell you this, you will not get.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
The assistance praying for God to make the assignment easier.
He does not promise that. And I don't care how
hateful y'all look at me. God is not going to
make it easier what.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
He said I'll do.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I will release my assistance in correspondence with your assignment.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
And if you.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Insist on trying to fulfill somebody else's assignment.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Don't expect my assistance.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But if you will do you right here, right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Now, and quit wishing she.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Was your wife, and love the wife you've got as
Christ loved the church, I will release my assistance in.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Correspondence with your assignment. Hey man, good preaching. Only JJ's
standing up. I don't know. He must need the Lord
this week.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
To me, I think it's significant all the different times
that God gave people an assignment that was greater than them,
in fact, often contrary to their natural ability. Because Abraham
could have had a baby for God when he was forty,
not when he's eighty. God likes him at eighty better
than forty. I know why, but I'm not gonna tell
you why. I know why I studied it. I know
(15:07):
why God picked him at eighty and not forty.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
If you do it at forty, you'll think you did it.
But if God gives you something that you know.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You shouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Somebody say, don't waste your angel, and you waste the
assistance of your angel.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
This is so good. I'm gonna help you.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right there, right there, You right there, right there, I'm
so glad you know.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Not you her, I'm gonna help her right there.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You got a giant assignment. That's good.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
The greater the assignment, the greater the assistance.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Now I can look back on several phases of my
life where God, God was protecting me with what I
thought was a problem. You know, God has a defense system.
I have a security system in my house. A couple
nights ago, me and Holly shot straight up in the bed, screaming,
both of us just screaming. The alarm went off so loud.
(16:15):
I never heard it that loud, and I jumped off, screaming.
She jumped up, screaming. We're screaming at each other. Five
seconds later, I had that baseball bat that I keep
under my bed. I was crouched going through the house too.
I was shaking the bat. I was saying stuff under
my breath that wasn't prayer oriented, you know, just getting
ready for what the situation required. But how could it
(16:38):
be that loud. It was the loudest thing I ever heard.
You know, those little AirPods that you put in your ear.
I forgot that I had fallen asleep with my AirPods in.
And it wasn't the security system in the house that
went off. It was an amber alert on my phone.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And here I am.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Ready to kill something that's not even there. And you know,
sometimes you let the devil in your head to the
point where you're waking up in the middle of the night,
chasing an enemy that ought to.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Be running from you.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Where are my.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Powerful people at that know you have the Holy Spirit,
a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Make some noise about it, make all the quiet people uncomfortable,
shout if you know, God's.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Got a defense system and a surveillance on your life,
and the devil can only.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Go so far. Get out of my head because I'm protected.
High five point three people say, I'm protected and God, God.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Will even protect you from your own prayers. You will
pray for him to ask you out, and he will
walk right by you to your best friend, and she
doesn't even have a prayer life.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And that's why he.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Walked past you, because you were praying. God, I want
what you want for me. Protect me from anything that's
not from you.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I got an angel. Somebody said, I got an angel.
You can't see anybody's there. That's weird. It's weird. You
believe in angels. What do you believe in?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Some of y'all believe in college age boys in tight pants.
Your hope is in them. And I can't have an angel. Oh,
I got angels. Don't make me flap it you I
will flap right in your face.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I got angels. I got something better than an angel.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I have the spirit that raised Christ from the dead.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
And I'm protected. I'm protected.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Even sometimes what you will call a disappointment in one
season of your life, you will see as a defense.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Later you will see that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
If I had gotten what I wanted when I wanted it,
it wouldn't have been a blessing because I wasn't ready.
I hope I'm helping somebody. I hope I'm helping somebody.
I will guard you along the way, God says, I'll
protect you, and the second one he says, I will
(19:46):
bring you to the place, So I'll guard you along
the way.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And I'll bring you to the place.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
If guard you along the way is God's promise to protect.
Bring you to the place is his promise to position.
And one thing I've really come to believe is that
God is good at getting me where he wants me
when he wants me, for reasons that I do not
understand while I'm there. And honestly, some of the places
(20:16):
that God has sent me in my life is not
where I wanted to go. And I'm gonna say something
to you that I never ever said before in public.
I said it to Holly, I might have said it
to a few of our team members thirteen years ago,
but I never said it in a big room like this.
I didn't even want to come to Charlotte because it
(20:36):
seemed to me like Charlotte had churches covered. Have you looked,
there's trees and steeples. People, there's a lot of them already.
I say, God, what could it possibly have to do
with me to be in this town where there's already
(20:58):
all these big churches. It was Joe's crabshack that God used,
and just in a way I can't explain. And I'm
preaching to somebody with an attitude right now because you
don't even like where you live.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
You don't even like it.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
But often God positions you according to a higher priority
than your preference, and it's called his purpose. I'm sending
my angel and he will bring you to the place.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Here's the interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
The angel can bring you to the place, but it
cannot go in for you.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
All God can.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Do, because it is a cooperation of grace and faith
that causes his kingdom to operate on earth as it
is in heaven.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
All he can do is set you up. But He
will not take the step for you.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
If God took the step for you, it would not
be kindness, it would be cruelty.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
If God took.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
The step for you, he would put you in a
place that your faith was not prepared for. So the
great tragedy of Exodus twenty three is that God sent
the protection to bring them to the place. Yet an
entire generation never entered in.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Did you hear me?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
The entire congregation that Moses is delivering the message to
doesn't get to experience the benefits of God's promise. And
here's where it's a little theologically controversial.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
God's promises are not automatic. They're optional. Joy is optional.
Peace is optional. You can have it or you can
leave it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
You can live in bitterness or you can live in deliverance.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
But you have to take the step. Now.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
God says, I've positioned you. I've protected you. I kept
you alive. I brought you through it. The sea didn't
sweep over you. The slave master didn't kill you with
this whip. All I did was bring you out with
the possession that you need to go into the place that.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I've prepared for you. Three.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Not only will he protect me, not only will he
position me, but he will prepare me. Now we got three,
peace less preach. God has been setting you up for
this step all of your life, and before you is
the goodness and the glory of God made possible by
the grace of Jesus Christ. If it's just three people,
I came with an announcement. You're ready now. You don't
(23:27):
have to live in what was any longer, and you
don't have to stay stuck in a mindset then no
longer accommodates your anointing. You're ready now, the says the
spirit of the Lord. I kept you all your life.
I sustained you through many dangers, cause and stairs, and
now you're ready. A mind somebody looks happy say I'm ready.
(23:52):
I will protect you, I will position you, and I
will dirty word prepare you. Not a very fun one,
I know, I know. And the way he does it
is terrible. The way he does it is terrible. Did
y'all hear about the boiled frog?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Have you heard this? They teach. I don't know why
someone would want to do this.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I'm not recommending it, but if you want to boil
a frog, you ever just get it in your mind
you want to boil a frog? If you heard this before,
it's the old preacher thing. If you want to boil
a frog, don't put it in a boiling pot. Put
it in a pot and turn up the heat little
(24:35):
by little, and the frog won't know he's being boiled. Now,
I don't know what made the preacher want to boil
a frog. I can't answer that, but he is correct.
When the enemy wants to steal your confidence in the
promise of God, he doesn't do it all at once,
because if that alarm really went off, you jump out
the bed. So what does he do? Little by little?
(25:03):
And that's the warning that God is giving his people.
I'm sending my angel ahead of you. But if you
don't pay attention, and if you don't listen to what
he says, you will come to the place. And I
can prove to you that this happened to them because.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They got to the edge of the promise and they stopped.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And the reason that they stopped is because two spies
went in to the land and came out with faith
that they could do it. Ten spies went in and said,
they're bigger than us, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Jeptizites,
the Parizites, the Hiptites, the Amorites. They're bigger than us.
(25:47):
They're but guess what. They were already on the run.
Sometimes you are running from something that God has already.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Defeated ex trus you.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So they're standing at the place God has protected them
along the way. God has what's the second one? Position
them for this moment? What's the third one? He prepared them?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
But guess what the angel can't do.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
There's one thing the Angel can't do and will not do.
There's one thing God won't do for you. He'll protect you.
He'll keep you. He'll keep your mind, he'll keep your sanity.
He'll keep you from people that would harm you. He
will keep you from places that you didn't even know
if you would have been there, what would have happened?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
And you will never even know on this side of.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Life, how many times God blocked stuff and turned stuff
and shifted stuff and moved stuff. And you thought it
was just you were a little bit late because you
forgot your wallet.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But there was a car.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Accident on seventy seven that had your name on it.
And when the devil said they're out, God said, I've
got sore.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
There are so anyway anyway, there's so many things you
don't even know to thank God for. If you could see,
for one moment all of the things that God kept
you from, Listen to me, Blakeney, if we ever got
a revelation of what God kept us from, it would
(27:08):
be a bad day for the worship team, because all
the worship leaders wouldn't have a job, because we wouldn't
even need them, because we would lead ourselves in worship,
because we would walk in the door.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
And we will walk in the.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Door clapping and shouting and rejoicing and praising God that
sometimes we don't see all the things that He's kept
us from and brought us to.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And now we're at this place and God has protected us. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
God has positioned us absolutely, and God has prepared us.
But there's one thing he won't do. He will not
possess the land for you. Here's the word of the Lord.
I will go before you, but I will not go
(27:58):
for you.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Your faith must make the step. Your faith must make
the step. And most of them never did.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Now, if they had gone in, they would have seen
that the giants that were still in the land were
left there on purpose. That was always confusing to me.
God said, I'm going to be an enemy to your enemies.
I'm going to oppose those who oppose you, and when
you get to the land.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I'm going to start driving them out.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I'm going to chase them away so you can inherit
what I have promised to you. But then he says,
I'm not going to do it all at once. I'm
going to do it like the frog, little by little,
I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
God, if these are giants who can kill us and
cause us to worship other gods, shouldn't you get rid
of them as soon as possible? Come on, I mean,
wouldn't it make sense that if God wants something out
of your life, he would take it out right away?
And maybe this is just me because I grew up
in churches where they said, if you will pray this prayer,
(29:10):
Jesus will come into your heart and he will take
away your fear, and he will take away your pain,
and he will dry every tear from your eye.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And then I cried that night, and.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
I couldn't figure out where did that Kleenex go, that
cosmic Kleenex that Jesus was gonna bring and wipe every
tear from my eye? I couldn't figure it out because
I was expecting sanctification to work like salvation. When Jesus
saves you, he does it all at once. He doesn't
set you up on a thirty year payment plan. Salvation
(29:42):
is not a mortgage. When he comes in he comes.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
All the way in. And for those of.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You who have received his grace, let me tell you
something is amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's amazing. Here a shot, lean on the edge of
your seat.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
You will never be more forgiven than you are right now.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You will never be more love than you are right now.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
When He forgives you, he forgives you completely, immediately, fully,
without qualification. There is no corner of your heart he
didn't see when he sent his spirit to live within you.
You will never be more forgiven than you are right now.
But there is a difference between forgiveness and freedom.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Forgiveness happens all at once.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Freedom happens little by little, by little by little, and
is often so incremental that you don't even think is happening.
This is for everybody who's forty and thought you would
be smarter than you are right now, and you keep
(30:47):
doing dumb stuff that you've been doing all your life,
and you still feel outrage to the back row.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I don't need any love.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
You're doing stuff right now that you are doing at
age fourteen, and you got your own thirteen year old
and you still feel like a little kid yourself. And
it happens. It happened to Paul. Paul was that great apostle.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Have you heard of him? He took the gospel to
the Gentiles.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
What God started through Abraham he continued through Paul. He
told Abraham, he said, I got an assignment for you.
All the nations of the earth will.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Be blessed through you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
A What an assignment, he said, But don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I'm going to bless you so you can be a blessing.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I will not require from you a resource that I
do not put within you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You hear me. If God called you to.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Raise those hard headed kids, he will make your head
even harder. Boom, You met your match now because God
gave me. God gave me a cranium that can withstand
all of your craziness. Now God gives him the assignment,
and he gives him the assistance.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And Paul, in many ways, was grace.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
He was grace to be able to speak eloquently. He
was grace to be able to preach to the diaspora
of the Jewish tradition that he himself came from. But
one thing about Paul he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand
there was something in his life that he expected God
to take away that God left. You got anything like that,
(32:35):
fella looking at me so weird right now?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Maybe you're beyond Paul.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I would understand if you were holier than Paul, that
would make sense.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
But Paul was struggling. He hadn't quite a.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Arrived to your level of spiritual development and maturity. Paul said,
there was something that I asked God to do for
me that he would not do. Now, if you want
to know what it was, Paul's going to disappoint you
because he refuses to.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Name it by name.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And I'm glad he didn't name it by name because
if he would have said it, I couldn't relate to it.
But the fact that he used this image, and I
want to read it to you now two Corinthians twelve seven.
It means that whatever is left in your life, whatever
is left in your life that you have been blaming
on the devil, can be used by God to fulfill
(33:25):
his purpose for your life. If you got anything like that,
wave at me, so I can see the seven people
that God gave me this message for. Paul said, I
was ascended to the third heaven. I saw things inutterable.
I was used by God in ways that are astounding,
in fact, beyond human vocabulary.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Therefore, now watch this. This is crazy, he says.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Because of that level of blessing, God gave me an
equal burden. Because the greater the assignment, the greater the adversity.
The greater the assignment, the greater the attack.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So Paul said, God took me up so.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
High and showed me so much that there had to
be something in my life that would keep me grounded
to his grace. He doesn't name it by name. He
doesn't need to, because he knows you have your own.
So he simply says, therefore, in order here's the clue
(34:30):
to keep me from becoming conceited, there was something that
God gave Paul to keep him in a space called grace,
so that he would never forget who led.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Him along the way, So that he would never.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Forget who brought him out of bondage and darkness into
the marvelous life. God said, I'm gonna I'm gonna lead
some stuff in your life. And so in order to
keep me from becoming conceited, there was given to me.
Sounds like he's about to get a new car, right,
(35:12):
He gave me gave me.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
This's got me in the mindset of a gift. What
did he give you, Paul? Did he give you a house?
Did he give you a promotion? Did he give you
a blessing? No?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
No, no, Paul said, one day the devil showed up
on my doorstep with a package and it had a
bow on it. I opened the package and in the
package was a thorn.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Now it was a gift, but it didn't look like
a gift.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It was a gift, but it was wrapped in something
that looked like pain.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I was given.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Watch this a thorn in my flesh? Was it a sickness?
Was it a temptation Paul had? Was it people talking
about him and he couldn't shut him up?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Was it Facebook? Probably?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And he calls it this is crazy, a messenger of Satan.
How can he refer to it as a gift. If
it came from the enemy, it was sent to torment him.
That was the devil's intention to torment him.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Paul said.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
God took what the enemy intended to torment me and
used it to transform me.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So the enemy's tools.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Of torment become God's tools of transformation.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
And now I get it.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Now I get Exodus twenty three, because it's not just
the angels that God sends ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Of you that he uses to bless you. Those are wonderful.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
It's not just all of the promotions, and it's not
just the prosperity, and it's not just the peaceful situations.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
It's not just the yeses.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Sometimes God uses the nose to lead you to a
greater yes. God said, no, I won't take it away,
but yes, I will give you so much grace that
you will be stronger than it, and you will discover
a power that you could have never known if you
(37:28):
didn't have a problem. But he said to me, my grace,
by shock grace. Shout grace, don't mumble, shout grace. Shot
grace like you need it. Shout grace like you can't
make it without it. Shout grace like it's not just
something you say.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Before you eat. Shalt grace like you live by it.
Shout grace like he died to give it.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Shout grace like you know it's the avenue of pless.
So he didn't give me relief, He gave me grace.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And now I get it.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Why God left the giants in the land, because he
had them under contract. See they were They weren't used
to having to keep up their own land yet.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So God said, I'm gonna do you a favor.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
I'm gonna keep some enemies on your property. But don't
worry about your enemies. They work for me. I am God.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
What's good to me? It's good to me, it's good
to me.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Would it be bad if I downloaded this podcast myself?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
He said, I'm gonna leave some things. I'm gonna lease
some weaknesses in your life. Take it away now, I'm
gonna work through it.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Now, I'm gonna leave that weakness in your life, and
your weakness is going to lead you to my strength.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
God says.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Sometimes times I drive the giants out. Sometimes I let
them stay and I give them a job. Sometimes I
use the devil to deliver my mail. Sometimes I use
adversity to create an advantage in your life. Sometimes I
(39:23):
take what people meant.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
For evil and use it for.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Good because I'm God like that, and I got so.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Bad and I'm already there.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
So I'm gonna use not only my angel, but I'm
gonna use your enemies, and I'm gonna leave them there.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Why would you leave enemies on my territory, very simple.
Historians tell us that the land of Canaan at this time.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Was populated with wild animals that the Canaanites knew how
to deal with, but the Israelites didn't yet, particularly the
lions that lived in the land. And so God knew,
if I clear out all the enemies at once, the
lions will take them over.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
What's a group of lions called?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Does anybody know what?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
What?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
So? God said, if I clear all your enemies out
all at once, pride, we'll take over. Paul said, I
delight in weaknesses, Canaanites, insults, parasites, hardships, heavites. Don't you
(40:57):
see it, Paul said, I'm glad for my giants. I
don't just thank God for my angels. I thank Him
for my giants too. They taught me how to fight.
They built my faith. So it's a deep message. It's
a deep message. It's one thing to praise God for
(41:19):
your protection, but it's another thing to praise him for
your problems. I want to suggest that sometimes your problems
are your protection from yourself.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
You've had an addiction all your life, and.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
You've asked God to take the desire away, and he
won't why because I want you to need me, and
I want you to choose to serve me.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I will not force you to be free. I want
it to be your decision.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
So I'm going to leave some things in your life
that I know you want me to take out.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
But I'm not sending you into the fire alone.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I will be with you to deliver you, and I
will protect you, and I will prepare you, and I
will position you. But I cannot possess it for you.
Only you can possess this place. Only you can do it.
I can preach to you these principles, but I cannot
possess them.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
No one can do it for you.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Stop expecting for God's deliverance to be sudden.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
The greatest gift God can give you is gradual change,
so that he hides you from your own progress to
prevent your pride.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
God doesn't even want you to know you're growing. He
wants you to trust his grace. And that's why God said.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
To Paul, I'm not going to give you the gift
of relief. I'm gonna give you something greater, grace. It
looks like a thorn, but it's really grace. The devil
might have dropped it off at the doorstep. But I'm
the one who addressed it to you.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And no, I won't drive them all out, And no
I'm not going to make it easier. You know what.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
God won't fix your attitude. He'll give you his spirit
little by little as you serve and pray, show up.
Trust that He's working in your life. Little by little,
little by little, I am bringing you into the place
that I have prepared for you. The greater assignment gets
(43:50):
the greater assistance. If you've been going through some of
the things that Paul mentioned, weakness, insults, hardship, persecution, difficulties,
he mentions five and verse ten. I believe they are
the five giants that God leaves a measure of in
all of our lives.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I believe He leaves a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
All of that in all of our lives to teach
us to trust it. If it's been speaking to you
today while I've been preaching, and you would like for
me to agree in prayer for you to take your
next step in faith, stand to your feet, and I
will please at every location something that you wanted God
(44:28):
to take away, but He's left it for a reason.
Please don't leave because somebody might be standing about something
that's much more serious than traffic.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
So please stay right where you are.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
When God releases a word like this into your life,
it's kind of like that angel. It can only transform
you to the level that you put your attention on
it and decide to obey it. And so what you've
heard today has been a principle from God's word, a
principle of possession. And the principle is it. It's ready
when you are, It's ready when you are. God gave
(45:06):
you the giant as a gift to teach you to
drive it out by faith.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
That's how He strengthens you.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
And the opportunity is before you today.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
God said, I'll protect you.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I will, I'll prepare you, I'll position you, but I
will not possess it for you. The gift that I'm
going to give you is the grace to be patient
as you possess the promise. Father, would you minister right
now to each son and daughter that you have called
(45:42):
by name and chosen for this time, the grace that
they need for their specific situation. You said to Paul,
my grace is sufficient for you. I believe that promise
is personal for me.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And for them.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I don't believe there's a situation in this room that
you would not declare over My grace is enough. So
we stand in the sufficiency of your Spirit and your
son today and on every location. I come into agreement
with your people that we will not waste our Angel.
(46:26):
We will not waste this message. We will not waste
this moment. You have brought us this far. You have
brought us too far. You have been too good and
done too much for us to stand outside of freedom,
wishing about it, thinking about it and singing about it,
(46:46):
but not experiencing it.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I declare, in the name.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Of Jesus, we shall be free. We shall possess the land.
We shall inherit the promise. We shall receive all.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
That you'll die to provide. We shall rise as you
are risen. Come on, put a sut on that people,
put a sut on it.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Put a sut on it.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
By faith, we will inherit the land God. I come
against the spirit of discouragement today. The devil is a liar,
that spirit that always tells us, what's the point, You're
just like you were never gonna We say to that spirit,
shut up. In the name of Jesus, you're already defeated.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Get under our feet. We are the people of God.
Get beneath us.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Right now we are walking on what we used to.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Run from in the name of Jesus. And every place
we set.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Our foot, You've already given it to us. If we step,
you step, If we go, you go, If we will,
you will.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
You are God, and we trusted you.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
We declare this day total victory.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
This is our declaration. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message. I want to read your scripture from
Exodus chapter twenty three, verses twenty through thirty one, and
it's a scripture.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
About how God makes away in our life.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
We're in this series called Waymaker, and this scripture has
a subheading in my Bible that says God's Angel to
prepare the way. God's Angel to prepare the way. God
says this verse twenty. See, I am sending an angel
ahead of you to guard you along the way. If
you don't think it's sacrilegious to write in your Bible
(00:46):
circle that phrase along the way, it's important. I am
sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along
the way and to bring you to the place I
have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what
he's says.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Do not rebel against him.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
See, God can send things into your life that you
don't access because your attention is elsewhere. Come on, God
can send you instruction, wisdom, and provision, but you miss
it because you were paying attention on something stupid.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I'm not talking about fantasy football. I'm talking about other
stupid stuff you pay attention to.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I wouldn't rebuke you for that, It's fine. But he says,
do not rebel against him. He will not forgive your rebellion,
since my name is in him. If you listen carefully
to what he says and do all that I say.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I will be an enemy to your enemies.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
This is God speaking how he feels about his people.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I will be an enemy to your enemies. Now touch
your neighbors, say you better be nice to me.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I got back up. Be careful how you talk about me.
God likes me a little bit. I mean, how do
you act when somebody talks about your child. Imagine how
God feels about it. Imagine how God feels about it. Well,
that's what he said. He said, I will be an
enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.
(02:08):
My angel, here's this angel again, will go ahead of
you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Parazites, Canaanites, Hivetes,
and Jepizites, and I will wipe them out. Get them
out of your way. Now, do not bow down before
their gods or worship them, because after I get them
out of your way, don't get in your own way
(02:30):
by doing what they did. Sometimes God removes something from
your life and you trip over it like it was
still there because.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You can't change your mind and be renewed according to
your new reality.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Okay, this is not I'm just kind of flowing right now,
not in my notes, and I'm gonna let you sit
down in a minute. But there's a lot in this passage,
and I've been excited about it, and I was eating
cranberry sauce and thinking about just if we could get
here together, I could share this with you because I
was really excited about it. But really, here's where it starts.
Skip all the way down to verse twenty eight. I
(03:04):
will send the hornet, because God's a Charlottean, I will
send the hornet.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I've been trying to tell you all that.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive
out the Hiites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your way. Okay,
I'm gonna take away all those Ipeshites, Canaanites, sell you lights,
all of them. They gotta go, somebody said, they gotta go.
As I bring you into the place that I promised you,
(03:33):
I'm gonna get them out of your way. But I
will not drive them out in a single year, because
the land would become desolate and the wild animals too
numerous for you. Little by little, I will drive them
out before you until you have increased enough.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Until you you're.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Waiting on God to show up, and he's waiting for
you to grow up, my little and you don't even
notice the things that are growing right before your eyes.
That's why it takes a grandparent to tell you that
your kids have grown, because you're with.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Them every day.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But God is doing things incrementally in our lives, and
so he says, little by little, I will drive them
out before you until you have increased enough to take
possession of the lamb.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Can I give you one more verse? It's not rhetorical.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to
the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River.
I will give into your hands the people who live
in the land, and you will drive them out before
you say man for the word of God. Hey, those
of you in a control, don't throw my title because
(04:54):
I'm changing it and the one you have is the
wrong one. I want to preach a message to you
from my heart today, and I want you to look
at your neighbor and give them my title that I
just thought of right now, but I want to share
it with you, and I believe it's a message for
you today. Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, don't
waste your angel, please be seated. The sense that I
(05:17):
get from the text is that God is giving his
people the resources that they need for the responsibility that
they are facing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And I love that about God is.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That he always has the resource ready before he gives
the assignment. In fact, I've learned this and I would
love for you to write it down. If you are
the note tape taking type, realize that the greater the assignment,
the greater the assistance.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Now, if you are married.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
To someone who is a little difficult, perhaps that will
be good news to you. My brother from the United
States Air Force is visiting with us today.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You help me.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Thank God for my brother visiting all the way from
New Jersey. He's married now and we're thankful I had
the great privilege to perform their wedding. If I do
a wedding, which I don't get to do them very
much because usually people like to get married on Saturdays,
(06:22):
and I preach on Saturdays. So when I get to
do it, I like to make it creative because I
don't know how to do it the right way because
I don't do.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
It that much.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And I almost did something when I performed your wedding.
I never told you this, because you got all the
typical sections of a wedding where you have the exchange
of the rings and the exchange of the vows. I
almost did a whole section called realistic expectations, and.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Maybe one day I'll get that opportunity, but it would
be the part of the wedding ceremony that's not poetic.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It'd be the part that's practical.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And I would have told you things like, you know,
be prepared for this woman whom you love to bring
items into your bathroom that you have never seen before
or known of their existence.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Be prepared, make.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Space on your counter for a pharmacy, and don't be surprised.
Little things like that I would have put into it.
If they would have done this for being Holly's they
would have said a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Fifty extra minutes.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
When you are telling your wife what time to be
ready for an event, lie to her, put her on
daylight savings time and back it up an hour, and
you might possibly be on time.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
But I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
My wife, now something has shifted in the balance of
our marriage relationship.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And she's usually the one telling me.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
You're looking to see how she's responding to this part
of the sermon, aren't you with that? As she walked out,
what would that say about the pastor's spiritual life? So
she's actually the one who's usually telling me. Now she's
usually telling me, if you can believe this, she says
something to me the other day. I never thought i'd
(08:09):
hear this out of my wife's mouth. She said, I'm
ready when you are.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It's just things you never think you're going to hear.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You never think like that's like hearing your teenager say I'll.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Do it, Like.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's just stuff you never expect to hear from that person.
But it's true nine times out of ten. Now she's
ready before I am. Something has shifted in the relationship.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
And I pointed out.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Because in Exodus twenty three, it's not a marriage relationship,
but it's a covenant relationship between God and his people.
And they have waited now for over four hundred years
for God to deliver them out of their slavery and
their cruel bondage. But now something has shifted. They are
(08:54):
so used to waiting on God, and now a bus
there are turn of events. God says to his people
through Moses, I'm ready when you are. Now, he's already
brought them out of Egypt. He's already brought them out
of slavery. But there is a difference between coming out
physically and coming out mentally.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Some people are perpetually stuck.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
In the stage of their life. Even though God has
set them free, they still dragged the shackles of a
situation that God long since delivered them from. So he
gives them several gifts, several gifts, several gifts. I'll mention
a few the Ten commandments. He gives them the ten commandments.
Thou shalt, thou shalt not not to prohibit them, not
(09:42):
to prohibit them.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
How many of you have a dog.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Did you put in a fence in your yard for
the dog? Why so he could run around? So he
could run around without getting killed. The fence brings freedom right.
When God establishes parameters for your life, what He's really
(10:05):
doing within those parameters is giving you permission to enjoy
his promises, within the parameters of his principles, so that
you are not destroyed by the very thing that God
intended to bless you with. And then he gives them
some laws, regulations, and statutes for living with one another
in relationship as a community. He speaks about social injustice.
(10:29):
He speaks to them about treatment of one another and foreigners.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
He speaks to them specifically.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
About festivals that he wants them to keep, and three
times a year he says, I want you to send
all the men to the sanctuary, and nobody should come
empty handed.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I want you to bring me an offering.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I want you to bring me an offering because I
want you to be protected. There's a keyword protected from
trusting in your provision. So every time I bless you,
I want you to engage in the discipline of intrusting
to me what I've invested in.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
In that context, God makes his people a promise because
He has given them a great assignment, a great assignment
to occupy this land that's full of enemies, enemies that
are bigger and stronger, more skilled and experienced in warfare
than this nation, who.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Has barely become a nation at this point.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
In this he gives them three promises from verse twenty.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I'll lift them now, write them down, put them on
a sticky note, because these three promises apply to you. Two.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
These are three things God has promised you. I'll hit
them one by one. See, I am sending an angel
ahead of you. In the Jewish tradition, it is mostly
believed that the angel is Moses. However, most of us
would think that the qualifications that are listed here as
in my name is in him, and the ability to
(12:00):
forgive sins goes beyond Moses. So this must be a
foreshadowing of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ.
I will send my angel ahead of you to guard
you along the way and to bring you to the
place I have prepared.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
They're all three right there.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
The first one is God promises to protect his people.
God promises to protect his people, and specifically he says,
I will guard you along the way. I was interested
in that phrase because a lot of times God is
guarding you from things in your life that you don't
even know you need to be guarded from. And so
(12:41):
the way it works, you can follow me real quick
with the cameras. God will guard you along the way,
but you will only see it looking back. That's how
life works, is that God is doing it for you
along the way. Now, notice, in order for God to
protect you, you have to be an motion. God cannot
guard you until you.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Are along the way.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And so when you are praying for God to protect you,
but you're sitting on your couch doing it instead of
obeying the instruction that he's given you, God cannot dispatch
his assistance for an assignment that you are not present for.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
This.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
One intern was asking me recently on the subject how
do I deal with feeling insecure? And I shocked myself
the answer I gave her because I usually say, quote
the Bible and confessions of faith, and you are the
righteousness of God in Christ. But I found something coming
out of my mouth was kind of weird.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I said, do the work.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Do the work, because it is in completing your assignment
that you receive your assistance. It's the best thing you
can do. If you feel insecure like I can't do it,
to do it. And as you do it, you will
receive the strength for the assignment.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But let me tell you this, you will not get.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
The assistance praying for God to make the assignment easier.
He does not promise that. And I don't care how
hateful y'all look at me. God is not going to
make it easier what.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
He said I'll do.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I will release my assistance in correspondence with your assignment.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
And if you.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Insist on trying to fulfill somebody else's assignment.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Don't expect my assistance.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But if you will do you right here, right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Now, and quit wishing she.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Was your wife, and love the wife you've got as
Christ loved the church, I will release my assistance in.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Correspondence with your assignment. Hey man, good preaching. Only JJ's
standing up. I don't know. He must need the Lord
this week.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
To me, I think it's significant all the different times
that God gave people an assignment that was greater than them,
in fact, often contrary to their natural ability. Because Abraham
could have had a baby for God when he was forty,
not when he's eighty. God likes him at eighty better
than forty. I know why, but I'm not gonna tell
you why. I know why I studied it. I know
(15:07):
why God picked him at eighty and not forty.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
If you do it at forty, you'll think you did it.
But if God gives you something that you know.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You shouldn't be able to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Somebody say, don't waste your angel, and you waste the
assistance of your angel.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
This is so good. I'm gonna help you.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Right there, right there, You right there, right there, I'm
so glad you know.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Not you her, I'm gonna help her right there.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
You got a giant assignment. That's good.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
The greater the assignment, the greater the assistance.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Now I can look back on several phases of my
life where God, God was protecting me with what I
thought was a problem. You know, God has a defense system.
I have a security system in my house. A couple
nights ago, me and Holly shot straight up in the bed, screaming,
both of us just screaming. The alarm went off so loud.
(16:15):
I never heard it that loud, and I jumped off, screaming.
She jumped up, screaming. We're screaming at each other. Five
seconds later, I had that baseball bat that I keep
under my bed. I was crouched going through the house too.
I was shaking the bat. I was saying stuff under
my breath that wasn't prayer oriented, you know, just getting
ready for what the situation required. But how could it
(16:38):
be that loud. It was the loudest thing I ever heard.
You know, those little AirPods that you put in your ear.
I forgot that I had fallen asleep with my AirPods in.
And it wasn't the security system in the house that
went off. It was an amber alert on my phone.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
And here I am.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Ready to kill something that's not even there. And you know,
sometimes you let the devil in your head to the
point where you're waking up in the middle of the night,
chasing an enemy that ought to.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Be running from you.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Where are my.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Powerful people at that know you have the Holy Spirit,
a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Make some noise about it, make all the quiet people uncomfortable,
shout if you know, God's.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Got a defense system and a surveillance on your life,
and the devil can only.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Go so far. Get out of my head because I'm protected.
High five point three people say, I'm protected and God, God.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Will even protect you from your own prayers. You will
pray for him to ask you out, and he will
walk right by you to your best friend, and she
doesn't even have a prayer life.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And that's why he.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Walked past you, because you were praying. God, I want
what you want for me. Protect me from anything that's
not from you.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I got an angel. Somebody said, I got an angel.
You can't see anybody's there. That's weird. It's weird. You
believe in angels. What do you believe in?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Some of y'all believe in college age boys in tight pants.
Your hope is in them. And I can't have an angel. Oh,
I got angels. Don't make me flap it you I
will flap right in your face.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I got angels. I got something better than an angel.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I have the spirit that raised Christ from the dead.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
And I'm protected. I'm protected.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Even sometimes what you will call a disappointment in one
season of your life, you will see as a defense.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Later you will see that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
If I had gotten what I wanted when I wanted it,
it wouldn't have been a blessing because I wasn't ready.
I hope I'm helping somebody. I hope I'm helping somebody.
I will guard you along the way, God says, I'll
protect you, and the second one he says, I will
(19:46):
bring you to the place, So I'll guard you along
the way.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
And I'll bring you to the place.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
If guard you along the way is God's promise to protect.
Bring you to the place is his promise to position.
And one thing I've really come to believe is that
God is good at getting me where he wants me
when he wants me, for reasons that I do not
understand while I'm there. And honestly, some of the places
(20:16):
that God has sent me in my life is not
where I wanted to go. And I'm gonna say something
to you that I never ever said before in public.
I said it to Holly, I might have said it
to a few of our team members thirteen years ago,
but I never said it in a big room like this.
I didn't even want to come to Charlotte because it
(20:36):
seemed to me like Charlotte had churches covered. Have you looked,
there's trees and steeples. People, there's a lot of them already.
I say, God, what could it possibly have to do
with me to be in this town where there's already
(20:58):
all these big churches. It was Joe's crabshack that God used,
and just in a way I can't explain. And I'm
preaching to somebody with an attitude right now because you
don't even like where you live.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
You don't even like it.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
But often God positions you according to a higher priority
than your preference, and it's called his purpose. I'm sending
my angel and he will bring you to the place.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Here's the interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
The angel can bring you to the place, but it
cannot go in for you.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
All God can.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Do, because it is a cooperation of grace and faith
that causes his kingdom to operate on earth as it
is in heaven.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
All he can do is set you up. But He
will not take the step for you.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
If God took the step for you, it would not
be kindness, it would be cruelty.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
If God took.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
The step for you, he would put you in a
place that your faith was not prepared for. So the
great tragedy of Exodus twenty three is that God sent
the protection to bring them to the place. Yet an
entire generation never entered in.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Did you hear me?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
The entire congregation that Moses is delivering the message to
doesn't get to experience the benefits of God's promise. And
here's where it's a little theologically controversial.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
God's promises are not automatic. They're optional. Joy is optional.
Peace is optional. You can have it or you can
leave it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
You can live in bitterness or you can live in deliverance.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
But you have to take the step. Now.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
God says, I've positioned you. I've protected you. I kept
you alive. I brought you through it. The sea didn't
sweep over you. The slave master didn't kill you with
this whip. All I did was bring you out with
the possession that you need to go into the place that.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I've prepared for you. Three.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Not only will he protect me, not only will he
position me, but he will prepare me. Now we got three,
peace less preach. God has been setting you up for
this step all of your life, and before you is
the goodness and the glory of God made possible by
the grace of Jesus Christ. If it's just three people,
I came with an announcement. You're ready now. You don't
(23:27):
have to live in what was any longer, and you
don't have to stay stuck in a mindset then no
longer accommodates your anointing. You're ready now, the says the
spirit of the Lord. I kept you all your life.
I sustained you through many dangers, cause and stairs, and
now you're ready. A mind somebody looks happy say I'm ready.
(23:52):
I will protect you, I will position you, and I
will dirty word prepare you. Not a very fun one,
I know, I know. And the way he does it
is terrible. The way he does it is terrible. Did
y'all hear about the boiled frog?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Have you heard this? They teach. I don't know why
someone would want to do this.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I'm not recommending it, but if you want to boil
a frog, you ever just get it in your mind
you want to boil a frog? If you heard this before,
it's the old preacher thing. If you want to boil
a frog, don't put it in a boiling pot. Put
it in a pot and turn up the heat little
(24:35):
by little, and the frog won't know he's being boiled. Now,
I don't know what made the preacher want to boil
a frog. I can't answer that, but he is correct.
When the enemy wants to steal your confidence in the
promise of God, he doesn't do it all at once,
because if that alarm really went off, you jump out
the bed. So what does he do? Little by little?
(25:03):
And that's the warning that God is giving his people.
I'm sending my angel ahead of you. But if you
don't pay attention, and if you don't listen to what
he says, you will come to the place. And I
can prove to you that this happened to them because.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They got to the edge of the promise and they stopped.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And the reason that they stopped is because two spies
went in to the land and came out with faith
that they could do it. Ten spies went in and said,
they're bigger than us, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Jeptizites,
the Parizites, the Hiptites, the Amorites. They're bigger than us.
(25:47):
They're but guess what. They were already on the run.
Sometimes you are running from something that God has already.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Defeated ex trus you.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
So they're standing at the place God has protected them
along the way. God has what's the second one? Position
them for this moment? What's the third one? He prepared them?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
But guess what the angel can't do.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
There's one thing the Angel can't do and will not do.
There's one thing God won't do for you. He'll protect you.
He'll keep you. He'll keep your mind, he'll keep your sanity.
He'll keep you from people that would harm you. He
will keep you from places that you didn't even know
if you would have been there, what would have happened?
Speaker 1 (26:28):
And you will never even know on this side of.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Life, how many times God blocked stuff and turned stuff
and shifted stuff and moved stuff. And you thought it
was just you were a little bit late because you
forgot your wallet.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But there was a car.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Accident on seventy seven that had your name on it.
And when the devil said they're out, God said, I've
got sore.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
There are so anyway anyway, there's so many things you
don't even know to thank God for. If you could see,
for one moment all of the things that God kept
you from, Listen to me, Blakeney, if we ever got
a revelation of what God kept us from, it would
(27:08):
be a bad day for the worship team, because all
the worship leaders wouldn't have a job, because we wouldn't
even need them, because we would lead ourselves in worship,
because we would walk in the door.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
And we will walk in the.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Door clapping and shouting and rejoicing and praising God that
sometimes we don't see all the things that He's kept
us from and brought us to.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And now we're at this place and God has protected us. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
God has positioned us absolutely, and God has prepared us.
But there's one thing he won't do. He will not
possess the land for you. Here's the word of the Lord.
I will go before you, but I will not go
(27:58):
for you.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Your faith must make the step. Your faith must make
the step. And most of them never did.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Now, if they had gone in, they would have seen
that the giants that were still in the land were
left there on purpose. That was always confusing to me.
God said, I'm going to be an enemy to your enemies.
I'm going to oppose those who oppose you, and when
you get to the land.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I'm going to start driving them out.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I'm going to chase them away so you can inherit
what I have promised to you. But then he says,
I'm not going to do it all at once. I'm
going to do it like the frog, little by little,
I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
We wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
God, if these are giants who can kill us and
cause us to worship other gods, shouldn't you get rid
of them as soon as possible? Come on, I mean,
wouldn't it make sense that if God wants something out
of your life, he would take it out right away?
And maybe this is just me because I grew up
in churches where they said, if you will pray this prayer,
(29:10):
Jesus will come into your heart and he will take
away your fear, and he will take away your pain,
and he will dry every tear from your eye.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
And then I cried that night, and.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
I couldn't figure out where did that Kleenex go, that
cosmic Kleenex that Jesus was gonna bring and wipe every
tear from my eye? I couldn't figure it out because
I was expecting sanctification to work like salvation. When Jesus
saves you, he does it all at once. He doesn't
set you up on a thirty year payment plan. Salvation
(29:42):
is not a mortgage. When he comes in he comes.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
All the way in. And for those of.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You who have received his grace, let me tell you
something is amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's amazing. Here a shot, lean on the edge of
your seat.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
You will never be more forgiven than you are right now.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You will never be more love than you are right now.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
When He forgives you, he forgives you completely, immediately, fully,
without qualification. There is no corner of your heart he
didn't see when he sent his spirit to live within you.
You will never be more forgiven than you are right now.
But there is a difference between forgiveness and freedom.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Forgiveness happens all at once.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Freedom happens little by little, by little by little, and
is often so incremental that you don't even think is happening.
This is for everybody who's forty and thought you would
be smarter than you are right now, and you keep
(30:47):
doing dumb stuff that you've been doing all your life,
and you still feel outrage to the back row.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I don't need any love.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
You're doing stuff right now that you are doing at
age fourteen, and you got your own thirteen year old
and you still feel like a little kid yourself. And
it happens. It happened to Paul. Paul was that great apostle.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Have you heard of him? He took the gospel to
the Gentiles.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
What God started through Abraham he continued through Paul. He
told Abraham, he said, I got an assignment for you.
All the nations of the earth will.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Be blessed through you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
A What an assignment, he said, But don't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I'm going to bless you so you can be a blessing.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I will not require from you a resource that I
do not put within you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
You hear me. If God called you to.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Raise those hard headed kids, he will make your head
even harder. Boom, You met your match now because God
gave me. God gave me a cranium that can withstand
all of your craziness. Now God gives him the assignment,
and he gives him the assistance.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And Paul, in many ways, was grace.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
He was grace to be able to speak eloquently. He
was grace to be able to preach to the diaspora
of the Jewish tradition that he himself came from. But
one thing about Paul he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand
there was something in his life that he expected God
to take away that God left. You got anything like that,
(32:35):
fella looking at me so weird right now?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Maybe you're beyond Paul.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I would understand if you were holier than Paul, that
would make sense.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
But Paul was struggling. He hadn't quite a.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Arrived to your level of spiritual development and maturity. Paul said,
there was something that I asked God to do for
me that he would not do. Now, if you want
to know what it was, Paul's going to disappoint you
because he refuses to.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Name it by name.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
And I'm glad he didn't name it by name because
if he would have said it, I couldn't relate to it.
But the fact that he used this image, and I
want to read it to you now two Corinthians twelve seven.
It means that whatever is left in your life, whatever
is left in your life that you have been blaming
on the devil, can be used by God to fulfill
(33:25):
his purpose for your life. If you got anything like that,
wave at me, so I can see the seven people
that God gave me this message for. Paul said, I
was ascended to the third heaven. I saw things inutterable.
I was used by God in ways that are astounding,
in fact, beyond human vocabulary.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Therefore, now watch this. This is crazy, he says.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Because of that level of blessing, God gave me an
equal burden. Because the greater the assignment, the greater the adversity.
The greater the assignment, the greater the attack.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So Paul said, God took me up so.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
High and showed me so much that there had to
be something in my life that would keep me grounded
to his grace. He doesn't name it by name. He
doesn't need to, because he knows you have your own.
So he simply says, therefore, in order here's the clue
(34:30):
to keep me from becoming conceited, there was something that
God gave Paul to keep him in a space called grace,
so that he would never forget who led.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Him along the way, So that he would never.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Forget who brought him out of bondage and darkness into
the marvelous life. God said, I'm gonna I'm gonna lead
some stuff in your life. And so in order to
keep me from becoming conceited, there was given to me.
Sounds like he's about to get a new car, right,
(35:12):
He gave me gave me.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
This's got me in the mindset of a gift. What
did he give you, Paul? Did he give you a house?
Did he give you a promotion? Did he give you
a blessing? No?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
No, no, Paul said, one day the devil showed up
on my doorstep with a package and it had a
bow on it. I opened the package and in the
package was a thorn.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Now it was a gift, but it didn't look like
a gift.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It was a gift, but it was wrapped in something
that looked like pain.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I was given.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Watch this a thorn in my flesh? Was it a sickness?
Was it a temptation Paul had? Was it people talking
about him and he couldn't shut him up?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Was it Facebook? Probably?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
And he calls it this is crazy, a messenger of Satan.
How can he refer to it as a gift. If
it came from the enemy, it was sent to torment him.
That was the devil's intention to torment him.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Paul said.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
God took what the enemy intended to torment me and
used it to transform me.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So the enemy's tools.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Of torment become God's tools of transformation.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
And now I get it.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Now I get Exodus twenty three, because it's not just
the angels that God sends ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Of you that he uses to bless you. Those are wonderful.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
It's not just all of the promotions, and it's not
just the prosperity, and it's not just the peaceful situations.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
It's not just the yeses.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Sometimes God uses the nose to lead you to a
greater yes. God said, no, I won't take it away,
but yes, I will give you so much grace that
you will be stronger than it, and you will discover
a power that you could have never known if you
(37:28):
didn't have a problem. But he said to me, my grace,
by shock grace. Shout grace, don't mumble, shout grace. Shot
grace like you need it. Shout grace like you can't
make it without it. Shout grace like it's not just
something you say.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Before you eat. Shalt grace like you live by it.
Shout grace like he died to give it.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Shout grace like you know it's the avenue of pless.
So he didn't give me relief, He gave me grace.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And now I get it.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Why God left the giants in the land, because he
had them under contract. See they were They weren't used
to having to keep up their own land yet.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So God said, I'm gonna do you a favor.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
I'm gonna keep some enemies on your property. But don't
worry about your enemies. They work for me. I am God.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
What's good to me? It's good to me, it's good
to me.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Would it be bad if I downloaded this podcast myself?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
He said, I'm gonna leave some things. I'm gonna lease
some weaknesses in your life. Take it away now, I'm
gonna work through it.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Now, I'm gonna leave that weakness in your life, and
your weakness is going to lead you to my strength.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
God says.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Sometimes times I drive the giants out. Sometimes I let
them stay and I give them a job. Sometimes I
use the devil to deliver my mail. Sometimes I use
adversity to create an advantage in your life. Sometimes I
(39:23):
take what people meant.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
For evil and use it for.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Good because I'm God like that, and I got so.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Bad and I'm already there.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
So I'm gonna use not only my angel, but I'm
gonna use your enemies, and I'm gonna leave them there.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Why would you leave enemies on my territory, very simple.
Historians tell us that the land of Canaan at this time.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Was populated with wild animals that the Canaanites knew how
to deal with, but the Israelites didn't yet, particularly the
lions that lived in the land. And so God knew,
if I clear out all the enemies at once, the
lions will take them over.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
What's a group of lions called?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Does anybody know what?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
What?
Speaker 2 (40:29):
So? God said, if I clear all your enemies out
all at once, pride, we'll take over. Paul said, I
delight in weaknesses, Canaanites, insults, parasites, hardships, heavites. Don't you
(40:57):
see it, Paul said, I'm glad for my giants. I
don't just thank God for my angels. I thank Him
for my giants too. They taught me how to fight.
They built my faith. So it's a deep message. It's
a deep message. It's one thing to praise God for
(41:19):
your protection, but it's another thing to praise him for
your problems. I want to suggest that sometimes your problems
are your protection from yourself.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
You've had an addiction all your life, and.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
You've asked God to take the desire away, and he
won't why because I want you to need me, and
I want you to choose to serve me.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I will not force you to be free. I want
it to be your decision.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
So I'm going to leave some things in your life
that I know you want me to take out.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
But I'm not sending you into the fire alone.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I will be with you to deliver you, and I
will protect you, and I will prepare you, and I
will position you. But I cannot possess it for you.
Only you can possess this place. Only you can do it.
I can preach to you these principles, but I cannot
possess them.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
No one can do it for you.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Stop expecting for God's deliverance to be sudden.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
The greatest gift God can give you is gradual change,
so that he hides you from your own progress to
prevent your pride.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
God doesn't even want you to know you're growing. He
wants you to trust his grace. And that's why God said.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
To Paul, I'm not going to give you the gift
of relief. I'm gonna give you something greater, grace. It
looks like a thorn, but it's really grace. The devil
might have dropped it off at the doorstep. But I'm
the one who addressed it to you.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And no, I won't drive them all out, And no
I'm not going to make it easier. You know what.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
God won't fix your attitude. He'll give you his spirit
little by little as you serve and pray, show up.
Trust that He's working in your life. Little by little,
little by little, I am bringing you into the place
that I have prepared for you. The greater assignment gets
(43:50):
the greater assistance. If you've been going through some of
the things that Paul mentioned, weakness, insults, hardship, persecution, difficulties,
he mentions five and verse ten. I believe they are
the five giants that God leaves a measure of in
all of our lives.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I believe He leaves a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
All of that in all of our lives to teach
us to trust it. If it's been speaking to you
today while I've been preaching, and you would like for
me to agree in prayer for you to take your
next step in faith, stand to your feet, and I
will please at every location something that you wanted God
(44:28):
to take away, but He's left it for a reason.
Please don't leave because somebody might be standing about something
that's much more serious than traffic.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
So please stay right where you are.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
When God releases a word like this into your life,
it's kind of like that angel. It can only transform
you to the level that you put your attention on
it and decide to obey it. And so what you've
heard today has been a principle from God's word, a
principle of possession. And the principle is it. It's ready
when you are, It's ready when you are. God gave
(45:06):
you the giant as a gift to teach you to
drive it out by faith.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
That's how He strengthens you.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
And the opportunity is before you today.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
God said, I'll protect you.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I will, I'll prepare you, I'll position you, but I
will not possess it for you. The gift that I'm
going to give you is the grace to be patient
as you possess the promise. Father, would you minister right
now to each son and daughter that you have called
(45:42):
by name and chosen for this time, the grace that
they need for their specific situation. You said to Paul,
my grace is sufficient for you. I believe that promise
is personal for me.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And for them.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I don't believe there's a situation in this room that
you would not declare over My grace is enough. So
we stand in the sufficiency of your Spirit and your
son today and on every location. I come into agreement
with your people that we will not waste our Angel.
(46:26):
We will not waste this message. We will not waste
this moment. You have brought us this far. You have
brought us too far. You have been too good and
done too much for us to stand outside of freedom,
wishing about it, thinking about it and singing about it,
(46:46):
but not experiencing it.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I declare, in the name.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Of Jesus, we shall be free. We shall possess the land.
We shall inherit the promise. We shall receive all.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
That you'll die to provide. We shall rise as you
are risen. Come on, put a sut on that people,
put a sut on it.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Put a sut on it.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
By faith, we will inherit the land God. I come
against the spirit of discouragement today. The devil is a liar,
that spirit that always tells us, what's the point, You're
just like you were never gonna We say to that spirit,
shut up. In the name of Jesus, you're already defeated.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Get under our feet. We are the people of God.
Get beneath us.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
Right now we are walking on what we used to.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Run from in the name of Jesus. And every place
we set.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Our foot, You've already given it to us. If we step,
you step, If we go, you go, If we will,
you will.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
You are God, and we trusted you.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
We declare this day total victory.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
This is our declaration. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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