July 4, 2025 • 46 mins
You have everything you need to confront life's challenges head-on. God has equipped you with the strength and wisdom needed to manage whatever comes your way.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
In your life. Enjoy the message. So I thought we
would call on Moses.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
If we're talking about faith, he certainly deserves to be heard.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
As to how he did what he did.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And I chose a selection in Exodus four one through five,
and I want to read it to you.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Let's go over and see Moses on the far side
of the desert and Midian, the voice of God has
summoned him from the crackling of a bush that will
not burn, but is on fire. And I think that's
a picture of a life that is set on fire
(00:57):
by faith, is that it burns up but it doesn't
and out. And now he's negotiating with God and he says,
an exodus for one.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
What if.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
They do not believe me or listen to me and say,
the Lord did not appear to you. And then the
Lord said to him, and what's that in your hand?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Staff?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
He answered? The Lord said throw it down on the ground.
And Moses threw it on the ground. It became a snake,
and he ran from it. Somebody say, smart guy. Well
then the Lord said to him, reach out your hand
and take it by the tail. So Moses reached out,
(01:56):
took hold of the snake, and it turned back into
a staff in his hand. This said the Lord, is
so that they may believe the Lord, the God of
their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you. I
really want to live.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Verse four.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
The Lord said to him, reach out your hand and
take it by the tail. So Moses reached out, took
hold of the snake, and it turned back into a
staff in his hand. I need your help for one
moment before you take your seat, and I need you
to announce my message title to your neighbor.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So put your hand on their shoulder.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Get their attention, and when you give them my title
in a moment, I want you to holler at him
when you give.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Them my title.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I don't want you to whisper it, mumble it, suggest it.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I want you to command it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Okay, tell your neighbor, say neighbor, I don't know what
you're going through.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I don't know what you're dealing with. But God told me.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
To tell you handle it. That's my nigh kid, fight
your other neighbors, say neighbor, other neighbor.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You were my second choice.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Don't be offended, but just know that God wanted me
to tell you handle it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Amen, clap your hands. You may be seated.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Thank you, Worship team. Don't we have fun together? Don't
we have a good time?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Amen? Look at this because.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
If you can have a flashback with me from when
Tom Hanks was on that island alone and he he
had to make friends with a volleyball. Now, those of
you who are participating in this portion of the sermon
are old.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I know only five of y'all would remember this reference.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
But in the movie Castaway, where Tom Hanks had been
alone so long that his only companion was a volleyball,
and he called the volleyball.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What Wilson.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And they did a good job with that movie that
that they bonded you enough with a volleyball that you
remember it as a character. You know, you can become
so attached to something inanimate that it becomes lifelike to you.
(04:44):
Exhibit a right. I remember when I first asked Chris Brown,
I was like, you think I should get an iPhone.
I don't know if I don't think I would. I
don't think I would use it very much. Yeah right,
I just didn't know what it was capable of. Moses
has a staff.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
In his hand in Exodus chapter.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And by the time God gets through showing Moses what
that staff can do, Mose, I wonder.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I wonder if he got.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So attached to the staff that he ever gave it
a name. Do you think do you think he called it?
What do you think he called it? I think he
called it rod.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Even.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I feel a connection to my microphone, this particular microphone.
When I go preach other places and they give me
another mic it takes me like five minutes to get
it right in my hands because this one. I mean,
I know this microphone, I know how to handle it,
and I like having this microphone. I can control certain
things about it. So I like the handheld microphone.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I really like it.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
When I want to preach. When I want to preach
like I'm Drake, I can grab it up here. It's
not the professional way to hold it. My sound guys
hate that when I do that, but they put a
special thing on it because they know I do it,
so it doesn't make all this feedback. But anyway, it's
my mic.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's see.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
You can tell I have a close relationship because I
gave it a name. I call it Mike. That's how
close we are. Okay, I'll stop now. But in Exodus
chapter four, Moses he's getting acquainted with his staff. He's
getting to know God and he's getting to know Rod,
(06:24):
all in the same scene. And I like it because, well,
I know something Moses doesn't know about what that thing
is capable of. And when I'm watching Moses deal with
this staff, that will become, in many ways so much
of a part of his life that I wonder did
he feel like it was a part of him.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I know what this staff is going to do at
the Red Sea.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I know that when the Egyptians are chasing Moses and
the Hebrew people two and a half million strong out
of Egypt, that that Moses is going to stretch that
staff over that sea, and the right side of the
sea is going to tell the left side of the sea.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I'll see you in a little while. We got to
split up for a minute.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I'll meet you back when the Egyptians hit the water,
because we're going to drown them.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
But we've got a part for God's people.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
How many know that God will direct the elements on
your behalf when you walk in in faith.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I found that to be true in my life.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But but that was the staff that Moses stretched, That
was the sea he stretched it over.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
He doesn't know this yet, we do.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
So I'm really interested because I feel like I feel
like I know the staff because I see it so
many different times in the scripture. I saw it one
time when Pharaoh wouldn't let the people go, and God
told Moses, you know, take your staff and stretch it
out and strike the Nile river, the river in Egypt.
And when you strike that river, it's going to turn
(07:59):
from water to blood, and that'll compel Pharaoh to give
a second thought to keeping you inslaved. And he did that,
and the water turned to blood. That staff, it's the
same staff that's in chapter four. It's the same staff
in chapter seven when he does he strikes the nile,
turns the blood. Then he strikes the bloody nile, and
then some frogs start coming out of the nile and
(08:21):
cover the land of Egypt. And it was that same
staff where he struck the nile, same staff that turned
into a snake in chapter four, same staff in chapter
seven he struck the nile, turned the blood, struck the
nile again, frogs came out. Then he struck the ground,
he struck, struck the dust, and then the gnats came
out of the dust. And so all this is happening
with Moses in this staff. He doesn't know the staff
(08:42):
is capable of all this we do. And so I'm
intrigued to know how did it start? And I'm intrigued
to know that it started with a staff. I'm intrigued
by that started with something as simple as a staff,
because that same staff when the people of God we're
thirsty one time and we're complaining about it. God told Moses,
(09:03):
I hate when my people complained, but I still love
them enough to make sure they don't die. Aren't you
grateful for God's patience with you. Well, he took the
staff and he struck a rock with it, and the
water flowed out of the rock. And the staff had
this power that Moses couldn't have known, that he had
the potential that he couldn't have known that it had,
but when he used.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
It in the right way, it did something.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
It was cool and water came out of the rock
and they all drank from the water in the rock
that staff.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
And so so.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I want to learn everything I can about this staff.
I almost feel like it's a person to me because
I saw Moses fight against the Amalekites. Well, he didn't
fight against him. Joshua fought against him, and Moses had
a job. He had to raise the staff. And while
Moses was raising the staff, and Aaron and Herb got
under his arms because he got tired holding it up.
And when they supported him and he raised his staff,
(09:51):
the Israelites were victorious on the battlefield. Often it's the
support system that you don't see that produces the results
that you're most concerned with. So while he's doing it
and his hands are up, the Israelites, when his hands dropped,
they start losing.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
But it was the staff in his hands. It was
the staff in his hands.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Tell somebody next to you, there's a staff in your hands.
And what's cool about it is that there are many
lessons that we can learn and we don't even have
to be Moses delivering people out of four hundred and
thirty years of slavery to learn them.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
We can just learn them for our everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And the first thing that I think the staff is
saying to us in this message today is that everything
you need is within reach. I heard a motivational speaker
say that once. It rang true with me, that everything
you need is within reach. Moses, in response to God's calling.
(10:48):
I feel the spirit of God on me today to
preach this message, by the way, so you ought to
be excited about what you're going to receive.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He continues the.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Conversation with God after God shows him who he is
with the phrase that I preached the whole series around
one time, and the phrase is what if? Verse one.
Moses answered, what if? Do you know how many dreams
have died beneath the weight of that phrase? What if?
What if is a It's a phrase that I like
(11:19):
to refer to as fierce greatest hit.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
What if? What if? I mean, how many things in.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Your life did you not do because what if? And
how many things in your life did you do that
you shouldn't have done because what if? How many nights
could you have slept?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
But what if? Kept you awake.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
How many mornings did you wake up anxious? Because what
if was your alarm clock?
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What if not? Just what if?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Moses wants to know? What if pay attention to the
next word? What if they? What if they say.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
The third time?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Because I want to come on the screen and I
think there are times gonna be the charm? What if
is in verse one? What if they? What if the
scripture doesn't come up and I keep preaching anyway? But
it's a it's a it's a good question, what if,
And it's where many of us wonder and wander our
(12:22):
whole lives. What if they? What if they laugh at me?
What if they don't accept me? Now, on one hand,
Moses is in a hypothetical situation because he hasn't even
done anything yet, but he's just playing out.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
The possible after effects of his obedience. What if they?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But on the other hand, it's not hypothetical at all.
It's historical because Moses is afraid of the same rejection
that he experienced forty years earlier, recurring, for it was
forty years earlier that Moses had killed an Egyptian in
defense of his people, and because he did the right thing,
(13:01):
the wrong way he ended up on the run. And
there's something about when you've tried to do the right
thing and put your heart in something but you did
it the wrong way, that you don't even want to
try again. And so now Moses is asking something that's
hypothetical but is based out of what is historical, and
he's projecting his past into his potential and it's his
(13:23):
limiting factor. But God wants him to know that that
staff in your hand. Now, to us, a staff is
a shepherding instrument, and Moses was using it to tend
his father in last sheep. But to Moses, the staff
represented a whole lot more than his vocation. It represented
his mistakes. Because if he had never killed the Egyptian
(13:44):
and ended up a fugitive on the run from Egypt,
where he was born into or adopted into royalty, he never.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Would have had the staff in his hand.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So when God tells him what's in your hand, it
causes Moses to have to reckon with the mistakes that
he's made that have landed him in the position that
he's in.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Because when God speaks to you.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
About your potential, he will cause you to confront your past.
Touch somebody say handle it. So he says, what's that
in your hand? And to Moses is his staff, But
to Moses is also his past, and to Moses is
also his instrument, the thing that he has to do
what he's doing. And so there's a whole lot happening
in this staff. And yet God says, what you have
(14:26):
is what you need. And God wanted to say that
to a single mom today, that what you have is
what you need.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That he put enough in you to raise that child.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
He foresaw that you would be in the situation, and
he compensated for what others didn't give you by putting
a result and a determination in you. That's more than enough.
And everything you need is within reach. So leave your
(14:55):
list of what you don't have alone today?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
What is that in your hand?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
The wisdom that you need is probably in a book
that's on your shelf that you haven't read. I was
talking to a guy who passed her to church one
time that was bigger than mine. I said, I need
some advice and he said, I gave you a book.
I said, you mean that book three years ago? He said, yeah,
(15:25):
that book three years ago. Did you read it?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I said no, I didn't get around to it.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
He said, I knew that you were going to be
at this place because I've been there, so I gave
you what I knew you would need. You missed it,
he said. He said, call me back when you read
the book.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
At least read a.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Couple chapters and we'll talk. What are we even going
to talk about? You know, sometimes when you pray and
ask God to download information about a decision, God, how
should I handle it?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
He's like, did you even read the book that I book?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And we've never lived in a time where the information
that is in the Word of God has been more
accessible to us. My God, They'll send you alarms, They'll
break it down for you.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
They'll give you a Bible reading in a year.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Plan Bible reading in the Book of Psalm's plan a
Bible reading in.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Southern Dialect.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Plan to give you a Bible reading Bible how to
read the Bible with your dog in thirty two days
every morning on your walk with your dog, an audio
Bible Bible in Braille. Touch somebody say grab it, grab it,
grab it. You gotta grab it.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You gotta go.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Joy is there, you gotta grab it. Wisdom is there,
you gotta grab it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's there. The information that you need.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
For the transformation of your life is waiting to be
seized by those who will open their.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Eyes to what they've been given. And I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Okay, So everything that you need is in your read
which it was something that he had already in his
hand that produced what he needed to move forward into
the future and to accomplish God's purpose in the earth.
I'm moved by that because I get caught up in what.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I don't have. I know you don't.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I didn't say you did. I said I do. Get
caught up in what I don't have. But here's the
thing the Lord is teaching me. It's less about what
you have, and it's more about how you handle what
you have.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I'll prove it to you. Do you have Netflix? All right?
Go on Netflix? Put it on. I think they have
this on Netflix. Thirty for thirty.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
It's a documentary series from ESPN.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Put it on. Broke. Put it on the one called Broke.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
It will show you athletes that made millions of dollars
and by the time their careers were over, they were
in debt. Because it's not what you it's how you.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
What you have.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Say it again, come on with me. It's not what
you it's how what you have. That's true with money.
I've met rich people who are further behind than poor people.
I've met poor people who are greedier than rich people.
It's not what you have, it's how you handle what
(18:37):
you have. That's what God wants to know. How are
you handling it. It's not the woman you married, it's
how you handle the woman that you married that determines
whether you get the.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Marriage that you want. Now, the selection process is important.
You can cook better with good ingredients.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
But but I'm saying that somebody might be able to
take your same ingredients.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And make something delicious. Because it's not what you have,
is how you watch you that determines what you do.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I found out that teenagers think they're busy.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
They do.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
They'll tell you I'm busy, how do it? Oh God,
I'm busy. You're busy. And they're twelve. Now they're thirteen
years old.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
And I follow up with a question, do you have
a baby, because if you don't have a baby, you
don't know busy.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Preach with me.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
In fact, I want all you busy thirteen year olds.
You're so busy. I want you to find a twenty
five year old woman in the lobby, one that's got
a little car seat that she's trying to carry on
the way out the door from church, and walk up
to her and tell her how busy you are, and
watch her look back at you, and take about the
(20:12):
next five minutes to show you that it's not how
much stress you have, is how you handle the stress
that you have that determines. I'm saying, you could do
a lot more if you handled it differently. You could
accomplish a lot more if you handled it differently. It's
all in how you handle it. It's all in how
(20:35):
you handle it. It's usually not the things that you
think are stressing you out that are stressing you out.
It's the things you are mishandling in other areas of
your life that make you hate your job. Or it's
the things you are mishandling in your job that make
you hate your life at home. So now you come
home and you take out your frustration from there on
them because you didn't handle it here. Now it's showing
(20:57):
up over there. Touch her name, paper, say handle it.
You got to learn to handle it, whether it's weights
in a weight room, or whether it's life. See, because
you keep asking God to take some of the weight off.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Of your life.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But faith doesn't take the weight off of my life.
It shows me how to handle it. How many of
you have a situation in your life today and you
want God to show you how to handle it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Just wave your hand.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
If that's you, come on, just wave your hand if
that's you.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Well.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
See, God is good and God is strong. God is great,
and God is good. And so God told Moses, I
heard my people crying out, and their cry reached me,
and I've come down to rescue them. That's what he
told Moses in Exodus chapter three. He said, I've seen
(21:50):
my people in cruel oppression. I saw how Pharaoh was
treating them. I see what you're going through. I see
what it's like. I see that you're trying. And God said,
I came down and I'm gonna handle it. I'm gonna
(22:11):
handle this. I'm gonna handle it now before you get
really excited about it.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
God has his own way of handling things. So you'll
be like asking God.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
To send all the people away so they can get
some food, and he'll tell you to steal a little
boy's lunch and bring it to him.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
That's how he handles it.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
You'll be looking at Jericho and you'll see some big
walls and you'll be like, God, we need to knock
these down whill you handle it? And God won't give
you a wrecking ball, He'll give you a trumpet, because
God has his own way of handling it. You'll tell
(22:58):
him I don't have anything to pay my debt's off
of and he'll tell you what do you have in
your house and you'll say a little bit of oil.
And he'll tell you to go to your neighbors and
borrow jars. And you'll say, no, that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I'm in debt.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I don't need to borrow anything else. And they say,
but go to these people and borrow it in the
right way. And when you borrow it in the right way,
now you're going to get something that you didn't have
because God has a strange way of handling things. Or
you'll be praying that he would send the Messiah and
you'll be thinking that Thora is going to come down
out of the sky and save the world. And God
will show up and speak to a virgin girl and
(23:26):
say that I know that even though you have been
active with a man, yet your husband's going to want
to divorce you. What's in you is conceived of the
Holy Spirit, and it's going to come forth and it's
going to be the salvation of the world. But it's
going to start in a manger because God's going to
handle it in a strange way. I'll speak into somebody.
You're in a situation right now, and God is handling
it and you don't even know it because he's handling
(23:47):
it in a cradle. And if the cradle isn't enough proof,
he proves it on the cross, when he defeats death
with the very instrument that symbolizes its most violent nature.
He doesn't feed death with the tank, he doesn't defeat
death with the sword. He defeats death with a cross.
Because God has a strange way of handling your situation.
(24:10):
And so he's handling it and you don't even know
he's handling it because you've never seen it handled like
that before.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He tells you to turn the other cheek, and.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Usually you're the one turning someone's cheek when they offend you.
And God said, no, I got another way to handle it,
to handle it. Can you handle it? Can you handle
it and see what started as the thing that Moses
(24:39):
feared a snake became the very thing that Moses needed
a staff.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Let me work on that.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
The first time I did ministry was in a church
called Santi Circle Community Church. Now, my first church was
in the Methodist Church in Mook's Corner where I grew up.
Mickey made me his youth minister, and he would put
me in this little room in the Woodmen of the
World Building. This is on the outskirts of Monk's Corner,
South Carolina, on the outskirts of Monk's Corner, South Carolina
(25:17):
in the Women of the World Building.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And I was reliving this with some of our team
this week.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
We have an apprenticeship program at the church called two
K two and it's it's for all of those who
wanted This is actually like a product placement.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Let me do this real quick. Elevation two K two
dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Have you ever felt called into ministry but didn't know
what your next steps might be? Join us at two
K two, a twenty two week immersive ministry experience designed
to propel you into your potential. Join us at Elevation
two K two dot com. So I was doing a
teaching forum.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I was doing a teaching forum this past week and
they said, you are good at connecting with different types
of people people, white people, old people, young people, religious people,
not religious people.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I said, you got to go back to the Woodmen
of the World Building to understand that. In the Woodmen
of the World Building, I had these kids, about fifteen kids.
They would bring in, most of them on vans, and
me and Anne Johnson and Miss Delilah.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That was the lady's named Delilah. Miss Delilah. We get
the kids over on.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
The vans, and many of them came from really a
low income part of town, and so they would come
in and white kids, black kids, but most of them
only came for food, and so they came over and
just wanted something to do. And that's who I started
preaching to. So you think it intimidates me, if you
sit with your arms crossed. I started with much worse
(26:44):
than you. I started in a room full of snakes.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I can deal with it. I can handle it, so
I said.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
But I had a balance because if I wasn't interesting,
a fight would break out.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So I had to like it moving.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I mean, if they got bored, they got violent, and
so you know, I'm over here working on my Bible text.
I'd only been reading my Bible for a couple of months,
so I didn't know a lot about the Bible yet.
So I was just making stuff up out of the
Bible the best I could.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I was sixteen, y'all. So there was one kid in the.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Group called Matthew Johnson, Matthew Johnson, and he was like
he was thirteen, but he had been in Bible school
all his life.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
The kid's Bible, this Bible nerd. His mom had taken
him to every vacation.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Bible school in the Charleston metro area all of his life.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
He had like nine weeks of Bible school every summer under.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
His belt vacation Bible school. So if I got something wrong,
Matthew would stand up and correct me. In the middle
of the Wednesday night class one night, I came in
preaching about the woman with the issue of blood. And
I hadn't studied it, but I thought I knew what
it meant. And I said, this woman came to Jesus
and she was bleeding. Her face was just covered in blood.
Somebody must have beat her out I don't know who
(28:01):
got a hold of her, but she's bleeding. Matthew stood up,
said it was an internal issue of blood Steven thirteen
year old. But then on the other end of the spectrum,
if I was accurate but not interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Then those kids didn't care.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So one night a fight broke out in the middle
of my teaching and I just walked out, walked out
the building, shut the door on that little twenty five
dollars a week they were paying me to teach that class.
And I sat under a tree and I was like, Jonah,
if you ever heard of Jonah in the Bible, he
sat under a tree and prayed that he might die
so he wouldn't have to preach to the Ninovites.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
And I was like, Lord, you kill I'd rather you
kill me than go.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Back in there with these kids, because I'm gonna kill them,
and I'd rather be dead than in prison.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
So I'm gonna sit out here till you show me
what to do.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
After about ten minutes of this, Ryan who was like
the biggest kid in the group who came in on
the van, Ryan came over and Ryan really liked me.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
And Ryan came over to the tree and he.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Said, Yo, see, I want you to know something that
as long as you need to stay out here and
get yourself together, it's cool because I just had to
talk with everybody in this room, and I want you
to know when you come back in is handle. I
(29:21):
don't know what he said to those kids. I don't
even want to know. But when I went back in
that room, it was like an Episcopalian church on a
Sunday morning.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It was like a Catholic Mass.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Those kids were leaned forward in their chair. Why because
he handled it. I don't even know how buddy handled it.
Have you ever had a situation in your life where
you were throwing a petty party and didn't want to
go back in and didn't want to try again, and
had taken off from Egypt and didn't even want to
(29:57):
face your future because.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Of the paint of your pass.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But here comes Jesus walking up to you on the
second road today on the fourth row at the Gaston campus,
walking up to you on an iPhone street, wants.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
To let you know, whenever you get ready to come
back in and do what I've called you to do,
come on back in. Its handled.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Somebody set his handle, set his handle's handled. God told Moses,
you can go back to Egypt, because everybody who wanted
to kill you is dead. While you were out here
in Egypt, I was dealing with your issues.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And his handle touch. Three people say, is handle, is handle?
Is handle. God wants you to know.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Shame can't keep you at bay anymore because what Jesus
was doing on that cross when they thought that he
was dying, he wasn't dying. He was delivering you from
the power of sitting death and was held against me,
was nailed to his cross. And I'm standing here today
with my hands stretched.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
High, with my hand held high, with my shoulders.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Strown back, blidly approached.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
The throne with confidence in the time of my need.
Because it's handle, it's handled.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I feel the sphirit of Olivia Pupe coming on me.
Somebody shot his handles.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's handle.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
That's what Ryan said. He said, is handle. When you
get ready to come back in, you need to know
his handle. When you get ready to go into your future,
you need to know his handle.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Somebody shot his handle, is handled, his handle, his handle,
his handle.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I love that Bible verse in Philippians four thirteen, where
Paul is talking about I know what to do in
any situation. If I have a little, if I have
a lot, I can handle it. Because he says, there
is a famous Bible verse. Have you heard this before?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
He said, Christ can do all things through me. Did
I mess it up? And must because I'm tired from
the race.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I must have got a little of that champagne absorbed
in my body at the at the race.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Let me try again.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Christ can do because because He's gonna handle it right,
Christ can do all things through me. God's gonna handle it.
Huh oh, he wants to help you handle it. Here's
(32:43):
how God showed me. He said, I will handle what
you can't, but I will not handle what you want.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
See.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I handle your sin. You can't handle that. A hand
your past, you can't handle that. But he told Moses,
let me show you one more things. So now he
told Moses, somebody shot handled handled. He told Moses, he said.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Pick it up. Now it's not a staff anymore in
this moment, it's a snake. So what does Moses do?
He does what you do with your fears, and he runs.
Did you see it in the text? He said, what
(33:40):
verse was it?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Was it three?
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Where he ran was it three get and he ran
from it.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
That's the same thing that he did when he killed
the man in Egypt. He's learned to run. He's learned
to run, and God won't handle what you run from.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So he runs. Can y'all hear me? Okay in the back?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Oh, I know what I should do, because this thing
only works in my hand. This is a good sermon
for your life, for your marriage, for your soul, for
(34:42):
any situation. God tells him to reach for the thing
that he's been running from, and as he reaches, watch this.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
As he reaches, the staff changes back into a staff
from us as he reaches.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We got to work on this, y'all weren't paying attention.
Go to four Go to four seventeen, Exitus four seventeen.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I'm almost done. I will hasten to a close. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
He told him to go l jay, he said, but
take this staff. Everybody shout, come on, shout the phrases
inbolded orange letters for a reason. Take the staff. Hit
me with twenty real quick. I think it's twenty. So
Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey,
and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff
(35:36):
of God. Next verse, when he was confronting Pharaoh, he said,
go out and confront him on the bank of the now,
and take the staff that was changed into a snake.
You see in a pattern. I keep going next verse
until you all see it. When they were standing in
front of the Red Sea, he said, raise your staff
(35:57):
and stretch out your right right. It's got to be
in your it's got to be in your Go to
the next verse. What's the next verse. Oh, that's when
they were That's when they were going out, and he
was going out ahead of the people, and he said,
take in your hand the staff with which you struck
the nile. Here's here's the interesting thing, and this is
(36:17):
what the Lord wanted you to know. His situation was changing.
But the same staff that got him through the last
one worked in the next one when he had it
in his hand. The only time that Moses got in
trouble with his staff is when he struck the rock
that God told him to speak to, and he didn't
(36:38):
enter the Promised Land because he didn't know how to
handle what was in his hand. You get in trouble
when you try to handle it your way. You get
in trouble. When you try to resolve it your way,
you get in trouble when you try to take the
snake by the head. See that was interesting to me.
We just moved out into the country two years ago,
(36:58):
and everybody was given me advice greg on being in
the country. I think they were worried about me, that
I wouldn't know what to do and how.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
To survive in the country. And they were right. So
I welcomed their advice.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And everybody was telling me, now you're you're gonna see
you're gonna have snakes for the first time.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So here's what you need to do with the snake.
And you know what nobody told me.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Nobody told me that to handle a snake the way
God told Moses to handle a snake.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Nobody. Go back to verse verse four. He said, reach
out your and what.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Nobody told me to take the snake by the tail,
because that's not the way you handle a snake naturally.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Take it by the.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
You'll look confused. I'm not doing my job, am I
I got to get this right, he said, take it
by the See, the way we try to grab situations
in our life is we want.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
To control it. That's not the right way to hold.
He said, take it by the take it by the now,
to take a snake by the tail, and I will.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
Remind you that the snake didn't change back into a
staff until it was in Moses's hand. Your issue is
not going to change until you handle it. Your pain
(38:31):
is not going to become your purpose until you handle it.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But if you handle it your way, you're going to
be depressed about it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
But if you handle God's way, God's work, God's way,
God's will, God's way, God's word, God's way. You've done
it long enough your way. It is time for you
to do it God's way. And it's time for you
to take it by the tail. God told me to
tell you you feel it, don't you. God said that
(39:02):
mistakes happen, But when they happen, take them by the
tail and trust me to turn your mistake into a
miracle when you take it by the tale. When pain
and rejection happen in your life, your rejection in one
season can lead to your destiny.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
In the next. When you take it by the tale.
I came to say that.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
What they said about you isn't gonna destroy you. It's
only gonna develop you, to make you stronger to give
you a stepfastness. When you take it by the tail,
you know what you're gonna do with that doctor's report.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Take it by the tail. You know what you're gonna
do with that loneliness.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Take it by the tail. You know what you're gonna
do with everything that's been keeping you up at night, worried,
wringing your head. This isn't my problem, This isn't my issue.
The battle is the Lord's. He'll handle Pharaoh. I got
this thing by the tail.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I trust your Lord.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Does anybody trust them in your situation? So I.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
So I trust God enough to take it by the tail.
And it only changes when you handle it. As long
as you stand there looking at it, it's a snake.
Speaker 5 (40:26):
As long as you stand there praying about it, it's
a snake. You can't pray and make the snake go away.
Pray about it, pick.
Speaker 7 (40:38):
It up and make it work, and come on, come on,
make it, come on, make it work.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
In your favor. I'm saying handle it. I'm saying there's
nothing life can throw at you.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That you can't handle it.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
By the spirit of God myself, I can handle it.
Somebody encourage five people in your area tell him you
can handle it.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
You can handle it. You can handle it, Yes, you can.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
You've gotta handle it. You've gotta handle it. You were
made to handle it. You were built to handle it.
God's gonna help you handle it. He's gonna show you
how to handle it.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
He's got you in the palm of his hand. He's
gonna help you. Raise thou children. He's gonna help.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
You'll get through this season. He's gonna help you make
the decision. Lift your hands like it's handled. Come on,
lift your voice like this handled and shut unto.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
God, little voice God me on trial, need to We
need to name God. We need the boy h got me, boyd.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Child, I gotta tell you this. My time is over.
Touch somebody say it's handled his hand, because the thoughts.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Just hit me and it scared me and it would
haunt me if I didn't say it to you. What
if Moses had kept running, he never would have seen
what the staff could do. He never would have seen
the transformation that would take place.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Think about it. It was a decision in a moment.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
What if I never would have picked a mic up
and started preaching into cameras to screens. How many people
could we not have touched together. And I didn't think
I could do it, and I was real scared about it,
and I didn't know if I could forgive my dad
because he really hurt me right before he died. And
(43:17):
I almost ran from it, and I almost didn't go
over to his house on Father's Day and stopped by
for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
But I'm so glad that I took it.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
By the tail side with my hands shaking, and I
wanted to run, and still pretty much every week before
I preach, there's a part of me that.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Wants to run.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I got a friend here today who's a good preacher,
really good preacher, great preacher. He told me he's coming
to visit, and I almost asked him, do you just
want to preach? Because I think I got a sermon?
But right now it looks like a snake. See, I
told the apprentices the other I said, when when I
know a sermon is going to be good on Sunday
(44:04):
is when I'm scared.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Of it on Thursday. That's that's how it works for me.
But if you I gotta go. I'm out of time.
But I'm ensure you this.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
If you stand there and look at it long enough,
and you stand there and and and and analyze the
snake long enough, and you get down here and wait
for it to change. And God, if they say I'm sorry,
then I'll forgive them. And God if you if you
give me more money, then i'll get Then I'll tithe.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
And God, if you and you're.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Waiting for it to change on the ground, but it's
only gonna change when you trust.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
God enough to take it by the tail, come on,
lift your hands. I want to pray for you. God,
give them courage. You know they're gonna need it. You know,
Pharaoh has them running. You know, Pharaoh is that is
that snake? Do you know? Pharaoh is that thing? You know,
Pharaoh is that addiction. You know, Pharaoh is that insecurity?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
You know, Pharaoh is that taskmaster that tries to convince
them that they're never enough.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
But we came today to say that the head of
the serpent has already been crushed. Hallelujah.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for as
stretch storms, we thank you for as crops, we thank
you for as power, and we declare over our lives today,
whatever it is that stands against your children and Jesus
name and is hand on somebody claim your thank you
(45:39):
for joining us special thanks to those of you who
give generously to this ministry.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
more information and if you enjoyed the podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
You can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
You can click the shit button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
In your life. Enjoy the message. So I thought we
would call on Moses.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
If we're talking about faith, he certainly deserves to be heard.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
As to how he did what he did.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And I chose a selection in Exodus four one through five,
and I want to read it to you.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Let's go over and see Moses on the far side
of the desert and Midian, the voice of God has
summoned him from the crackling of a bush that will
not burn, but is on fire. And I think that's
a picture of a life that is set on fire
(00:57):
by faith, is that it burns up but it doesn't
and out. And now he's negotiating with God and he says,
an exodus for one.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
What if.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
They do not believe me or listen to me and say,
the Lord did not appear to you. And then the
Lord said to him, and what's that in your hand?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Staff?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
He answered? The Lord said throw it down on the ground.
And Moses threw it on the ground. It became a snake,
and he ran from it. Somebody say, smart guy. Well
then the Lord said to him, reach out your hand
and take it by the tail. So Moses reached out,
(01:56):
took hold of the snake, and it turned back into
a staff in his hand. This said the Lord, is
so that they may believe the Lord, the God of
their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you. I
really want to live.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Verse four.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
The Lord said to him, reach out your hand and
take it by the tail. So Moses reached out, took
hold of the snake, and it turned back into a
staff in his hand. I need your help for one
moment before you take your seat, and I need you
to announce my message title to your neighbor.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
So put your hand on their shoulder.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Get their attention, and when you give them my title
in a moment, I want you to holler at him
when you give.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Them my title.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I don't want you to whisper it, mumble it, suggest it.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I want you to command it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Okay, tell your neighbor, say neighbor, I don't know what
you're going through.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I don't know what you're dealing with. But God told me.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
To tell you handle it. That's my nigh kid, fight
your other neighbors, say neighbor, other neighbor.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
You were my second choice.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Don't be offended, but just know that God wanted me
to tell you handle it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Amen, clap your hands. You may be seated.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Thank you, Worship team. Don't we have fun together? Don't
we have a good time?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Amen? Look at this because.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
If you can have a flashback with me from when
Tom Hanks was on that island alone and he he
had to make friends with a volleyball. Now, those of
you who are participating in this portion of the sermon
are old.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I know only five of y'all would remember this reference.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
But in the movie Castaway, where Tom Hanks had been
alone so long that his only companion was a volleyball,
and he called the volleyball.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
What Wilson.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And they did a good job with that movie that
that they bonded you enough with a volleyball that you
remember it as a character. You know, you can become
so attached to something inanimate that it becomes lifelike to you.
(04:44):
Exhibit a right. I remember when I first asked Chris Brown,
I was like, you think I should get an iPhone.
I don't know if I don't think I would. I
don't think I would use it very much. Yeah right,
I just didn't know what it was capable of. Moses
has a staff.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
In his hand in Exodus chapter.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
And by the time God gets through showing Moses what
that staff can do, Mose, I wonder.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I wonder if he got.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So attached to the staff that he ever gave it
a name. Do you think do you think he called it?
What do you think he called it? I think he
called it rod.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Even.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I feel a connection to my microphone, this particular microphone.
When I go preach other places and they give me
another mic it takes me like five minutes to get
it right in my hands because this one. I mean,
I know this microphone, I know how to handle it,
and I like having this microphone. I can control certain
things about it. So I like the handheld microphone.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I really like it.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
When I want to preach. When I want to preach
like I'm Drake, I can grab it up here. It's
not the professional way to hold it. My sound guys
hate that when I do that, but they put a
special thing on it because they know I do it,
so it doesn't make all this feedback. But anyway, it's
my mic.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's see.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
You can tell I have a close relationship because I
gave it a name. I call it Mike. That's how
close we are. Okay, I'll stop now. But in Exodus
chapter four, Moses he's getting acquainted with his staff. He's
getting to know God and he's getting to know Rod,
(06:24):
all in the same scene. And I like it because, well,
I know something Moses doesn't know about what that thing
is capable of. And when I'm watching Moses deal with
this staff, that will become, in many ways so much
of a part of his life that I wonder did
he feel like it was a part of him.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I know what this staff is going to do at
the Red Sea.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I know that when the Egyptians are chasing Moses and
the Hebrew people two and a half million strong out
of Egypt, that that Moses is going to stretch that
staff over that sea, and the right side of the
sea is going to tell the left side of the sea.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I'll see you in a little while. We got to
split up for a minute.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I'll meet you back when the Egyptians hit the water,
because we're going to drown them.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
But we've got a part for God's people.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
How many know that God will direct the elements on
your behalf when you walk in in faith.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I found that to be true in my life.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
But but that was the staff that Moses stretched, That
was the sea he stretched it over.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
He doesn't know this yet, we do.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
So I'm really interested because I feel like I feel
like I know the staff because I see it so
many different times in the scripture. I saw it one
time when Pharaoh wouldn't let the people go, and God
told Moses, you know, take your staff and stretch it
out and strike the Nile river, the river in Egypt.
And when you strike that river, it's going to turn
(07:59):
from water to blood, and that'll compel Pharaoh to give
a second thought to keeping you inslaved. And he did that,
and the water turned to blood. That staff, it's the
same staff that's in chapter four. It's the same staff
in chapter seven when he does he strikes the nile,
turns the blood. Then he strikes the bloody nile, and
then some frogs start coming out of the nile and
(08:21):
cover the land of Egypt. And it was that same
staff where he struck the nile, same staff that turned
into a snake in chapter four, same staff in chapter
seven he struck the nile, turned the blood, struck the
nile again, frogs came out. Then he struck the ground,
he struck, struck the dust, and then the gnats came
out of the dust. And so all this is happening
with Moses in this staff. He doesn't know the staff
(08:42):
is capable of all this we do. And so I'm
intrigued to know how did it start? And I'm intrigued
to know that it started with a staff. I'm intrigued
by that started with something as simple as a staff,
because that same staff when the people of God we're
thirsty one time and we're complaining about it. God told Moses,
(09:03):
I hate when my people complained, but I still love
them enough to make sure they don't die. Aren't you
grateful for God's patience with you. Well, he took the
staff and he struck a rock with it, and the
water flowed out of the rock. And the staff had
this power that Moses couldn't have known, that he had
the potential that he couldn't have known that it had,
but when he used.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
It in the right way, it did something.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
It was cool and water came out of the rock
and they all drank from the water in the rock
that staff.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
And so so.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I want to learn everything I can about this staff.
I almost feel like it's a person to me because
I saw Moses fight against the Amalekites. Well, he didn't
fight against him. Joshua fought against him, and Moses had
a job. He had to raise the staff. And while
Moses was raising the staff, and Aaron and Herb got
under his arms because he got tired holding it up.
And when they supported him and he raised his staff,
(09:51):
the Israelites were victorious on the battlefield. Often it's the
support system that you don't see that produces the results
that you're most concerned with. So while he's doing it
and his hands are up, the Israelites, when his hands dropped,
they start losing.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
But it was the staff in his hands. It was
the staff in his hands.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Tell somebody next to you, there's a staff in your hands.
And what's cool about it is that there are many
lessons that we can learn and we don't even have
to be Moses delivering people out of four hundred and
thirty years of slavery to learn them.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
We can just learn them for our everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And the first thing that I think the staff is
saying to us in this message today is that everything
you need is within reach. I heard a motivational speaker
say that once. It rang true with me, that everything
you need is within reach. Moses, in response to God's calling.
(10:48):
I feel the spirit of God on me today to
preach this message, by the way, so you ought to
be excited about what you're going to receive.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
He continues the.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Conversation with God after God shows him who he is
with the phrase that I preached the whole series around
one time, and the phrase is what if? Verse one.
Moses answered, what if? Do you know how many dreams
have died beneath the weight of that phrase? What if?
What if is a It's a phrase that I like
(11:19):
to refer to as fierce greatest hit.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
What if? What if? I mean, how many things in.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Your life did you not do because what if? And
how many things in your life did you do that
you shouldn't have done because what if? How many nights
could you have slept?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
But what if? Kept you awake.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
How many mornings did you wake up anxious? Because what
if was your alarm clock?
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What if not? Just what if?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Moses wants to know? What if pay attention to the
next word? What if they? What if they say.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
The third time?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Because I want to come on the screen and I
think there are times gonna be the charm? What if
is in verse one? What if they? What if the
scripture doesn't come up and I keep preaching anyway? But
it's a it's a it's a good question, what if,
And it's where many of us wonder and wander our
(12:22):
whole lives. What if they? What if they laugh at me?
What if they don't accept me? Now, on one hand,
Moses is in a hypothetical situation because he hasn't even
done anything yet, but he's just playing out.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
The possible after effects of his obedience. What if they?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But on the other hand, it's not hypothetical at all.
It's historical because Moses is afraid of the same rejection
that he experienced forty years earlier, recurring, for it was
forty years earlier that Moses had killed an Egyptian in
defense of his people, and because he did the right thing,
(13:01):
the wrong way he ended up on the run. And
there's something about when you've tried to do the right
thing and put your heart in something but you did
it the wrong way, that you don't even want to
try again. And so now Moses is asking something that's
hypothetical but is based out of what is historical, and
he's projecting his past into his potential and it's his
(13:23):
limiting factor. But God wants him to know that that
staff in your hand. Now, to us, a staff is
a shepherding instrument, and Moses was using it to tend
his father in last sheep. But to Moses, the staff
represented a whole lot more than his vocation. It represented
his mistakes. Because if he had never killed the Egyptian
(13:44):
and ended up a fugitive on the run from Egypt,
where he was born into or adopted into royalty, he never.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Would have had the staff in his hand.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So when God tells him what's in your hand, it
causes Moses to have to reckon with the mistakes that
he's made that have landed him in the position that
he's in.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Because when God speaks to you.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
About your potential, he will cause you to confront your past.
Touch somebody say handle it. So he says, what's that
in your hand? And to Moses is his staff, But
to Moses is also his past, and to Moses is
also his instrument, the thing that he has to do
what he's doing. And so there's a whole lot happening
in this staff. And yet God says, what you have
(14:26):
is what you need. And God wanted to say that
to a single mom today, that what you have is
what you need.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
That he put enough in you to raise that child.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
He foresaw that you would be in the situation, and
he compensated for what others didn't give you by putting
a result and a determination in you. That's more than enough.
And everything you need is within reach. So leave your
(14:55):
list of what you don't have alone today?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
What is that in your hand?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
The wisdom that you need is probably in a book
that's on your shelf that you haven't read. I was
talking to a guy who passed her to church one
time that was bigger than mine. I said, I need
some advice and he said, I gave you a book.
I said, you mean that book three years ago? He said, yeah,
(15:25):
that book three years ago. Did you read it?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I said no, I didn't get around to it.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
He said, I knew that you were going to be
at this place because I've been there, so I gave
you what I knew you would need. You missed it,
he said. He said, call me back when you read
the book.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
At least read a.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Couple chapters and we'll talk. What are we even going
to talk about? You know, sometimes when you pray and
ask God to download information about a decision, God, how
should I handle it?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
He's like, did you even read the book that I book?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And we've never lived in a time where the information
that is in the Word of God has been more
accessible to us. My God, They'll send you alarms, They'll
break it down for you.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
They'll give you a Bible reading in a year.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Plan Bible reading in the Book of Psalm's plan a
Bible reading in.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Southern Dialect.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Plan to give you a Bible reading Bible how to
read the Bible with your dog in thirty two days
every morning on your walk with your dog, an audio
Bible Bible in Braille. Touch somebody say grab it, grab it,
grab it. You gotta grab it.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You gotta go.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Joy is there, you gotta grab it. Wisdom is there,
you gotta grab it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's there. The information that you need.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
For the transformation of your life is waiting to be
seized by those who will open their.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Eyes to what they've been given. And I appreciate.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Okay, So everything that you need is in your read
which it was something that he had already in his
hand that produced what he needed to move forward into
the future and to accomplish God's purpose in the earth.
I'm moved by that because I get caught up in what.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I don't have. I know you don't.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I didn't say you did. I said I do. Get
caught up in what I don't have. But here's the
thing the Lord is teaching me. It's less about what
you have, and it's more about how you handle what
you have.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I'll prove it to you. Do you have Netflix? All right?
Go on Netflix? Put it on. I think they have
this on Netflix. Thirty for thirty.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
It's a documentary series from ESPN.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Put it on. Broke. Put it on the one called Broke.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
It will show you athletes that made millions of dollars
and by the time their careers were over, they were
in debt. Because it's not what you it's how you.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
What you have.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Say it again, come on with me. It's not what
you it's how what you have. That's true with money.
I've met rich people who are further behind than poor people.
I've met poor people who are greedier than rich people.
It's not what you have, it's how you handle what
(18:37):
you have. That's what God wants to know. How are
you handling it. It's not the woman you married, it's
how you handle the woman that you married that determines
whether you get the.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Marriage that you want. Now, the selection process is important.
You can cook better with good ingredients.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
But but I'm saying that somebody might be able to
take your same ingredients.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And make something delicious. Because it's not what you have,
is how you watch you that determines what you do.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I found out that teenagers think they're busy.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
They do.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
They'll tell you I'm busy, how do it? Oh God,
I'm busy. You're busy. And they're twelve. Now they're thirteen
years old.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
And I follow up with a question, do you have
a baby, because if you don't have a baby, you
don't know busy.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Preach with me.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
In fact, I want all you busy thirteen year olds.
You're so busy. I want you to find a twenty
five year old woman in the lobby, one that's got
a little car seat that she's trying to carry on
the way out the door from church, and walk up
to her and tell her how busy you are, and
watch her look back at you, and take about the
(20:12):
next five minutes to show you that it's not how
much stress you have, is how you handle the stress
that you have that determines. I'm saying, you could do
a lot more if you handled it differently. You could
accomplish a lot more if you handled it differently. It's
all in how you handle it. It's all in how
(20:35):
you handle it. It's usually not the things that you
think are stressing you out that are stressing you out.
It's the things you are mishandling in other areas of
your life that make you hate your job. Or it's
the things you are mishandling in your job that make
you hate your life at home. So now you come
home and you take out your frustration from there on
them because you didn't handle it here. Now it's showing
(20:57):
up over there. Touch her name, paper, say handle it.
You got to learn to handle it, whether it's weights
in a weight room, or whether it's life. See, because
you keep asking God to take some of the weight off.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Of your life.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But faith doesn't take the weight off of my life.
It shows me how to handle it. How many of
you have a situation in your life today and you
want God to show you how to handle it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Just wave your hand.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
If that's you, come on, just wave your hand if
that's you.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Well.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
See, God is good and God is strong. God is great,
and God is good. And so God told Moses, I
heard my people crying out, and their cry reached me,
and I've come down to rescue them. That's what he
told Moses in Exodus chapter three. He said, I've seen
(21:50):
my people in cruel oppression. I saw how Pharaoh was
treating them. I see what you're going through. I see
what it's like. I see that you're trying. And God said,
I came down and I'm gonna handle it. I'm gonna
(22:11):
handle this. I'm gonna handle it now before you get
really excited about it.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
God has his own way of handling things. So you'll
be like asking God.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
To send all the people away so they can get
some food, and he'll tell you to steal a little
boy's lunch and bring it to him.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
That's how he handles it.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
You'll be looking at Jericho and you'll see some big
walls and you'll be like, God, we need to knock
these down whill you handle it? And God won't give
you a wrecking ball, He'll give you a trumpet, because
God has his own way of handling it. You'll tell
(22:58):
him I don't have anything to pay my debt's off
of and he'll tell you what do you have in
your house and you'll say a little bit of oil.
And he'll tell you to go to your neighbors and
borrow jars. And you'll say, no, that's the problem.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I'm in debt.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I don't need to borrow anything else. And they say,
but go to these people and borrow it in the
right way. And when you borrow it in the right way,
now you're going to get something that you didn't have
because God has a strange way of handling things. Or
you'll be praying that he would send the Messiah and
you'll be thinking that Thora is going to come down
out of the sky and save the world. And God
will show up and speak to a virgin girl and
(23:26):
say that I know that even though you have been
active with a man, yet your husband's going to want
to divorce you. What's in you is conceived of the
Holy Spirit, and it's going to come forth and it's
going to be the salvation of the world. But it's
going to start in a manger because God's going to
handle it in a strange way. I'll speak into somebody.
You're in a situation right now, and God is handling
it and you don't even know it because he's handling
(23:47):
it in a cradle. And if the cradle isn't enough proof,
he proves it on the cross, when he defeats death
with the very instrument that symbolizes its most violent nature.
He doesn't feed death with the tank, he doesn't defeat
death with the sword. He defeats death with a cross.
Because God has a strange way of handling your situation.
(24:10):
And so he's handling it and you don't even know
he's handling it because you've never seen it handled like
that before.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He tells you to turn the other cheek, and.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Usually you're the one turning someone's cheek when they offend you.
And God said, no, I got another way to handle it,
to handle it. Can you handle it? Can you handle
it and see what started as the thing that Moses
(24:39):
feared a snake became the very thing that Moses needed
a staff.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Let me work on that.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
The first time I did ministry was in a church
called Santi Circle Community Church. Now, my first church was
in the Methodist Church in Mook's Corner where I grew up.
Mickey made me his youth minister, and he would put
me in this little room in the Woodmen of the
World Building. This is on the outskirts of Monk's Corner,
South Carolina, on the outskirts of Monk's Corner, South Carolina
(25:17):
in the Women of the World Building.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And I was reliving this with some of our team
this week.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
We have an apprenticeship program at the church called two
K two and it's it's for all of those who
wanted This is actually like a product placement.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Let me do this real quick. Elevation two K two
dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Have you ever felt called into ministry but didn't know
what your next steps might be? Join us at two
K two, a twenty two week immersive ministry experience designed
to propel you into your potential. Join us at Elevation
two K two dot com. So I was doing a
teaching forum.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I was doing a teaching forum this past week and
they said, you are good at connecting with different types
of people people, white people, old people, young people, religious people,
not religious people.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I said, you got to go back to the Woodmen
of the World Building to understand that. In the Woodmen
of the World Building, I had these kids, about fifteen kids.
They would bring in, most of them on vans, and
me and Anne Johnson and Miss Delilah.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That was the lady's named Delilah. Miss Delilah. We get
the kids over on.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
The vans, and many of them came from really a
low income part of town, and so they would come
in and white kids, black kids, but most of them
only came for food, and so they came over and
just wanted something to do. And that's who I started
preaching to. So you think it intimidates me, if you
sit with your arms crossed. I started with much worse
(26:44):
than you. I started in a room full of snakes.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I can deal with it. I can handle it, so
I said.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
But I had a balance because if I wasn't interesting,
a fight would break out.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So I had to like it moving.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I mean, if they got bored, they got violent, and
so you know, I'm over here working on my Bible text.
I'd only been reading my Bible for a couple of months,
so I didn't know a lot about the Bible yet.
So I was just making stuff up out of the
Bible the best I could.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I was sixteen, y'all. So there was one kid in the.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Group called Matthew Johnson, Matthew Johnson, and he was like
he was thirteen, but he had been in Bible school
all his life.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
The kid's Bible, this Bible nerd. His mom had taken
him to every vacation.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Bible school in the Charleston metro area all of his life.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
He had like nine weeks of Bible school every summer under.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
His belt vacation Bible school. So if I got something wrong,
Matthew would stand up and correct me. In the middle
of the Wednesday night class one night, I came in
preaching about the woman with the issue of blood. And
I hadn't studied it, but I thought I knew what
it meant. And I said, this woman came to Jesus
and she was bleeding. Her face was just covered in blood.
Somebody must have beat her out I don't know who
(28:01):
got a hold of her, but she's bleeding. Matthew stood up,
said it was an internal issue of blood Steven thirteen
year old. But then on the other end of the spectrum,
if I was accurate but not interesting.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Then those kids didn't care.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
So one night a fight broke out in the middle
of my teaching and I just walked out, walked out
the building, shut the door on that little twenty five
dollars a week they were paying me to teach that class.
And I sat under a tree and I was like, Jonah,
if you ever heard of Jonah in the Bible, he
sat under a tree and prayed that he might die
so he wouldn't have to preach to the Ninovites.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
And I was like, Lord, you kill I'd rather you
kill me than go.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Back in there with these kids, because I'm gonna kill them,
and I'd rather be dead than in prison.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
So I'm gonna sit out here till you show me
what to do.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
After about ten minutes of this, Ryan who was like
the biggest kid in the group who came in on
the van, Ryan came over and Ryan really liked me.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
And Ryan came over to the tree and he.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Said, Yo, see, I want you to know something that
as long as you need to stay out here and
get yourself together, it's cool because I just had to
talk with everybody in this room, and I want you
to know when you come back in is handle. I
(29:21):
don't know what he said to those kids. I don't
even want to know. But when I went back in
that room, it was like an Episcopalian church on a
Sunday morning.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It was like a Catholic Mass.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Those kids were leaned forward in their chair. Why because
he handled it. I don't even know how buddy handled it.
Have you ever had a situation in your life where
you were throwing a petty party and didn't want to
go back in and didn't want to try again, and
had taken off from Egypt and didn't even want to
(29:57):
face your future because.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Of the paint of your pass.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
But here comes Jesus walking up to you on the
second road today on the fourth row at the Gaston campus,
walking up to you on an iPhone street, wants.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
To let you know, whenever you get ready to come
back in and do what I've called you to do,
come on back in. Its handled.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Somebody set his handle, set his handle's handled. God told Moses,
you can go back to Egypt, because everybody who wanted
to kill you is dead. While you were out here
in Egypt, I was dealing with your issues.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And his handle touch. Three people say, is handle, is handle?
Is handle. God wants you to know.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Shame can't keep you at bay anymore because what Jesus
was doing on that cross when they thought that he
was dying, he wasn't dying. He was delivering you from
the power of sitting death and was held against me,
was nailed to his cross. And I'm standing here today
with my hands stretched.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
High, with my hand held high, with my shoulders.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Strown back, blidly approached.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
The throne with confidence in the time of my need.
Because it's handle, it's handled.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I feel the sphirit of Olivia Pupe coming on me.
Somebody shot his handles.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's handle.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
That's what Ryan said. He said, is handle. When you
get ready to come back in, you need to know
his handle. When you get ready to go into your future,
you need to know his handle.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Somebody shot his handle, is handled, his handle, his handle,
his handle.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I love that Bible verse in Philippians four thirteen, where
Paul is talking about I know what to do in
any situation. If I have a little, if I have
a lot, I can handle it. Because he says, there
is a famous Bible verse. Have you heard this before?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
He said, Christ can do all things through me. Did
I mess it up? And must because I'm tired from
the race.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I must have got a little of that champagne absorbed
in my body at the at the race.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Let me try again.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Christ can do because because He's gonna handle it right,
Christ can do all things through me. God's gonna handle it.
Huh oh, he wants to help you handle it. Here's
(32:43):
how God showed me. He said, I will handle what
you can't, but I will not handle what you want.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
See.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I handle your sin. You can't handle that. A hand
your past, you can't handle that. But he told Moses,
let me show you one more things. So now he
told Moses, somebody shot handled handled. He told Moses, he said.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Pick it up. Now it's not a staff anymore in
this moment, it's a snake. So what does Moses do?
He does what you do with your fears, and he runs.
Did you see it in the text? He said, what
(33:40):
verse was it?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Was it three?
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Where he ran was it three get and he ran
from it.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
That's the same thing that he did when he killed
the man in Egypt. He's learned to run. He's learned
to run, and God won't handle what you run from.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So he runs. Can y'all hear me? Okay in the back?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Oh, I know what I should do, because this thing
only works in my hand. This is a good sermon
for your life, for your marriage, for your soul, for
(34:42):
any situation. God tells him to reach for the thing
that he's been running from, and as he reaches, watch this.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
As he reaches, the staff changes back into a staff
from us as he reaches.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We got to work on this, y'all weren't paying attention.
Go to four Go to four seventeen, Exitus four seventeen.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I'm almost done. I will hasten to a close. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
He told him to go l jay, he said, but
take this staff. Everybody shout, come on, shout the phrases
inbolded orange letters for a reason. Take the staff. Hit
me with twenty real quick. I think it's twenty. So
Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey,
and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff
(35:36):
of God. Next verse, when he was confronting Pharaoh, he said,
go out and confront him on the bank of the now,
and take the staff that was changed into a snake.
You see in a pattern. I keep going next verse
until you all see it. When they were standing in
front of the Red Sea, he said, raise your staff
(35:57):
and stretch out your right right. It's got to be
in your it's got to be in your Go to
the next verse. What's the next verse. Oh, that's when
they were That's when they were going out, and he
was going out ahead of the people, and he said,
take in your hand the staff with which you struck
the nile. Here's here's the interesting thing, and this is
(36:17):
what the Lord wanted you to know. His situation was changing.
But the same staff that got him through the last
one worked in the next one when he had it
in his hand. The only time that Moses got in
trouble with his staff is when he struck the rock
that God told him to speak to, and he didn't
(36:38):
enter the Promised Land because he didn't know how to
handle what was in his hand. You get in trouble
when you try to handle it your way. You get
in trouble. When you try to resolve it your way,
you get in trouble when you try to take the
snake by the head. See that was interesting to me.
We just moved out into the country two years ago,
(36:58):
and everybody was given me advice greg on being in
the country. I think they were worried about me, that
I wouldn't know what to do and how.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
To survive in the country. And they were right. So
I welcomed their advice.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And everybody was telling me, now you're you're gonna see
you're gonna have snakes for the first time.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So here's what you need to do with the snake.
And you know what nobody told me.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Nobody told me that to handle a snake the way
God told Moses to handle a snake.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Nobody. Go back to verse verse four. He said, reach
out your and what.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Nobody told me to take the snake by the tail,
because that's not the way you handle a snake naturally.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Take it by the.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
You'll look confused. I'm not doing my job, am I
I got to get this right, he said, take it
by the See, the way we try to grab situations
in our life is we want.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
To control it. That's not the right way to hold.
He said, take it by the take it by the now,
to take a snake by the tail, and I will.
Speaker 6 (38:10):
Remind you that the snake didn't change back into a
staff until it was in Moses's hand. Your issue is
not going to change until you handle it. Your pain
(38:31):
is not going to become your purpose until you handle it.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But if you handle it your way, you're going to
be depressed about it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
But if you handle God's way, God's work, God's way,
God's will, God's way, God's word, God's way. You've done
it long enough your way. It is time for you
to do it God's way. And it's time for you
to take it by the tail. God told me to
tell you you feel it, don't you. God said that
(39:02):
mistakes happen, But when they happen, take them by the
tail and trust me to turn your mistake into a
miracle when you take it by the tale. When pain
and rejection happen in your life, your rejection in one
season can lead to your destiny.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
In the next. When you take it by the tale.
I came to say that.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
What they said about you isn't gonna destroy you. It's
only gonna develop you, to make you stronger to give
you a stepfastness. When you take it by the tail,
you know what you're gonna do with that doctor's report.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Take it by the tail. You know what you're gonna
do with that loneliness.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Take it by the tail. You know what you're gonna
do with everything that's been keeping you up at night, worried,
wringing your head. This isn't my problem, This isn't my issue.
The battle is the Lord's. He'll handle Pharaoh. I got
this thing by the tail.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I trust your Lord.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Does anybody trust them in your situation? So I.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
So I trust God enough to take it by the tail.
And it only changes when you handle it. As long
as you stand there looking at it, it's a snake.
Speaker 5 (40:26):
As long as you stand there praying about it, it's
a snake. You can't pray and make the snake go away.
Pray about it, pick.
Speaker 7 (40:38):
It up and make it work, and come on, come on,
make it, come on, make it work.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
In your favor. I'm saying handle it. I'm saying there's
nothing life can throw at you.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That you can't handle it.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
By the spirit of God myself, I can handle it.
Somebody encourage five people in your area tell him you
can handle it.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
You can handle it. You can handle it, Yes, you can.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
You've gotta handle it. You've gotta handle it. You were
made to handle it. You were built to handle it.
God's gonna help you handle it. He's gonna show you
how to handle it.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
He's got you in the palm of his hand. He's
gonna help you. Raise thou children. He's gonna help.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
You'll get through this season. He's gonna help you make
the decision. Lift your hands like it's handled. Come on,
lift your voice like this handled and shut unto.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
God, little voice God me on trial, need to We
need to name God. We need the boy h got me, boyd.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Child, I gotta tell you this. My time is over.
Touch somebody say it's handled his hand, because the thoughts.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Just hit me and it scared me and it would
haunt me if I didn't say it to you. What
if Moses had kept running, he never would have seen
what the staff could do. He never would have seen
the transformation that would take place.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Think about it. It was a decision in a moment.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
What if I never would have picked a mic up
and started preaching into cameras to screens. How many people
could we not have touched together. And I didn't think
I could do it, and I was real scared about it,
and I didn't know if I could forgive my dad
because he really hurt me right before he died. And
(43:17):
I almost ran from it, and I almost didn't go
over to his house on Father's Day and stopped by
for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
But I'm so glad that I took it.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
By the tail side with my hands shaking, and I
wanted to run, and still pretty much every week before
I preach, there's a part of me that.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Wants to run.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I got a friend here today who's a good preacher,
really good preacher, great preacher. He told me he's coming
to visit, and I almost asked him, do you just
want to preach? Because I think I got a sermon?
But right now it looks like a snake. See, I
told the apprentices the other I said, when when I
know a sermon is going to be good on Sunday
(44:04):
is when I'm scared.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Of it on Thursday. That's that's how it works for me.
But if you I gotta go. I'm out of time.
But I'm ensure you this.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
If you stand there and look at it long enough,
and you stand there and and and and analyze the
snake long enough, and you get down here and wait
for it to change. And God, if they say I'm sorry,
then I'll forgive them. And God if you if you
give me more money, then i'll get Then I'll tithe.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
And God, if you and you're.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Waiting for it to change on the ground, but it's
only gonna change when you trust.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
God enough to take it by the tail, come on,
lift your hands. I want to pray for you. God,
give them courage. You know they're gonna need it. You know,
Pharaoh has them running. You know, Pharaoh is that is
that snake? Do you know? Pharaoh is that thing? You know,
Pharaoh is that addiction. You know, Pharaoh is that insecurity?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
You know, Pharaoh is that taskmaster that tries to convince
them that they're never enough.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
But we came today to say that the head of
the serpent has already been crushed. Hallelujah.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for as
stretch storms, we thank you for as crops, we thank
you for as power, and we declare over our lives today,
whatever it is that stands against your children and Jesus
name and is hand on somebody claim your thank you
(45:39):
for joining us special thanks to those of you who
give generously to this ministry.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
more information and if you enjoyed the podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
You can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
You can click the shit button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you
Host
Steven Furtick
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