September 21, 2025 • 58 mins
Pastor Steven gives us three things to remember when life is hard. The enemy wants to keep us circling the wilderness, but God will bring us through as we learn to repeat what leads us to victory.
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Scripture References:
Psalm 114, verses 5-8
Matthew 4, verses 1-4, 11
Hebrews 4, verses 14-16
Numbers 13, verses 30-33
Matthew 3, verses 16-17
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Episode Transcript
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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.
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
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
There have been so many times where God gave our
church a song and two years later, five years later,
ten years later, somebody will come up to me and say,
that song got me through my cancer treatments, that song.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Got me through my prison sentence.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
When they send us videos of those prisoners singing trust
in God, and even people who aren't in a physical prison,
people will say that thing got me through some sleepless nights.
I listened to the Blessing when I was dealing with
incredible anxiety and fear.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And all of these songs.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
And this Thursday, you have a opera tunity to be
a part of that. So I'm not telling you that
because we need people to attend.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's always pretty full. I just didn't want you to
miss it and not know what was happening. Now.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I take my job seriously, and my job is to
put God's words in people's heart.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That's my job. That's my job.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Whenever I'm not preaching to you or studying to preach
to you, I'm usually humming a melody into a song,
changing a lyric for the fifteenth time, so the team
has to learn it at nine to thirteen before we
try it the first time.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And it's all the same thing.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I want you to have watched this a new loop
in your life. That's what I'm preaching about today. That's
what I preached about last week. Our series shown the graphic.
It's called same lies, new loops and meditating on word
of God is hard when we have so much noise
(02:02):
in our world.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Isn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Y'all got sit there and act like it's not noisy
in your in your mind. So a noisy mind needs
a new loot, something else to latch onto, so you
don't go absolutely crazy with temptation and with anger or
with shame. And one thing that I love to do
is when we can get a meditation from God's word
(02:25):
and then God gives us a melody to go with it,
it helps us to remember it in the hard times. Today,
I want to share with you from a psalm Psalm
one hundred and fourteen. We read it in our family
Bible club. We don't stand the whole time in our church.
In case you're wondering, did you wear the wrong shoes?
I'll let you use that seat to its fullest in
(02:45):
just a moment. But please stand for the reading of
God's word. And if you're watching this somewhere else, you
may want to stand too. There's something about respecting and
reverencing God's words because his words are eternal.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Everything else. Everybody says it, and.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It goes God's were last forever Psalm fourteen.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I pick up in verse five. You're gonna like this one.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Wow, Why was it s that you fled? Why Shordan
did you turn back? Why mountains did you leap like rams?
You hills like lambs? To us, that's kind of strange imagery.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
First of all, he's talking about the things that God
did in Israel's past. This is a passover psalm that
they would use to remember how God brought them out
of Egypt. How many of you remember when God brought
you out of something in your own life? So now
he's taunting their trauma. Why is it c that you fled?
(03:56):
Why Jordan did you turn back. I gotta say something
about that verse. Did you know you have a god
who when he speaks to the sea, it sprints to
obey him. If God says to the red sea right left,
the sea doesn't dawdle, The sea doesn't walk, The seed
doesn't crawl, the sea doesn't think about it. When God says,
(04:19):
see split, the sea sprints to obey his word.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's how powerful he is. I gotta go faster. That's
only one verse.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Verse six, Why mountains did you leap like rams? Did
you know you have a god who when he speaks,
mountains leap. I know we're used to talking about mountains moving,
but this is a different picture. He said, Not only
do they move, the mountains leap when he speaks. The
obstacle moves when he speaks. It can happen quickly and
(04:51):
suddenly and irreversibly and dramatically when he speaks mountains leap
when he speaks sea split. And I'm trying to read
my but I'm excited about He's been doing it for
a long time. Verse seven, tremble earth at the presence
of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
(05:13):
who turned the rock into a pool the hard rock
into springs of water. One verse from Matthew chapter four,
verse four. Matthew Chapter four, verse four, the Bible says,
Jesus answered, it is written man shall not live on
(05:34):
bread alone, but on every word that comes from the
mouth of God.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Say amen to that.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Somebody, Yeah, I want to take those two words from
verse four. Put it up again, please, Jesus answered. The
title I'd like to preach to you from today.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Is two words. He answered. He answered, yeah, He answered,
turn around and hug five people on your way to
your seat.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Say I'm so glad, he answered, I'm glad he picked
up my call, my collect call.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I'm glad he paid the price for me. He answered.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm grateful because he answered, I'm standing here today because
he answered, He answered, I asked him for another day,
and he gave it. He answered, I.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Asked him to help me keep my mind together.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Somebody put it in the chat, say, he answered, Say
it out loud at every location. He answered, aren't you
glad you have a God who answers prayers.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Come on, it's not a rhetorical question. Aren't you glad
you have a god? Put it in the chat?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Say I'm glad, he answers yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Sometimes other people don't, he answered, Sometimes other people turned away,
he answered, now king of rhetorical questions, I love the
way psalmone fourteen puts the truth across. It was fresh
(07:06):
to me. And again, we have a family Bible Club,
and we landed in this just at the time that
my message was coming together. Thank you Lord for speaking
to me in my personal life so I could share
it with others. I want to give it to you
like he gave it to me. It's a rhetorical question.
Why was it sea that you fled? Why Jordan did
(07:27):
you turn back? Why mountains did you leap like rams?
You hills like lambs. We know the answer because God
told it too, But in framing it rhetorically, it invites
us into the story, and it invites this truth into
our story as well, the story of your wives and
(07:47):
what ifs, the loops and lies that the enemy has
you in imagining worst case scenarios and replaying past hers
to the point that you cannot see God, who is
your present help? Into this the mis speaks and I
wonder what melody was attached to this meditation? Why was
it c that you fled. It's a rhetorical question. Now
(08:07):
you know the phrase rhetorical question, right. A rhetorical question
is a question that you ask but you really don't
expect an answer, right, Like somebody says, what were you thinking?
All they're saying is you're stupid, but they're framing it
with a question, but don't answer. It's rhetorical. It means
(08:27):
you weren't right. Or there's other ones too.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I don't know. I'm just thinking of a few before
I came out. Oh, here's one.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
One time Elijah did something that Holly kept telling him
not to do, and she kept.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Telling them, kept telling them, and she finally goes, how.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Many times do I have to tell you? And he
goes three times? There was a rhetorical question. It wasn't
a literal question. It was a rhetorical question. And by
framing this question and as rhetorical about the Red Sea
or the mountains that God moved for his people, God
(09:07):
is not only asking a rhetorical question, but he's asking
a historical question. What did God do for you in
your past that when you remember it, it reveals to
you how powerful He is in your Now, go ahead
and get ready to write down some notes.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I'm going to give you three points today. Somebody say,
he answered.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Put the title of my sermon right there in the comments.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Please just put he answered in all caps.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And of course when he answers in Psalm one fourteen,
he says, tremble earth at the presence of the Lord.
Now that's how it happened, the presence of the Lord.
Let me put all this together really quickly. Why did
the sea sprint when God's people were passing through? That's
a historical event, a rhetorical question. Why did the mountain
(09:58):
move when God told it to? What about those impossible
things that he did in your life?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
It's rhetorical, it's also historical.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
And if you look back over your life, you'll see
that his presence was everywhere. You didn't always recognize it
because you were hurting too bad, but his presence was
there with you. You couldn't quite see it because there
were enemies surrounding your table, but he prepared a table
for you in the presence of your enemies.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Who was it that told the sea to split, the
mountain to move? It was God.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
It's a rhetorical question. It's a historical question. I like
them to bring my teaching screen out please. Everybody clapped
to give me the courage to draw a.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Little bit today. See how supportive the ladies are When.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I I think I'm going to reflect myself next year.
It looked so fun, looks so fun.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Okay, I heard you, I heard you. I am not
going to answer that. You hear what they said.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
No, we want Holly, we want Holly.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I know me too.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Just to get you back in the mindset of this message,
I drew a loop and I talked about how the
enemy is always speaking and so is God.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Same lies. Let's abbreviate new loops.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
This is the process of transformation. Does that kind of
look like a brain?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
A little bit like? Not really?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
The renewal of your mind to stop repeating the same
stuff over and over again that leads you to defeat
and start repeating what leads you to victory. Victory and
defeat are both found in the repeat.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That doesn't only rhyme. That's really good. The victories you.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Experience in your life or even in your physical body,
the victories of losing weight, the victories of building strength.
It's found in the repeat. So are the defeats you
lift weight weight one time every four months. And you
only lift one weight four times every one time every
four months, we will see that result. If you lift
(12:31):
it every day forty times, we will see that if
you get the right thing on repeat. Oh God, I
feel like somebody's about to get set free. If you
get the right thing on repeat in your life, You're
gonna get stronger. You're gonna say, like the prophet Isaiah
said day that weight on the lore will renew their strength.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I'm renewing my strength by what I do every day.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
I am renewing my strength every time I come to church.
Give yourself a hand for coming to your class today,
for tuning into this message today, because this, for me
is not just a church service, This is a new loop.
This for me is retraining my brain to move away
from the lies and believe what God says about me.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Not only is.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Your victory found in your repeats, though, but your defeat
is often found in your repeats. What you say to
yourself over and over again that disagrees with what God
already spoke about you before you were ever born will
leave you feeling weak. You're not really weak, you just
are repeating the wrong thing. Repeat the right thing you'll
(13:42):
be stronger. This is not to say that our praise
and pursuit of God will preclude all of our proclivities
towards sin.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
In other words, I'm not saying it's going to be easy.
And think about this way.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I read to you what seemed to be a random
verse from Matthew chapter four, where Jesus answered and said,
it is written man will not live on bread alone,
but every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
You know where Jesus was when he said that the
wilderness the wilderness.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I want to show this to you. You're not going
to believe. This is in the Bible in Matthew four,
verse one. Turn there if you'd like, or just will
put it up on the screen for you. Matthew chapter four,
verse one. The Bible says this, Then Jesus was led
by the spirit into the wilderness. That's the part I
(14:41):
thought would shock you, because I thought the spirit would.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Lead Jesus to an easy place. But it gets worse.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil. I have got all
kinds of questions about that verse, and none of them
are rhetorical.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I really need to know. Why would the spirit lead
him into the wilderness.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And I thought about that over and over again, and
I realized the more I read it that it was
a repeat, because I remembered how Israel in the Old
Testament went through the wilderness too, not for forty days
(15:28):
and forty nights, but for forty years. And here's what
the enemy did to them when they were coming out
of Egypt. God was bringing them out of Egypt to
the Promised Land.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And on their way out of Egypt into the.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Promised Land, the devil told them a lie that they
could not.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Do what God had called them to do.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
The devil has been telling you that same lie, has
any that you are not enough, and that you are
you are not enough, you are not loved. I said
this last week. But victory is found in the repeat.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
And when you.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Begin to understand that's all the devil ever says to you,
You're not enough. It's not enough, they're not enough, You're
not loved. It's not enough, you're not loved. Unless you
do this, you can't be that. They won't love you
if they only love you because you're not enough, You're
not loved, You're not even enough for God to love
you unless you act a certain way.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You're not enough for God to.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Hear you unless you reach a certain level of spirituality
and scale yourself up to the highest heide of the
best Christian. It's not enough. You tried, but it's not enough,
and you're not loved. Now, those two lies play on
the loop in our mind. But in the case of
Israel going through the wilderness, I want to tell you something.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
It was actually true. They were not enough for their
enemies without.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
God, but they were not without God. And that's what
you forget. You forget that he's with you in the wilderness.
He's with you in the wilderness. He's with you in
your weakness. He's with you as you fight through this addiction.
(17:09):
He's with you as you resist temptation. He's with you
for that hard conversation you need to have. He's with
you as you care for somebody who doesn't appreciate you.
He is with you as you work through those bills
and try to get yourself back on some financial stable ground.
He's with you as you try to consider how am I.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Going to mention this so I can begin to deal
with it? Because I'm tired of caring.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
He is with you in the dry place where you
haven't felt him for a really long time, and you're
starting to feel like, well, maybe something's wrong with me,
Maybe God has left me. But the Bible says that
Jesus was led into the wilderness by the spirit. It
says that the spirit led him, but it doesn't say
the spirit left him. The spirit led him to a
(17:58):
hard place, but the spirit, it did not leave him
in the hard place. The same spirit that led him
in the wilderness was there all forty days and forty nights.
And I know you need some things in your life
to get better. And I know you need some chains
and shackles to fall off your feet. And I know
you need God to turn some stones into rivers of water.
(18:21):
And I know you need God to do some things,
and he can and he will. But even until he does,
he's with you in this wilderness.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
He's with you in this in between.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
He didn't drop you off in the middle of your adversity.
He didn't leave you to figure this out by yourself.
He did not abandon you when you got attacked.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
He's not waiting for you to get it together, to
come down and rescue you. He picks up.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
The phone, and if you call him, he'll come.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
If you call him, he'll come. If you say.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Jesus, he'll say, yes, I've done.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It a thousand times. I didn't feel like.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Calling on him, but I lifted my hands by faith,
not sight, bye, faith not feeling, and I called on
the Lord, and I stuck the Lord and he wards
and he answered. So I want to give you three
truths today to remember for new loops in your life.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And the first one is this.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I want you to shout it out everybody, say he's here.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Say that again. He's here.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Now in the verse I read you. He's not the
only one here. It's the devil talking. I'm not even
gonna write out his whole name.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I'm gonna just put that D right there and you'll
know who I'm talking about. And then there's Jesus.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Hold up, I'm gonna do that in all caps. I
can't draw, but I can do that. Now, listen to me,
and listen to me. Close about this. It's a conversation
going back and forth in the wilderness. And the spirit
is with Jesus to defeat the enemy. The spirit is
(20:20):
with you to defeat the enemy.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
Yeah, Yeah, I love how we make it seem like
Jesus as our perfect risen savior, and he is never
experienced difficulty, or at least you know, we may not
say that about Jesus because we know we went to
the cross.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Sometimes we act like that was the only time that
Jesus's life was hard. Jesus's life was hard the whole
time it was hard. This is the brink of his ministry.
He's thirty years old, and the spirit leads him in
the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. That's his
ministry apprenticeship. That's what the Lord gave him. That's what
(21:01):
his father gave him to prepare him. And so I
have recognized every time in my life that God was
about to do something huge. I had to go through
hell before I got there every time, and I passed
that along to you. In case you're going through hell,
you might be on the brink of something huge, and
the devil might know that, and he might be deploying
(21:24):
extra resources to try to get you to choke before
you arrive.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
At your destiny.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Everything I ever released for God faced tremendous resistance. I
just say that in case it's been difficult for you
now With that note made, then Jesus was led by
the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the
devil after fasting forty days and forty nights. This has
to be the most obvious verse in the Bible.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
He was hungry, and.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yet it's not because Jesus is saying stuff that his
disciples like, I have food to eat that you know not.
But he still had a stomach and it was still empty.
I fasted forty days one time when we started the church.
Those were the hardest things I ever did. And people
told me before I did it, don't worry about it.
Once you get through the first three days, you don't
even think about food anymore. And they said it's not
hard after like day three. Let me tell you something,
(22:18):
every one of them, I rebuke your lying.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Spirit, talk about same lies, new loops. It was hard
the whole time.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
I started dreaming about foods I don't even eat in
my normal life. I would be I would see brussels
sprouts and salivate. Now I don't even need bacon in them.
I just need the Brussels sprout. I'll eat it without oil,
without salt. The whole forty days. It was hard the
whole time. And you know, we think that the only
time that it was hard for Jesus was when he
(22:51):
went to the cross, because we read about him healing
blind eyes the highlight reel, and people who couldn't speak
spoke when he spoke for them to speak. Because whatever
he speaks to does whatever he says. If he speaks
to a sea, it's prints, if he speaks to a
mountain that leaps, whatever he speaks to does what it says,
except for us. Sometimes I'll come back to that in
a future series. But it was hard the whole time.
(23:14):
It was hard for him when he was tempted by
the devil in the wilderness. His life was hard ever
since he was a baby. Not only was he born
in a barn, but Harry tried to kill him from
the day he was little. He was on the rhine,
not from the devil, toward the purpose of God for
(23:37):
his life. So if it's been hard for you, that's okay.
And the devil will just get you stuck in that
get you stuck in how hard it is. So I'm
go ahead and put it there. It's hard, it's hard,
and you're like that's not a lie.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I don't know if you about to say that that's
not true. No, it's true. It's true.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
It's just that if the enemy can get you to
go from a line to a loop, that instead of
going through the hard thing, you get stuck in the
hard thing. That instead of God delivering you through this season,
you get in this season and you dig down deeper,
(24:26):
and you actually define yourself by the difficulty of the season.
Let me speak to that for a moment. Do not
define yourself by the difficulty of the season. Define yourself
by the size of your God. Because greater is he
that is in you than he that's in the world.
So I'm not saying it's not hard. I'm just saying
(24:47):
he's bigger than it is. And I am also saying
that you don't only have a God who stands high
above the hard things in your life. You have a
God who became a human and the hard thing.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
The Book of.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Hebrews, Chapter four, verse thirteen, about verse thirteen says something
very interesting. He says that that's not the right verse.
I don't know what the verse is there. It is
verse fourteen that I gave you earlier. Since we have
a great high priest. Everybody say, Jesus is high.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Who has ascended into heaven.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
This is after his resurrection, Jesus the son of God.
Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, for
we do not have a high priest who is unable
to empathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who
has been tempted in every way just as we are.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yet he did not sin. Here's your shouting verse.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence.
Somebody shout, He's here, so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help us in our time of success,
our time of blessing, our time of wholeness, our time
of completeness.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
All of that is true too.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
But if you are in the hour of need right now,
I know a name that is.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Greater than your need.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I don't care what need you name name cancer, named bankruptcy,
name divorce, name hatred, name evil.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I know a name that is straight. And when on
bush he answers.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
High five at least five people say, he answered, I
turned to the throne and he answered, he answered, He answered,
God saw humanity striving in our sin, trying to keep
the law and couldn't do it. Trying to be perfect
and couldn't do it, trying to keep the commandments and
(26:56):
couldn't do it. So he handled it himself. He's not
only a high priest, he became a human. Why he
came down to handle what you couldn't. Point number one says,
he's here. Somebody's shout, he's here. Point number two says,
it's handled. Somebody shout, its handled. I'm trying. If I
(27:26):
could get three people to agree with me, we could
get you out of this loop that the people of
God were in all the way from numbers thirteen. We
can't attack him. It's too hard for us. It's too
hard for us.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It's too hard for us. You know, sometimes we vent
about our problems to people.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Be careful who you vent to, because sometimes when you
start venting, start inventing. I studied, I study, I thought
(28:11):
about what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell
you how the Israelites looked at the land that God
wanted to give them. And remember, they turned something that
should have been as straight through into a forty year loop.
And it all started because they were venting. Numbers Chapter
thirteen out verse number thirty. Then Caleb's silence to people
(28:31):
before most said we should go up and take possession
of the land. For we can do it. I know
we've been slaves for a long time, but we can
do it. We're sons and daughters of God.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
We can do this.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
God is with uss. Somebody shout, he's here.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
He's here.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Anything's possible if he's here. Did you see what he
just did to the sea we came through. When the
devil gets rhetorical, you get historical, start pointing to stuff
that God already did and remind him how big your God,
God is. I got a word for somebody. He already
handled it. So it's hard, but but that's how you
(29:17):
break that spiral. That's how you break out of that loop.
That's how you break out of this stupid, crazy stuff
that the devil's been feeding you, just like he tried
to feed Jesus. You break it with a butt.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Where is y'all's mind? It's hard, but he's here.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I want everybody that puts that on a post it
note somewhere around your.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
House this week to tag me. But I don't have
social media, so I won't see it. But somebody will
print it. Out and give it to me.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And one of the reasons I don't have social media
is because if I had social media on my phone
right up now, I wouldn't be able to preach discermon
to you. Because in this season of my life, I
have got to be very, very careful about the voices.
Speaker 6 (30:08):
That I allow to have weight in my life, because
I refuse to let the voice of a human keep
me from hearing from Heaven.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
I must speak what God says is written.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
But tag tag me anyway somebody will somebody will print
it out for me.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Hashtag new loops, hashtag less news, new loops.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Hashtag more word less news. I am saying nothing, but
what God says is more important than what do you
think what any human opinion says. So be careful because
(31:07):
if you keep venting, you might start inventing. You might
make an enemy out of somebody who is actually your
brother or sister in Christ. Okay, nw loops is hard,
But he's here. He's right in the middle of all
of it. His name is Jesus, and he's here, and
(31:31):
also is handled Who told the sea? The sprint rhetorical question.
It says, historical question, God did, who told the mountain
to move. God did, And I know it is hard,
(31:52):
but can you believe it is handled? Here's what Caleb said.
He said, we can certainly do this. God's got us.
There is a Caleb inside you. There is a Caleb
inside of you to tell you that you got it,
to tell you that you don't.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
But he does.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
To tell you that you don't have to respond to
temporary pressure by making decisions that are going to set
you back for your destiny.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
The Lord wants you to know its handle.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
And in verse thirty one, the people start responding. The
men who have gone up said, we can't attack those people.
They are stronger than we are. It's too hard. It's
too hard. Verse thirty two, And they spread among the
Israelites bad report about the land they explored. And they said,
the land we explored devours those living in it. All
the people we saw there are of great size. That's true,
(32:46):
and they're venting. But what's for thirty thirty three We
saw the Nephilm that the sins of the Nact come
from the Nephlum. We seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes,
and we look the same to them. Well, now you're
inventing because you don't know how you look to them.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
But if you look like that in your eyes, you
start inventing.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
There have been times in my marriage where I started
treating Holly like my enemy because of my own insecurity.
I start pushing her away because of something in me
that I don't want her to see. So now I'm
treating the person that God gave me as my help,
and I am treating them like they are.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
The person that I'm assigned to fight.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Is your insecurity, leading you to believe your enemy, to
create new enemies, to join with the words of the enemy.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Jesus would have none of it.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
When the devil spoke to Jesus, Jesus talked back. Jesus
talked back, and it was hard, and he was hungry,
but he understood that the spirit led him to the wilderness.
But the spirit did not leave him in the wilderness,
and he understood that his father already had a plan. Now,
the devil has a plan and God has a plan.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Which one are you going to go with?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
One plan is to satisfy you temporarily in short term,
and the other is for you to trust God with
your tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Because he's the one who's already there.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
The tempter came to him. He was hungry because he
was human. He's high and holy, but he was born
as a human to pay the price for our sin.
And the tempter came to him and said and said,
if you are the son of God, tell these stones.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
This is gonna be a stone.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
If you are the son of God, tell the stone
to become bred.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
If you are the son of God, do something.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
To take something that's not supposed to be something and
make it something that it can't be. Now we already
know that if Jesus tells the stone to be bread,
it'll be pumpernickel in a minute. It'll be rye bread
in a minute before he says the first syllable, it
will be the softest, warmest loaf of bread. Jesus could
(35:22):
not only speak to the stone and make it bread.
He could speak to heaven and rain down butter on
the bread.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
He could speak to.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
The sun and the sun would toast the slice of
bread that wasn't there before that was a stone.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
He could do that.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
But watch what he said in verse four. I think
this is powerful for our lives, Jesus answered. Jesus answered,
he's fully human, and he's fully God.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That means he's able to be.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Tempted, but he's also able to overcome. So when the
tempter spoke, watch this.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Answered.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
It is written, man shall not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,
the God who spoke to the sea, and it split,
the God who spoke to the mountain, and it left
(36:24):
the God who spoke you into existence.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
That's what I live off of. That's what I go by.
That's my new loop, what God spoke.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
And any time that I get stuck, anytime that I'm
going around and around this is.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
So messy, I shall probably just start all over.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Anytime that I feel like what is against me is
greater than what is for me.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Here we go, same lies loop. Watch the lie. It's
not enough.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
You've got to turn the stone into bread because God
won't provide for you.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
It's not enough.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
But at the heart of this chunk something very interesting
if you are the son of God, because not only
it's not enough, but you're not loved, and that there's
something that you have to do to get God to
love you. But Jesus knew better. Jesus knew not only
(37:32):
he's here not only it's handled, but Jesus knew.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I'm his.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Think about the absurdity of the devil's impision turn a
stone into bread. Jesus already is both of those things.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Peter said it this way.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
The stone that the builders rejecting has become the chief
corner stone, the rock that Moses drank from in the wilderness,
the one that God pulled into a pool. Jesus is
what the devil is trying to tempt him to turn
(38:41):
something into. And don't even get me started about bread,
because Jesus is the vibe. Jesus is the bread. Jesus
is the resurrection.
Speaker 7 (38:56):
Jesus is the way, the truth, the Jesus is the
good shepherd.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Jesus is the Gate, and Jesus is the bread. So devil,
you can't get me what's already mine.
Speaker 7 (39:14):
I belove to God.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I'm his and he's got me. I'm his, and he
knows me. I'm his, and he chose me. I'm his,
and no man can put me from his hand. I'm his,
I'm called, I'm his, I'm.
Speaker 8 (39:34):
Sustained, I'm his.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
I'm got grace for.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
This season because I am his.
Speaker 7 (39:42):
And he's here, and it's handled because I'm his, because
he's here, and it's handle because I'm his.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Till your neighbor be nice to me.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
My father is a great God, tell him be good
to me because my.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
God is a great king, and he's here in this handle.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
When I do this, receive the word of the Lord.
My friend, receive the word of the Lord. My brother,
receive the word of the Lord. Says, receive the word
of the Lord. Man of God, receive the word of
the Lord. You pastor receive the word of the Lord.
Single mom receive the word of the Lord. High school
student receive the word of the Lord. Recovery Program day
(40:34):
thirty three.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Receive the word of the Lord.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
The bread is already here. The song that the builders rechecked.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
It shall become the sheep.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Warner stone sus you belong to God. Come on, let's
sit in that for a moment. For every devil this's
been lieing to you. The devil came at Jesus three
different ways. He told him, if you're the son of God,
(41:08):
what you mean if I'm the son of God. Y'all
never read Matthew chapter three, verse sixteen when you're about to,
because the Bible says that before Jesus was led into
the wilderness, he went through the water, and as soon
as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.
(41:32):
At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the
spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
He's here, He's here, And a voice from heaven. Ain't
it crazy? One verse before he had to deal with
the voice from hell, God gave him the voice from heaven.
(41:54):
You need a fresh encounter with Jesus. You need a
fresh revelation of Jesus. You need a fresh word from God,
a meditation in your heart. If you don't meditate on
his word, you're gonna medicate on other stuff, and you
are gonna choke on stones because you don't have any brand.
And a voice from heaven said, this is my son
(42:17):
whom I love.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
With him, I am well pleased.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
So when the devil Matthew four verse one, started tempting
Jesus in the wilderness, and in verse two, the Bible says,
after fasting forty days and forty nights, not forty years,
because Jesus was doing for them what they could not
do for themselves. Don't you get it? He was in
the wilderness for you. He was handling it for you.
(42:43):
He was achieving a righteousness that you and I could
never achieve. He was paying the price for you. That's
why the spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, so that
you would never be there alone again. And when the
devil said, if you are the son of God turned
something into something, Jesus said, I'm not turning anything into anything.
I already know who I am because I'm still dripping
(43:06):
with the water of the affirmation of my Father in
this dry place.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So I don't think so. I don't think so devil.
I don't think so devil.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I don't think I'm just gonna be depressed Devil. I
don't think I'm just gonna live the rest of my
life reliving and rerunning this and repeating this and dredging
this back up.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I don't think so devil.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
I don't think I'm gonna let the world make me
mad and angry and cynical devil.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
I don't think so devil. I know I'm his.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I'm a royal people, I'm a chosen priesthood.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
I'm a holy nation. I belong to God. And he
came at him three ways I'm almost done.
Speaker 9 (43:52):
I know y'all want me to preach for four more hours.
Come on, four more hours, Come on, four more If
Jesus could fast forty days, y'all can say five more minutes.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
In this message, he's here say it.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's hard, but.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
He's how you get the point. And it's hard, but
it's handled. Uhh D definitely comes before L in the
word handle. I do know that, but I was confused
(44:43):
when it said I'm his, because that's what the Lord
gave me. That he said was more important than anything else,
because if you don't believe that you're loved by him,
you will be trying to turn everything else in your
life into loaves.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And he is my favorite verse.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
After the devil tempts Jesus three times because remember defeat
in victory or in the repeat, so he's not just
gonna do it once, not just twice, not just three times.
But after he told him, hey, throw yourself off the
building and the angels will catch you. Jesus like I
know the angels on a first name basis, and I
do not need to do.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Something to get the angels to come.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
If I ask my father to send angels, they're already
on the way.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Ooh, touch three.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
People say they're already on the way. The help you
need is already on the way. The support you need
is already on the way. The book you need is
already in your mailbox. Check your mailbox, the book you
ordered last week. It's got the answer. It's already on
the way. And after being tempted, ooh, I feel this
in my spirit. After he had tempted him as hard
(45:54):
as he could, tempt him, as hungry as Jesus was,
tried to get him to step outside of who he was,
to do something thing that he already did, something that
he didn't even need from the enemy, because watch this,
the Bible says in Matthew chapter four, verse number eleven.
Then the devil left him.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Oh, come on, get happy. I don't need no music.
Just get happy. Come on, get happy. Then keep clapping
so I can erase. Then, come on, come on.
Speaker 8 (46:33):
You want the devil to get up out of your mind.
You want the devil to get up out of your psychology.
You want the devil to get out of your kids.
You want the devil to get out of your feed.
You want the devil to get out of your all right,
get happy.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Then the devil left.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I'm gonna just start all over, And the Bible says
verse eleven, isn't on the screen?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Is verse eleven on the screen? I saw a picture.
Then the devil left, and.
Speaker 7 (47:13):
Oh, thank you Jesus, that're supposed to be an angel.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
The age Us came. They a'te us came. They ain't
us came with to hell.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Just slam the asus.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Pay touch seven.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
People say, wait for the angel, Wait for the angel.
Wait for the angel. Wait for the angel. Don't be
too anxious, it's already on the way. Don't talk yourself
out of standing strong for Christ. Wait for the angels.
The angels are on the way. The angels are in room.
(48:00):
You don't have to throw yourself up a building.
Speaker 7 (48:02):
The Ageus are coming, The angels are coming.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
The angels are coming.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Somewhere in those forty days, I know Jesus prayed, because
I don't believe that the devil was the only one
Jesus was talking to in Matthew chapter four. I believe
that Jesus, as human and as hungry as he was,
prayed to his father and said, father, I need you.
(48:34):
And when he called his father he answered and just
because the answer.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Hasn't arrived yet does not mean God didn't send it.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
But in this season, if you start trying to turn
stones into bread and substitute other human relationships for your
relationship with God, you will miss your angel because you
ate something that was never meant to be eaten.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Stand on your feet. The angels are waiting.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
I believe there's angels come into your house this way.
I believe angels are coming to somebody's central nervous system
right now to calm you down. Freaking out swinging at
stuff that isn't even swinging at you. Stop it, wait
for the angel. He's here, is handled, You're his. Speak
(49:50):
those things quietly say, he's here, is handling. I'm his.
Come here, Abbe, come here, I called, she answered, because
(50:11):
she's mine.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Come on up my way up. We love you, Abby answer,
I'm saying, I love you too. Person I don't know.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
And before we came out, I was showing her my angel.
I says, it look like an angel. I said, give
me your hand, put it up. Can y'all get this
on the screen. I drew those two loops on her hand.
Now this is my daughter, so I'm saying to her
and I know fourteen year old can't get a tattoo,
but if she could, I would probably have her get
something like this. But I have somebody draw more professionally,
(50:53):
just to remind her that he's here, that his hand.
You don't have to keep it all in your hands
and handle all the way yourself.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
And I'm his, and I'm his.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Angels are on the way, Angels are on the way,
angels are on the web.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
He said, what do you mean by that? What do
you mean by that, Pastor Stephen?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I mean that God is going to send you the
help that you need as you call onto him.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
And yesterday, why are we on our knees like this?
I'll stand up. It's very uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
She had a soccer game yesterday afternoon. Yesterday morning, ten
am soccer. I want to say, for somebody who's about
to preach in twenty four hours, I'm always stressed out
trying to find the soccer field.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
That's my hardest part. I have no sense of direction.
Holly got there. She sent me a pen.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
I left with plenty of time to part and I
arrived exactly on time, five minutes to spare to an
empty church parking lot with no soccer field. I mean,
I'm just driving talking my friend on the phone talking
about my sermon to me. I think I'm gon talk
about the angels and the bread and the stones. This
(52:04):
is make an offense. He's like, yeah, I'm sure it'll
get there. But the angels are on the way. The
angels are on the way. And as I'm on my
way to the thing, I'm not paying attention, and all
of a sudden I realize, oh, I'm here, but I'm
not there. I didn't disobey the GPS. Every turn that
(52:25):
told me to take I took. I didn't rebel against
the GPS. Turn right, I don't think so, and listen
to me. I want to give you this one because
I need to use it because if something bad happens
to me, I want to redeem it.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And there's no really bad part of this story because
all I did.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
I called Holly, I said, hey, this is weird. I
went where you sent me to go before you left.
But I need you to resend it to me now
that you're there. Because the address that we had, I
got to.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
The destination that it was taking me to.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
But the destination that was taking me to was not
the destination.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Where you are?
Speaker 3 (53:12):
I said, so what do I do? She said, I'm
gonna drop you a new pin because she's here. Now,
everybody say he's here.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Because she's here now.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
I said, all right, and then I put it in
and it was fifteen minutes away.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
I fifteen minutes off and then I drove somewhere and
then the GPS took me down this very strange dirt road. Yeah,
it was the weirdest thing. The sign said keep out,
and I went through anyway because the GPS told me to.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
I'm just obeying the GPS, you know. And of course
it's a dead end. It's some weird looking government building.
I don't even know where I was or what was
about to happen to me. I don't know what got
in my GPS. So I called her again. I said, okay,
let's try it different this time. You're already there. Tell
me how to get there from where I am. And
(54:05):
she said, okay, well you it's the road, and she's
pretty good with directions. So she started describing it to
me because she was there, and she said, he just
stay on the phone with me for a minute. She said,
all right, turn here. There's a long road. There's a
classic car show. Don't turn into that, keep driving, because
she'd already seen all that, because she was there, because
we have not a high priest who is unable to
(54:27):
sympathize or empathize with our weaknesses, because he was tempted.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
In the wilderness.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
And so.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
Then she really really put the cherry on top.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
She said, I'm wearing my bright yellow hat, and you
can see me, and I'll wave you in, and i
will block this pickup truck that's.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Trying to take this parking space until you get here.
Speaker 10 (54:51):
And I saw that yellow hat, and I saw my
woman standing there waiting for me, and I realized what
was wrong.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
In that moment. I didn't need a pen. I needed
a person. I needed somebody who was already there to
guide me in.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Now, you keep trying to fight temptation in your own strength,
you're gonna stay lost. You're gonna think you're taking the
right turns, you're gonna think.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
You're doing the right things.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
But Jesus said, hey, I'll be standing in your next
five minutes.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I'll be standing in your Tuesday. I will be waving
you in. You look for me, you stay with me,
and I'll answer. He answered.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
He answered, Jesus, answered the devil, because the Father already
answered him.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
And the angels are.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
On the way.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
I call God on the mountain. I call God in
the valley.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
I call God on the good days, and I call God.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
In he surrounds me. Call God just to tell him,
just to say.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
Call.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
God's saying. So one thing you could do.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
You could just lift your hands to your father right now.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
I call God on the mountain.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
I call God, he answered, Oh God, he answered Jesus,
he'll answer you. And the Lord is in this place
with your God. Angels in your wilderness man.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
Angels in your try place. He turned stones into pools
of waters. I call God. I call God. I call God.
Let's have a little grace party of God. Let's get
it warmed up. Baby. I call God where you ask
(57:08):
you SECTION call God.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Just a thank you, Susan said, See my new friend God,
my new briend.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
I sold the honey I think I had man. I
called God.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
He's a healer.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
I call God, new bread.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
I call God bread.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
I call God. It's just all aroun me. I call
God andie I call God. He say again, I call God.
As I sold that heady as he.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
I call God, he.
Speaker 10 (57:56):
I call God, heisp oh God.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
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 Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
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.
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
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
There have been so many times where God gave our
church a song and two years later, five years later,
ten years later, somebody will come up to me and say,
that song got me through my cancer treatments, that song.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Got me through my prison sentence.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
When they send us videos of those prisoners singing trust
in God, and even people who aren't in a physical prison,
people will say that thing got me through some sleepless nights.
I listened to the Blessing when I was dealing with
incredible anxiety and fear.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And all of these songs.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
And this Thursday, you have a opera tunity to be
a part of that. So I'm not telling you that
because we need people to attend.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's always pretty full. I just didn't want you to
miss it and not know what was happening. Now.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I take my job seriously, and my job is to
put God's words in people's heart.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That's my job. That's my job.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Whenever I'm not preaching to you or studying to preach
to you, I'm usually humming a melody into a song,
changing a lyric for the fifteenth time, so the team
has to learn it at nine to thirteen before we
try it the first time.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And it's all the same thing.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I want you to have watched this a new loop
in your life. That's what I'm preaching about today. That's
what I preached about last week. Our series shown the graphic.
It's called same lies, new loops and meditating on word
of God is hard when we have so much noise
(02:02):
in our world.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Isn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Y'all got sit there and act like it's not noisy
in your in your mind. So a noisy mind needs
a new loot, something else to latch onto, so you
don't go absolutely crazy with temptation and with anger or
with shame. And one thing that I love to do
is when we can get a meditation from God's word
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and then God gives us a melody to go with it,
it helps us to remember it in the hard times. Today,
I want to share with you from a psalm Psalm
one hundred and fourteen. We read it in our family
Bible club. We don't stand the whole time in our church.
In case you're wondering, did you wear the wrong shoes?
I'll let you use that seat to its fullest in
(02:45):
just a moment. But please stand for the reading of
God's word. And if you're watching this somewhere else, you
may want to stand too. There's something about respecting and
reverencing God's words because his words are eternal.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Everything else. Everybody says it, and.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It goes God's were last forever Psalm fourteen.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I pick up in verse five. You're gonna like this one.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Wow, Why was it s that you fled? Why Shordan
did you turn back? Why mountains did you leap like rams?
You hills like lambs? To us, that's kind of strange imagery.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
First of all, he's talking about the things that God
did in Israel's past. This is a passover psalm that
they would use to remember how God brought them out
of Egypt. How many of you remember when God brought
you out of something in your own life? So now
he's taunting their trauma. Why is it c that you fled?
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Why Jordan did you turn back. I gotta say something
about that verse. Did you know you have a god
who when he speaks to the sea, it sprints to
obey him. If God says to the red sea right left,
the sea doesn't dawdle, The sea doesn't walk, The seed
doesn't crawl, the sea doesn't think about it. When God says,
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see split, the sea sprints to obey his word.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's how powerful he is. I gotta go faster. That's
only one verse.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Verse six, Why mountains did you leap like rams? Did
you know you have a god who when he speaks,
mountains leap. I know we're used to talking about mountains moving,
but this is a different picture. He said, Not only
do they move, the mountains leap when he speaks. The
obstacle moves when he speaks. It can happen quickly and
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suddenly and irreversibly and dramatically when he speaks mountains leap
when he speaks sea split. And I'm trying to read
my but I'm excited about He's been doing it for
a long time. Verse seven, tremble earth at the presence
of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
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who turned the rock into a pool the hard rock
into springs of water. One verse from Matthew chapter four,
verse four. Matthew Chapter four, verse four, the Bible says,
Jesus answered, it is written man shall not live on
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bread alone, but on every word that comes from the
mouth of God.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Say amen to that.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Somebody, Yeah, I want to take those two words from
verse four. Put it up again, please, Jesus answered. The
title I'd like to preach to you from today.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Is two words. He answered. He answered, yeah, He answered,
turn around and hug five people on your way to
your seat.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Say I'm so glad, he answered, I'm glad he picked
up my call, my collect call.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I'm glad he paid the price for me. He answered.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm grateful because he answered, I'm standing here today because
he answered, He answered, I asked him for another day,
and he gave it. He answered, I.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Asked him to help me keep my mind together.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Somebody put it in the chat, say, he answered, Say
it out loud at every location. He answered, aren't you
glad you have a God who answers prayers.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Come on, it's not a rhetorical question. Aren't you glad
you have a god? Put it in the chat?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Say I'm glad, he answers yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Sometimes other people don't, he answered, Sometimes other people turned away,
he answered, now king of rhetorical questions, I love the
way psalmone fourteen puts the truth across. It was fresh
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to me. And again, we have a family Bible Club,
and we landed in this just at the time that
my message was coming together. Thank you Lord for speaking
to me in my personal life so I could share
it with others. I want to give it to you
like he gave it to me. It's a rhetorical question.
Why was it sea that you fled? Why Jordan did
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you turn back? Why mountains did you leap like rams?
You hills like lambs. We know the answer because God
told it too, But in framing it rhetorically, it invites
us into the story, and it invites this truth into
our story as well, the story of your wives and
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what ifs, the loops and lies that the enemy has
you in imagining worst case scenarios and replaying past hers
to the point that you cannot see God, who is
your present help? Into this the mis speaks and I
wonder what melody was attached to this meditation? Why was
it c that you fled. It's a rhetorical question. Now
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you know the phrase rhetorical question, right. A rhetorical question
is a question that you ask but you really don't
expect an answer, right, Like somebody says, what were you thinking?
All they're saying is you're stupid, but they're framing it
with a question, but don't answer. It's rhetorical. It means
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you weren't right. Or there's other ones too.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
I don't know. I'm just thinking of a few before
I came out. Oh, here's one.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
One time Elijah did something that Holly kept telling him
not to do, and she kept.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Telling them, kept telling them, and she finally goes, how.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Many times do I have to tell you? And he
goes three times? There was a rhetorical question. It wasn't
a literal question. It was a rhetorical question. And by
framing this question and as rhetorical about the Red Sea
or the mountains that God moved for his people, God
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is not only asking a rhetorical question, but he's asking
a historical question. What did God do for you in
your past that when you remember it, it reveals to
you how powerful He is in your Now, go ahead
and get ready to write down some notes.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I'm going to give you three points today. Somebody say,
he answered.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Put the title of my sermon right there in the comments.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Please just put he answered in all caps.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And of course when he answers in Psalm one fourteen,
he says, tremble earth at the presence of the Lord.
Now that's how it happened, the presence of the Lord.
Let me put all this together really quickly. Why did
the sea sprint when God's people were passing through? That's
a historical event, a rhetorical question. Why did the mountain
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move when God told it to? What about those impossible
things that he did in your life?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
It's rhetorical, it's also historical.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
And if you look back over your life, you'll see
that his presence was everywhere. You didn't always recognize it
because you were hurting too bad, but his presence was
there with you. You couldn't quite see it because there
were enemies surrounding your table, but he prepared a table
for you in the presence of your enemies.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Who was it that told the sea to split, the
mountain to move? It was God.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
It's a rhetorical question. It's a historical question. I like
them to bring my teaching screen out please. Everybody clapped
to give me the courage to draw a.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Little bit today. See how supportive the ladies are When.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I I think I'm going to reflect myself next year.
It looked so fun, looks so fun.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Okay, I heard you, I heard you. I am not
going to answer that. You hear what they said.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
No, we want Holly, we want Holly.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I know me too.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Just to get you back in the mindset of this message,
I drew a loop and I talked about how the
enemy is always speaking and so is God.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Same lies. Let's abbreviate new loops.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
This is the process of transformation. Does that kind of
look like a brain?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
A little bit like? Not really?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
The renewal of your mind to stop repeating the same
stuff over and over again that leads you to defeat
and start repeating what leads you to victory. Victory and
defeat are both found in the repeat.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That doesn't only rhyme. That's really good. The victories you.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Experience in your life or even in your physical body,
the victories of losing weight, the victories of building strength.
It's found in the repeat. So are the defeats you
lift weight weight one time every four months. And you
only lift one weight four times every one time every
four months, we will see that result. If you lift
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it every day forty times, we will see that if
you get the right thing on repeat. Oh God, I
feel like somebody's about to get set free. If you
get the right thing on repeat in your life, You're
gonna get stronger. You're gonna say, like the prophet Isaiah
said day that weight on the lore will renew their strength.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I'm renewing my strength by what I do every day.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
I am renewing my strength every time I come to church.
Give yourself a hand for coming to your class today,
for tuning into this message today, because this, for me
is not just a church service, This is a new loop.
This for me is retraining my brain to move away
from the lies and believe what God says about me.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Not only is.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Your victory found in your repeats, though, but your defeat
is often found in your repeats. What you say to
yourself over and over again that disagrees with what God
already spoke about you before you were ever born will
leave you feeling weak. You're not really weak, you just
are repeating the wrong thing. Repeat the right thing you'll
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be stronger. This is not to say that our praise
and pursuit of God will preclude all of our proclivities
towards sin.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
In other words, I'm not saying it's going to be easy.
And think about this way.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I read to you what seemed to be a random
verse from Matthew chapter four, where Jesus answered and said,
it is written man will not live on bread alone,
but every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
You know where Jesus was when he said that the
wilderness the wilderness.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I want to show this to you. You're not going
to believe. This is in the Bible in Matthew four,
verse one. Turn there if you'd like, or just will
put it up on the screen for you. Matthew chapter four,
verse one. The Bible says this, Then Jesus was led
by the spirit into the wilderness. That's the part I
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thought would shock you, because I thought the spirit would.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Lead Jesus to an easy place. But it gets worse.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil. I have got all
kinds of questions about that verse, and none of them
are rhetorical.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I really need to know. Why would the spirit lead
him into the wilderness.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And I thought about that over and over again, and
I realized the more I read it that it was
a repeat, because I remembered how Israel in the Old
Testament went through the wilderness too, not for forty days
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and forty nights, but for forty years. And here's what
the enemy did to them when they were coming out
of Egypt. God was bringing them out of Egypt to
the Promised Land.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And on their way out of Egypt into the.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Promised Land, the devil told them a lie that they
could not.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Do what God had called them to do.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
The devil has been telling you that same lie, has
any that you are not enough, and that you are
you are not enough, you are not loved. I said
this last week. But victory is found in the repeat.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
And when you.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Begin to understand that's all the devil ever says to you,
You're not enough. It's not enough, they're not enough, You're
not loved. It's not enough, you're not loved. Unless you
do this, you can't be that. They won't love you
if they only love you because you're not enough, You're
not loved, You're not even enough for God to love
you unless you act a certain way.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You're not enough for God to.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Hear you unless you reach a certain level of spirituality
and scale yourself up to the highest heide of the
best Christian. It's not enough. You tried, but it's not enough,
and you're not loved. Now, those two lies play on
the loop in our mind. But in the case of
Israel going through the wilderness, I want to tell you something.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
It was actually true. They were not enough for their
enemies without.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
God, but they were not without God. And that's what
you forget. You forget that he's with you in the wilderness.
He's with you in the wilderness. He's with you in
your weakness. He's with you as you fight through this addiction.
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He's with you as you resist temptation. He's with you
for that hard conversation you need to have. He's with
you as you care for somebody who doesn't appreciate you.
He is with you as you work through those bills
and try to get yourself back on some financial stable ground.
He's with you as you try to consider how am I.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Going to mention this so I can begin to deal
with it? Because I'm tired of caring.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
He is with you in the dry place where you
haven't felt him for a really long time, and you're
starting to feel like, well, maybe something's wrong with me,
Maybe God has left me. But the Bible says that
Jesus was led into the wilderness by the spirit. It
says that the spirit led him, but it doesn't say
the spirit left him. The spirit led him to a
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hard place, but the spirit, it did not leave him
in the hard place. The same spirit that led him
in the wilderness was there all forty days and forty nights.
And I know you need some things in your life
to get better. And I know you need some chains
and shackles to fall off your feet. And I know
you need God to turn some stones into rivers of water.
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And I know you need God to do some things,
and he can and he will. But even until he does,
he's with you in this wilderness.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
He's with you in this in between.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
He didn't drop you off in the middle of your adversity.
He didn't leave you to figure this out by yourself.
He did not abandon you when you got attacked.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
He's not waiting for you to get it together, to
come down and rescue you. He picks up.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
The phone, and if you call him, he'll come.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
If you call him, he'll come. If you say.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Jesus, he'll say, yes, I've done.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It a thousand times. I didn't feel like.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Calling on him, but I lifted my hands by faith,
not sight, bye, faith not feeling, and I called on
the Lord, and I stuck the Lord and he wards
and he answered. So I want to give you three
truths today to remember for new loops in your life.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And the first one is this.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I want you to shout it out everybody, say he's here.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Say that again. He's here.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Now in the verse I read you. He's not the
only one here. It's the devil talking. I'm not even
gonna write out his whole name.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I'm gonna just put that D right there and you'll
know who I'm talking about. And then there's Jesus.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Hold up, I'm gonna do that in all caps. I
can't draw, but I can do that. Now, listen to me,
and listen to me. Close about this. It's a conversation
going back and forth in the wilderness. And the spirit
is with Jesus to defeat the enemy. The spirit is
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with you to defeat the enemy.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
Yeah, Yeah, I love how we make it seem like
Jesus as our perfect risen savior, and he is never
experienced difficulty, or at least you know, we may not
say that about Jesus because we know we went to
the cross.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Sometimes we act like that was the only time that
Jesus's life was hard. Jesus's life was hard the whole
time it was hard. This is the brink of his ministry.
He's thirty years old, and the spirit leads him in
the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. That's his
ministry apprenticeship. That's what the Lord gave him. That's what
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his father gave him to prepare him. And so I
have recognized every time in my life that God was
about to do something huge. I had to go through
hell before I got there every time, and I passed
that along to you. In case you're going through hell,
you might be on the brink of something huge, and
the devil might know that, and he might be deploying
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extra resources to try to get you to choke before
you arrive.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
At your destiny.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Everything I ever released for God faced tremendous resistance. I
just say that in case it's been difficult for you
now With that note made, then Jesus was led by
the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the
devil after fasting forty days and forty nights. This has
to be the most obvious verse in the Bible.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
He was hungry, and.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yet it's not because Jesus is saying stuff that his
disciples like, I have food to eat that you know not.
But he still had a stomach and it was still empty.
I fasted forty days one time when we started the church.
Those were the hardest things I ever did. And people
told me before I did it, don't worry about it.
Once you get through the first three days, you don't
even think about food anymore. And they said it's not
hard after like day three. Let me tell you something,
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every one of them, I rebuke your lying.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Spirit, talk about same lies, new loops. It was hard
the whole time.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
I started dreaming about foods I don't even eat in
my normal life. I would be I would see brussels
sprouts and salivate. Now I don't even need bacon in them.
I just need the Brussels sprout. I'll eat it without oil,
without salt. The whole forty days. It was hard the
whole time. And you know, we think that the only
time that it was hard for Jesus was when he
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went to the cross, because we read about him healing
blind eyes the highlight reel, and people who couldn't speak
spoke when he spoke for them to speak. Because whatever
he speaks to does whatever he says. If he speaks
to a sea, it's prints, if he speaks to a
mountain that leaps, whatever he speaks to does what it says,
except for us. Sometimes I'll come back to that in
a future series. But it was hard the whole time.
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It was hard for him when he was tempted by
the devil in the wilderness. His life was hard ever
since he was a baby. Not only was he born
in a barn, but Harry tried to kill him from
the day he was little. He was on the rhine,
not from the devil, toward the purpose of God for
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his life. So if it's been hard for you, that's okay.
And the devil will just get you stuck in that
get you stuck in how hard it is. So I'm
go ahead and put it there. It's hard, it's hard,
and you're like that's not a lie.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I don't know if you about to say that that's
not true. No, it's true. It's true.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
It's just that if the enemy can get you to
go from a line to a loop, that instead of
going through the hard thing, you get stuck in the
hard thing. That instead of God delivering you through this season,
you get in this season and you dig down deeper,
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and you actually define yourself by the difficulty of the season.
Let me speak to that for a moment. Do not
define yourself by the difficulty of the season. Define yourself
by the size of your God. Because greater is he
that is in you than he that's in the world.
So I'm not saying it's not hard. I'm just saying
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he's bigger than it is. And I am also saying
that you don't only have a God who stands high
above the hard things in your life. You have a
God who became a human and the hard thing.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
The Book of.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Hebrews, Chapter four, verse thirteen, about verse thirteen says something
very interesting. He says that that's not the right verse.
I don't know what the verse is there. It is
verse fourteen that I gave you earlier. Since we have
a great high priest. Everybody say, Jesus is high.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Who has ascended into heaven.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
This is after his resurrection, Jesus the son of God.
Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, for
we do not have a high priest who is unable
to empathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who
has been tempted in every way just as we are.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yet he did not sin. Here's your shouting verse.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence.
Somebody shout, He's here, so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help us in our time of success,
our time of blessing, our time of wholeness, our time
of completeness.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
All of that is true too.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
But if you are in the hour of need right now,
I know a name that is.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Greater than your need.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I don't care what need you name name cancer, named bankruptcy,
name divorce, name hatred, name evil.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I know a name that is straight. And when on
bush he answers.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
High five at least five people say, he answered, I
turned to the throne and he answered, he answered, He answered,
God saw humanity striving in our sin, trying to keep
the law and couldn't do it. Trying to be perfect
and couldn't do it, trying to keep the commandments and
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couldn't do it. So he handled it himself. He's not
only a high priest, he became a human. Why he
came down to handle what you couldn't. Point number one says,
he's here. Somebody's shout, he's here. Point number two says,
it's handled. Somebody shout, its handled. I'm trying. If I
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could get three people to agree with me, we could
get you out of this loop that the people of
God were in all the way from numbers thirteen. We
can't attack him. It's too hard for us. It's too
hard for us.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It's too hard for us. You know, sometimes we vent
about our problems to people.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Be careful who you vent to, because sometimes when you
start venting, start inventing. I studied, I study, I thought
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about what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell
you how the Israelites looked at the land that God
wanted to give them. And remember, they turned something that
should have been as straight through into a forty year loop.
And it all started because they were venting. Numbers Chapter
thirteen out verse number thirty. Then Caleb's silence to people
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before most said we should go up and take possession
of the land. For we can do it. I know
we've been slaves for a long time, but we can
do it. We're sons and daughters of God.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
We can do this.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
God is with uss. Somebody shout, he's here.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
He's here.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Anything's possible if he's here. Did you see what he
just did to the sea we came through. When the
devil gets rhetorical, you get historical, start pointing to stuff
that God already did and remind him how big your God,
God is. I got a word for somebody. He already
handled it. So it's hard, but but that's how you
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break that spiral. That's how you break out of that loop.
That's how you break out of this stupid, crazy stuff
that the devil's been feeding you, just like he tried
to feed Jesus. You break it with a butt.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Where is y'all's mind? It's hard, but he's here.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I want everybody that puts that on a post it
note somewhere around your.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
House this week to tag me. But I don't have
social media, so I won't see it. But somebody will
print it. Out and give it to me.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And one of the reasons I don't have social media
is because if I had social media on my phone
right up now, I wouldn't be able to preach discermon
to you. Because in this season of my life, I
have got to be very, very careful about the voices.
Speaker 6 (30:08):
That I allow to have weight in my life, because
I refuse to let the voice of a human keep
me from hearing from Heaven.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
I must speak what God says is written.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
But tag tag me anyway somebody will somebody will print
it out for me.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Hashtag new loops, hashtag less news, new loops.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Hashtag more word less news. I am saying nothing, but
what God says is more important than what do you
think what any human opinion says. So be careful because
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if you keep venting, you might start inventing. You might
make an enemy out of somebody who is actually your
brother or sister in Christ. Okay, nw loops is hard,
But he's here. He's right in the middle of all
of it. His name is Jesus, and he's here, and
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also is handled Who told the sea? The sprint rhetorical question.
It says, historical question, God did, who told the mountain
to move. God did, And I know it is hard,
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but can you believe it is handled? Here's what Caleb said.
He said, we can certainly do this. God's got us.
There is a Caleb inside you. There is a Caleb
inside of you to tell you that you got it,
to tell you that you don't.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
But he does.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
To tell you that you don't have to respond to
temporary pressure by making decisions that are going to set
you back for your destiny.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
The Lord wants you to know its handle.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
And in verse thirty one, the people start responding. The
men who have gone up said, we can't attack those people.
They are stronger than we are. It's too hard. It's
too hard. Verse thirty two, And they spread among the
Israelites bad report about the land they explored. And they said,
the land we explored devours those living in it. All
the people we saw there are of great size. That's true,
(32:46):
and they're venting. But what's for thirty thirty three We
saw the Nephilm that the sins of the Nact come
from the Nephlum. We seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes,
and we look the same to them. Well, now you're
inventing because you don't know how you look to them.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
But if you look like that in your eyes, you
start inventing.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
There have been times in my marriage where I started
treating Holly like my enemy because of my own insecurity.
I start pushing her away because of something in me
that I don't want her to see. So now I'm
treating the person that God gave me as my help,
and I am treating them like they are.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
The person that I'm assigned to fight.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Is your insecurity, leading you to believe your enemy, to
create new enemies, to join with the words of the enemy.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Jesus would have none of it.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
When the devil spoke to Jesus, Jesus talked back. Jesus
talked back, and it was hard, and he was hungry,
but he understood that the spirit led him to the wilderness.
But the spirit did not leave him in the wilderness,
and he understood that his father already had a plan. Now,
the devil has a plan and God has a plan.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Which one are you going to go with?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
One plan is to satisfy you temporarily in short term,
and the other is for you to trust God with
your tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Because he's the one who's already there.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
The tempter came to him. He was hungry because he
was human. He's high and holy, but he was born
as a human to pay the price for our sin.
And the tempter came to him and said and said,
if you are the son of God, tell these stones.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
This is gonna be a stone.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
If you are the son of God, tell the stone
to become bred.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
If you are the son of God, do something.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
To take something that's not supposed to be something and
make it something that it can't be. Now we already
know that if Jesus tells the stone to be bread,
it'll be pumpernickel in a minute. It'll be rye bread
in a minute before he says the first syllable, it
will be the softest, warmest loaf of bread. Jesus could
(35:22):
not only speak to the stone and make it bread.
He could speak to heaven and rain down butter on
the bread.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
He could speak to.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
The sun and the sun would toast the slice of
bread that wasn't there before that was a stone.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
He could do that.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
But watch what he said in verse four. I think
this is powerful for our lives, Jesus answered. Jesus answered,
he's fully human, and he's fully God.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That means he's able to be.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Tempted, but he's also able to overcome. So when the
tempter spoke, watch this.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Answered.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
It is written, man shall not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,
the God who spoke to the sea, and it split,
the God who spoke to the mountain, and it left
(36:24):
the God who spoke you into existence.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
That's what I live off of. That's what I go by.
That's my new loop, what God spoke.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
And any time that I get stuck, anytime that I'm
going around and around this is.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
So messy, I shall probably just start all over.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Anytime that I feel like what is against me is
greater than what is for me.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Here we go, same lies loop. Watch the lie. It's
not enough.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
You've got to turn the stone into bread because God
won't provide for you.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
It's not enough.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
But at the heart of this chunk something very interesting
if you are the son of God, because not only
it's not enough, but you're not loved, and that there's
something that you have to do to get God to
love you. But Jesus knew better. Jesus knew not only
(37:32):
he's here not only it's handled, but Jesus knew.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I'm his.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Think about the absurdity of the devil's impision turn a
stone into bread. Jesus already is both of those things.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Peter said it this way.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
The stone that the builders rejecting has become the chief
corner stone, the rock that Moses drank from in the wilderness,
the one that God pulled into a pool. Jesus is
what the devil is trying to tempt him to turn
(38:41):
something into. And don't even get me started about bread,
because Jesus is the vibe. Jesus is the bread. Jesus
is the resurrection.
Speaker 7 (38:56):
Jesus is the way, the truth, the Jesus is the
good shepherd.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Jesus is the Gate, and Jesus is the bread. So devil,
you can't get me what's already mine.
Speaker 7 (39:14):
I belove to God.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I'm his and he's got me. I'm his, and he
knows me. I'm his, and he chose me. I'm his,
and no man can put me from his hand. I'm his,
I'm called, I'm his, I'm.
Speaker 8 (39:34):
Sustained, I'm his.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
I'm got grace for.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
This season because I am his.
Speaker 7 (39:42):
And he's here, and it's handled because I'm his, because
he's here, and it's handle because I'm his.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Till your neighbor be nice to me.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
My father is a great God, tell him be good
to me because my.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
God is a great king, and he's here in this handle.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
When I do this, receive the word of the Lord.
My friend, receive the word of the Lord. My brother,
receive the word of the Lord. Says, receive the word
of the Lord. Man of God, receive the word of
the Lord. You pastor receive the word of the Lord.
Single mom receive the word of the Lord. High school
student receive the word of the Lord. Recovery Program day
(40:34):
thirty three.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Receive the word of the Lord.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
The bread is already here. The song that the builders rechecked.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
It shall become the sheep.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Warner stone sus you belong to God. Come on, let's
sit in that for a moment. For every devil this's
been lieing to you. The devil came at Jesus three
different ways. He told him, if you're the son of God,
(41:08):
what you mean if I'm the son of God. Y'all
never read Matthew chapter three, verse sixteen when you're about to,
because the Bible says that before Jesus was led into
the wilderness, he went through the water, and as soon
as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.
(41:32):
At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the
spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
He's here, He's here, And a voice from heaven. Ain't
it crazy? One verse before he had to deal with
the voice from hell, God gave him the voice from heaven.
(41:54):
You need a fresh encounter with Jesus. You need a
fresh revelation of Jesus. You need a fresh word from God,
a meditation in your heart. If you don't meditate on
his word, you're gonna medicate on other stuff, and you
are gonna choke on stones because you don't have any brand.
And a voice from heaven said, this is my son
(42:17):
whom I love.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
With him, I am well pleased.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
So when the devil Matthew four verse one, started tempting
Jesus in the wilderness, and in verse two, the Bible says,
after fasting forty days and forty nights, not forty years,
because Jesus was doing for them what they could not
do for themselves. Don't you get it? He was in
the wilderness for you. He was handling it for you.
(42:43):
He was achieving a righteousness that you and I could
never achieve. He was paying the price for you. That's
why the spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, so that
you would never be there alone again. And when the
devil said, if you are the son of God turned
something into something, Jesus said, I'm not turning anything into anything.
I already know who I am because I'm still dripping
(43:06):
with the water of the affirmation of my Father in
this dry place.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So I don't think so. I don't think so devil.
I don't think so devil.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I don't think I'm just gonna be depressed Devil. I
don't think I'm just gonna live the rest of my
life reliving and rerunning this and repeating this and dredging
this back up.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I don't think so devil.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
I don't think I'm gonna let the world make me
mad and angry and cynical devil.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
I don't think so devil. I know I'm his.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I'm a royal people, I'm a chosen priesthood.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
I'm a holy nation. I belong to God. And he
came at him three ways I'm almost done.
Speaker 9 (43:52):
I know y'all want me to preach for four more hours.
Come on, four more hours, Come on, four more If
Jesus could fast forty days, y'all can say five more minutes.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
In this message, he's here say it.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's hard, but.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
He's how you get the point. And it's hard, but
it's handled. Uhh D definitely comes before L in the
word handle. I do know that, but I was confused
(44:43):
when it said I'm his, because that's what the Lord
gave me. That he said was more important than anything else,
because if you don't believe that you're loved by him,
you will be trying to turn everything else in your
life into loaves.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And he is my favorite verse.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
After the devil tempts Jesus three times because remember defeat
in victory or in the repeat, so he's not just
gonna do it once, not just twice, not just three times.
But after he told him, hey, throw yourself off the
building and the angels will catch you. Jesus like I
know the angels on a first name basis, and I
do not need to do.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Something to get the angels to come.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
If I ask my father to send angels, they're already
on the way.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Ooh, touch three.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
People say they're already on the way. The help you
need is already on the way. The support you need
is already on the way. The book you need is
already in your mailbox. Check your mailbox, the book you
ordered last week. It's got the answer. It's already on
the way. And after being tempted, ooh, I feel this
in my spirit. After he had tempted him as hard
(45:54):
as he could, tempt him, as hungry as Jesus was,
tried to get him to step outside of who he was,
to do something thing that he already did, something that
he didn't even need from the enemy, because watch this,
the Bible says in Matthew chapter four, verse number eleven.
Then the devil left him.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Oh, come on, get happy. I don't need no music.
Just get happy. Come on, get happy. Then keep clapping
so I can erase. Then, come on, come on.
Speaker 8 (46:33):
You want the devil to get up out of your mind.
You want the devil to get up out of your psychology.
You want the devil to get out of your kids.
You want the devil to get out of your feed.
You want the devil to get out of your all right,
get happy.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Then the devil left.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I'm gonna just start all over, And the Bible says
verse eleven, isn't on the screen?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
Is verse eleven on the screen? I saw a picture.
Then the devil left, and.
Speaker 7 (47:13):
Oh, thank you Jesus, that're supposed to be an angel.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
The age Us came. They a'te us came. They ain't
us came with to hell.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Just slam the asus.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Pay touch seven.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
People say, wait for the angel, Wait for the angel.
Wait for the angel. Wait for the angel. Don't be
too anxious, it's already on the way. Don't talk yourself
out of standing strong for Christ. Wait for the angels.
The angels are on the way. The angels are in room.
(48:00):
You don't have to throw yourself up a building.
Speaker 7 (48:02):
The Ageus are coming, The angels are coming.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
The angels are coming.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Somewhere in those forty days, I know Jesus prayed, because
I don't believe that the devil was the only one
Jesus was talking to in Matthew chapter four. I believe
that Jesus, as human and as hungry as he was,
prayed to his father and said, father, I need you.
(48:34):
And when he called his father he answered and just
because the answer.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Hasn't arrived yet does not mean God didn't send it.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
But in this season, if you start trying to turn
stones into bread and substitute other human relationships for your
relationship with God, you will miss your angel because you
ate something that was never meant to be eaten.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Stand on your feet. The angels are waiting.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
I believe there's angels come into your house this way.
I believe angels are coming to somebody's central nervous system
right now to calm you down. Freaking out swinging at
stuff that isn't even swinging at you. Stop it, wait
for the angel. He's here, is handled, You're his. Speak
(49:50):
those things quietly say, he's here, is handling. I'm his.
Come here, Abbe, come here, I called, she answered, because
(50:11):
she's mine.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Come on up my way up. We love you, Abby answer,
I'm saying, I love you too. Person I don't know.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
And before we came out, I was showing her my angel.
I says, it look like an angel. I said, give
me your hand, put it up. Can y'all get this
on the screen. I drew those two loops on her hand.
Now this is my daughter, so I'm saying to her
and I know fourteen year old can't get a tattoo,
but if she could, I would probably have her get
something like this. But I have somebody draw more professionally,
(50:53):
just to remind her that he's here, that his hand.
You don't have to keep it all in your hands
and handle all the way yourself.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
And I'm his, and I'm his.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Angels are on the way, Angels are on the way,
angels are on the web.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
He said, what do you mean by that? What do
you mean by that, Pastor Stephen?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I mean that God is going to send you the
help that you need as you call onto him.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
And yesterday, why are we on our knees like this?
I'll stand up. It's very uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
She had a soccer game yesterday afternoon. Yesterday morning, ten
am soccer. I want to say, for somebody who's about
to preach in twenty four hours, I'm always stressed out
trying to find the soccer field.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
That's my hardest part. I have no sense of direction.
Holly got there. She sent me a pen.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
I left with plenty of time to part and I
arrived exactly on time, five minutes to spare to an
empty church parking lot with no soccer field. I mean,
I'm just driving talking my friend on the phone talking
about my sermon to me. I think I'm gon talk
about the angels and the bread and the stones. This
(52:04):
is make an offense. He's like, yeah, I'm sure it'll
get there. But the angels are on the way. The
angels are on the way. And as I'm on my
way to the thing, I'm not paying attention, and all
of a sudden I realize, oh, I'm here, but I'm
not there. I didn't disobey the GPS. Every turn that
(52:25):
told me to take I took. I didn't rebel against
the GPS. Turn right, I don't think so, and listen
to me. I want to give you this one because
I need to use it because if something bad happens
to me, I want to redeem it.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And there's no really bad part of this story because
all I did.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
I called Holly, I said, hey, this is weird. I
went where you sent me to go before you left.
But I need you to resend it to me now
that you're there. Because the address that we had, I
got to.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
The destination that it was taking me to.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
But the destination that was taking me to was not
the destination.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Where you are?
Speaker 3 (53:12):
I said, so what do I do? She said, I'm
gonna drop you a new pin because she's here. Now,
everybody say he's here.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Because she's here now.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
I said, all right, and then I put it in
and it was fifteen minutes away.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
I fifteen minutes off and then I drove somewhere and
then the GPS took me down this very strange dirt road. Yeah,
it was the weirdest thing. The sign said keep out,
and I went through anyway because the GPS told me to.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
I'm just obeying the GPS, you know. And of course
it's a dead end. It's some weird looking government building.
I don't even know where I was or what was
about to happen to me. I don't know what got
in my GPS. So I called her again. I said, okay,
let's try it different this time. You're already there. Tell
me how to get there from where I am. And
(54:05):
she said, okay, well you it's the road, and she's
pretty good with directions. So she started describing it to
me because she was there, and she said, he just
stay on the phone with me for a minute. She said,
all right, turn here. There's a long road. There's a
classic car show. Don't turn into that, keep driving, because
she'd already seen all that, because she was there, because
we have not a high priest who is unable to
(54:27):
sympathize or empathize with our weaknesses, because he was tempted.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
In the wilderness.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
And so.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
Then she really really put the cherry on top.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
She said, I'm wearing my bright yellow hat, and you
can see me, and I'll wave you in, and i
will block this pickup truck that's.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Trying to take this parking space until you get here.
Speaker 10 (54:51):
And I saw that yellow hat, and I saw my
woman standing there waiting for me, and I realized what
was wrong.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
In that moment. I didn't need a pen. I needed
a person. I needed somebody who was already there to
guide me in.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
Now, you keep trying to fight temptation in your own strength,
you're gonna stay lost. You're gonna think you're taking the
right turns, you're gonna think.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
You're doing the right things.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
But Jesus said, hey, I'll be standing in your next
five minutes.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I'll be standing in your Tuesday. I will be waving
you in. You look for me, you stay with me,
and I'll answer. He answered.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
He answered, Jesus, answered the devil, because the Father already
answered him.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
And the angels are.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
On the way.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
I call God on the mountain. I call God in
the valley.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
I call God on the good days, and I call God.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
In he surrounds me. Call God just to tell him,
just to say.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
Call.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
God's saying. So one thing you could do.
Speaker 3 (56:22):
You could just lift your hands to your father right now.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
I call God on the mountain.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
I call God, he answered, Oh God, he answered Jesus,
he'll answer you. And the Lord is in this place
with your God. Angels in your wilderness man.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
Angels in your try place. He turned stones into pools
of waters. I call God. I call God. I call God.
Let's have a little grace party of God. Let's get
it warmed up. Baby. I call God where you ask
(57:08):
you SECTION call God.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Just a thank you, Susan said, See my new friend God,
my new briend.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
I sold the honey I think I had man. I
called God.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
He's a healer.
Speaker 1 (57:27):
I call God, new bread.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
I call God bread.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
I call God. It's just all aroun me. I call
God andie I call God. He say again, I call God.
As I sold that heady as he.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
I call God, he.
Speaker 10 (57:56):
I call God, heisp oh God.
Speaker 1 (58:19):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
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 Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you
Host
Steven Furtick
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