June 7, 2024 • 43 mins
In a world with an abundance of information and opinions, it’s difficult to know what’s true and who you can trust. But even when our circumstances look less than ideal, we can be sure that we have a purpose and God has a plan.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
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 2 (00:18):
I was led to Second Corinthians chapter one, verse six
through ten, and time permitting, we might get verse eleven,
but we will have to see if we have anything
left in the time budget before we decide that. And
I didn't start with this text this week, but this
is eventually the place where I felt like the Lord
(00:38):
wanted to spend a little bit of time. If we
verse six, Second Corinthians, Chapter one, Apostle Paul writing, are afflicted,
it is for your comfort and salvation.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Everything I go through serves a purpose.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort
which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings
that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for
we know come on, somebody, shall we know.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Sound good? Shouting that you sound rested?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
For we know that as you share in our sufferings,
you will also share in our comfort, For we do
not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, of
the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so
utterly burdened beyond our strength that we just spared of
life itself.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Death, but that even when it got so hard, I
felt helpless and hopeless. That was to make us rely
not on ourselves but on God.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I found my foundation.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
When I went through a shaking, so that I would
trust Him who raises the dead. He delivered us from
such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. Why
he's still God, So on him we have set our
hope that he will deliver us again.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I want you to give your neighbor my.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Sermon title, but I want you to have a little
conversation with him to set the context for it. Tell him, neighbor,
it's kind of crazy in the world these days. There's
a lot going on. The stakes are high.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I want you to answer what they just said to you.
Look at them, and give him my title. Tell him
I know, but I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Try your other neighbor out. Tell him I know. I
watched the news I saw what.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Your cousin Jimmy said on Facebook about a conspiracy theory.
Tell him about I'm not nervous, nervous. I am not nervous.
I refuse to be, not gonna be, not about to be.
God is too great and he's been too good for
me to be nervous. Heymen, I feel like I preached already.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You may be seated.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Paul would like to set the record straight. There are
too many rumors circulating. There's too much noise and not
enough signal. Come on, somebody. We are drowning in opinions
and we don't have a drop of truth. Such was
the case in court. They're talking about poor Paul. All
(03:51):
he ever did was preach Jesus Christ and help them
and minister to them.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And these other preachers are.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Seizing a political opportunity to run a smear campaign against
poor Paul that the NRA would have been envious of.
That the Democratic Party couldn't even come up with. I mean,
neither one on the right or the left could do
any better than these opponents of Paul were doing to
(04:22):
discredit him. And he wants to talk to the church
that he loves from his heart and set the record straight.
In other words, he wants them to hear it straight
from the source. It does make a difference where you
get your information from.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It really does.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
A strange thing that we live in an age where
all information is deemed equal because it takes up the
same amount of space on our timeline, and so we
don't know whether we're listening to somebody who knows what
they're talking about, or whether there is a commercialized interest
that is manipulating the information. It is safe to assume
that most of what we are hearing is diluted, watered down,
(05:06):
or polluted added to and it's really kind of hard
to even trust what you hear these days. Paul was
frustrated about that, and in much civil turmoil under oppression,
not only political oppression, but religious oppression. He writes back
(05:27):
home to the church, and he wants to tell.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Them not what.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Others say about his situation, but to allow them to
see the situation and to hear it straight from the source,
Straight from the source, he says in verse eight, And
this could be a whole sermon in and of itself.
We do not want you to be ignorant. And he's
(05:58):
setting us up here a little bit. His assumption is
that there are some things that we know, that we
think we know, that we don't really know, and some
things that we need to know. He uses here a
Greek word, and I wrote it down phonetically, So would
it mispronounce it for you? Oh, it's translated in my
(06:26):
Bible here ignorant. On the screen, it's translated in a
more updated version unaware, And it's translated different ways because
it's a difficult concept to pin down.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Paul is speaking to.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
A group of people who have heard a lot, but
in spite of all the information that they have received,
they still know very little about the facts. In spite
of all the access that they have, in spite of
all the blogs that they've read, in spite of all
the twenty four to seven news stations, what they're hearing
(07:01):
isn't very true to reality because they're not getting it
from the source. So he explains the situation, sourcing it
with the reality, because he doesn't want them to be ignorant. However, Oh,
does it necessarily mean uninformed? Rather, it means more likely
given the Greek shade of meeting misinformed.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Can I teach you a little bit today?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I figured that you would be excited to hear the
word of God, because you have to hear everybody else.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Talk all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So let's take a little time and talk about the
word of God. He said, it's not that you haven't
heard things, or that you have not been exposed to
statistics that concerns me. It's just that I'm afraid that
what you're hearing and what you're seeing is so far
removed from the source that it is not pure in
(07:56):
its essence. And I don't want you to be ignorant.
Now all ignorant, it says, not created equal. There are
different levels of dumb.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Am I right? Am? I right about it? There's an
innocent ignorance.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Some things you haven't had the opportunity to learn yet.
I hate when somebody tries to correct my five year
old Abby from the way she says certain phrases that
I think are adorable.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
She's got the rest of her life to get it right.
Would you shut up and.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Let my daughter call it a vacuum cleaner. I prefer
vacuum cleaner. She called a vacuum cleaner the rest of
her life. She's only got a few years to call
it a vacuum Get off my girl's speech and let
her say it how she wants to say it. It's cute,
it's beautiful, it's adorable to me. I like it, and
(08:45):
that's fine. There is another type of ignorance, agne O.
This would be when you have a an indifference that
leads to ignorance you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Don't care enough to find.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Out personally, this is the way I feel about all
of the people who eat super healthy. They come to
me and they want to tell me all of the
chemicals that are in my food. And I know it
probably shouldn't address this. There's enough controversy in the world
today as it is without me adding to it. And
(09:22):
I know somebody is gonna email me or send me
a book about the seventeen foods that you're cancer and
the foods that are riding my brain. But I need
to let you know if the steroids will make the
chicken bigger before Holly fries it. I am for the steroids.
That might make me a horrible person. I might burn
in hell for saying this in church, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Just don't care.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Touch somebody say I just don't care. There are some
things I just don't care about. I just want to eat.
I do not care some things. I just got to
be honest with you. I just don't care. I am
amazed that some of you men with your fantasy football.
I am amazed how much you know about another man's
ankle and whether or not he's going to play, and
(10:03):
how that is going to affect one hundred dollars that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You might win twelve hours a week's studying it.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
You've been at church once in the last six weeks.
Crazy self, ignorant about the things of God. But you
can tell me statistics on somebody in some tight pants
around there.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
That's what Paul's talking about. He said, I want you
to be ignorant.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I don't want you to be those kinds of Christians
that just don't care. You don't even take time to
find out when they talk about climate change. You won't
even look into it because Jesus coming back on a
horse anyway, and he's gonna nukee this whole place.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
There ain't nothing we can do.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You know, you sound crazy when you talk like that.
You sound so ignorant. Paul says, I don't want you
to have that kind of hope. I don't want you
to have this cotton candy Christianity where you are ignorant
of the afflictions. No, I want you to know some things.
(11:09):
But the most dangerous kind of ignorance is not innocent
ignorance or indifferent ignorance. Who I'm really scared of are
the people who have that confident ignorance, not uninformed, misinformed,
and they think they know everything about something.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That they know nothing about.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
And perhaps half of maturity is coming to the place
where you know that you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I'm I appreciate, all right, I love my children.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But when Elijah said to me yesterday, and I've heard
a lot about the teenage yeers and Elijah's eleven, and
a lot of people have tried to create a sense
of fear and dread in me regarding the teenageers, because
you know, I'll say I really enjoy being a dad,
and they go, oh good, back to me on that
when they're fourteen, and we'll see how much you love
(12:11):
in big boy, And.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And I'm not planning on preaching my parenting series till
I'm about seventy five.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
But Elijah, I got a taste of.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
What this rebellion may look like when we were pulling
into the garage the other day, and this boy looks
at me confidently and says, Daddy, I need you to know.
As one of the greatest albums from the nineteen nineties
plays on my car stereo, Counting Crows, August and Everything After,
with the soothing, soulful lyrics of Adam Durretz blaring on
(12:45):
the speakers, and he has the nerve to look at
me and say, Daddy, I hate to break it to you,
but the music from your day really isn't very good.
Said it with swagger too, like he worked for Rolling
Stone magazine. It's really not that good. I hit the brakes.
(13:11):
We weren't even in the garage yet I hit the brakes.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I said, what.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Because you can question me as a preacher, you can
tell me I'm getting too old to wear my jeans
kind of tight. You can say a lot of things
to me, boy, But when you talk about my music,
I said what He said, Yeah, the music in your
day didn't have loops.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And I said, well, let's take a little lesson. Do
you remember, and I gave him some history. Do you
remember when I took you.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
To see Weird Al Yankovic at Oven's auditorium, and he
was singing Amish Paradise, that song.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That you thought was so clever. And then I had
to let.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Him know that before there could be an Amish Paradise,
there had to be a coolio. There had to be
a coolio, and so I played him.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I took him to the source material. But before there
could be a coolio.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And this is where some of you are ignorant, there
had to be a Stevie, because those strings on Gangster's
Paradise would not have been there without Stevie. Wonder See,
there's always something before what you enjoy that enabled what
you're a part of. That's why I can't stand people
who complain about this country who don't even know the
(14:34):
first thing about the price that was paid for you
to have the.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Right to express your opinion that you don't like it.
Come on, touch three.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
People say, get in the know, get in the know,
Get in the know. Come on, Blakeney, get in the know,
Come on, Guston, get in the know.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I know, Paul said, I don't want you to.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I don't want I want you to be misinformed.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
About the price that was paid.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I don't want you to be misinformed about the situation.
I don't want you to think that the hope that
you enjoy came cheap. It didn't. It came hard. For
an ignorant hope is no hope at all. Nothing stable
about a hope that has its head buried in the sand.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I hear you, Pastor Rob Parsley.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Anyone can sing a tune on a clear day at noon,
God give me a song at midnight.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
That's what Pastor Rob Parsley used to say. I like
that Paul said, my hope came.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The hard way, because if you just read verse ten
of this, it sounds a lot like some kind of
campaign slogan, do you know the slogan and sound by
kind of mentality.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That people get over time.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's when we don't understand the source of our hope
that we've again to sound kind of silly. And this
is when people say, well, you Christians, you're just waiting
on the apocalypse. You Christians. You don't even vote, you
just pray. It's an ignorant imitation of hope. It's not confidence,
(16:18):
it's complacency that you don't know. And Paul wants them
to know. He wants them to know what he went through.
He wants them to know what he's been through and
when he comes out on the other side.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You might have known this. When I read the text,
it shouted real good, and you were getting fired up
here a Valentine.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I can't speak for the other campuses, but we almost
took off when I read verse ten. He delivered us
from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.
It got us excited to think about that on him.
We have set our hope. Does anybody have a hope?
By the way, anybody have a hope? Anybody have a hope.
Anybody have a hope, regardless of the polls, regardless of
the platforms, regardless of the pondus.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Anybody have a hope. Anybody have a hope.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Anybody have a hope, a hope, a living hope. I
have a hope that'sat my hope on the fact that
he will deliver me again.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
He'd been with me the last forty years. Kelly, you back,
why not forty one? Why not?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
But you can only say that if you know where
this hope comes from. It only means something if you know,
if you know not, if you heard not, if you
thought not, if you.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Wish I have Oh, he will.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Deliver us again, you know, so let's make the campaign hats.
You know, he will deliver us again. If we're representing
the Kingdom of God and if Jesus Christ is our candidate,
he will deliver us again.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And the world looks at that and they say, really
you believe that? Really? Yeah, I believe that. Totally believe that.
How do you know? How do you know? Why aren't
you nervous?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
You know this?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Everybody is so nervous right now, just incredibly nervous.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
They're either ignorant or nervous.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
They're either in Canada or they're nervous.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Just nervous. What if she and what if he?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You know, I'm gonna go press that button, but I
might press it with a blindfold on, just to press it.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Nervous, nervous, they might take my guns. Nervous, they might
not take my guns. Nervous, you know, Nervous, he might
really build that thing. Nervous, she might, she might take
away our civil liberties, possa.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Hey, hey, hey, I have a hope. But it's a
hard boiled hope. It's not an unaware hope. I see
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Out there. I know somebody saying, I know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Not uneducated, I'm not backwoods. I'm not waiting for the
clouds to split so I can go to glory Land.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And shout my troubles over. I got troubles right here,
and I'm in them.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And it concerns me about our communities, and it concerns
me about our schools, and it concerns me about our
police officers and the way that they're treated. And it
concerns me about certain communities in the way that they're treated.
And it concerns me that people are marginalized. And I'm
concerned about abortion, and I'm concerned about many things. And
some people get frustrated because.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You won't get nervous. What we're gonna do? What are
gonna do? Sound like a life as servant. We're surrounded.
Look out there, man, what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You better call down something, You better curse somebody, You
better pray something, you better shoot something. You gotta ball,
you got an arrow. What we're gonna do, what we're
gonna do. We can just stand by what we're gonna do.
Where we're gonna We're gonna nerve nervous nervous and poststeps
into all this and say.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I was beat thirty nine times by the Jews.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Don't talk to me like you know something when you
don't know anything.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Don't talk to me about twenty.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
One pilots when you don't appreciate Nirvana. Don't talk to
me when you haven't seen the source of my hope.
This is a hope that has been through hell, and
it comes from heaven, and the world didn't give it,
and the world can't take it away, and it doesn't
(20:19):
come from the right, and it doesn't come from the left.
I have set my hope on one who is above
it all.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I set my hope on him.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I wouldn't put my hope on a party's platform right now.
I don't think it can hold the weight of your hope.
But if you're looking for a rock, Paul says, I
have a hope.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
But don't.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Don't be confused. I'm concerned. I'm concerned, but I'm not nervous.
I have this piece that passes understanding. I called Tina
last week. Her son might die. She said, I'm broken.
I'm devastated. He's twenty three. I'm uncertain, she said, But
(21:11):
somehow I have peace. That's what Paul's talking about. We're
taking him to every doctor that we can. We will
spare no expense to try to get him well. I
can't imagine what life would be like without him.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
I'm a mom.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
There's nothing I want to protect more than the life
of my son. But there's a certain element of this
where I just have to turn it over. It doesn't
mean I'm disengaged. I'm engaged. I will cast my vote.
I Am not going to be apathetic and abstain because
I don't like the options that the culture I'm a
part of creating.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Have presented to me. Hello, but I'm not nervous. I'm hurting.
I'm hurting. There are some things that broke my heart.
I was utterly burdened.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Paul says his words, I'm burden, but I set my
hope and my hope isn't shaken.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Although my heart is hurting. He sounds kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Right, I'm utterly burden. Watch how bad not I lost
the night of sleep. I was beyond my strength. You've
ever been there before. I don't know what to do.
I don't know which way it's gonna go. I have
no idea how to rebuild this one. I don't think
I can get this one back. It's been too much time.
This one's beyond my control. I didn't see this one coming.
(22:45):
I was so far out there, beyond what I knew
to do, that I despaired of life as self.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I didn't even think I was gonna make.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It to see another day. I wondered what I ever
preach again? I wondered, can we bounce back from this one.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I'm burdened, but I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I'm concerned, I'm involved, I'm praying, doing my part, but
I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I love it. I love it so much that I
went all up and down the Bible.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I wanted to interview some other people who might be
able to corroborate Paul's theory of hope. That you can
be burdened and not nervous, That you can be broke
and not nervous, That you can lose your job and
not be nervous, that you can find drugs in your
kids room and be concerned and be involved and beat
(23:50):
them half to death, but not be nervous. Come on,
so I asked, David, Really, you gotta fight Goliath.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
David, nobody wants to fight Goliath. He is the Philistine
champion from God. His botty armor weighs more than you. Boy.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
As a matter of fact, you have no fighting experience
nor a military title.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
If you were smart, you'd go back home.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Goliath has been defying these people for forty days. There's
a good reason they hadn't fought him yet. He's bigger
than you. You know what David said. He said, I know.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I see him. I know he's big.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I know everybody else is standing back, weirding on God
to do something. But I didn't come looking for help
from somewhere up there. I come in the name of
the Lord God, and I'm not nervous. I know he's big,
I know he's strong.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I know I'm a shepherd.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I know I have nothing but a sling in five rocks,
but I might only need one.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
If I can steady my hand and stand my ground.
I'm not nervous, shad Rat.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
They're about to throw you and your buddies in the fire.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Now you understand, you have a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Time left if you will bow before this statue that
never Kannezzar neb Kanzar has has erected. I mean we
talk about crazy leaders. They ain't got nothing on Nebi.
Nebbi was so arrogant. Nebbi lost his mind.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
They said you better bow the king, Nebby.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
They heat it up the furnace, They turned it up
seven times hotter.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Don't you feel the flame?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Can't you see that that there's that there's a situation
in front of you that's too hot for you to handle.
And Shadrack look back at me, Shaq, Me Shaq looked
at a bed and the gold.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
They all look back at.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
The church in Elevation Church and said, we know, but
we're not nervous.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
See the God we serve is.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Abl I said he's abl to deliver us from the fire.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
And we believe he will, and we know he can't.
But even if he doesn't, I'm not nervous. Come on,
somebody said, I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Tell your name of real, Paul, look them in the arse,
say I'm not nervous. I'm not nervous. I went down
in the Lions dinner with Daniel.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Daniel was looking at a lion, y'all, he was looking
at something that could have snapped him in half in
a split second. Daniel, don't you see that lion. Don't
you know your life is on the line. Don't you
know you have a wicked king. Daniel said, I know,
but somehow, some way, the God I sir, will deliver me.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I'm not nervous, be not afraid.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Hey, Jesus, these people are hungry. It's getting late. You've
been preaching a long time. Jesus said, I know. And
we don't have any bread. Jesus said, I know, and
the people are on edge.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Jesus said, I know, but I'm not.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Because I got hands, and if you put what you
have in my hands, I don't care how little it is,
everybody's gonna be fit.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I'm not nervous.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
I'm nervous, nervous, nervous, intimidated, No, concerned, Yes, disturb a
little bit confused perhaps, but I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Jesus, wake up. There's a storm raising on the sea.
How can you sleep in the stern with a storm
on the sea, They asked them, don't you care if
we perish? Jesus said, yeah, I care if you perish.
And I know there's a storm, But I'm not nervous
because with one.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Word, the one who spoke the storm.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Into existence by virtue of the elements that created it
can tell it to shut up.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
God, Jesus, this is in They're gonna kill you now.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
They got you on trial pilot, might send you to
the cross. Don't you want to say something now? I
don't need to say anything. I am the word I
was staring in the buginning. I am alphans O makea.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I'm not nervous. This is the reason I came. So
they can bury me low, so I to reign forever.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Come on, find five people and say, don't be nervous,
don't be nervous.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Don't be nervous.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
That's what sets us apart as the people of God,
is that we can.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Know how bad it is and not be nervous. Because
if we get nervous, what hope is there?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
If we start operating in the same spirit of the
world that caused the fear, that created the division and
the dysfunction that we're a part of.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
If the salt loses.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Its saltiness, how will it be made salty? If you
get nervous, if you lose your cool, what's the distinctive.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Of your Christian faith?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
What kind of hope did you even have? If one
election cycle can threaten it. I set my hope, Paul set.
I tried to put my hope on how I felt,
and I felt like I was going to die. I
tried to put my hope on what other people would
do for me, and they God other people. That's like
me asking you to hold this pulpit while I appreciate
(29:44):
that thing is too heavy for you and some of
the stuff that you've been putting on people platforms, even
the economy, it's too heavy.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So Paul Man, I feel annoyed to it today? Do
I look annoyed at I just want to get this
message out to you.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I know I see you in Babylonian captivity, but I
know Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven. I know somebody say,
I know, now this is God speaking. So the inference
is you don't know, but I know the plans I
have for you, and we know that in all things.
(30:31):
This is Roman's eight twenty eight. God works together the
good and the bad for the good of those who
love Him and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I'm not nervous. I got purpose.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
I'm not nervous. He's got a plan. I'm not nervous.
I've got a purpose. I'm not nervous. He has a plan.
I'm not nervous. I have a purpose. I'm here to
glorify God. I'll glorify him in a lion's den and
a fire, on on a ship with a storm, or
even in a borrowed grave.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Jesus said, I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I came for this. I'm God of the storm. I'm
God of the grave, and beside me there is no other.
So I set my hope when it got real bad,
when it seemed like it was going to be the bottom,
I set my hope on.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
The one who is higher. I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I tried nervous. I didn't like it. I tried nervous.
It made me irritable. I tried nervous. It made me
eat more. I gained thirty five pounds being nervous. I
tried nervous. It didn't make me a part of the solution.
I tried nervous. It made me a critic rather than
a contributor. I tried nervous, didn't change anything.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I tried nervous. I'm mina Show'll be at my job,
do what I can, cast my vote, be the dad
God's called me to be.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I'm be the preacher God's called me to be, and
be the mom God's called me to be.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I'm gonna do my part. I'm not nervous. I'm gonna
do my part. But I will not panic.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Because I lift my eyes and I set my hope.
I lift my eyes. We used to listen to that
song all the time. It was a Brooklyn Tabernacles choir.
I memorized all of PSOne just listening to that song.
And the King James that lady who sang it, she'd
I can't sing it like she sang it, but she
(32:37):
would say, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills.
From whence cometh my hell. My help cometh from the Lord,
the Lord.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Which made heaven under.
Speaker 7 (32:57):
He said, he than not suffer that foot, thy foot
to be moved. The Lord which keep thee, he will
not slumber nor sleep.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Oh, the Lord.
Speaker 7 (33:19):
Is thy keeper. The Lord is the shade upon that
right hand, upon that right hand.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Oh, the.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Sun shall not smipe be.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
By take, nor the moon by night. He shall preserve
thy soul even forever more.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Because my have.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
My my, oh not my help calm in for rom
the Lord my my my head.
Speaker 9 (34:35):
Yeah, ooh, the my help calming for rom the You're
the source of my strength, you are the strength of mind.
Speaker 7 (35:12):
I lift my hand, sin two, pray.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Two.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Everyone's standing, everyone's standing. I have a hope. I lift
my eyes someone is called a song of a scent.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
There were fifteen of them recorded in our cannon of
Scripture for us to read. But they were originally intended
for the pilgrims who would make their way.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
To Jerusalem, so they would have a song to sing
on the way. How many know you need a song
to sing on.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The way to where you're going, Because Jerusalem, City of
Peace was set in the hills, and the hills represent hope,
but the hills also represent hidden enemies. And when the
Psalmist to say, watch this, I lift my eyes to
the hills, he might have felt like a tenth grader
(36:32):
in a new school, or he might have felt like
a nervous father on election day in America, or he
might have felt like a refugee in another part of
the world that would love to be a part of
our democratic process. But he's on his way somewhere. He's
on a journey, and as he progresses, he lifts his
eyes to the hills, the place where his destination is,
(36:57):
the place where.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
His piece is, place where his hope is. He's going
to Jerusalem, and on.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
His way he lifts his eyes to the hills, and
he asked a question, from where does my help come?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Where's it coming from?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Not looking over here, over there, I'm not looking to
the hills or the Donald.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
You get it by Tuesday. I'm looking above all of that.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
And I always read the verse like this, the spirit
of the Lord is in this place, thank you there.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I always looked at it.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Like he was saying, my help comes from the hills,
you know, because God is above and he's a great king.
And when Isaiah saw the Lord and the king, your king,
Usiah died, he was seated on a throne high.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And lifted up. And if funny, he was seated.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And the year the king died, in the year where
the nation was wondering what to do, God wasn't pacing
the marble floors of heaven wondering what.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
He was going to do next. He was still seated.
I came with an announcement today he's still seated. He's
still seated. Had a vision.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
The throne wasn't vacant and the one who sat on
it was seated, so I always thought he was looking up.
And that's true. You know, our hope is God reigns above.
Did you know that the same God who reigns above
sustains beneath. And that's why I'm not nervous, he said.
I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my
(38:40):
help come from? I have hope in the hills, hardship
in the hills, Paul said, I despaired of life, but
I sat my hope.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Both were happening at the same time. My hope came
from my hardship. Watched.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
This is so powerful. This is so powerful. My hope
comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. He
will not let your foot be moved. Who are you
talking to? He's talking to himself. He's having a conversation
with himself, telling himself. Don't be nervous. I know you
(39:13):
see what's in those hills, and you imagine what might
be in those hills, and there's boogeymen in those hills,
and there might be real.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Danger in those hills. But the Lord is your keeper.
And watch this.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
He's not sleeping, He's not asleep. He knows he sees.
He knows. Not one hair of your head falls to
the ground that he doesn't count at, not one sparrow
falls from the sky, that he doesn't have a funeral.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
He knows.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Next verse, Behold, it's all about what you focus on.
He who keeps the people of God will neither slumber
nor sleep.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
For the Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade.
For there to be shade, there must be heat.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
For there to be hope, there must be hardship, or
else it won't really be hope. How can you know
he will deliver you if you don't know that he can,
And how can you know that he can if there isn't.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
An enemy in the hills for you to run to
him seeking refuge from.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I know, I know you're worried about your teenager. I
know you're worried about the state of things. I know
you're worried. I know you're worried.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I know I know.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
But the Lord is on your right hand. And this
is what spoke to me. I lift my eyes to
the hills. That means he's above it, and God is
keeping me in, sustaining me. That means he's beneath it,
and he's on my right hand. That means he's beside
me no matter which way it goes.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
So I'm not nervous. He's great and he's good. He's big,
and he's near. He's omnipotent and he's imminent. He is God,
and I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
His name will be exalted. He is God, and I'm
not nervous.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
The writer of Hebrews said, we have this hope.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
What kind of hope?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
This hope, the same hope that went down into a grave,
that hit rock bottom and still stayed strong.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
We have no let me personalize it. You have this hope,
and it's not.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Out there, and it's not over here, and it's not
over here.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Watch this.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It's an anchor for my soul. It's in me Christ,
in you, the hope of Lord. You are the.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Hope of the world.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
We are the Church, an aner for the soul. Well,
what does an anchor do? It flows around at the
surface and looks pretty, Oh, sir, goes down all the
way to the bottom, and make sure that whatever it's
(42:14):
holding on to come on. I gotta close this sermon,
But I have this hope. Touch somebody say I have
this hope. I have this hope, this hope that kept
him on the cross, this hope that s fucked the
world's into exist us. I feel the.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Spirit of hope coming over the Church of Jesus Christ.
I lift my eyes to the hills. I have this
hope in my soul. My hope went.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Down till the bottom and three days later rose.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
To rain forever. I'm not nervous.
Speaker 8 (42:48):
I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I'm not who I have.
Speaker 10 (42:51):
Believe it, and I'm persuaded that he is able to
keep that which at hem.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Thank you for joining us special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
more information and if you enjoyed the podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
You can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
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 2 (00:18):
I was led to Second Corinthians chapter one, verse six
through ten, and time permitting, we might get verse eleven,
but we will have to see if we have anything
left in the time budget before we decide that. And
I didn't start with this text this week, but this
is eventually the place where I felt like the Lord
(00:38):
wanted to spend a little bit of time. If we
verse six, Second Corinthians, Chapter one, Apostle Paul writing, are afflicted,
it is for your comfort and salvation.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Everything I go through serves a purpose.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
And if we are comforted, it is for your comfort
which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings
that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for
we know come on, somebody, shall we know.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Sound good? Shouting that you sound rested?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
For we know that as you share in our sufferings,
you will also share in our comfort, For we do
not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, of
the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so
utterly burdened beyond our strength that we just spared of
life itself.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Death, but that even when it got so hard, I
felt helpless and hopeless. That was to make us rely
not on ourselves but on God.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I found my foundation.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
When I went through a shaking, so that I would
trust Him who raises the dead. He delivered us from
such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. Why
he's still God, So on him we have set our
hope that he will deliver us again.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I want you to give your neighbor my.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Sermon title, but I want you to have a little
conversation with him to set the context for it. Tell him, neighbor,
it's kind of crazy in the world these days. There's
a lot going on. The stakes are high.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I want you to answer what they just said to you.
Look at them, and give him my title. Tell him
I know, but I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Try your other neighbor out. Tell him I know. I
watched the news I saw what.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Your cousin Jimmy said on Facebook about a conspiracy theory.
Tell him about I'm not nervous, nervous. I am not nervous.
I refuse to be, not gonna be, not about to be.
God is too great and he's been too good for
me to be nervous. Heymen, I feel like I preached already.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You may be seated.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Paul would like to set the record straight. There are
too many rumors circulating. There's too much noise and not
enough signal. Come on, somebody. We are drowning in opinions
and we don't have a drop of truth. Such was
the case in court. They're talking about poor Paul. All
(03:51):
he ever did was preach Jesus Christ and help them
and minister to them.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And these other preachers are.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Seizing a political opportunity to run a smear campaign against
poor Paul that the NRA would have been envious of.
That the Democratic Party couldn't even come up with. I mean,
neither one on the right or the left could do
any better than these opponents of Paul were doing to
(04:22):
discredit him. And he wants to talk to the church
that he loves from his heart and set the record straight.
In other words, he wants them to hear it straight
from the source. It does make a difference where you
get your information from.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It really does.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
A strange thing that we live in an age where
all information is deemed equal because it takes up the
same amount of space on our timeline, and so we
don't know whether we're listening to somebody who knows what
they're talking about, or whether there is a commercialized interest
that is manipulating the information. It is safe to assume
that most of what we are hearing is diluted, watered down,
(05:06):
or polluted added to and it's really kind of hard
to even trust what you hear these days. Paul was
frustrated about that, and in much civil turmoil under oppression,
not only political oppression, but religious oppression. He writes back
(05:27):
home to the church, and he wants to tell.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Them not what.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Others say about his situation, but to allow them to
see the situation and to hear it straight from the source,
Straight from the source, he says in verse eight, And
this could be a whole sermon in and of itself.
We do not want you to be ignorant. And he's
(05:58):
setting us up here a little bit. His assumption is
that there are some things that we know, that we
think we know, that we don't really know, and some
things that we need to know. He uses here a
Greek word, and I wrote it down phonetically, So would
it mispronounce it for you? Oh, it's translated in my
(06:26):
Bible here ignorant. On the screen, it's translated in a
more updated version unaware, And it's translated different ways because
it's a difficult concept to pin down.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Paul is speaking to.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
A group of people who have heard a lot, but
in spite of all the information that they have received,
they still know very little about the facts. In spite
of all the access that they have, in spite of
all the blogs that they've read, in spite of all
the twenty four to seven news stations, what they're hearing
(07:01):
isn't very true to reality because they're not getting it
from the source. So he explains the situation, sourcing it
with the reality, because he doesn't want them to be ignorant. However, Oh,
does it necessarily mean uninformed? Rather, it means more likely
given the Greek shade of meeting misinformed.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Can I teach you a little bit today?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I figured that you would be excited to hear the
word of God, because you have to hear everybody else.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Talk all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
So let's take a little time and talk about the
word of God. He said, it's not that you haven't
heard things, or that you have not been exposed to
statistics that concerns me. It's just that I'm afraid that
what you're hearing and what you're seeing is so far
removed from the source that it is not pure in
(07:56):
its essence. And I don't want you to be ignorant.
Now all ignorant, it says, not created equal. There are
different levels of dumb.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Am I right? Am? I right about it? There's an
innocent ignorance.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Some things you haven't had the opportunity to learn yet.
I hate when somebody tries to correct my five year
old Abby from the way she says certain phrases that
I think are adorable.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
She's got the rest of her life to get it right.
Would you shut up and.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Let my daughter call it a vacuum cleaner. I prefer
vacuum cleaner. She called a vacuum cleaner the rest of
her life. She's only got a few years to call
it a vacuum Get off my girl's speech and let
her say it how she wants to say it. It's cute,
it's beautiful, it's adorable to me. I like it, and
(08:45):
that's fine. There is another type of ignorance, agne O.
This would be when you have a an indifference that
leads to ignorance you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Don't care enough to find.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Out personally, this is the way I feel about all
of the people who eat super healthy. They come to
me and they want to tell me all of the
chemicals that are in my food. And I know it
probably shouldn't address this. There's enough controversy in the world
today as it is without me adding to it. And
(09:22):
I know somebody is gonna email me or send me
a book about the seventeen foods that you're cancer and
the foods that are riding my brain. But I need
to let you know if the steroids will make the
chicken bigger before Holly fries it. I am for the steroids.
That might make me a horrible person. I might burn
in hell for saying this in church, but I.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Just don't care.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Touch somebody say I just don't care. There are some
things I just don't care about. I just want to eat.
I do not care some things. I just got to
be honest with you. I just don't care. I am
amazed that some of you men with your fantasy football.
I am amazed how much you know about another man's
ankle and whether or not he's going to play, and
(10:03):
how that is going to affect one hundred dollars that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You might win twelve hours a week's studying it.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
You've been at church once in the last six weeks.
Crazy self, ignorant about the things of God. But you
can tell me statistics on somebody in some tight pants
around there.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
That's what Paul's talking about. He said, I want you
to be ignorant.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I don't want you to be those kinds of Christians
that just don't care. You don't even take time to
find out when they talk about climate change. You won't
even look into it because Jesus coming back on a
horse anyway, and he's gonna nukee this whole place.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
There ain't nothing we can do.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You know, you sound crazy when you talk like that.
You sound so ignorant. Paul says, I don't want you
to have that kind of hope. I don't want you
to have this cotton candy Christianity where you are ignorant
of the afflictions. No, I want you to know some things.
(11:09):
But the most dangerous kind of ignorance is not innocent
ignorance or indifferent ignorance. Who I'm really scared of are
the people who have that confident ignorance, not uninformed, misinformed,
and they think they know everything about something.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That they know nothing about.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
And perhaps half of maturity is coming to the place
where you know that you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I'm I appreciate, all right, I love my children.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But when Elijah said to me yesterday, and I've heard
a lot about the teenage yeers and Elijah's eleven, and
a lot of people have tried to create a sense
of fear and dread in me regarding the teenageers, because
you know, I'll say I really enjoy being a dad,
and they go, oh good, back to me on that
when they're fourteen, and we'll see how much you love
(12:11):
in big boy, And.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And I'm not planning on preaching my parenting series till
I'm about seventy five.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
But Elijah, I got a taste of.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
What this rebellion may look like when we were pulling
into the garage the other day, and this boy looks
at me confidently and says, Daddy, I need you to know.
As one of the greatest albums from the nineteen nineties
plays on my car stereo, Counting Crows, August and Everything After,
with the soothing, soulful lyrics of Adam Durretz blaring on
(12:45):
the speakers, and he has the nerve to look at
me and say, Daddy, I hate to break it to you,
but the music from your day really isn't very good.
Said it with swagger too, like he worked for Rolling
Stone magazine. It's really not that good. I hit the brakes.
(13:11):
We weren't even in the garage yet I hit the brakes.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I said, what.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Because you can question me as a preacher, you can
tell me I'm getting too old to wear my jeans
kind of tight. You can say a lot of things
to me, boy, But when you talk about my music,
I said what He said, Yeah, the music in your
day didn't have loops.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And I said, well, let's take a little lesson. Do
you remember, and I gave him some history. Do you
remember when I took you.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
To see Weird Al Yankovic at Oven's auditorium, and he
was singing Amish Paradise, that song.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That you thought was so clever. And then I had
to let.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Him know that before there could be an Amish Paradise,
there had to be a coolio. There had to be
a coolio, and so I played him.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I took him to the source material. But before there
could be a coolio.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And this is where some of you are ignorant, there
had to be a Stevie, because those strings on Gangster's
Paradise would not have been there without Stevie. Wonder See,
there's always something before what you enjoy that enabled what
you're a part of. That's why I can't stand people
who complain about this country who don't even know the
(14:34):
first thing about the price that was paid for you
to have the.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Right to express your opinion that you don't like it.
Come on, touch three.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
People say, get in the know, get in the know,
Get in the know. Come on, Blakeney, get in the know,
Come on, Guston, get in the know.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I know, Paul said, I don't want you to.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I don't want I want you to be misinformed.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
About the price that was paid.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I don't want you to be misinformed about the situation.
I don't want you to think that the hope that
you enjoy came cheap. It didn't. It came hard. For
an ignorant hope is no hope at all. Nothing stable
about a hope that has its head buried in the sand.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I hear you, Pastor Rob Parsley.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Anyone can sing a tune on a clear day at noon,
God give me a song at midnight.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
That's what Pastor Rob Parsley used to say. I like
that Paul said, my hope came.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The hard way, because if you just read verse ten
of this, it sounds a lot like some kind of
campaign slogan, do you know the slogan and sound by
kind of mentality.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That people get over time.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's when we don't understand the source of our hope
that we've again to sound kind of silly. And this
is when people say, well, you Christians, you're just waiting
on the apocalypse. You Christians. You don't even vote, you
just pray. It's an ignorant imitation of hope. It's not confidence,
(16:18):
it's complacency that you don't know. And Paul wants them
to know. He wants them to know what he went through.
He wants them to know what he's been through and
when he comes out on the other side.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You might have known this. When I read the text,
it shouted real good, and you were getting fired up
here a Valentine.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I can't speak for the other campuses, but we almost
took off when I read verse ten. He delivered us
from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.
It got us excited to think about that on him.
We have set our hope. Does anybody have a hope?
By the way, anybody have a hope? Anybody have a hope.
Anybody have a hope, regardless of the polls, regardless of
the platforms, regardless of the pondus.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Anybody have a hope. Anybody have a hope.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Anybody have a hope, a hope, a living hope. I
have a hope that'sat my hope on the fact that
he will deliver me again.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
He'd been with me the last forty years. Kelly, you back,
why not forty one? Why not?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
But you can only say that if you know where
this hope comes from. It only means something if you know,
if you know not, if you heard not, if you
thought not, if you.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Wish I have Oh, he will.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Deliver us again, you know, so let's make the campaign hats.
You know, he will deliver us again. If we're representing
the Kingdom of God and if Jesus Christ is our candidate,
he will deliver us again.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And the world looks at that and they say, really
you believe that? Really? Yeah, I believe that. Totally believe that.
How do you know? How do you know? Why aren't
you nervous?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
You know this?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Everybody is so nervous right now, just incredibly nervous.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
They're either ignorant or nervous.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
They're either in Canada or they're nervous.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Just nervous. What if she and what if he?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You know, I'm gonna go press that button, but I
might press it with a blindfold on, just to press it.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I don't even know.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Nervous, nervous, they might take my guns. Nervous, they might
not take my guns. Nervous, you know, Nervous, he might
really build that thing. Nervous, she might, she might take
away our civil liberties, possa.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Hey, hey, hey, I have a hope. But it's a
hard boiled hope. It's not an unaware hope. I see
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Out there. I know somebody saying, I know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Not uneducated, I'm not backwoods. I'm not waiting for the
clouds to split so I can go to glory Land.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And shout my troubles over. I got troubles right here,
and I'm in them.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And it concerns me about our communities, and it concerns
me about our schools, and it concerns me about our
police officers and the way that they're treated. And it
concerns me about certain communities in the way that they're treated.
And it concerns me that people are marginalized. And I'm
concerned about abortion, and I'm concerned about many things. And
some people get frustrated because.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You won't get nervous. What we're gonna do? What are
gonna do? Sound like a life as servant. We're surrounded.
Look out there, man, what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You better call down something, You better curse somebody, You
better pray something, you better shoot something. You gotta ball,
you got an arrow. What we're gonna do, what we're
gonna do. We can just stand by what we're gonna do.
Where we're gonna We're gonna nerve nervous nervous and poststeps
into all this and say.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I was beat thirty nine times by the Jews.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Don't talk to me like you know something when you
don't know anything.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Don't talk to me about twenty.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
One pilots when you don't appreciate Nirvana. Don't talk to
me when you haven't seen the source of my hope.
This is a hope that has been through hell, and
it comes from heaven, and the world didn't give it,
and the world can't take it away, and it doesn't
(20:19):
come from the right, and it doesn't come from the left.
I have set my hope on one who is above
it all.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I set my hope on him.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I wouldn't put my hope on a party's platform right now.
I don't think it can hold the weight of your hope.
But if you're looking for a rock, Paul says, I
have a hope.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
But don't.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Don't be confused. I'm concerned. I'm concerned, but I'm not nervous.
I have this piece that passes understanding. I called Tina
last week. Her son might die. She said, I'm broken.
I'm devastated. He's twenty three. I'm uncertain, she said, But
(21:11):
somehow I have peace. That's what Paul's talking about. We're
taking him to every doctor that we can. We will
spare no expense to try to get him well. I
can't imagine what life would be like without him.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
I'm a mom.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
There's nothing I want to protect more than the life
of my son. But there's a certain element of this
where I just have to turn it over. It doesn't
mean I'm disengaged. I'm engaged. I will cast my vote.
I Am not going to be apathetic and abstain because
I don't like the options that the culture I'm a
part of creating.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Have presented to me. Hello, but I'm not nervous. I'm hurting.
I'm hurting. There are some things that broke my heart.
I was utterly burdened.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Paul says his words, I'm burden, but I set my
hope and my hope isn't shaken.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Although my heart is hurting. He sounds kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Right, I'm utterly burden. Watch how bad not I lost
the night of sleep. I was beyond my strength. You've
ever been there before. I don't know what to do.
I don't know which way it's gonna go. I have
no idea how to rebuild this one. I don't think
I can get this one back. It's been too much time.
This one's beyond my control. I didn't see this one coming.
(22:45):
I was so far out there, beyond what I knew
to do, that I despaired of life as self.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I didn't even think I was gonna make.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It to see another day. I wondered what I ever
preach again? I wondered, can we bounce back from this one.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I'm burdened, but I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I'm concerned, I'm involved, I'm praying, doing my part, but
I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I love it. I love it so much that I
went all up and down the Bible.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I wanted to interview some other people who might be
able to corroborate Paul's theory of hope. That you can
be burdened and not nervous, That you can be broke
and not nervous, That you can lose your job and
not be nervous, that you can find drugs in your
kids room and be concerned and be involved and beat
(23:50):
them half to death, but not be nervous. Come on,
so I asked, David, Really, you gotta fight Goliath.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
David, nobody wants to fight Goliath. He is the Philistine
champion from God. His botty armor weighs more than you. Boy.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
As a matter of fact, you have no fighting experience
nor a military title.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
If you were smart, you'd go back home.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Goliath has been defying these people for forty days. There's
a good reason they hadn't fought him yet. He's bigger
than you. You know what David said. He said, I know.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I see him. I know he's big.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I know everybody else is standing back, weirding on God
to do something. But I didn't come looking for help
from somewhere up there. I come in the name of
the Lord God, and I'm not nervous. I know he's big,
I know he's strong.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I know I'm a shepherd.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I know I have nothing but a sling in five rocks,
but I might only need one.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
If I can steady my hand and stand my ground.
I'm not nervous, shad Rat.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
They're about to throw you and your buddies in the fire.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Now you understand, you have a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Time left if you will bow before this statue that
never Kannezzar neb Kanzar has has erected. I mean we
talk about crazy leaders. They ain't got nothing on Nebi.
Nebbi was so arrogant. Nebbi lost his mind.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
They said you better bow the king, Nebby.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
They heat it up the furnace, They turned it up
seven times hotter.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Don't you feel the flame?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Can't you see that that there's that there's a situation
in front of you that's too hot for you to handle.
And Shadrack look back at me, Shaq, Me Shaq looked
at a bed and the gold.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
They all look back at.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
The church in Elevation Church and said, we know, but
we're not nervous.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
See the God we serve is.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Abl I said he's abl to deliver us from the fire.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
And we believe he will, and we know he can't.
But even if he doesn't, I'm not nervous. Come on,
somebody said, I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Tell your name of real, Paul, look them in the arse,
say I'm not nervous. I'm not nervous. I went down
in the Lions dinner with Daniel.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Daniel was looking at a lion, y'all, he was looking
at something that could have snapped him in half in
a split second. Daniel, don't you see that lion. Don't
you know your life is on the line. Don't you
know you have a wicked king. Daniel said, I know,
but somehow, some way, the God I sir, will deliver me.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
I'm not nervous, be not afraid.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Hey, Jesus, these people are hungry. It's getting late. You've
been preaching a long time. Jesus said, I know. And
we don't have any bread. Jesus said, I know, and
the people are on edge.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Jesus said, I know, but I'm not.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Because I got hands, and if you put what you
have in my hands, I don't care how little it is,
everybody's gonna be fit.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
I'm not nervous.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
I'm nervous, nervous, nervous, intimidated, No, concerned, Yes, disturb a
little bit confused perhaps, but I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Jesus, wake up. There's a storm raising on the sea.
How can you sleep in the stern with a storm
on the sea, They asked them, don't you care if
we perish? Jesus said, yeah, I care if you perish.
And I know there's a storm, But I'm not nervous
because with one.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Word, the one who spoke the storm.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Into existence by virtue of the elements that created it
can tell it to shut up.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
God, Jesus, this is in They're gonna kill you now.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
They got you on trial pilot, might send you to
the cross. Don't you want to say something now? I
don't need to say anything. I am the word I
was staring in the buginning. I am alphans O makea.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I'm not nervous. This is the reason I came. So
they can bury me low, so I to reign forever.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Come on, find five people and say, don't be nervous,
don't be nervous.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Don't be nervous.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
That's what sets us apart as the people of God,
is that we can.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Know how bad it is and not be nervous. Because
if we get nervous, what hope is there?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
If we start operating in the same spirit of the
world that caused the fear, that created the division and
the dysfunction that we're a part of.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
If the salt loses.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Its saltiness, how will it be made salty? If you
get nervous, if you lose your cool, what's the distinctive.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Of your Christian faith?
Speaker 2 (29:23):
What kind of hope did you even have? If one
election cycle can threaten it. I set my hope, Paul set.
I tried to put my hope on how I felt,
and I felt like I was going to die. I
tried to put my hope on what other people would
do for me, and they God other people. That's like
me asking you to hold this pulpit while I appreciate
(29:44):
that thing is too heavy for you and some of
the stuff that you've been putting on people platforms, even
the economy, it's too heavy.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So Paul Man, I feel annoyed to it today? Do
I look annoyed at I just want to get this
message out to you.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I know I see you in Babylonian captivity, but I
know Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven. I know somebody say,
I know, now this is God speaking. So the inference
is you don't know, but I know the plans I
have for you, and we know that in all things.
(30:31):
This is Roman's eight twenty eight. God works together the
good and the bad for the good of those who
love Him and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I'm not nervous. I got purpose.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
I'm not nervous. He's got a plan. I'm not nervous.
I've got a purpose. I'm not nervous. He has a plan.
I'm not nervous. I have a purpose. I'm here to
glorify God. I'll glorify him in a lion's den and
a fire, on on a ship with a storm, or
even in a borrowed grave.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Jesus said, I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
I came for this. I'm God of the storm. I'm
God of the grave, and beside me there is no other.
So I set my hope when it got real bad,
when it seemed like it was going to be the bottom,
I set my hope on.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
The one who is higher. I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I tried nervous. I didn't like it. I tried nervous.
It made me irritable. I tried nervous. It made me
eat more. I gained thirty five pounds being nervous. I
tried nervous. It didn't make me a part of the solution.
I tried nervous. It made me a critic rather than
a contributor. I tried nervous, didn't change anything.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I tried nervous. I'm mina Show'll be at my job,
do what I can, cast my vote, be the dad
God's called me to be.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I'm be the preacher God's called me to be, and
be the mom God's called me to be.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I'm gonna do my part. I'm not nervous. I'm gonna
do my part. But I will not panic.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Because I lift my eyes and I set my hope.
I lift my eyes. We used to listen to that
song all the time. It was a Brooklyn Tabernacles choir.
I memorized all of PSOne just listening to that song.
And the King James that lady who sang it, she'd
I can't sing it like she sang it, but she
(32:37):
would say, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills.
From whence cometh my hell. My help cometh from the Lord,
the Lord.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Which made heaven under.
Speaker 7 (32:57):
He said, he than not suffer that foot, thy foot
to be moved. The Lord which keep thee, he will
not slumber nor sleep.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Oh, the Lord.
Speaker 7 (33:19):
Is thy keeper. The Lord is the shade upon that
right hand, upon that right hand.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Oh, the.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Sun shall not smipe be.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
By take, nor the moon by night. He shall preserve
thy soul even forever more.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Because my have.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
My my, oh not my help calm in for rom
the Lord my my my head.
Speaker 9 (34:35):
Yeah, ooh, the my help calming for rom the You're
the source of my strength, you are the strength of mind.
Speaker 7 (35:12):
I lift my hand, sin two, pray.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Two.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Everyone's standing, everyone's standing. I have a hope. I lift
my eyes someone is called a song of a scent.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
There were fifteen of them recorded in our cannon of
Scripture for us to read. But they were originally intended
for the pilgrims who would make their way.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
To Jerusalem, so they would have a song to sing
on the way. How many know you need a song
to sing on.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The way to where you're going, Because Jerusalem, City of
Peace was set in the hills, and the hills represent hope,
but the hills also represent hidden enemies. And when the
Psalmist to say, watch this, I lift my eyes to
the hills, he might have felt like a tenth grader
(36:32):
in a new school, or he might have felt like
a nervous father on election day in America, or he
might have felt like a refugee in another part of
the world that would love to be a part of
our democratic process. But he's on his way somewhere. He's
on a journey, and as he progresses, he lifts his
eyes to the hills, the place where his destination is,
(36:57):
the place where.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
His piece is, place where his hope is. He's going
to Jerusalem, and on.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
His way he lifts his eyes to the hills, and
he asked a question, from where does my help come?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Where's it coming from?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Not looking over here, over there, I'm not looking to
the hills or the Donald.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
You get it by Tuesday. I'm looking above all of that.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
And I always read the verse like this, the spirit
of the Lord is in this place, thank you there.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I always looked at it.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Like he was saying, my help comes from the hills,
you know, because God is above and he's a great king.
And when Isaiah saw the Lord and the king, your king,
Usiah died, he was seated on a throne high.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
And lifted up. And if funny, he was seated.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And the year the king died, in the year where
the nation was wondering what to do, God wasn't pacing
the marble floors of heaven wondering what.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
He was going to do next. He was still seated.
I came with an announcement today he's still seated. He's
still seated. Had a vision.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
The throne wasn't vacant and the one who sat on
it was seated, so I always thought he was looking up.
And that's true. You know, our hope is God reigns above.
Did you know that the same God who reigns above
sustains beneath. And that's why I'm not nervous, he said.
I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my
(38:40):
help come from? I have hope in the hills, hardship
in the hills, Paul said, I despaired of life, but
I sat my hope.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Both were happening at the same time. My hope came
from my hardship. Watched.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
This is so powerful. This is so powerful. My hope
comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. He
will not let your foot be moved. Who are you
talking to? He's talking to himself. He's having a conversation
with himself, telling himself. Don't be nervous. I know you
(39:13):
see what's in those hills, and you imagine what might
be in those hills, and there's boogeymen in those hills,
and there might be real.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Danger in those hills. But the Lord is your keeper.
And watch this.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
He's not sleeping, He's not asleep. He knows he sees.
He knows. Not one hair of your head falls to
the ground that he doesn't count at, not one sparrow
falls from the sky, that he doesn't have a funeral.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
He knows.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Next verse, Behold, it's all about what you focus on.
He who keeps the people of God will neither slumber
nor sleep.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
For the Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade.
For there to be shade, there must be heat.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
For there to be hope, there must be hardship, or
else it won't really be hope. How can you know
he will deliver you if you don't know that he can,
And how can you know that he can if there isn't.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
An enemy in the hills for you to run to
him seeking refuge from.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I know, I know you're worried about your teenager. I
know you're worried about the state of things. I know
you're worried. I know you're worried.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I know I know.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
But the Lord is on your right hand. And this
is what spoke to me. I lift my eyes to
the hills. That means he's above it, and God is
keeping me in, sustaining me. That means he's beneath it,
and he's on my right hand. That means he's beside
me no matter which way it goes.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
So I'm not nervous. He's great and he's good. He's big,
and he's near. He's omnipotent and he's imminent. He is God,
and I'm not nervous.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
His name will be exalted. He is God, and I'm
not nervous.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
The writer of Hebrews said, we have this hope.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
What kind of hope?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
This hope, the same hope that went down into a grave,
that hit rock bottom and still stayed strong.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
We have no let me personalize it. You have this hope,
and it's not.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Out there, and it's not over here, and it's not
over here.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Watch this.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It's an anchor for my soul. It's in me Christ,
in you, the hope of Lord. You are the.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Hope of the world.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
We are the Church, an aner for the soul. Well,
what does an anchor do? It flows around at the
surface and looks pretty, Oh, sir, goes down all the
way to the bottom, and make sure that whatever it's
(42:14):
holding on to come on. I gotta close this sermon,
But I have this hope. Touch somebody say I have
this hope. I have this hope, this hope that kept
him on the cross, this hope that s fucked the
world's into exist us. I feel the.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Spirit of hope coming over the Church of Jesus Christ.
I lift my eyes to the hills. I have this
hope in my soul. My hope went.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Down till the bottom and three days later rose.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
To rain forever. I'm not nervous.
Speaker 8 (42:48):
I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
I'm not who I have.
Speaker 10 (42:51):
Believe it, and I'm persuaded that he is able to
keep that which at hem.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Thank you for joining us special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
more information and if you enjoyed the podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
You can subscribe. You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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