September 22, 2024 • 61 mins
If the enemy has been attacking you, then you’re probably headed into a season of greater impact. Pastor Steven Furtick equips us to shut the devil down God’s way in “Let Me Show You The Door.”.
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Scripture References:
Acts 14, verses 26-28
Matthew 4, verses 8-11
Acts 13, verses 8-12, 44-46
Acts 14, verses 19-20
John 10, verses 9-10
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
see God has moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's been a minute since I've done one of these
little videos setting up the sermon for you, but I
wanted to let you know that by the time you
see this, we are probably already well underway with Elevation Nights,
and I want to invite you to join us Elevation
Nights dot com in the following cities Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, BC, Sacramento, California,
(00:38):
La Anaheim, Boise, Idaho, Salt Lake City, and Denver.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I have a little cheat sheet over here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
September twenty fourth through October third, it's going to be
an amazing night of worship and the Word and me
and Holly and the team all we want.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
To see you there, So go right now if there's
still time, and get a ticket and meet us there.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
But I wanted to set up the message for you
today personally because I believe there is a word for
those of you that have been dealing with the discouragement
or maybe even.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Just the deceit of the devil in your mind. In
your mind, and just put in the comments real quick.
The battle is in your mind. That's where the battle is,
and the truth of God's Word has something for you
for the battle in your mind.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We're going to be in two scriptures.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Today, Acts chapter fourteen, verses twenty six through twenty eight,
Matthew Chapter four, verses eight through eleven, and some other
ones too.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But we'll get it as we go.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
If you're ready for the word of God, put it
in the comments right now.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm ready. Let's go. From Italia, they sailed back to Antioch,
where they had been committed to the grace of God
for the work they had now completed. On arriving there,
they gathered the church together and reported all that God
(02:00):
had done through them, and how he had opened a
door of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed there
a long time with the disciples. Now, I know I'm
dropping you in the middle of that passage and just
not telling you much about it at all. It doesn't
even say who the characters are. It just says they
they they I'll come back to that, but let's look
(02:20):
at one in Matthew chapter four before we officially begin
the sermon. Matthew chapter four, verses eight through eleven. And
this one should be a little bit more familiar to you,
both in the Bible and in your own life.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Again, the devil, you know him.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That is a character who needs no introduction. Again, the
devil took him to a very high mountain, him being Jesus,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and
their splendor. All this I will give you, he said,
if you will bow down and worship me. And Jesus
(02:58):
said to him, away from me, Satan, for it is written,
worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. And
verse eight and nine is where a lot of us
have been living lately, where the devil has been talking
to us and taking us places in our minds. And
(03:19):
verse eleven is where we want to get today by
the time I'm done preaching.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Verse eleven says, then the devil left.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Him, and angels came and attended him. Then the devil,
how many want to get to verse eleven by the
time I finished today. Then the devil left him and
angels came and attended him. So I like to give
my messages fun titles, titles that are fun for me,
(03:47):
and sometimes I like to have you say them to
your neighbor. And basically, what Jesus told the devil was
get out of here. And so I'm going to have
you say to your neighbor what Jesus said to the devil.
And just tell your neighbor, I know you're not the devil.
Tell him I love you. But for the purpose of illustration. Now,
(04:08):
the next thing is my title, and you say it
to him, real nice, say it, real polite, but say
it firm. Look at them like they need to leave. Okay,
like they need to leave, they've overstayed their welcome, and
tell them this. Let me show you the door. That's
my message. Let me let me show you the door.
(04:31):
This is an international ministry, so idioms don't always translate
across cultures. That is a polite way of saying, you
gotta go. Let me show you the door. I'm making
a call. You need to go. Now look at your
other neighbor and say, let me show you the door. Yeah,
(04:57):
in Jesus' name. Put that at the end so it
sounds it's nice and be seated. Be seated, God is good.
Jesus ran that devil off away from me, Satan. In
the King James version, it says get the hints, Satan.
(05:18):
That's basically saying, let me show you the door, got
to go now, I've got something to do. And Jesus
ran the devil off and made him flee because when
the devil came to him with three different temptations. Each
time the devil came at him, he had the perfect comeback.
(05:39):
And that's what we need to develop in our lives
is a comeback strategy for when Satan comes at us.
Come on, when accusation comes at you. I want you
to have a comeback strategy. Have you ever had a
perfect comeback but you couldn't say it because you calculated
the dam I mentioned that it would do, and you
(06:02):
realized you were not in a position to take the shot.
Maybe it was your boss, or maybe you just didn't
want to have to mop it up later, or maybe
you knew that if you said what you were going
to say, maybe they had something they could say. This
is not a marriage seminar, So I'm going to move
quickly through it to where you have the perfect comeback
(06:23):
and you can't use it, or you have the perfect comeback,
but it's on a delay, and you think of it
like Thursday, but it happened Monday, So it'd be kind
of awkward to go back and say, Hey, say that
thing again, say that thing again, say it again. I'm
ready for you now because it was on a delay.
(06:44):
There's actually like a term for that. They call it
staircase wit. It's when you have to go all the
way down the stairs and you're almost out the door
and you remember what you should have said, or you
think of what you should have said, and you turn
back around. But I like to share these little stories
that we share as preachers because they're funny. And forgive
(07:05):
me if you've heard this one. But there is a
story of a lady who went to a church and
she was not used to going to church, and so
she didn't have a lot of church clothes, and it
was a really traditional church, and so she went in
what she had, and she went in her her clothes,
but they weren't very modest and they weren't very nice,
and everybody there was dressed very modestly and very nice,
(07:27):
and so the lady sat through the service, and she
was moved by it. And when she was leaving the church,
the preacher was waiting at the door. It was a
very small church, and he would always shake everyone's hand
on the way out the door, and when he saw her,
he took the opportunity to tell her, we're so glad
to have you as our guest today, and you're welcome
to come back here. But before you come back, I
(07:50):
want you to pray and ask the Lord what he
would have you to wear when you come back to
our church. And so she left pretty heiressed by that,
and she went home, and she came back the next week.
She came back the next week and she sat through
the service, and this time people were a little bit
more offended and annoyed, and especially the pastor, because the
(08:11):
whole sermon he's thinking, woman, I told you, And so
he's waiting for it at the door when the service
is over and he says, hey, I thought I told
you to pray and ask the Lord what you should
wear to this church before you came back. And she said, oh,
I did. And he said, but you're wearing the same
thing that you wore last week. And she said, uh huh,
(08:32):
and he said, well, didn't you pray and ask the
Lord what to wear before you came back to this church?
And she said I did. And the preacher said, well,
what did he tell you? And she said, he told
me he didn't know, he'd never been to this church before,
and that it is the power of a perfect comeback.
(08:54):
Shut that down. What do you say to that? Three
times Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Three times Jesus
had the perfect come back. Satan said, if you're hungry,
because Jesus had been fasting for forty days, turn these
stones into bread. You know, the Bible says that God
(09:16):
can do anything. And Jesus said, it's also written, do
not put the Lord your God to the tests the
perfect come back. Okay, well, let me get you to
prove God's power. If you're really the son of God,
throw yourself off this high point and the angels will
catch you. Doesn't the Bible talk about angels? Angels will catch.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
You right, prove that you are who you say you are.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And Jesus said, uh, I don't. I don't have to
do that because I know what the word says. It
is written. Each time the enemy came to Jesus. Each
time Satan spoke, Jesus had the perfect come back. The
third time is the one we reference just now in
Matthew chapter four. And it's so beautiful because Jesus doesn't
(10:00):
even bother to argue this time. He just says, let
me show you the door. Get the hints away from me, Satan,
and it works and the devil leaves. So there's three
things that are happening in this passage that may be
happening in your life, and it's what I want to
talk about for our lesson today. The first one is
(10:22):
the devil led Jesus. The second one is he lied
to Jesus. The third one is he left Jesus. So
he led, he lied, and he left. What did he do?
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Everybody say, he led, he lied, and he left.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Now it occurs to me that a lot of us
are stuck in the first two that in your mind,
the devil is telling you stuff, and he is leading you,
and he is lying to you, but.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
You can't figure out how to make him leave.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And thankfully for us, Jesus gives us the perfect comeback.
Isn't it amazing though, that a lot of people, when
you talk to them about you know, the devil is
talking to you, or the devil is tempting you. They
kind of have a not me. I don't know what
you're talking about, attitude, and it is possible. Let me
just say this in the very beginning. It is possible
(11:21):
that the devil is not talking to you. It may
be that you are a more advanced Christian than Jesus.
So maybe Jesus had to fight this, but you don't.
Maybe you have matured more than Jesus. Or there is
a second possibility, and I can illustrate the second possibility
this way. You say, well, the devil doesn't discourage me.
(11:42):
I never think I'm not good enough. I never think
I don't have what it takes. I never think I
can't do it. I never think I should change all
of this. You know how, on your GPS, this is
just an illustration. You put in a destination and then
you put it. Some people leave the narrator on where
it says out loud where you need to turn in
stuff like that, But the person on the GPS does
(12:06):
not talk unless it wants you to turn in a
different direction. You can run the GPS as much as
you want, and if the GPS likes the direction you're headed,
it won't say anything. So maybe the devil isn't saying
anything to you. Yellow Wake Now, maybe he likes the
(12:29):
direction you're headed in. Good golly, miss Molly, help this
man preach. So if the devil is talking to you,
that tells me something about where God is taking you.
If he's not, it shows me that he doesn't want
to waste any resistance on a Christian that doesn't have
(12:50):
any forward momentum. If he's not discouraging you, you are
not being pushed past your comfort zone. He will feed you.
He will comfort you all the way into complacency. But
if you ever start making progress, everybody say progress. It
is significant for a lot of us to realize that
(13:12):
Jesus was tempted by the enemy on the verge of
his earthly ministry. He was the eternal Word of God.
He was not new to the scene, and yet this
was the moment that the Word made flesh was about
to begin his mission to the cross. And so the
devil starts talking, And the fact that the devil is
talking to Jesus tells us that God is taking him somewhere.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
God is taking me somewhere. Tell your neighbor.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
That's why I've been struggling, because God is taking me somewhere. See,
I used to just give in to every sin, but
now I try to resist it. So I'm struggling now.
But the struggle that I have now is proof of
the fact that I'm headed somewhere. I wasn't headed before.
The fact that I'm struggling more now does not mean
(14:02):
how I need to preach this for somebody. Because the
devil has been telling you the exact opposite, and the
Lord has been talking to me about the fact that
the devil has been talking to you. You are worthless.
It is too late, It's over for you. Nobody even cares.
Nobody would miss you if you're gone. It would be
better for them if you were gone. You are actually
(14:23):
the reason they are that way. You can't recover from that.
You didn't recover from the thing before it, And what
makes you think is going to be any different now.
It is very instructive for me to realize as a
preacher that I'm not the only one up here talking.
I'm not the only one who's saying words to you
(14:43):
right now, at the very moment, Jesus is about to
do the most good.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
He is the most tempted. Coincidence, I think not.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And what happens is you get so distracted by the
conflict that you don't see the progress. You get so
distracted by the conflict that you don't see the potential.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Wouldn't it be just like the devil to kill you.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
In the wilderness where Jesus was when he fasted forty
days and forty nights. We know that this devil stands
no chance against Jesus, but we're not so sure about us.
What I want you to realize today that took me
a while to figure out, is that when I am
(15:34):
coming into the season of my greater impact, when I'm
coming into the season of greater surrender to God, which
is the goal of a Christian right, the goal of
the Christian is not just our eternal and everlasting preference
being met at every turn. When I'm coming into that season,
(15:54):
when God wants to do something new through me, I
should expect the following. Every door that God opens, there
will be opposition. Listen to me. No door that God
opens will be unopposed in your life. No door that
He opens to your growth, no door that He opens
(16:17):
to your relational intimacy. No door that He opens for
you to be a witness for Jesus Christ and your
sphere of influence. No door that God opens will be
without opposition. The greatest way that you can deal with
the opposition is to realize that God opens doors that
nobody can shut. If he opened it, they can't close it.
(16:42):
If he opened it, your IQ can't close it. He
knew the exact number of your IQ and your SAT
score when He called you into your situation. So if
the statistics can't close it, if the haters can't close it,
if the sickness can't close it, the only one thing
that can close it is if you get distracted by
(17:03):
the conflict and give up on the progress, which is
why Jesus said, away from me. I'm on the verge
of something that God sent me to do. I'm on
the verge of fulfilling my mission to forgive the sin
of all who would believe in my name. And I
know I'm repped up real early in my sermon, but
I need to preach to somebody to tell you that
(17:24):
God is not the only one who opens doors. The
devil does too, doors of discouragement, doors of disappointment, doors
of dysfunctional behavior that were planted in your heart, sometimes
in early developmental stages of your life. And when I
(17:44):
heard about Jesus saying away from me, Satan, it gave me.
It gave me hope to realize that he's giving me
an example that every door he opens will be opposed,
but it cannot be closed by anyone other than him.
Clap your hands and give God praise because he's a
(18:05):
door opening God. Jesus had the perfect comeback for the devil.
He said, away from me, Satan. And sometimes we don't
come back at the devil like we need to. In fact,
instead of telling him to go away, we tell him
keep coming. And we don't even realize we're doing it. Now.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I know this message is not comfortable to hear.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You think it was comfortable to prepare. I don't preach
what I want to preach. I preach what God gives
me to preach. And the Lord told me that the
devil has been talking to you. Telling you is just
one time. It doesn't matter telling you. Everybody does that.
It's not abnormal, Yes it is for you. You're a
(18:49):
child of God. Your family has different customs. Uh, huh.
You're a citizen of a different kingdom, and I wanted
to share with you an example of how as God
opens doors in your life, and in my life, and
in the life of our church, that there will often
(19:11):
be opposition. Go with me to Acts chapter fourteen, the
scripture that I read first, and I want to show
you about two people that God really used. One of
them I know you've heard of. His name is Paul,
and the other one you don't know as much about.
His name is Barnabas. And when the Bible says in
(19:32):
Acts chapter fourteen, verse twenty six, God, I love your word.
Thank you for the privilege to preach it. From Atalia,
they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed
to the grace of God for the work they had
now completed. That burst, to me is so rich that
I don't want to skip it. It says that they
went back to the place Antioch where the center of
(19:54):
the church was really beginning to be molded and melded.
Jews and Gentiles all coming out of the church. At
Antioch the third biggest city in the Roman Empire, and
so it was positioned in such a way as to
be ascending hub and the first missionaries that were sent
out from the Church at Antioch were Paul and Barnabas. Now,
(20:17):
when it says that they had been committed to the grace,
put the verse back up for me for the work
they had now completed. It really spoke to me because
sometimes I do the opposite, I try to complete the
work without getting the grace. And so there was a
period where the Church at Antioch was fasting and praying,
(20:38):
and they wanted to send two believers to the Gentiles,
those who weren't Jews, those who were not included in
the Old Covenant but were being grafted into the New
Covenant through Jesus Christ. And they knew they wanted to
send Paul because Paul was uniquely gifted and graced for
this assignment. I want you to remember, when the devil
(20:58):
starts talking to you, God will never let you go
where you are not graced to be. You can go
there on your own, but he'll bring you back. He'll
bring you to a place where he'll show you you
are not grace for that. Paul was grace for it.
So every time God says go, he gives grace for
(21:20):
everywhere he says go, and in this season of your life,
you may be trying to grind without grace, and that
would be a problem because when you try to grind
without grace, you leave yourself wide open to the devil.
And it's possible that life could open a door to you,
but you don't have the grace to go through it.
(21:42):
And until we get sensitive to the spirit of God,
we will find ourselves going into situations that we don't
have grace for because we've seen others go there because
we thought we had to go there to prove something.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Just like the devil was tempting Jesus, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Throw yourself off the highest clip. You're the son of God, Jesus,
I don't have to prove anything to you. I was
just baptized into Jordan, where my father said I was
his beloved son and whom he was well pleased, you
know that scripture. So Jesus had the grace to do it,
Paul had the grace to do it. Barnabas had the
grace to do it. So when the enemy comes to
(22:20):
you and tells you you can't do it, tell him
I got grace for this practice at one time, Say
I got grace for it. I can't explain it. I
got grace for it. I can't break it down for
you in a formula. I got grace for it. It
makes no sense on paper. I got grace for it.
I didn't even think I was that good at.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
It, but I've got grace for it.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I know there are more people that are more qualified,
and more smart, and more educated, and more intelligent, and
more tall, and more broad and more strong, and more
holy and more righteous, and have better beards. But I'm
grace for it. I just saw a guy with a
I was feeling envious, so I had to preach through it.
Tell somebody I got grace for this, and then the
(23:06):
grace that God gave them at Antioch with the confirmation
of the elders of the Church at Antioch, they went out.
And I want you to notice three things that are
gonna help you have the perfect comeback for the devil
when he comes at you this week. You are not
gonna get to the bottom of the stairs and think,
oh wait. You are not gonna wait till next Saturday
(23:31):
night to say, oh, I gotta go back to church.
I gotta go, I've gotta go to elevation. You are
not gonna get stuck. Watch me illustrate. Ooh, the Lord
just gave me this. You are not gonna get stuck
at the bottom of the stairs this week, thinking I
gotta get back to church to get a word for
the devil. You are gonna have the comeback for him
at the door the moment he knocks to try to
(23:53):
tell you what you're not And who am I preaching to?
The hasstate for it today? Yeah, a comeback. I thought
it was interesting because Jesus had a comeback for the devil.
It is written. It is written, he knew the word
of God. He had to come back for the devil. Now,
thought was interesting how in the passage we read they
(24:16):
were coming back to the place where they were sent from.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
They were coming back to the grace that they started with.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I thought that word comeback was interesting, kind of like
a double meaning. Right, they're coming back to Antioch. They've
been gone, twelve hundred miles of travel have passed, and
twelve months of time. Twelve hundred miles of travel, twelve
months of time, and they have seen some amazing things.
So the Bible says that they came back. And I
(24:46):
kept reading and I was like, I want to talk
about the comeback, but I also want to talk about
point number two. These all start with. See number one
is comeback and number two is I want to talk
about the connection because I noticed, and I want you
to notice, how many times in this passage Acts chapter fourteen,
(25:06):
the word they appears. It says from Attalia they sailed
to Antioch. They sailed to Antioch, where they had been
committed to the grace of God for the work they
had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church
(25:27):
together and reported all that God had done through them.
What God does through you is a lot of times
determined by the they that you are connected to, Because
if anybody could have done it alone, it would have
been Paul. And for all of you who try to
do it alone in your own strength, maybe you're a
(25:49):
better Christian than Paul and Jesus, but the rest of
us need a Theay.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
And so imagine they're picking, like, we got to send
Paul because.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
He's and he's of the tribe of Benjamin, and he
can really speak to the Jews and the Gentiles, and
he has a Roman citizenship, so he's very able to
be very fluent in both languages, not only the language
of faith in Jesus, but the language of Judaism. And
who should we send with him? Barnabas? You said Silas.
Now Silas went to prison with him in sixteen. Silas
(26:21):
could sing. But Barnabas had a very special gift. His
name means son of encouragement. Now does this say something
about what Paul struggled with that the one they sent
with him was one of these guys. Now look at
(26:41):
your neighbor, big smile, thumbs up, and say, you need
one of these guys. You need a Barnabas. They looked
at Paul. Paul, You're powerful preacher, You're amazing preacher. You're
a man of God, and you're annoying it. And you're
called and you're chosen. Now, Barnabas was not only an encourager,
but he was the one who brought Paul into the fold.
(27:02):
To begin with, they were scared of Paul. Paul was
the one who would go and have the Christians executed
before he became one. Before the Lord smacked him right
off his beast and told him, I'm Jesus of Nazareth.
Who do you think you're messing with? I'm about to
show you how much you must suffer for my sake
because you're my vessel. That's where Paul was. And the
(27:23):
people were like, you want us to have the guy
that was the terrorist on our team, And Barnabas is like, yeah,
he's changed, Let's give him a chance. Thank God for Barnabas.
Barnabas was hopathetical. Barnabas was optimistic. Barnabas was able to
see the best in Paul. He was able to see
(27:44):
the Paul in Saul. So I want to talk about
your connections today because the fact that they made it
through everything they made it through was the fact that
they were they. I believe the reason that the devil
doesn't leave your life a lot of times is because
you try to run him off alone and there comes
(28:06):
a point where you can't fight this in your own head.
There comes a point where you can't fight this with
your own personality. If you could have gotten you out
of this, you'd be out by now. So what you're
still doing here Maybe you are waiting on the right connection.
And perhaps the reason that we feed some of our
(28:27):
insecurity sometimes is because we stay in isolation where there
is nothing to prove anything. Other to us than the
words that the devil is speaking. And so it's important
and I need to slow down on this a little bit.
That the Lord told me to tell you that there
may be a Barnabas that you are missing in your
life that is causing you to remain stuck in the
(28:51):
loop that the devil has you in. There may be
and there may be some people in your life who
are the opposite of Barnabas, some people in your life
who really aren't headed where you're headed. And I would
(29:11):
kind of like to refer you back to my title.
You may need to send them a text right now
and just to send them and listening to a sermon,
let me show you the door, and that will be
code for you to have the conversation that you need
to have because you cannot fulfill a Pall sized mission
without a Barnabas sized encouragement. And sometimes it will be
(29:40):
a byob situation that stands for be your own Barnabas.
Sometimes the people that you need to encourage you, they're
having a bad week too. Guess what, maybe you need
to do what David said. David said, I encourage my
self in the Lord. I know what's written in the
(30:03):
psalms because I wrote them. I'll quote my own psalm
back to myself when I'm struggling. And this is so important,
so you don't get stuck stuck at the bottom talking about,
Oh I need to get the church.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Oh I need to get around the right people.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
You do. But there's a lot of time between Sunday
and Sunday, so there will be situations in your life
where you need a connection to something. You need a
connection to someone, You need a connection to people that
can remind you of the purpose that God put inside
of you. Come back. Connection. Isn't that good?
Speaker 5 (30:41):
Paul and Barnabas, It says this.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Abby, go get my notes off the shelf for me,
real quick. Just get the whole folder. The whole folder. Now,
this will be great. I want to act this out
because I really want you to get the story in
your heart. Abby. They bring me the whole folder, Abby,
Abigail means Father's joy. So sit down with me, be
(31:09):
my Barnabas for a minute. In the illustration, remember I
told you Paul and Barnabas. Go back to verse twenty six.
Show them. In the text, it says they went from
Italia to Antioch, which is not like going from Marvin
to Ballentine. This is a three hundred mile trip in itself.
Remember I told you they've already been twelve hundred miles
(31:32):
twelve months, and now they have a decision to make
on the way back because they have to give a
report to the church how it went. And the part
that I didn't read you was everything that happened before
Acts fourteen, twenty six, and twenty eight, kind of like
I didn't read you how Jesus fasted forty days before
the devil left.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I just got straight to the park the devil left,
and I was.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Hoping you would shout, but you didn't even shout about that,
so I know you're not going to shout about this.
And the angels came, and that's exciting, and we all
want to get there. But realize, if we put ourselves
in the historical context of this passage, that Paul and
Barnabas have three hundred miles to travel and they have
to figure out what are we going to tell them
(32:13):
when we get back. And you know, Barnabas was probably
keeping good notes and stuff like that, because Paul was
the one who was mostly talking, and so they have
three hundred miles to figure out together when we stand
in front of the church that send us, when we
get back to Antioch, what will we report? And I'm
not saying that Paul was a pessimist, because I don't
(32:34):
believe he was. He wrote amazing verses like I can
do all things through Christ. His strengthens me, and now
unto him who is able to do him measurably more So,
I am not throwing Paul under the bus, but Barnabas.
Barnabas had the gift of encouragement, and so I think
while they were going back, they were probably going through
(32:54):
their log of everything that happened over the next twelve months. Okay,
what are we going to tell them when we get there?
Barnabus and they're going through their notes, because how do
you condense twelve months into one talk? Because it said
they gathered the church together and told them. I imagine
the first place they realized they had to talk about
was Cyprus. When they got to Cyprus, the island called
(33:17):
Cyprus that's in Acts chapter thirteen. And while they were there,
God was using them, and Paul's like, you remember that guy,
that sorcerer in Cyprus? And Barnabas like, yeah, yeah, what
was his name again? And Paul's like, oh, I'll never
forget his name, Elimis Elimas. His name literally means sorcerer.
(33:43):
Barnabas like, oh, yeah, I remember now, Elimas.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Even Barnabas couldn't see much good in Elimis. He's like, yeah,
he was a bad dude, because right when we were
going to have an audience with the governor of that city,
Elimas started trying to interrupt us and distract from g Jesus.
And just when it looked like we were going to
make progress with a very important governor, Elimas stood up
(34:06):
and distracted. And Paul's like, yeah, that guy, he got
on my nerves. I hate Alimis. If I ever see
a Limis again, I'm gonna tell him. And Barnabas is like,
well wait, wait, not, Paul, do you remember what you
said to him? And Paul's like kind of and Barnabas goes,
I got it. I got it written right here. Now
put up acts chapter thirteen, verse eight. Look what happened.
But Elimas, the Sorcerer, for that is what his name means,
(34:30):
opposed them and tried to turn the governor from the
faith he was about to receive Jesus, which would have
been a major open door for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
He was a gentile and he was a governor. And remember,
right on the verge of God doing something amazing in
your life, right when you are.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
At the threshold of it, right when.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
You are at the doorframe of it, anybody there right now,
there will be a devil. The devil doesn't mean the
door wasn't real. The devil doesn't mean God wasn't in it.
The devil at the door might mean you are headed
in the right direction and he's trying to get you
to turn around. And Barnabas says Paul. You looked at
(35:18):
Elimas and I quote verse nine and told him, well,
verset in, you aren't chid of the devil and an
enemy of everything that is right. You are full of
all kinds of deceit. Will you never stop perverting the
ways of the Lord. And Paul's like, I said all that.
He's like, yeah, you said all that. You called him
(35:39):
a child of the devil. It is kind of mean, Paul,
but it was the perfect comeback for the situation. Because
watch what God did in verse eleven. Then suddenly after
Paul spoke up, Suddenly after Paul confronted the opposition, suddenly
after Paul refused to let the devil block his door,
I'm looking for somebody today who refuses to let the
devil have he said. The hand of the Lord is
(36:03):
against you. You're gonna be blind for a time, not
even able to see the light of the sun, and
immediately missed in darkness came over him, and he groped
about seeking someone to lead him by the hand. And
look what happened in verse twelve, Barnabas said, and when
the pro consul saw what had happened, he believed, for
he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord. So
(36:24):
maybe when we get to Antioch in a few days,
we'll tell him about the sorcerer at Cyprus, and we'll
tell him how we faced resistance. But we'll tell him
that after the resistance came a revelation, after the resistance
came a revelation. Yeah, Paul said, we're going to tell
(36:48):
him about the sorcerer, and Barnabas said, yeah, but we
got to make sure to tell him that if the
Sorcerer wouldn't have been struck blind, the governor wouldn't have
seen Jesus. Let me show you the door the resistance.
What's the starting place of the revelation? Now? What resistance?
(37:11):
You ok? Being up here with me like that, I
didn't check. Let you tell me. Tell you didn't get
to choose what to wear to be on stage and
nothing like that. But you're doing great. Imagine this that
the resistance that you're facing in your life right now
might be the door to a revelation of how great
God is. Maybe, maybe let me show you the door.
(37:35):
You want God to take the resistance away while you're
simultaneously praying for him to make you strong. How will
he make you strong with no resistance? How will he
show you who he is if he doesn't let you
find out who you're not without him? Remember that, Paul,
when you looked at him and said you child of
(37:56):
the devil? That was the perfect comeback. So when we
get back and we get to Antioch and we're in
front of the church council, let's make sure that we
tell them that there was resistance, but it led to revelation,
and then and then we should tell them about the
pettiness in Pasidia. I like to alliterate it because I
(38:20):
believe Paul would have done that, don't you. And Paul said,
we got to tell them how when we got to
Pasidia there was so much pettiness that these Jews who
were jealous started trying to stir up trouble. And Barnabas
is like, yeah, but Paul, you handled it, great man.
You handled that so good when they were trying to
(38:42):
stir up trouble against you and they rejected you. Do
you remember what you said, Paul? And Paul's like, well, yeah,
kind of, but tell me about it. And Barnabus goes, oh, yeah,
well I wrote it down. Look at Acts chapter thirteen,
verse forty four in this good bed, because I'm trying
to get you to see that what the devil is
telling you tells me something about where God is taking you.
(39:04):
And I want you to get your stack back in
your hands, and I want you on your three hundred
mile journey with your Barnabas. Whether the Barnabas is a friend,
whether the Barnabas is this sermon because you're watching it
alone on YouTube, Whether the Barnabas is your own spirit
because you've been consulting. Your flesh too long, and your
feelings too long, and your past too long. But greater
(39:26):
is he that is in you than he that is
in the world. I want you to remember the pettiness
in Pasidia. We got to Pisidia. We were preaching, man,
it was amazing. We left the island of Cyprus. We
got the Pasidia. People were listening Acts Chapter thirteen, verse
forty four. Please, on the next Sabbath, the whole city
gathered to hear the word of the Lord. And Paul,
(39:48):
you were preaching, man, And the Jews saw the crowds,
and they were filled with jealousy, and they began to
contradict what you were saying, and they heat the piece
on you. They said things about you that weren't true. Man,
this is Barnabas talking. Word to the wives. Let Barnabas talk.
Let Barnabas talk. Quit listening to the accuser all the time.
(40:10):
Let Barnabas talk. Let the God who believes in you speak.
And Paul was having abuse heaped on him, and Paul
and Barnabas answered him boldly. Now Barnabas got in on
this too.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
He said, we had to speak the word of God
to you first.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy
of eternal life. We now turn to the gentiles. Let
me ask a question. How many of you are not
Jewish by birth? Raise your hand. This is how you
got here. Think about it. They rejected Paul, and because
(40:45):
they rejected Paul, Paul reached you. So maybe Paul and
Barnabas decided on that three hundred mile trip back to Antioch.
When we get there, let's make sure to tell them
that rejection can become redirection. I thought your neighbor and say,
they didn't reject me, they redirected me. That was my
(41:08):
GPS talking. That was God using that to get me
on a different path, because I would have always stayed
in that place if I didn't feel a rejection. Paul
actually turned to the crowd and said, we were preaching
to you, but now we are turning to the gentiles
because rejection can be redirection. So let's make sure we
(41:32):
tell them about the pettiness in Pasidia and the sorcerer,
the sorcerer in Cyprus. But Paul, I also think we
need to tell him about the lynching. I think we
need to tell them about the lynching. That you went
through in Litta, because when they got the little Paul
(41:57):
was doing miracles. Man, you'll mind if I tell you
these Bible stories real quick. My barber told me, don't forget.
The people you're preach into hadn't opened their Bible all week.
I was like, they open it some. He's like, maybe
the app but you really need to dig into these
stories for us now. Yeah, I want you to get
it because if you don't get this part of it.
(42:19):
When I read you a verse that says the Devil
left Jesus or Paul and Barnabas stood up and reported
how the Lord opened the door, you'll think that the
door opened without difficulty, and you will be surprised when
you struggle, and you will think that you are not
a saint because you struggle, and you may even begin
to believe the devil that you are not who God
(42:42):
says you are. And when they got to lit A,
Paul performed miracles to the extent that one who was
crippled from birth got up. Now, when he got up,
the crowd went crazy, as crowds do when people who
have never walked before start to walk. And they took
(43:03):
it a little too far. In fact, they started saying,
Paul and Barnabas are gods. Barnabas is Zeus, Paul is Hermes.
And Paul's like, no, no, no, no, no, no no no,
we're servants like you. And they're like, oh, yeah, we
know who you are. You are Zeus and Hermes. But see,
(43:25):
other people can't tell you who you are. When you
know who you are, and when you know who you are,
you don't get too high and you don't get too
low because your hope is built on what Jesus says
about you. So Paul wasn't too swayed by the lows,
he wasn't too swayed by the highs. He said, we
(43:45):
are just men. We are servants who have come to
tell you about Jesus. That's all we are. We are
just the ones who opened the door. We're not the door.
And so they started preaching that, and the people were
going crazy. And then what's what happened? In Acts, chapter fourteen,
verse nineteen, it says that they stoned Paul. What happened
(44:07):
Some people came in who were jealous, some people came
in who were mixed up, and they stoned him and
dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead and maybe.
Paul says, we've got to tell them about the lynching
in Lita, and then Barnabas says, yeah, but we gotta
make sure we tell them what happened next, Paul, because
(44:29):
it was amazing, because they stoned you and left you
for dead, and they turned on you and they condemned you,
and they accused you, and they buried you, and they
maligned you, and they hurt you, and it looked like
it was over. But give me verse twenty. It is written,
It is written, but after the disciples had gathered around him,
(44:50):
but after the help came, but after the connection came,
Paul got up and went back. Now, I don't know
who needs this in your section. Be a Barnabas for
five seconds, tell them get up and go back. Come on,
be my Barnabas for fifteen seconds. Reach three people, say
get up and go back, Get up and go back,
(45:14):
Get up and go back. Because the report isn't in
the rocks they threw at you? Is that who rows
up after the rock? Ah? God, you see what I'm saying.
Come on, you might have to be yob for a second,
but take twenty four sect five seconds and praise.
Speaker 6 (45:34):
God, get your gut up, and you went back.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
I'm going through my list. I'm going through my list.
High five. Your neighbors said, we got up and we're
going back. I'm not staying in this place. I'm not
staying in this place. I'm not staying under these rocks.
I'm not staying on this debt.
Speaker 6 (46:01):
I'm not staying.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Under this crippling anxiety. I'm not staying under this bad report.
I'm not staying under this weight of depression. I'm not
staying under the same of my past. I'm not staying
under the written record that was held against me. Y'all,
Thank God for Abigail Barnabas verdict, and thank God for Jesus,
(46:28):
who is my Barnabas. Thank God for the Greater Wise,
thank God for the Holy Wife, thank God for the Annointment.
Speaker 6 (46:42):
Thank God said they threw their rocks by you, Rosa
al Rosa, How rose up? Who feel like breaking today?
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah? How five? Your neighbors say you'll be balmed, I'll
be barnabus Now encourage.
Speaker 6 (47:09):
Him, saying you can make it.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
You got this. God's with you, you got a grace
for it, you were made for it, you were porn
for it. You were falling for it, you were filled
for it. You'll got the holly ghost. I'm trying to
get to the sea.
Speaker 6 (47:31):
Your door is off us.
Speaker 7 (47:34):
Go through.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Your door. Fill a Barnabas spear in the house today.
And verse twenty six, so that's chapter fourteen says that
on the way from Italia to Antioch, where it all started,
God said, let's go back to where it all started.
(47:59):
He who will be a good work in you, will
be faithful to perform it. If God opened the door,
he will fill the room when you get in it.
That's how I know I'm so full of this word.
(48:20):
I'm so full of this word to help somebody who
has been hungry in the wilderness for forty days, who
has been lynched in Lita, who has been stirred up
in a place called Pasidia, or who has even had
to deal with a sorcerer in Cyprus. To remind you
(48:41):
of everything that you went through was the door to
who God knows you can be and who you can help.
And by the way, verse twenty seven says something so
fascinating to me. For our narcissistic culture that always wants
to know why is the devil doing this to me?
(49:03):
Or when are people going to do something for me?
The Bible says Paul and Barnabas got up verse twenty seven,
and they gathered the church together. That's connection, and they
reported all that God had done through them. That's credit.
God did it through you. Given the credit. There's the comeback,
(49:25):
there's the connection, and there's the credit. Stop giving the
devil God's credit. What the devil did to us to
try to destroy us, God turned into a door to
develop us. Even some of the little things in your
(49:48):
life that you call coincidence, some of the things that
you call coincidence, are just things that God did that
you haven't given him credit for. Yet. The odds that
you would be here, the odds that you would be you,
the odds, the odds were against you, But God was
for you. Give him his credit. He said. God was
(50:15):
working in the rejection. God was working in the resistance.
If the sorcerer wouldn't have spoken against us, he wouldn't
have been blinded.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
If he wouldn't have been blinded, the governor wouldn't have seen.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
If they hadn't rejected us, we would not have redirected
to the gentiles and this church wouldn't have been here today.
I'm trying to get you to show the devil the door.
How do you get him to leave your life? Begin
to list all the things that God did that you've
been forgetting about. So when I lift my hands like this,
(50:50):
I'm not just lifting. I'm listing. One he brought me
out of bondage. Two he brought me out of sin.
Three he broke my shame and set me free. For
he cut my feet on a rock and gave me
a firm place to stamp. Five he's fuck piece to
my storm. Now it's your turn. You got a hand.
(51:11):
What did he do for you? Begin to lift your hands,
Begin to lift your victories. Begin to report the open door,
the door he opened, the way he made, the time
he came through. When the devil shows you your deficiency.
Speaker 8 (51:40):
Showing the door, showing the door, you have the perfect
come back.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Jesus said to the devil, away from me.
Speaker 7 (51:58):
He was showing you what to do, and he could
do this because of who he is, and he's in you.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
He's in you.
Speaker 5 (52:11):
Greater is he that is in me, then he that is.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
In the world. So resistance is a door. Rejection is
a door. Rocks are a door. I just gotta stop
and remember who he is.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
Jesus said to Satan away from me.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
You ever wonder why he waited till the third time
the devil tempted him to send him away. I thought
about that a lot this week. One, I think he
was setting an example for us to know that temptation
isn't something you resist once and you're done with it. Two,
I think he was doing it to show us the
(52:51):
three types of temptation we all face. The lust of
the flesh turned these stones into bread, the lust of
the eyes throw yourself off, and the pride of life.
A bow down and worship me and I'll get all
the kingdoms of the world. But another reason, I think
is because of what the devil said the third time.
He said, Jesus, you see all this, and he took
(53:11):
him to a high place. It says he can see
all the kingdoms of the world, which lets us know
that this was not a physical transportation, it was a
mental one. There's no mountain high enough to show you
all the kingdoms of the world. So this was all
happening in Jesus's mind, just like it's all happening in yours,
And the real challenge is not to get back to
Antioch physically, it's to get back to your grace. Yes,
(53:37):
So the devil took him. The devil took him to
a high place, and he said, all this I'll give you. Now,
Remember the devil did three things. He led Jesus. I
don't mean that Jesus was following him. I mean that
he took him there when translation says he led, and
(53:59):
then he Now, the first two times the devil quoted
a scripture at Jesus, but the third time was an
outright lie. He said, all this I will give you
verse nine, if you will bow down and worship me.
And then the devil said leave. He led, he lied,
and he left. And you say, what was the lie
(54:24):
in verse nine? The lie is that anybody was worthy
of worship other than Jesus. So when the devil said
worship me, Jesus said, get out of here. I'm not
the worshiper, I'm the worshiped. To said now let me
(54:53):
show you the door. For those of you who really
know your Bibles, you will be familiar with John chapter ten,
Verse ten. The thief comes to kill, still and destroy,
But I have come that you might have life and
have it to the full, or King James have it
more abundantly. Tell the devil get the hints. I have life.
(55:18):
I have life. This is my life. God gave it
to me, and I'm gonna live it for him. But
there's another thing that Jesus said just before he said,
the thief comes to kill, still and destroy, but I
have come that you might have life in verse nine
that I want to show you today where Jesus said,
(55:39):
I am the door. When the devil shows you your
failure this week, show him your door. And when oh yeah,
(56:01):
I'm gonna help you for I get off the stage.
When he tells you you don't have a right to pray,
you know how unworthy you are, show him your door.
Just don't even argue with the devil. Don't tell him
you're worthy, you're great, you're awesome, because you and I both.
Speaker 5 (56:18):
Know that isn't true.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
You and I both know that at your highest you're
not God, and at your lowest you're not the devil.
So when the devil comes to try to rock you
with that stuff this week and try to get you
to give up on what God gave you, show him
your door. Let me show you the door devil. Let
me remind you what Jesus did for me. Let me
(56:43):
tell you how he bled for me. Let me tell
you how he suffered on God at this hill. Let
me tell you how he sweat with drops of great
blood until the point where he was in agony, saying, nevertheless,
not my will, but yours be done. When the devil
shows you what you're up, I guess show him your door.
(57:03):
Your door is Jesus. He is the way, the truth,
and the life. When the devil shows you your disease,
show in your door, say by his friends, I am here.
I got a door, And walk the enemy right to
(57:29):
the cross of Christ in your mind and remind him
that Jesus is your way to God. Right now in
his presence. There are at least fifty people in this room,
and probably hundreds all over the world watching online, who
need to give your life to Jesus right now, right
in this moment. Not tomorrow, not when you get your
(57:50):
stuff together, not when you get your credit score up,
none of that. Right now you need to come to
the cross. He is your door. Not by words of
righteousness so that we can boast, but by grace through faith,
we are saved. And I want everybody to stand on
your feet right now as I offer you this invitation
(58:10):
to come to Jesus, to come to him and live,
to come to him. All of the accusations, all of
the sins that you've committed, all of these can be
forgiven if you place your faith in Jesus. He is
your door. And right now, in the name of Jesus
who Paul and Barnabas preached, in the name of Jesus
(58:32):
who defeated the devil and sin and death and hell
and the grave, I offer you this abundant life, this
eternal life, this life that cannot be taken away.
Speaker 5 (58:44):
With your heads bowed and your eyes closed.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
Those of you who are here today and you've been
captive to the devil to do his will, today is
your day of liberation. There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. And now I'm
going to lead you in a prayer. This prayer is
for those who are coming to Jesus. Enough of what
your past says, enough of what your flesh says, enough
(59:08):
of what your good works can do. None of that
can say. If you come to Jesus, he will pardon.
Come to Jesus, he is merciful. Come to Jesus, he
is flowing with forgiveness. And right now, if you pray
this prayer in your heart, the Bible says that if
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
believe in your heart God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. With head's bowed and eyes closed.
(59:32):
At every location, we're praying out loud together as a
church family for the benefit of those who are coming
to God or coming back to God. This is your
comeback moment. This is your comeback Sunday. Now repeat after me.
If God is speaking to you out loud, heavenly fathered.
Speaker 5 (59:51):
Today is my day of salvation.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
I believe that Jesus Christ is your son, and today
I make Jesus the Lord and savior of my life.
I believe he died that I would be forgiven and
rose again to give me life.
Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
I receive this new life.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
This is my new beginning.
Speaker 5 (01:00:22):
I am a child of God.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
On the counter of three shoots your hand up. If
you prayed that one, two, three, shoot him up, shoot
him up. I knew it. I knew it. God bless him. Amazing.
Come on, let's put a party atmosphere in the place
for him. Come on, let's put an angels in heaven.
Rejoice over one sinner party atmosphere in the place. Glory
(01:00:47):
to God. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to
those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is
because of you that this ministry is possible. You can
click the link in the description to give now, or
visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and
(01:01:10):
if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can
share it with your friends. You can click the share button,
take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening.
God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
see God has moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's been a minute since I've done one of these
little videos setting up the sermon for you, but I
wanted to let you know that by the time you
see this, we are probably already well underway with Elevation Nights,
and I want to invite you to join us Elevation
Nights dot com in the following cities Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, BC, Sacramento, California,
(00:38):
La Anaheim, Boise, Idaho, Salt Lake City, and Denver.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I have a little cheat sheet over here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
September twenty fourth through October third, it's going to be
an amazing night of worship and the Word and me
and Holly and the team all we want.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
To see you there, So go right now if there's
still time, and get a ticket and meet us there.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
But I wanted to set up the message for you
today personally because I believe there is a word for
those of you that have been dealing with the discouragement
or maybe even.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Just the deceit of the devil in your mind. In
your mind, and just put in the comments real quick.
The battle is in your mind. That's where the battle is,
and the truth of God's Word has something for you
for the battle in your mind.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We're going to be in two scriptures.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Today, Acts chapter fourteen, verses twenty six through twenty eight,
Matthew Chapter four, verses eight through eleven, and some other
ones too.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But we'll get it as we go.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
If you're ready for the word of God, put it
in the comments right now.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm ready. Let's go. From Italia, they sailed back to Antioch,
where they had been committed to the grace of God
for the work they had now completed. On arriving there,
they gathered the church together and reported all that God
(02:00):
had done through them, and how he had opened a
door of faith to the Gentiles. And they stayed there
a long time with the disciples. Now, I know I'm
dropping you in the middle of that passage and just
not telling you much about it at all. It doesn't
even say who the characters are. It just says they
they they I'll come back to that, but let's look
(02:20):
at one in Matthew chapter four before we officially begin
the sermon. Matthew chapter four, verses eight through eleven. And
this one should be a little bit more familiar to you,
both in the Bible and in your own life.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Again, the devil, you know him.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That is a character who needs no introduction. Again, the
devil took him to a very high mountain, him being Jesus,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and
their splendor. All this I will give you, he said,
if you will bow down and worship me. And Jesus
(02:58):
said to him, away from me, Satan, for it is written,
worship the Lord your God, and serve him only. And
verse eight and nine is where a lot of us
have been living lately, where the devil has been talking
to us and taking us places in our minds. And
(03:19):
verse eleven is where we want to get today by
the time I'm done preaching.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Verse eleven says, then the devil left.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Him, and angels came and attended him. Then the devil,
how many want to get to verse eleven by the
time I finished today. Then the devil left him and
angels came and attended him. So I like to give
my messages fun titles, titles that are fun for me,
(03:47):
and sometimes I like to have you say them to
your neighbor. And basically, what Jesus told the devil was
get out of here. And so I'm going to have
you say to your neighbor what Jesus said to the devil.
And just tell your neighbor, I know you're not the devil.
Tell him I love you. But for the purpose of illustration. Now,
(04:08):
the next thing is my title, and you say it
to him, real nice, say it, real polite, but say
it firm. Look at them like they need to leave. Okay,
like they need to leave, they've overstayed their welcome, and
tell them this. Let me show you the door. That's
my message. Let me let me show you the door.
(04:31):
This is an international ministry, so idioms don't always translate
across cultures. That is a polite way of saying, you
gotta go. Let me show you the door. I'm making
a call. You need to go. Now look at your
other neighbor and say, let me show you the door. Yeah,
(04:57):
in Jesus' name. Put that at the end so it
sounds it's nice and be seated. Be seated, God is good.
Jesus ran that devil off away from me, Satan. In
the King James version, it says get the hints, Satan.
(05:18):
That's basically saying, let me show you the door, got
to go now, I've got something to do. And Jesus
ran the devil off and made him flee because when
the devil came to him with three different temptations. Each
time the devil came at him, he had the perfect comeback.
(05:39):
And that's what we need to develop in our lives
is a comeback strategy for when Satan comes at us.
Come on, when accusation comes at you. I want you
to have a comeback strategy. Have you ever had a
perfect comeback but you couldn't say it because you calculated
the dam I mentioned that it would do, and you
(06:02):
realized you were not in a position to take the shot.
Maybe it was your boss, or maybe you just didn't
want to have to mop it up later, or maybe
you knew that if you said what you were going
to say, maybe they had something they could say. This
is not a marriage seminar, So I'm going to move
quickly through it to where you have the perfect comeback
(06:23):
and you can't use it, or you have the perfect comeback,
but it's on a delay, and you think of it
like Thursday, but it happened Monday, So it'd be kind
of awkward to go back and say, Hey, say that
thing again, say that thing again, say it again. I'm
ready for you now because it was on a delay.
(06:44):
There's actually like a term for that. They call it
staircase wit. It's when you have to go all the
way down the stairs and you're almost out the door
and you remember what you should have said, or you
think of what you should have said, and you turn
back around. But I like to share these little stories
that we share as preachers because they're funny. And forgive
(07:05):
me if you've heard this one. But there is a
story of a lady who went to a church and
she was not used to going to church, and so
she didn't have a lot of church clothes, and it
was a really traditional church, and so she went in
what she had, and she went in her her clothes,
but they weren't very modest and they weren't very nice,
and everybody there was dressed very modestly and very nice,
(07:27):
and so the lady sat through the service, and she
was moved by it. And when she was leaving the church,
the preacher was waiting at the door. It was a
very small church, and he would always shake everyone's hand
on the way out the door, and when he saw her,
he took the opportunity to tell her, we're so glad
to have you as our guest today, and you're welcome
to come back here. But before you come back, I
(07:50):
want you to pray and ask the Lord what he
would have you to wear when you come back to
our church. And so she left pretty heiressed by that,
and she went home, and she came back the next week.
She came back the next week and she sat through
the service, and this time people were a little bit
more offended and annoyed, and especially the pastor, because the
(08:11):
whole sermon he's thinking, woman, I told you, And so
he's waiting for it at the door when the service
is over and he says, hey, I thought I told
you to pray and ask the Lord what you should
wear to this church before you came back. And she said, oh,
I did. And he said, but you're wearing the same
thing that you wore last week. And she said, uh huh,
(08:32):
and he said, well, didn't you pray and ask the
Lord what to wear before you came back to this church?
And she said I did. And the preacher said, well,
what did he tell you? And she said, he told
me he didn't know, he'd never been to this church before,
and that it is the power of a perfect comeback.
(08:54):
Shut that down. What do you say to that? Three
times Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Three times Jesus
had the perfect come back. Satan said, if you're hungry,
because Jesus had been fasting for forty days, turn these
stones into bread. You know, the Bible says that God
(09:16):
can do anything. And Jesus said, it's also written, do
not put the Lord your God to the tests the
perfect come back. Okay, well, let me get you to
prove God's power. If you're really the son of God,
throw yourself off this high point and the angels will
catch you. Doesn't the Bible talk about angels? Angels will catch.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
You right, prove that you are who you say you are.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And Jesus said, uh, I don't. I don't have to
do that because I know what the word says. It
is written. Each time the enemy came to Jesus. Each
time Satan spoke, Jesus had the perfect come back. The
third time is the one we reference just now in
Matthew chapter four. And it's so beautiful because Jesus doesn't
(10:00):
even bother to argue this time. He just says, let
me show you the door. Get the hints away from me, Satan,
and it works and the devil leaves. So there's three
things that are happening in this passage that may be
happening in your life, and it's what I want to
talk about for our lesson today. The first one is
(10:22):
the devil led Jesus. The second one is he lied
to Jesus. The third one is he left Jesus. So
he led, he lied, and he left. What did he do?
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Everybody say, he led, he lied, and he left.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Now it occurs to me that a lot of us
are stuck in the first two that in your mind,
the devil is telling you stuff, and he is leading you,
and he is lying to you, but.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
You can't figure out how to make him leave.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And thankfully for us, Jesus gives us the perfect comeback.
Isn't it amazing though, that a lot of people, when
you talk to them about you know, the devil is
talking to you, or the devil is tempting you. They
kind of have a not me. I don't know what
you're talking about, attitude, and it is possible. Let me
just say this in the very beginning. It is possible
(11:21):
that the devil is not talking to you. It may
be that you are a more advanced Christian than Jesus.
So maybe Jesus had to fight this, but you don't.
Maybe you have matured more than Jesus. Or there is
a second possibility, and I can illustrate the second possibility
this way. You say, well, the devil doesn't discourage me.
(11:42):
I never think I'm not good enough. I never think
I don't have what it takes. I never think I
can't do it. I never think I should change all
of this. You know how, on your GPS, this is
just an illustration. You put in a destination and then
you put it. Some people leave the narrator on where
it says out loud where you need to turn in
stuff like that, But the person on the GPS does
(12:06):
not talk unless it wants you to turn in a
different direction. You can run the GPS as much as
you want, and if the GPS likes the direction you're headed,
it won't say anything. So maybe the devil isn't saying
anything to you. Yellow Wake Now, maybe he likes the
(12:29):
direction you're headed in. Good golly, miss Molly, help this
man preach. So if the devil is talking to you,
that tells me something about where God is taking you.
If he's not, it shows me that he doesn't want
to waste any resistance on a Christian that doesn't have
(12:50):
any forward momentum. If he's not discouraging you, you are
not being pushed past your comfort zone. He will feed you.
He will comfort you all the way into complacency. But
if you ever start making progress, everybody say progress. It
is significant for a lot of us to realize that
(13:12):
Jesus was tempted by the enemy on the verge of
his earthly ministry. He was the eternal Word of God.
He was not new to the scene, and yet this
was the moment that the Word made flesh was about
to begin his mission to the cross. And so the
devil starts talking, And the fact that the devil is
talking to Jesus tells us that God is taking him somewhere.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
God is taking me somewhere. Tell your neighbor.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
That's why I've been struggling, because God is taking me somewhere. See,
I used to just give in to every sin, but
now I try to resist it. So I'm struggling now.
But the struggle that I have now is proof of
the fact that I'm headed somewhere. I wasn't headed before.
The fact that I'm struggling more now does not mean
(14:02):
how I need to preach this for somebody. Because the
devil has been telling you the exact opposite, and the
Lord has been talking to me about the fact that
the devil has been talking to you. You are worthless.
It is too late, It's over for you. Nobody even cares.
Nobody would miss you if you're gone. It would be
better for them if you were gone. You are actually
(14:23):
the reason they are that way. You can't recover from that.
You didn't recover from the thing before it, And what
makes you think is going to be any different now.
It is very instructive for me to realize as a
preacher that I'm not the only one up here talking.
I'm not the only one who's saying words to you
(14:43):
right now, at the very moment, Jesus is about to
do the most good.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
He is the most tempted. Coincidence, I think not.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And what happens is you get so distracted by the
conflict that you don't see the progress. You get so
distracted by the conflict that you don't see the potential.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
Wouldn't it be just like the devil to kill you.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
In the wilderness where Jesus was when he fasted forty
days and forty nights. We know that this devil stands
no chance against Jesus, but we're not so sure about us.
What I want you to realize today that took me
a while to figure out, is that when I am
(15:34):
coming into the season of my greater impact, when I'm
coming into the season of greater surrender to God, which
is the goal of a Christian right, the goal of
the Christian is not just our eternal and everlasting preference
being met at every turn. When I'm coming into that season,
(15:54):
when God wants to do something new through me, I
should expect the following. Every door that God opens, there
will be opposition. Listen to me. No door that God
opens will be unopposed in your life. No door that
He opens to your growth, no door that He opens
(16:17):
to your relational intimacy. No door that He opens for
you to be a witness for Jesus Christ and your
sphere of influence. No door that God opens will be
without opposition. The greatest way that you can deal with
the opposition is to realize that God opens doors that
nobody can shut. If he opened it, they can't close it.
(16:42):
If he opened it, your IQ can't close it. He
knew the exact number of your IQ and your SAT
score when He called you into your situation. So if
the statistics can't close it, if the haters can't close it,
if the sickness can't close it, the only one thing
that can close it is if you get distracted by
(17:03):
the conflict and give up on the progress, which is
why Jesus said, away from me. I'm on the verge
of something that God sent me to do. I'm on
the verge of fulfilling my mission to forgive the sin
of all who would believe in my name. And I
know I'm repped up real early in my sermon, but
I need to preach to somebody to tell you that
(17:24):
God is not the only one who opens doors. The
devil does too, doors of discouragement, doors of disappointment, doors
of dysfunctional behavior that were planted in your heart, sometimes
in early developmental stages of your life. And when I
(17:44):
heard about Jesus saying away from me, Satan, it gave me.
It gave me hope to realize that he's giving me
an example that every door he opens will be opposed,
but it cannot be closed by anyone other than him.
Clap your hands and give God praise because he's a
(18:05):
door opening God. Jesus had the perfect comeback for the devil.
He said, away from me, Satan. And sometimes we don't
come back at the devil like we need to. In fact,
instead of telling him to go away, we tell him
keep coming. And we don't even realize we're doing it. Now.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I know this message is not comfortable to hear.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You think it was comfortable to prepare. I don't preach
what I want to preach. I preach what God gives
me to preach. And the Lord told me that the
devil has been talking to you. Telling you is just
one time. It doesn't matter telling you. Everybody does that.
It's not abnormal, Yes it is for you. You're a
(18:49):
child of God. Your family has different customs. Uh, huh.
You're a citizen of a different kingdom, and I wanted
to share with you an example of how as God
opens doors in your life, and in my life, and
in the life of our church, that there will often
(19:11):
be opposition. Go with me to Acts chapter fourteen, the
scripture that I read first, and I want to show
you about two people that God really used. One of
them I know you've heard of. His name is Paul,
and the other one you don't know as much about.
His name is Barnabas. And when the Bible says in
(19:32):
Acts chapter fourteen, verse twenty six, God, I love your word.
Thank you for the privilege to preach it. From Atalia,
they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed
to the grace of God for the work they had
now completed. That burst, to me is so rich that
I don't want to skip it. It says that they
went back to the place Antioch where the center of
(19:54):
the church was really beginning to be molded and melded.
Jews and Gentiles all coming out of the church. At
Antioch the third biggest city in the Roman Empire, and
so it was positioned in such a way as to
be ascending hub and the first missionaries that were sent
out from the Church at Antioch were Paul and Barnabas. Now,
(20:17):
when it says that they had been committed to the grace,
put the verse back up for me for the work
they had now completed. It really spoke to me because
sometimes I do the opposite, I try to complete the
work without getting the grace. And so there was a
period where the Church at Antioch was fasting and praying,
(20:38):
and they wanted to send two believers to the Gentiles,
those who weren't Jews, those who were not included in
the Old Covenant but were being grafted into the New
Covenant through Jesus Christ. And they knew they wanted to
send Paul because Paul was uniquely gifted and graced for
this assignment. I want you to remember, when the devil
(20:58):
starts talking to you, God will never let you go
where you are not graced to be. You can go
there on your own, but he'll bring you back. He'll
bring you to a place where he'll show you you
are not grace for that. Paul was grace for it.
So every time God says go, he gives grace for
(21:20):
everywhere he says go, and in this season of your life,
you may be trying to grind without grace, and that
would be a problem because when you try to grind
without grace, you leave yourself wide open to the devil.
And it's possible that life could open a door to you,
but you don't have the grace to go through it.
(21:42):
And until we get sensitive to the spirit of God,
we will find ourselves going into situations that we don't
have grace for because we've seen others go there because
we thought we had to go there to prove something.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Just like the devil was tempting Jesus, you know.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Throw yourself off the highest clip. You're the son of God, Jesus,
I don't have to prove anything to you. I was
just baptized into Jordan, where my father said I was
his beloved son and whom he was well pleased, you
know that scripture. So Jesus had the grace to do it,
Paul had the grace to do it. Barnabas had the
grace to do it. So when the enemy comes to
(22:20):
you and tells you you can't do it, tell him
I got grace for this practice at one time, Say
I got grace for it. I can't explain it. I
got grace for it. I can't break it down for
you in a formula. I got grace for it. It
makes no sense on paper. I got grace for it.
I didn't even think I was that good at.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
It, but I've got grace for it.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I know there are more people that are more qualified,
and more smart, and more educated, and more intelligent, and
more tall, and more broad and more strong, and more
holy and more righteous, and have better beards. But I'm
grace for it. I just saw a guy with a
I was feeling envious, so I had to preach through it.
Tell somebody I got grace for this, and then the
(23:06):
grace that God gave them at Antioch with the confirmation
of the elders of the Church at Antioch, they went out.
And I want you to notice three things that are
gonna help you have the perfect comeback for the devil
when he comes at you this week. You are not
gonna get to the bottom of the stairs and think,
oh wait. You are not gonna wait till next Saturday
(23:31):
night to say, oh, I gotta go back to church.
I gotta go, I've gotta go to elevation. You are
not gonna get stuck. Watch me illustrate. Ooh, the Lord
just gave me this. You are not gonna get stuck
at the bottom of the stairs this week, thinking I
gotta get back to church to get a word for
the devil. You are gonna have the comeback for him
at the door the moment he knocks to try to
(23:53):
tell you what you're not And who am I preaching to?
The hasstate for it today? Yeah, a comeback. I thought
it was interesting because Jesus had a comeback for the devil.
It is written. It is written, he knew the word
of God. He had to come back for the devil. Now,
thought was interesting how in the passage we read they
(24:16):
were coming back to the place where they were sent from.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
They were coming back to the grace that they started with.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I thought that word comeback was interesting, kind of like
a double meaning. Right, they're coming back to Antioch. They've
been gone, twelve hundred miles of travel have passed, and
twelve months of time. Twelve hundred miles of travel, twelve
months of time, and they have seen some amazing things.
So the Bible says that they came back. And I
(24:46):
kept reading and I was like, I want to talk
about the comeback, but I also want to talk about
point number two. These all start with. See number one
is comeback and number two is I want to talk
about the connection because I noticed, and I want you
to notice, how many times in this passage Acts chapter fourteen,
(25:06):
the word they appears. It says from Attalia they sailed
to Antioch. They sailed to Antioch, where they had been
committed to the grace of God for the work they
had now completed. On arriving there, they gathered the church
(25:27):
together and reported all that God had done through them.
What God does through you is a lot of times
determined by the they that you are connected to, Because
if anybody could have done it alone, it would have
been Paul. And for all of you who try to
do it alone in your own strength, maybe you're a
(25:49):
better Christian than Paul and Jesus, but the rest of
us need a Theay.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
And so imagine they're picking, like, we got to send
Paul because.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
He's and he's of the tribe of Benjamin, and he
can really speak to the Jews and the Gentiles, and
he has a Roman citizenship, so he's very able to
be very fluent in both languages, not only the language
of faith in Jesus, but the language of Judaism. And
who should we send with him? Barnabas? You said Silas.
Now Silas went to prison with him in sixteen. Silas
(26:21):
could sing. But Barnabas had a very special gift. His
name means son of encouragement. Now does this say something
about what Paul struggled with that the one they sent
with him was one of these guys. Now look at
(26:41):
your neighbor, big smile, thumbs up, and say, you need
one of these guys. You need a Barnabas. They looked
at Paul. Paul, You're powerful preacher, You're amazing preacher. You're
a man of God, and you're annoying it. And you're
called and you're chosen. Now, Barnabas was not only an encourager,
but he was the one who brought Paul into the fold.
(27:02):
To begin with, they were scared of Paul. Paul was
the one who would go and have the Christians executed
before he became one. Before the Lord smacked him right
off his beast and told him, I'm Jesus of Nazareth.
Who do you think you're messing with? I'm about to
show you how much you must suffer for my sake
because you're my vessel. That's where Paul was. And the
(27:23):
people were like, you want us to have the guy
that was the terrorist on our team, And Barnabas is like, yeah,
he's changed, Let's give him a chance. Thank God for Barnabas.
Barnabas was hopathetical. Barnabas was optimistic. Barnabas was able to
see the best in Paul. He was able to see
(27:44):
the Paul in Saul. So I want to talk about
your connections today because the fact that they made it
through everything they made it through was the fact that
they were they. I believe the reason that the devil
doesn't leave your life a lot of times is because
you try to run him off alone and there comes
(28:06):
a point where you can't fight this in your own head.
There comes a point where you can't fight this with
your own personality. If you could have gotten you out
of this, you'd be out by now. So what you're
still doing here Maybe you are waiting on the right connection.
And perhaps the reason that we feed some of our
(28:27):
insecurity sometimes is because we stay in isolation where there
is nothing to prove anything. Other to us than the
words that the devil is speaking. And so it's important
and I need to slow down on this a little bit.
That the Lord told me to tell you that there
may be a Barnabas that you are missing in your
life that is causing you to remain stuck in the
(28:51):
loop that the devil has you in. There may be
and there may be some people in your life who
are the opposite of Barnabas, some people in your life
who really aren't headed where you're headed. And I would
(29:11):
kind of like to refer you back to my title.
You may need to send them a text right now
and just to send them and listening to a sermon,
let me show you the door, and that will be
code for you to have the conversation that you need
to have because you cannot fulfill a Pall sized mission
without a Barnabas sized encouragement. And sometimes it will be
(29:40):
a byob situation that stands for be your own Barnabas.
Sometimes the people that you need to encourage you, they're
having a bad week too. Guess what, maybe you need
to do what David said. David said, I encourage my
self in the Lord. I know what's written in the
(30:03):
psalms because I wrote them. I'll quote my own psalm
back to myself when I'm struggling. And this is so important,
so you don't get stuck stuck at the bottom talking about,
Oh I need to get the church.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Oh I need to get around the right people.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
You do. But there's a lot of time between Sunday
and Sunday, so there will be situations in your life
where you need a connection to something. You need a
connection to someone, You need a connection to people that
can remind you of the purpose that God put inside
of you. Come back. Connection. Isn't that good?
Speaker 5 (30:41):
Paul and Barnabas, It says this.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Abby, go get my notes off the shelf for me,
real quick. Just get the whole folder. The whole folder. Now,
this will be great. I want to act this out
because I really want you to get the story in
your heart. Abby. They bring me the whole folder, Abby,
Abigail means Father's joy. So sit down with me, be
(31:09):
my Barnabas for a minute. In the illustration, remember I
told you Paul and Barnabas. Go back to verse twenty six.
Show them. In the text, it says they went from
Italia to Antioch, which is not like going from Marvin
to Ballentine. This is a three hundred mile trip in itself.
Remember I told you they've already been twelve hundred miles
(31:32):
twelve months, and now they have a decision to make
on the way back because they have to give a
report to the church how it went. And the part
that I didn't read you was everything that happened before
Acts fourteen, twenty six, and twenty eight, kind of like
I didn't read you how Jesus fasted forty days before
the devil left.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I just got straight to the park the devil left,
and I was.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Hoping you would shout, but you didn't even shout about that,
so I know you're not going to shout about this.
And the angels came, and that's exciting, and we all
want to get there. But realize, if we put ourselves
in the historical context of this passage, that Paul and
Barnabas have three hundred miles to travel and they have
to figure out what are we going to tell them
(32:13):
when we get back. And you know, Barnabas was probably
keeping good notes and stuff like that, because Paul was
the one who was mostly talking, and so they have
three hundred miles to figure out together when we stand
in front of the church that send us, when we
get back to Antioch, what will we report? And I'm
not saying that Paul was a pessimist, because I don't
(32:34):
believe he was. He wrote amazing verses like I can
do all things through Christ. His strengthens me, and now
unto him who is able to do him measurably more So,
I am not throwing Paul under the bus, but Barnabas.
Barnabas had the gift of encouragement, and so I think
while they were going back, they were probably going through
(32:54):
their log of everything that happened over the next twelve months. Okay,
what are we going to tell them when we get there?
Barnabus and they're going through their notes, because how do
you condense twelve months into one talk? Because it said
they gathered the church together and told them. I imagine
the first place they realized they had to talk about
was Cyprus. When they got to Cyprus, the island called
(33:17):
Cyprus that's in Acts chapter thirteen. And while they were there,
God was using them, and Paul's like, you remember that guy,
that sorcerer in Cyprus? And Barnabas like, yeah, yeah, what
was his name again? And Paul's like, oh, I'll never
forget his name, Elimis Elimas. His name literally means sorcerer.
(33:43):
Barnabas like, oh, yeah, I remember now, Elimas.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Even Barnabas couldn't see much good in Elimis. He's like, yeah,
he was a bad dude, because right when we were
going to have an audience with the governor of that city,
Elimas started trying to interrupt us and distract from g Jesus.
And just when it looked like we were going to
make progress with a very important governor, Elimas stood up
(34:06):
and distracted. And Paul's like, yeah, that guy, he got
on my nerves. I hate Alimis. If I ever see
a Limis again, I'm gonna tell him. And Barnabas is like,
well wait, wait, not, Paul, do you remember what you
said to him? And Paul's like kind of and Barnabas goes,
I got it. I got it written right here. Now
put up acts chapter thirteen, verse eight. Look what happened.
But Elimas, the Sorcerer, for that is what his name means,
(34:30):
opposed them and tried to turn the governor from the
faith he was about to receive Jesus, which would have
been a major open door for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
He was a gentile and he was a governor. And remember,
right on the verge of God doing something amazing in
your life, right when you are.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
At the threshold of it, right when.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
You are at the doorframe of it, anybody there right now,
there will be a devil. The devil doesn't mean the
door wasn't real. The devil doesn't mean God wasn't in it.
The devil at the door might mean you are headed
in the right direction and he's trying to get you
to turn around. And Barnabas says Paul. You looked at
(35:18):
Elimas and I quote verse nine and told him, well,
verset in, you aren't chid of the devil and an
enemy of everything that is right. You are full of
all kinds of deceit. Will you never stop perverting the
ways of the Lord. And Paul's like, I said all that.
He's like, yeah, you said all that. You called him
(35:39):
a child of the devil. It is kind of mean, Paul,
but it was the perfect comeback for the situation. Because
watch what God did in verse eleven. Then suddenly after
Paul spoke up, Suddenly after Paul confronted the opposition, suddenly
after Paul refused to let the devil block his door,
I'm looking for somebody today who refuses to let the
devil have he said. The hand of the Lord is
(36:03):
against you. You're gonna be blind for a time, not
even able to see the light of the sun, and
immediately missed in darkness came over him, and he groped
about seeking someone to lead him by the hand. And
look what happened in verse twelve, Barnabas said, and when
the pro consul saw what had happened, he believed, for
he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord. So
(36:24):
maybe when we get to Antioch in a few days,
we'll tell him about the sorcerer at Cyprus, and we'll
tell him how we faced resistance. But we'll tell him
that after the resistance came a revelation, after the resistance
came a revelation. Yeah, Paul said, we're going to tell
(36:48):
him about the sorcerer, and Barnabas said, yeah, but we
got to make sure to tell him that if the
Sorcerer wouldn't have been struck blind, the governor wouldn't have
seen Jesus. Let me show you the door the resistance.
What's the starting place of the revelation? Now? What resistance?
(37:11):
You ok? Being up here with me like that, I
didn't check. Let you tell me. Tell you didn't get
to choose what to wear to be on stage and
nothing like that. But you're doing great. Imagine this that
the resistance that you're facing in your life right now
might be the door to a revelation of how great
God is. Maybe, maybe let me show you the door.
(37:35):
You want God to take the resistance away while you're
simultaneously praying for him to make you strong. How will
he make you strong with no resistance? How will he
show you who he is if he doesn't let you
find out who you're not without him? Remember that, Paul,
when you looked at him and said you child of
(37:56):
the devil? That was the perfect comeback. So when we
get back and we get to Antioch and we're in
front of the church council, let's make sure that we
tell them that there was resistance, but it led to revelation,
and then and then we should tell them about the
pettiness in Pasidia. I like to alliterate it because I
(38:20):
believe Paul would have done that, don't you. And Paul said,
we got to tell them how when we got to
Pasidia there was so much pettiness that these Jews who
were jealous started trying to stir up trouble. And Barnabas
is like, yeah, but Paul, you handled it, great man.
You handled that so good when they were trying to
(38:42):
stir up trouble against you and they rejected you. Do
you remember what you said, Paul? And Paul's like, well, yeah,
kind of, but tell me about it. And Barnabus goes, oh, yeah,
well I wrote it down. Look at Acts chapter thirteen,
verse forty four in this good bed, because I'm trying
to get you to see that what the devil is
telling you tells me something about where God is taking you.
(39:04):
And I want you to get your stack back in
your hands, and I want you on your three hundred
mile journey with your Barnabas. Whether the Barnabas is a friend,
whether the Barnabas is this sermon because you're watching it
alone on YouTube, Whether the Barnabas is your own spirit
because you've been consulting. Your flesh too long, and your
feelings too long, and your past too long. But greater
(39:26):
is he that is in you than he that is
in the world. I want you to remember the pettiness
in Pasidia. We got to Pisidia. We were preaching, man,
it was amazing. We left the island of Cyprus. We
got the Pasidia. People were listening Acts Chapter thirteen, verse
forty four. Please, on the next Sabbath, the whole city
gathered to hear the word of the Lord. And Paul,
(39:48):
you were preaching, man, And the Jews saw the crowds,
and they were filled with jealousy, and they began to
contradict what you were saying, and they heat the piece
on you. They said things about you that weren't true. Man,
this is Barnabas talking. Word to the wives. Let Barnabas talk.
Let Barnabas talk. Quit listening to the accuser all the time.
(40:10):
Let Barnabas talk. Let the God who believes in you speak.
And Paul was having abuse heaped on him, and Paul
and Barnabas answered him boldly. Now Barnabas got in on
this too.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
He said, we had to speak the word of God
to you first.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy
of eternal life. We now turn to the gentiles. Let
me ask a question. How many of you are not
Jewish by birth? Raise your hand. This is how you
got here. Think about it. They rejected Paul, and because
(40:45):
they rejected Paul, Paul reached you. So maybe Paul and
Barnabas decided on that three hundred mile trip back to Antioch.
When we get there, let's make sure to tell them
that rejection can become redirection. I thought your neighbor and say,
they didn't reject me, they redirected me. That was my
(41:08):
GPS talking. That was God using that to get me
on a different path, because I would have always stayed
in that place if I didn't feel a rejection. Paul
actually turned to the crowd and said, we were preaching
to you, but now we are turning to the gentiles
because rejection can be redirection. So let's make sure we
(41:32):
tell them about the pettiness in Pasidia and the sorcerer,
the sorcerer in Cyprus. But Paul, I also think we
need to tell him about the lynching. I think we
need to tell them about the lynching. That you went
through in Litta, because when they got the little Paul
(41:57):
was doing miracles. Man, you'll mind if I tell you
these Bible stories real quick. My barber told me, don't forget.
The people you're preach into hadn't opened their Bible all week.
I was like, they open it some. He's like, maybe
the app but you really need to dig into these
stories for us now. Yeah, I want you to get
it because if you don't get this part of it.
(42:19):
When I read you a verse that says the Devil
left Jesus or Paul and Barnabas stood up and reported
how the Lord opened the door, you'll think that the
door opened without difficulty, and you will be surprised when
you struggle, and you will think that you are not
a saint because you struggle, and you may even begin
to believe the devil that you are not who God
(42:42):
says you are. And when they got to lit A,
Paul performed miracles to the extent that one who was
crippled from birth got up. Now, when he got up,
the crowd went crazy, as crowds do when people who
have never walked before start to walk. And they took
(43:03):
it a little too far. In fact, they started saying,
Paul and Barnabas are gods. Barnabas is Zeus, Paul is Hermes.
And Paul's like, no, no, no, no, no, no no no,
we're servants like you. And they're like, oh, yeah, we
know who you are. You are Zeus and Hermes. But see,
(43:25):
other people can't tell you who you are. When you
know who you are, and when you know who you are,
you don't get too high and you don't get too
low because your hope is built on what Jesus says
about you. So Paul wasn't too swayed by the lows,
he wasn't too swayed by the highs. He said, we
(43:45):
are just men. We are servants who have come to
tell you about Jesus. That's all we are. We are
just the ones who opened the door. We're not the door.
And so they started preaching that, and the people were
going crazy. And then what's what happened? In Acts, chapter fourteen,
verse nineteen, it says that they stoned Paul. What happened
(44:07):
Some people came in who were jealous, some people came
in who were mixed up, and they stoned him and
dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead and maybe.
Paul says, we've got to tell them about the lynching
in Lita, and then Barnabas says, yeah, but we gotta
make sure we tell them what happened next, Paul, because
(44:29):
it was amazing, because they stoned you and left you
for dead, and they turned on you and they condemned you,
and they accused you, and they buried you, and they
maligned you, and they hurt you, and it looked like
it was over. But give me verse twenty. It is written,
It is written, but after the disciples had gathered around him,
(44:50):
but after the help came, but after the connection came,
Paul got up and went back. Now, I don't know
who needs this in your section. Be a Barnabas for
five seconds, tell them get up and go back. Come on,
be my Barnabas for fifteen seconds. Reach three people, say
get up and go back, Get up and go back,
(45:14):
Get up and go back. Because the report isn't in
the rocks they threw at you? Is that who rows
up after the rock? Ah? God, you see what I'm saying.
Come on, you might have to be yob for a second,
but take twenty four sect five seconds and praise.
Speaker 6 (45:34):
God, get your gut up, and you went back.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
I'm going through my list. I'm going through my list.
High five. Your neighbors said, we got up and we're
going back. I'm not staying in this place. I'm not
staying in this place. I'm not staying under these rocks.
I'm not staying on this debt.
Speaker 6 (46:01):
I'm not staying.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Under this crippling anxiety. I'm not staying under this bad report.
I'm not staying under this weight of depression. I'm not
staying under the same of my past. I'm not staying
under the written record that was held against me. Y'all,
Thank God for Abigail Barnabas verdict, and thank God for Jesus,
(46:28):
who is my Barnabas. Thank God for the Greater Wise,
thank God for the Holy Wife, thank God for the Annointment.
Speaker 6 (46:42):
Thank God said they threw their rocks by you, Rosa
al Rosa, How rose up? Who feel like breaking today?
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah? How five? Your neighbors say you'll be balmed, I'll
be barnabus Now encourage.
Speaker 6 (47:09):
Him, saying you can make it.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
You got this. God's with you, you got a grace
for it, you were made for it, you were porn
for it. You were falling for it, you were filled
for it. You'll got the holly ghost. I'm trying to
get to the sea.
Speaker 6 (47:31):
Your door is off us.
Speaker 7 (47:34):
Go through.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Your door. Fill a Barnabas spear in the house today.
And verse twenty six, so that's chapter fourteen says that
on the way from Italia to Antioch, where it all started,
God said, let's go back to where it all started.
(47:59):
He who will be a good work in you, will
be faithful to perform it. If God opened the door,
he will fill the room when you get in it.
That's how I know I'm so full of this word.
(48:20):
I'm so full of this word to help somebody who
has been hungry in the wilderness for forty days, who
has been lynched in Lita, who has been stirred up
in a place called Pasidia, or who has even had
to deal with a sorcerer in Cyprus. To remind you
(48:41):
of everything that you went through was the door to
who God knows you can be and who you can help.
And by the way, verse twenty seven says something so
fascinating to me. For our narcissistic culture that always wants
to know why is the devil doing this to me?
(49:03):
Or when are people going to do something for me?
The Bible says Paul and Barnabas got up verse twenty seven,
and they gathered the church together. That's connection, and they
reported all that God had done through them. That's credit.
God did it through you. Given the credit. There's the comeback,
(49:25):
there's the connection, and there's the credit. Stop giving the
devil God's credit. What the devil did to us to
try to destroy us, God turned into a door to
develop us. Even some of the little things in your
(49:48):
life that you call coincidence, some of the things that
you call coincidence, are just things that God did that
you haven't given him credit for. Yet. The odds that
you would be here, the odds that you would be you,
the odds, the odds were against you, But God was
for you. Give him his credit. He said. God was
(50:15):
working in the rejection. God was working in the resistance.
If the sorcerer wouldn't have spoken against us, he wouldn't
have been blinded.
Speaker 5 (50:23):
If he wouldn't have been blinded, the governor wouldn't have seen.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
If they hadn't rejected us, we would not have redirected
to the gentiles and this church wouldn't have been here today.
I'm trying to get you to show the devil the door.
How do you get him to leave your life? Begin
to list all the things that God did that you've
been forgetting about. So when I lift my hands like this,
(50:50):
I'm not just lifting. I'm listing. One he brought me
out of bondage. Two he brought me out of sin.
Three he broke my shame and set me free. For
he cut my feet on a rock and gave me
a firm place to stamp. Five he's fuck piece to
my storm. Now it's your turn. You got a hand.
(51:11):
What did he do for you? Begin to lift your hands,
Begin to lift your victories. Begin to report the open door,
the door he opened, the way he made, the time
he came through. When the devil shows you your deficiency.
Speaker 8 (51:40):
Showing the door, showing the door, you have the perfect
come back.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Jesus said to the devil, away from me.
Speaker 7 (51:58):
He was showing you what to do, and he could
do this because of who he is, and he's in you.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
He's in you.
Speaker 5 (52:11):
Greater is he that is in me, then he that is.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
In the world. So resistance is a door. Rejection is
a door. Rocks are a door. I just gotta stop
and remember who he is.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
Jesus said to Satan away from me.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
You ever wonder why he waited till the third time
the devil tempted him to send him away. I thought
about that a lot this week. One, I think he
was setting an example for us to know that temptation
isn't something you resist once and you're done with it. Two,
I think he was doing it to show us the
(52:51):
three types of temptation we all face. The lust of
the flesh turned these stones into bread, the lust of
the eyes throw yourself off, and the pride of life.
A bow down and worship me and I'll get all
the kingdoms of the world. But another reason, I think
is because of what the devil said the third time.
He said, Jesus, you see all this, and he took
(53:11):
him to a high place. It says he can see
all the kingdoms of the world, which lets us know
that this was not a physical transportation, it was a
mental one. There's no mountain high enough to show you
all the kingdoms of the world. So this was all
happening in Jesus's mind, just like it's all happening in yours,
And the real challenge is not to get back to
Antioch physically, it's to get back to your grace. Yes,
(53:37):
So the devil took him. The devil took him to
a high place, and he said, all this I'll give you. Now,
Remember the devil did three things. He led Jesus. I
don't mean that Jesus was following him. I mean that
he took him there when translation says he led, and
(53:59):
then he Now, the first two times the devil quoted
a scripture at Jesus, but the third time was an
outright lie. He said, all this I will give you
verse nine, if you will bow down and worship me.
And then the devil said leave. He led, he lied,
and he left. And you say, what was the lie
(54:24):
in verse nine? The lie is that anybody was worthy
of worship other than Jesus. So when the devil said
worship me, Jesus said, get out of here. I'm not
the worshiper, I'm the worshiped. To said now let me
(54:53):
show you the door. For those of you who really
know your Bibles, you will be familiar with John chapter ten,
Verse ten. The thief comes to kill, still and destroy,
But I have come that you might have life and
have it to the full, or King James have it
more abundantly. Tell the devil get the hints. I have life.
(55:18):
I have life. This is my life. God gave it
to me, and I'm gonna live it for him. But
there's another thing that Jesus said just before he said,
the thief comes to kill, still and destroy, but I
have come that you might have life in verse nine
that I want to show you today where Jesus said,
(55:39):
I am the door. When the devil shows you your
failure this week, show him your door. And when oh yeah,
(56:01):
I'm gonna help you for I get off the stage.
When he tells you you don't have a right to pray,
you know how unworthy you are, show him your door.
Just don't even argue with the devil. Don't tell him
you're worthy, you're great, you're awesome, because you and I both.
Speaker 5 (56:18):
Know that isn't true.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
You and I both know that at your highest you're
not God, and at your lowest you're not the devil.
So when the devil comes to try to rock you
with that stuff this week and try to get you
to give up on what God gave you, show him
your door. Let me show you the door devil. Let
me remind you what Jesus did for me. Let me
(56:43):
tell you how he bled for me. Let me tell
you how he suffered on God at this hill. Let
me tell you how he sweat with drops of great
blood until the point where he was in agony, saying, nevertheless,
not my will, but yours be done. When the devil
shows you what you're up, I guess show him your door.
(57:03):
Your door is Jesus. He is the way, the truth,
and the life. When the devil shows you your disease,
show in your door, say by his friends, I am here.
I got a door, And walk the enemy right to
(57:29):
the cross of Christ in your mind and remind him
that Jesus is your way to God. Right now in
his presence. There are at least fifty people in this room,
and probably hundreds all over the world watching online, who
need to give your life to Jesus right now, right
in this moment. Not tomorrow, not when you get your
(57:50):
stuff together, not when you get your credit score up,
none of that. Right now you need to come to
the cross. He is your door. Not by words of
righteousness so that we can boast, but by grace through faith,
we are saved. And I want everybody to stand on
your feet right now as I offer you this invitation
(58:10):
to come to Jesus, to come to him and live,
to come to him. All of the accusations, all of
the sins that you've committed, all of these can be
forgiven if you place your faith in Jesus. He is
your door. And right now, in the name of Jesus
who Paul and Barnabas preached, in the name of Jesus
(58:32):
who defeated the devil and sin and death and hell
and the grave, I offer you this abundant life, this
eternal life, this life that cannot be taken away.
Speaker 5 (58:44):
With your heads bowed and your eyes closed.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
Those of you who are here today and you've been
captive to the devil to do his will, today is
your day of liberation. There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. And now I'm
going to lead you in a prayer. This prayer is
for those who are coming to Jesus. Enough of what
your past says, enough of what your flesh says, enough
(59:08):
of what your good works can do. None of that
can say. If you come to Jesus, he will pardon.
Come to Jesus, he is merciful. Come to Jesus, he
is flowing with forgiveness. And right now, if you pray
this prayer in your heart, the Bible says that if
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
believe in your heart God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. With head's bowed and eyes closed.
(59:32):
At every location, we're praying out loud together as a
church family for the benefit of those who are coming
to God or coming back to God. This is your
comeback moment. This is your comeback Sunday. Now repeat after me.
If God is speaking to you out loud, heavenly fathered.
Speaker 5 (59:51):
Today is my day of salvation.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
I believe that Jesus Christ is your son, and today
I make Jesus the Lord and savior of my life.
I believe he died that I would be forgiven and
rose again to give me life.
Speaker 5 (01:00:16):
I receive this new life.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
This is my new beginning.
Speaker 5 (01:00:22):
I am a child of God.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
On the counter of three shoots your hand up. If
you prayed that one, two, three, shoot him up, shoot
him up. I knew it. I knew it. God bless him. Amazing.
Come on, let's put a party atmosphere in the place
for him. Come on, let's put an angels in heaven.
Rejoice over one sinner party atmosphere in the place. Glory
(01:00:47):
to God. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to
those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is
because of you that this ministry is possible. You can
click the link in the description to give now, or
visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and
(01:01:10):
if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can
share it with your friends. You can click the share button,
take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening.
God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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