December 20, 2024 • 44 mins
We all have our doubts. But what really matters is how we respond to them. In this special Christmas Eve message, discover how to strengthen your faith in the face of doubt.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
In Matthew chapter one, the record goes, this is how
the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother, Mary
was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they
came together, she was found to be with child through
the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man,
and did not want to expose her to public disgrace,
he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But after he had considered.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
This, because sometimes your first instinct is not God's will,
he had considered this, after he did the math, and
after he calculated his next move.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
God spoke.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It is often contrary to our logic. When God speaks,
it often relates what we see when God calls us
to walk by faith.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But after he.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Joseph, son of David.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,
because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you are
to give him the name Jesus. Everybody say that name.
You are to give him the name Jesus, because he
will save his people from their sins. I know you're confused,
(01:31):
I know you're bewildered, and I know that you're hurt.
But verse twenty two, all this took place to fulfill.
I know you're having a hard time making sense of
the situation right now, but all this took place to fulfill.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's not random.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
There's a reason all this took place to fulfill. I
hear the apostle Paul all the way over from Roman
say he wants to get in on this. All things
work together for the good of those who love God
and are called according to his purpose. All this the
parts you like, the parts you don't, the parts you get,
(02:09):
and the parts that keep you awake at night, the
parts that feel good, and the parts that lead you
with tears on your pillow. All this took place to
fulfill what the.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Lord had said through the prophet.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The Virgin will be with child and will give birth
to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which
means God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did
with the Angel of the Lord had commanded him and
took Mary home as his wife, but he had no
union with her. Just to make it clear, he had
(02:44):
no union with her until she gave birth.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
To a son, and he gave him the name Jesus.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I want to speak for just a few moments today
on the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Christmas is rightly celebrated.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
As the story of new beginnings, but the story begins
at a dead end. By the time you get to
Matthew Chapter one. Heaven has been seemingly silent since the
time of Malachi the prophet for several centuries. And I
did not read you the whole of Matthew Chapter one.
(03:22):
If I had started with verse one, you might have
been asleep by the time that I got to the
part I wanted to read, because it's just a genealogy
of how Jesus came into the earth from a human perspective,
and Matthew gives us fourteen generations between Abraham and David,
fourteen more between David and the Babylonian exile of the
(03:44):
people of Israel fourteen more from the exile to the
Birth of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That's all in Matthew chapter one.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
It's a list of names, really, but it signifies how
at this point in God's redemptive story, as told in
the pages of Holy.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Scripture, heaven has hit a dead end.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
God has sent the law to his people, but they
broke it. Literally, when Moses came down the mountain with
the Ten Commandments showing the people how to live to
be a people, by the time he could get the
rules down to them, they were dancing naked around another
God that they made because they got tired of.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Waiting on the one they couldn't see.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So Moses, in his frustration, broke the tablets had to
go up and carve out some new ones. Not only
was their hope of keeping the law broken, like it
is every time we try to do God's will in
our own strength, but the prophets that God had sent
to his people were each turned away, despies, rejected. Many
(04:48):
of them died at the hands of the very people
that they came with a word to deliver. And so
now they've broken the law, disobeyed the prophets, and by
the time you get to Matthew chapter one, Heaven has
hit a dead end. And as man after man after
man after man comes into the earth, none of them
being the Messiah who is able to rescue and redeem,
(05:10):
it seems that we're at an impasse because the true
character of God cannot break through the frailty of humanity
to deliver this love message that has existed before time began.
The beginning was a word, and the word was with God,
and the Word was God. And the full preincarnate Word
of God was existing in Jesus Christ before he was
ever made flesh on Christmas Day. But it has not
(05:30):
yet found its way into the earth, not by the
time we have read Matthew chapter one.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So what we get is forty two.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Generations of frustration and suddenly Christ is born. Heaven has
hit a dead end, and humanity feels the same way.
No matter how they try to follow God, there seems
to be something in their hearts prone to wander. No
matter what commitment they make, they seem unable to keep it.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So now you have heaven at a dead end.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Because God is perfectly holy and cannot violate his standard
to relate to unholy people and humans who unholy have
no way to God. And all of a sudden, here
comes a latter named.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Jesus, not from the earth to the sky, but from
the heavens to the earth, and it's the throne of
the rule and reign of a sovereign God is lowered
into the.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Everyday affairs of humanity. We see Joseph is also at
a dead end. Maybe he really looked forward to having
Mary as his wife, but he gets some bad news
when it comes to his attention that she's claiming that
(06:49):
she got pregnant by God. Now I want to say
something about that real quick, because in church we just
skip right over this stuff. But a lot of people
come to church on Christmas and don't come any other
time of the year, and they sit in listen politely
to stuff like this. But when we say that she
had a baby, but it was all wise no X,
they get kind of confused about this because you know,
this stuff doesn't just happen every day, and what we're
(07:10):
shouting about they're.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Kind of skeptical about.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So let me talk about this for a minute, because
it must have been hard for Joseph to take the
Angel at his word when he saw no way forward.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I mean, he wants to marry her.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
He's looking for a way to go through with it,
but the law requires him to put her away. So
he's going to do it in the most dignified way possible.
He's not going to humiliate her. He's going to do
it in a righteous way. But he sees no road forward,
no route past this indiscretion. And so the scripture says
that he had in mind to put her away. But
(07:45):
sometimes what you have in mind is not what God
has in store.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It's just that he can't see a way forward. He's
at a dead end. I was looking.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Forward to Mary. You know, Mary is a wonderful person.
We find out, very content, not a wife who's hard
to please.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
She was gonna be such a good wife.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And I already put a deposit down on the venue
for the wedding and it's non refundable.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But I don't see any way to go.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Through with this because she's got a baby and it's
not mine, and she says it belongs to the Lord.
I don't see a way forward. Heaven is at a
dead end, humanity is at a dead end. Joseph is
at a dead end, and I just wonder are you.
(08:36):
I wonder is there anybody in this room, watching online
or on television who has found yourself.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
At a dead end this day.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
In a relationship, you can find yourself having done all
that you know to do for someone that you love
and thinking to yourself, well if they don't love me
back by now.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You can find.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yourself at a dead end with your children. You can
do everything that you can do for the very for
the very person that you would do anything for, but
it is not enough, and you find yourself before God.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Saying I don't know what else to do.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You can find yourself at a dead end in your resources.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I'm out of I'm out of money.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I put everything on every credit card. I stole a
credit card alive to get another credit card. I put
that balance on this balance, and I can't balance anything
else anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I'm at an end. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I think this is it, because I really think I've
run out of room to run.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I'm at a dead end. You know, religion can leave.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
You at a dead end when you have made so
many commitments to change, but you never do, When you
have said so many times you know I'm gonna do
better now, you know I'm really gonna I'm gonna really
kick that. You know, that's the last time I'm gonna
do that. That's really the last time. This time is
the last time. I won't do it no more. And
then you do it again, and every time you do,
(10:07):
you feel a little more hopeless that you're ever going
to be capable of real change. I wonder, are you
at a dead end? And I wonder did you know
that dead ends are the perfect.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Place for new beginnings?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
In Jesus Christ, this is the message that I came
to preach this Christmas, not about a tall baby lying
in a bassinet. I came to preach about new beginnings.
The Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let
every heart prepare his room. He is with us, and
anything is possible.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
This is not the end.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Seems to be the announcement of Heaven that this is
not the end. Touch somebody say this is not the end.
New beginnings often start when you find yourself at a
dead end.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I admire Joseph. I admire Joseph.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Maybe maybe it's more appropriate to say you admire Mary.
Maybe that's sexist for me to preach about Joseph on Christmas,
because Mary did all the hard work.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You understand, I'm not trying to be that way. I
really I.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Really just think that I wouldn't have had the faith
to give Mary the benefit of the doubt on this one,
on this one. And so it says he had a
dream and he woke up and he was like, cool. See,
I wouldn't be cool. But just a dream unless the
(11:38):
angel was Maury Povich with a paternity task like, no,
I promise you can show this, then I'm good. If
we got some DNA on this divine baby in your belly, fine,
But I'm not so sure because I have crazy dreams.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
This might have been just a crazy dream.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
But he did what the angel had commanded him. That
the angel said something that is simple on the surface,
but there's great depth to it.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I'd like you to consider it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
In verse twenty, what is conceived in her is from
the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Simplify, what's in her is from Me.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And sometimes God wants you to know that what is
packaged as disappointment.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Is really destiny. Do you see it? What's in her
is from Me.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And sometimes when people cause you pain and when life
lets you down, it looks on the surface like God
has left you. But what's in her, what's happening in
your life, is from me, and he goes with it.
And I must have like a really bad version of
the Bible. This is a little older Bible that I
preach from. It's a great bible. It has Billy grahmsy
(13:00):
that you're in it. This Bible. He signed this Bible.
They told me he signed it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
I wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I never met him, but could have been Larry Bry
with some good penmanship.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I give him the benefit of the doubt, though, that
Billy Graham really signed the Bible.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And in this Bible.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I was struggling because I couldn't find anybody else got
a Bible. I just want to cross references because my
Bible must be messed up because in my bible, let's
see your bible. Your Bible might be better than Mine's
a smaller Bible's pointing that out. Oh this is the
good one. This this might be the King James version
(13:38):
or something like that. Yeah, this one will have it.
I see, I'm looking twenty two version. We've seen give
birth to a son cous name Man and Joe being
raised from sleep. Nope, your Bible's your bible's missing it too.
I was looking for the part of the story where
the angel gave Joseph proof, and I couldn't find it
(14:00):
in my Bible or yours. Anybody else got a Bible
because our bibles are are missing stuff. It's disappointing. I
know they've got new translations. Surely it'll be in a
in this bible. What color do you call that, babe?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That's a.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
What color is his bible? Surely it'll be in your
pink bible. She's got tabs on her bible.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Surely it'll be.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
We'll see this one. This one's problematic too. It's pretty,
but it's it's problematic because now I'm looking for the
part where it tells me how Joseph felt. I can't
find it. All it says is that God said to Joseph,
(14:51):
it's me go forward, and he did it. I can't
find the part where they wrote in the clouds, no, really,
this is God's baby, you know, at their gender reveal party,
because they also needed to have a divinity revealed party.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I can't find the clouds. I can't find the sign.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
It was just the voice of God saying to Joseph
it's me go through, and I feel like that might
be the Lord for someone today. I know you don't
have the proof, I know you don't have the feeling,
and I know all signs point to stopping.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But it's me go through.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
He must have really trusted Mary. But he couldn't trust
Mary now, could he. This is an arranged marriage. They
didn't date three years. He didn't to get to choose her,
pick her based on her profile Christian Singles dot com,
Christian Palestinians dot com. He didn't swipe for Mary. He
(16:04):
just that's the way it worked back then. You just
got her. He didn't know her like that. He must
have really trusted God enough to give him the benefit
of the doubt.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
What is the benefit of the doubt?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I asked God how we should define that term, and
he told me to ask Wikipedia.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Wikipedia says.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
That the benefit of the doubt is a favorable judgment
in the absence of full evidence.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
The benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It means that when it doesn't add up, the variable
is God for me.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And so it means that when.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I don't have evidence to support my conclusion that God
is good, that He is with me, and that He
is for me. Let's say those three things. God is good,
he is with me, he is for me. I want
you to say it again, and I'm looking all the
way to the back to the people with that little
(17:11):
Christmas attitude, say God is.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Good, he is with me, he is for me.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Now I have reached that verdict, not by the process
of deduction and looking at my life to see if
it lines up with that assertion. I reached that conclusion
by revelation. And once I came to believe that God
is good, he is with me, and he is for me,
I now live by that verdict and I collect the
(17:39):
evidence to support the verdict that I have already come to.
This is not how you reach a conclusion in a
court of law, but in the realm of faith. It
works like this verdict. First evidence, Second, what.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Does that mean.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I don't look to my bank account or my doctor's
report to see if God is a provider or a healer.
I've already come to the conclusion that he is Jehovah
Chirah and Jehovah Rafica. He is my provider and my healer.
That's the verdict. So now, no matter what the evidence says,
(18:21):
I can find greater evidence in the death of Jesus Christ.
See when he hugged for me. That's settled it out
of court. I don't need to take it before a
judge or a jury.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I already know he loves me this much.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I believe it. Not on always see it, but I
believe it. I doubt it sometimes, but I believe it.
You can't say both. You can't say both. You're not
allowed to say both in church. You can't say that
in church. You can't talk about doubt in church.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Because James Jap says, let him not doubt, let him
leave me his.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Heart, he should have aways say if he doubts like
way to see he Thos driven with.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Let let that man thank you see anything for the
Lord and staiment. I know that Bible verse bro, but.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I think it's confusing for people who think that faith
is the absence of doubt.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The Bible doesn't say that Joseph didn't doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
It just said that he did what he had to
do even with the doubt in his heart.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Means he didn't let the doubt stop him. Don't let
him stop you.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Of course you'll have doubts, just don't let them be dead.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Ends, and a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Of people stand at the dead end of a destiny
that God is bringing them into because they will not
walk through the doubt to get.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
To the promise.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I meet these people and they say things to me
because of my profession. I guess they make assumptions about
me because there's a reve in front of my name.
They make assumptions about me that I don't have real doubts.
One gentleman that I was doing business with, he put
it this way. He was like, I envy you because
(20:21):
I would love to have faith. I always wanted to
believe in God, but I just always am the kind
of person that doubts a lot, and I envy you
that you don't have those doubts.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Now here's what I should have said back to him.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
It only took me four months to come up with this,
because he is assuming that faith is the absence of doubt.
For me, faith has never been the absence of doubt.
Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is the
means to overcome it. Do you hear what I'm saying.
(21:00):
We get in church and we just all go into
this walking, dead, willing suspension of disbelief, and we just
believe things that have no impact on our everyday life,
just like we're binge watching Netflix, like I'm just gonna
watch this for a little while and hear this little
comforting word. But then we go out into the world
and we doubt the stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
But we can't say we.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Doubt the stuff because doubt is bad, because isn't doubt bad.
One time, I even had a keptist pastor who was
giving an invitation like, we will give in a moment
for people who want to place their faith in Christ.
And when we do it at our church, we have
people repeat a prayer. It's just a means of allowing
(21:42):
them to express their heart to God so that they
can have a moment that they look back on and
say I placed my trust in Christ. And to me,
that prayer is a very sacred moment. It's not a
time for people to get their person get out and
beat the parking, and it's not a time for someone
who's preaching to start sharing their opinions. That is a
(22:03):
time to present the gospel and get out of the
way because only God can save a person. And now, well,
I believe this campus pastor mintwell, but what he said
I had to correct him on later.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And I'm not a mean guy, and I make mistakes.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Up here too, But to me, he made a really
big mistake when he was praying the prayer because he
was inviting the people to pray, and he said, if
you want to give your heart to Christ today and
know for sure that you have a relationship with him,
pray this. You know, Lord Jesus, I believe that I'm
a sinner in need of a savior, and I believe without.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
A doubt that's the part he should have left out.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I believe without a doubt that Jesus Christ, the Son
of God and the.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Savior of the world. Today, I give you my life.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
All of it was good, all of it was appropriate,
and there is no other way to be saved but
to confess with your mouth Jesus's Lord, believe in your
heart God raised him from the dead.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
You shall be saved.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
But that one parenthetical insert, without a doubt, I told him,
never again.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
When you stand in.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
The pulpit at elevation, do I want you to put
people in a position where you're telling them to pray
something that they can't honestly pray. As a matter of fact,
don't put them in a position to pray something that
you can't honestly pray because there is not one of
you in the room, even with tabs in your pink Bible,
(23:32):
that can honestly say without a doubt, not a.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
One of you.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And if you can hang on, you hadn't had teenagers.
Yet somebody to my backside backed me up on this.
The triumph of my faith is not the absence of doubt.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
The triumph of my faith.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Is the ability for the light to shine in the deepest,
darkest recesses.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Of my heart.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I got doubts, but I trust him anyway. So my
faith can say, even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death and the shadow of doubt.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
And the shadow of dysfunction.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I will fear no evil. It's not that I don't
go through valleys. I don't die there, even.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Though I walk.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Through the valley of the shadow of death. This is
Christmas preson people.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Even though.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Throw us in the fire, our God is able to
deliver us. But even if he doesn't, we will not
bow our knee to you, O King.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Never conness her.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I know Lazarus is dead, but if Jesus is on
the scene, every dead end is a destiny waiting to begin.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Even now, I have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I don't believe this because I don't doubt it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
If you don't doubt.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
It, you're not reading.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It, or you're reading it with no intent to live it.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
My doubt is the evidence of my growth.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
The closer I get, the more questions I have.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I struggle to believe it that I'm forgiven, that he
forgives me not only for what I did before I
accepted him.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
But for what I still do.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh, y'all are gonna look at me like that on Christmas?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That's what you brought me, that face.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Maybe he could forgive the past stuff, but what about
the present stuff?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What about that?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I have my doubts. I have my faith, but I
have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
My man thought he couldn't come to Christ because he
had the doubts. He thought that belief was the absence
of doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
He didn't have.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
The revelation that real belief is the willingness to stand
on it even when you can't see it, feel it.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Or explain it.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I read that if any man is in Christ, he's
a new creation and the oldest gone and the newest come.
But that versus still in progress in my life, there's
still some old stuff in me comes down out in traffic.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Hello.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
I have my doubts. I have my doubts. I have
my doubts.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I've read that whom the sun sets free is free indeed,
but sometimes I feel bound by stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I have my dows Is that all right?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Do you need to find another church now that you
know that the dude with.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
The mic has some dowts. I have my doubts.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And Abby is already doing the thing that we all
do at some point in our life if we try
to be religious.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Where she's going?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Well, she said the other day, where did God come from?
And I'm like, you're six? Can he just have always
been there at age six? Do we really have to
start this now? But that was about the same time
I did it. She said it so funny. It was
like she had me on a witness stand or something.
She said she was waiting for me to get home
from work because she asked Holly, and Holly said, you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Ask your dad about that. He'll be home in a
couple hours.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And she said, Abby's got a question for you, And
Abby said, where did God come from?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And who made him? And don't just say he's always
been there? And I'm going.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Already, yeah, already. This is the first gift of mystery
that Heaven is giving to my daughter. It is the
beginning of a lifetime of learning the art of.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Faith, which Richard Roh suggests is patience with mystery, not
the absence of it. Patience with it to take Mary home,
even when you don't know where this is headed. So
I did not give her a cookie cutter answer, partially
(29:03):
because she's smarter.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Than me and would have seen right through it. And said,
I welcomed the mystery. And I said, I used to
lay awake in my bed too thinking about that when
I was a little boy. I was probably seven or eight,
because boys are two years behind, but I had that
same thing. I just couldn't never make sense of it,
and I still haven't.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I have my doubts, but I believe it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I believed that while I was watching my dad die
and I had to preach my stuff back to myself,
and I didn't have the protective insulation.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Of this to stand behind or this to hold. Yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It's a real problem because a lot of people are
waiting for the doubt to disappear.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Let's take the next step the faith.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
If the absence of doubt was a prerequisite for being
used by God, Mary could not have been.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
The mother of Jesus.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Over here, the Angel is talking to Joseph, but before
he came to Joseph, he spoke to Mary. He spoke
to them separately, because you have to experience faith for yourself.
You have to make your own decision as to who
God is and what he means to you. So while
(30:32):
he was speaking to Joseph, who had to endure the
embarrassment of walking through this.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Next season, he was speaking to Mary.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And you're familiar with the story, but just put it
on the screens real quick. This is Luke one where
he said to Mary, greetings, you who are highly favored.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
The Lord is with you. That's the verdict.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Before I give you the particulars of the situation, I
want to bring you back to the thing that you
can always know in every season of your life, if
you choose to.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Believe it.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Your verdict, should you choose to accept it, God is
with me. God is for me. You are highly favored.
God is for you, and He is with you in
this moment. Now, I got something I got to tell you.
The angel starts off by reminding Mary of his presence,
and it says that Mary was greatly troubled at his words. Now,
(31:36):
what's there to be troubled about? All he said was Hello,
God likes you. It seemed like YadA high fived him fistbalm.
But she wondered what this greeting might be. Often the
first impulse when God really shows up in your life
is fear, and it is only in pushing through the
(31:57):
fear that you find the love of God on the
other side of your fear.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
What's this all about? But the Angel said to her.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
You have found favor with God, and I got an
assignment for you. Because I find favor with God. You
will be with child and give birth to a son,
and you are to give him the name Jesus. And
he will be great and will be called the Son
of the Most High. And the Lord God will give
(32:28):
him the throne of his father David, and he will
reign over the House of Jacob forever.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
His kingdom will never end.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Now watch Mary's response, well, praise the Lord, and glory
to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and
good will to men on whom his favor rest.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And your words to me are like drops of gold assurance.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
In a heart of no Mary said first thing out
of her mouth was, how I know how pregnancy works?
How am I pregnant? I promise God? And Joseph been
keeping it clean? I promise God. We have nothing in
the back seat of a camel ac, I promise God.
(33:08):
How her first.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Instinct is not yes, it's how.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
That is always the response when God really knocks. How
how can I really be forgiven by someone who died
on a cross before I was ever born? How can
somebody else's death really affect my life?
Speaker 1 (33:34):
How that's a good starting place?
Speaker 2 (33:37):
How can you really use me? Look at me? I'm nobody,
I'm nothing. How How how can I move forward after this?
How can I believe that I still will see the
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
How? How?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
How see the greatest gifts that God ever gives? Are
on the other side of your How on the other
side of your question, on the other side of your
I don't get it. On the other side of your
I don't understand, on the other side of who me,
on the other side of what now, on the other
side of why.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
This, that's where the gift is.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in the manger. God wrapped his son in
something that looked so common that you would walk by
it if you weren't looking for it. Because the greatest
gifts that God gives are wrapped in doubt. And the
(34:47):
promise is wrapped in doubt for a reason, because if
He gave you proof, you wouldn't need faith. So he
hides it. He hides his promise in the darkness to
protect you. And this will not make sense in an
(35:08):
Instagram generation. But sometimes God needs to work on the
big picture of your life in the dark room to
let it develop. Doubt is where faith develops. Doubt is
where faith matures. Doubt is where faith gets hardened past
Christian cliches that fit on a bumper sticker or a pinterest.
(35:35):
Let it develop, Let patience have its perfect work in you,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking not.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
That it's the dark room. In fact, Isaiah, who was
quoted to Joseph also said.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
In Isaiah chapter nine, verse one, Nevertheless, there will be
no more gloom. I want to write a song one
day called nevertheless. It's one of my favorite Bible words.
It means it looks one way, but it's really another.
It means give it time, let it unfold. God is
up to something. It means that the that the verdict
(36:08):
has already submitted, Just give the evidence time.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
You will see it.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Nevertheless, no matter what you see right now, it means
that the ruling on the field can be overturned at
any time. It means that there is a review booth
called Heaven. Y'all didn't come to have church today. Y'all
come to just check it out the list and stock
us stuffing with some cute little stuff. Nevertheless, there will
be no more gloom for those who were in distress.
(36:35):
In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulin in
the land of Neftali. But in the future he will
honor Galilee of the Gentiles by the way of the
sea along the Jordan. Oh. I need to insert this
because Galilee means valley of shade.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Now watch what happens in the darkest valley.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
The prophet says, the people walking in darkness have seen
a great light. And I would confused at this point
because I thought he was talking about something that would
happen seven hundred years later. The prophet Isaiah prophesied seven hundred.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Years before the birth of Christ.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
But now he is speaking about something that has yet
to be, as if it already happened. This is called
the prophetic perfect. You see it often in scripture. It's
when God, who stands outside of time, knows exactly what
you're going through, how long you're going to go through it,
and what he's going to do. On the other side
is the God who spoke, Let there be light, and
(37:31):
molecules and particles rearranged themselves to spread out into the universe,
to talk in every corner.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Of this splode.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
My faith gives me the ability to stand in the
darkest valley believing that the light has already come. If
I let it develop. Faith is developed now. Faint always
develops in doubt. If faith learns to depend.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
On God because of doubt. If you never doubted God,
you would be him. Before long.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You would start worshiping yourself and singing, how great Thou
art in your full length mirror, and God is not
going to allow you to become so arrogant that you.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Never have doubts.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
If he removed the doubt, he would remove the need
for him for you to know that He is God
and you are not. That's why you doubt. There are
benefits to the doubt. There's a benefit to having to
wrestle with God and wrestle with where you are, and
wrestle with yourself and wrestle like Jacob did.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
That's where you find the revelation of.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
The goodness of God, not in your self confidence, but
in your self doubt.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Mary said, how will this be? I am a virgin.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
The angel said, the power of the most High will
overshadow you. But you must make the decision to believe
God in the face of evidences. SEMs to contradict his
promise to believe God.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
That every dead end.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Is a doorway if you decide to go through it,
and there is someone here who is standing at a
doorway today called doubt, and if you will walk through
it and make the decision to trust God in this situation,
you will find on the other side a greater glory
revealed to you than you have ever known.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
But if you stop here. If you stop with how
and why and when and what?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
If you wait till you have all the evidence to
trust God, you will never take Mary home, and you
will never see the promise of God come to pass.
All of the greatest faith is on the other side
of your deepest out. I want to ask, with no
(39:58):
one leaving, please don't leave in this moment.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
This is that invitation moment that.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
I spoke about earlier that is so sacred to us,
and I want to ask at every campus that you
would stand to your feet right now, because this is
a moment of decision for many, for those who say
(40:26):
what one man said to Jesus, who needed the gift
of healing. I want to believe. Help my unbelief. I
want to believe, but I feel unworthy. I want to believe,
but I have my doubts. God has a grace that
(40:47):
is greater than every doubt, and all he requires is
the next step in the light that you do have.
I believe there are many here today who need to
receive the gift of salvation, but you can't receive it
uppear You can't receive it with these and you can't
receive it with your own effort.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
It is by grace you are saved through faith. I
know you have your doubts.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
When Peter walked towards Jesus on the water, he had faith,
but it flipped so quick. The next thing you know,
he was sinking, and Jesus asked him a question, why
did you doubt?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
And when he asked him that question, he didn't push
him back under the water to teach him a lesson.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
He reached out his hand to bring him back to
the boat and to show him who he was all along.
So this message is for the doubters. We often sing
it Christmas, Oh come all ye faithful. Today the invitation is,
come all ye doubtful, with questions and dysfunctions and conflicts,
(41:53):
to place your faith in the God who is the Great.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I am with you. Bow your head and close your eyes.
At every location.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I want to pray a prayer right now for those
who want to come into a relationship with Christ. Receive
forgiveness by faith because of his finished work on the cross,
and live a new life in his name, because of
his resurrection from the dead, and make a decision of
faith today to put your hope in him.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
We're going to pray a prayer right now out loud.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Our whole church family will pray it for the benefit
of those who are coming to God for the first
time or are coming back to God. And if this
is the prayer of your heart, God will hear you
from heaven and will save you from your sin. Let's
pray together right now, repeat after me, Heavenly Father. I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and
(42:47):
the Savior of the world. And today I make Jesus
the Lord of my life. I believe he died for
me to forgive my sin. I believe he rose again
to give me life. I receive this new life. I
(43:09):
will follow you from this stay forward. I received your grace.
This is my new beginning. Had still bowed, eyes still closed.
If you just prayed that prayer, shoot your hand up
in the air on the count of three, one two three,
no hesitation.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
All over this room and all of our campuses.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
God, bless you, God, bless you, God, bless you.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
What a wonderful thing. Come on, I think we can
celebrate better than that. What a wonderful thing to witness
souls being reborn.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Come on, Church, can we celebrate the goodness of God.
I think we ought to sing with the angels a
little while. If the angels in heaven rejoiced when one
senter repents, let the people of God proclaim Christ is
born this day in your mind, in your mind.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
In Matthew chapter one, the record goes, this is how
the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother, Mary
was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they
came together, she was found to be with child through
the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man,
and did not want to expose her to public disgrace,
he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But after he had considered.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
This, because sometimes your first instinct is not God's will,
he had considered this, after he did the math, and
after he calculated his next move.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
God spoke.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It is often contrary to our logic. When God speaks,
it often relates what we see when God calls us
to walk by faith.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But after he.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Joseph, son of David.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,
because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you are
to give him the name Jesus. Everybody say that name.
You are to give him the name Jesus, because he
will save his people from their sins. I know you're confused,
(01:31):
I know you're bewildered, and I know that you're hurt.
But verse twenty two, all this took place to fulfill.
I know you're having a hard time making sense of
the situation right now, but all this took place to fulfill.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's not random.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
There's a reason all this took place to fulfill. I
hear the apostle Paul all the way over from Roman
say he wants to get in on this. All things
work together for the good of those who love God
and are called according to his purpose. All this the
parts you like, the parts you don't, the parts you get,
(02:09):
and the parts that keep you awake at night, the
parts that feel good, and the parts that lead you
with tears on your pillow. All this took place to
fulfill what the.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Lord had said through the prophet.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
The Virgin will be with child and will give birth
to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which
means God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did
with the Angel of the Lord had commanded him and
took Mary home as his wife, but he had no
union with her. Just to make it clear, he had
(02:44):
no union with her until she gave birth.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
To a son, and he gave him the name Jesus.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I want to speak for just a few moments today
on the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Christmas is rightly celebrated.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
As the story of new beginnings, but the story begins
at a dead end. By the time you get to
Matthew Chapter one. Heaven has been seemingly silent since the
time of Malachi the prophet for several centuries. And I
did not read you the whole of Matthew Chapter one.
(03:22):
If I had started with verse one, you might have
been asleep by the time that I got to the
part I wanted to read, because it's just a genealogy
of how Jesus came into the earth from a human perspective,
and Matthew gives us fourteen generations between Abraham and David,
fourteen more between David and the Babylonian exile of the
(03:44):
people of Israel fourteen more from the exile to the
Birth of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That's all in Matthew chapter one.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
It's a list of names, really, but it signifies how
at this point in God's redemptive story, as told in
the pages of Holy.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Scripture, heaven has hit a dead end.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
God has sent the law to his people, but they
broke it. Literally, when Moses came down the mountain with
the Ten Commandments showing the people how to live to
be a people, by the time he could get the
rules down to them, they were dancing naked around another
God that they made because they got tired of.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Waiting on the one they couldn't see.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So Moses, in his frustration, broke the tablets had to
go up and carve out some new ones. Not only
was their hope of keeping the law broken, like it
is every time we try to do God's will in
our own strength, but the prophets that God had sent
to his people were each turned away, despies, rejected. Many
(04:48):
of them died at the hands of the very people
that they came with a word to deliver. And so
now they've broken the law, disobeyed the prophets, and by
the time you get to Matthew chapter one, Heaven has
hit a dead end. And as man after man after
man after man comes into the earth, none of them
being the Messiah who is able to rescue and redeem,
(05:10):
it seems that we're at an impasse because the true
character of God cannot break through the frailty of humanity
to deliver this love message that has existed before time began.
The beginning was a word, and the word was with God,
and the Word was God. And the full preincarnate Word
of God was existing in Jesus Christ before he was
ever made flesh on Christmas Day. But it has not
(05:30):
yet found its way into the earth, not by the
time we have read Matthew chapter one.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So what we get is forty two.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Generations of frustration and suddenly Christ is born. Heaven has
hit a dead end, and humanity feels the same way.
No matter how they try to follow God, there seems
to be something in their hearts prone to wander. No
matter what commitment they make, they seem unable to keep it.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So now you have heaven at a dead end.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Because God is perfectly holy and cannot violate his standard
to relate to unholy people and humans who unholy have
no way to God. And all of a sudden, here
comes a latter named.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Jesus, not from the earth to the sky, but from
the heavens to the earth, and it's the throne of
the rule and reign of a sovereign God is lowered
into the.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Everyday affairs of humanity. We see Joseph is also at
a dead end. Maybe he really looked forward to having
Mary as his wife, but he gets some bad news
when it comes to his attention that she's claiming that
(06:49):
she got pregnant by God. Now I want to say
something about that real quick, because in church we just
skip right over this stuff. But a lot of people
come to church on Christmas and don't come any other
time of the year, and they sit in listen politely
to stuff like this. But when we say that she
had a baby, but it was all wise no X,
they get kind of confused about this because you know,
this stuff doesn't just happen every day, and what we're
(07:10):
shouting about they're.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Kind of skeptical about.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
So let me talk about this for a minute, because
it must have been hard for Joseph to take the
Angel at his word when he saw no way forward.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I mean, he wants to marry her.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
He's looking for a way to go through with it,
but the law requires him to put her away. So
he's going to do it in the most dignified way possible.
He's not going to humiliate her. He's going to do
it in a righteous way. But he sees no road forward,
no route past this indiscretion. And so the scripture says
that he had in mind to put her away. But
(07:45):
sometimes what you have in mind is not what God
has in store.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It's just that he can't see a way forward. He's
at a dead end. I was looking.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Forward to Mary. You know, Mary is a wonderful person.
We find out, very content, not a wife who's hard
to please.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
She was gonna be such a good wife.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And I already put a deposit down on the venue
for the wedding and it's non refundable.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
But I don't see any way to go.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Through with this because she's got a baby and it's
not mine, and she says it belongs to the Lord.
I don't see a way forward. Heaven is at a
dead end, humanity is at a dead end. Joseph is
at a dead end, and I just wonder are you.
(08:36):
I wonder is there anybody in this room, watching online
or on television who has found yourself.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
At a dead end this day.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
In a relationship, you can find yourself having done all
that you know to do for someone that you love
and thinking to yourself, well if they don't love me
back by now.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You can find.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yourself at a dead end with your children. You can
do everything that you can do for the very for
the very person that you would do anything for, but
it is not enough, and you find yourself before God.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Saying I don't know what else to do.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You can find yourself at a dead end in your resources.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I'm out of I'm out of money.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I put everything on every credit card. I stole a
credit card alive to get another credit card. I put
that balance on this balance, and I can't balance anything
else anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
I'm at an end. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I think this is it, because I really think I've
run out of room to run.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I'm at a dead end. You know, religion can leave.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
You at a dead end when you have made so
many commitments to change, but you never do, When you
have said so many times you know I'm gonna do
better now, you know I'm really gonna I'm gonna really
kick that. You know, that's the last time I'm gonna
do that. That's really the last time. This time is
the last time. I won't do it no more. And
then you do it again, and every time you do,
(10:07):
you feel a little more hopeless that you're ever going
to be capable of real change. I wonder, are you
at a dead end? And I wonder did you know
that dead ends are the perfect.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Place for new beginnings?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
In Jesus Christ, this is the message that I came
to preach this Christmas, not about a tall baby lying
in a bassinet. I came to preach about new beginnings.
The Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let
every heart prepare his room. He is with us, and
anything is possible.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
This is not the end.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Seems to be the announcement of Heaven that this is
not the end. Touch somebody say this is not the end.
New beginnings often start when you find yourself at a
dead end.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I admire Joseph. I admire Joseph.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Maybe maybe it's more appropriate to say you admire Mary.
Maybe that's sexist for me to preach about Joseph on Christmas,
because Mary did all the hard work.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You understand, I'm not trying to be that way. I
really I.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Really just think that I wouldn't have had the faith
to give Mary the benefit of the doubt on this one,
on this one. And so it says he had a
dream and he woke up and he was like, cool. See,
I wouldn't be cool. But just a dream unless the
(11:38):
angel was Maury Povich with a paternity task like, no,
I promise you can show this, then I'm good. If
we got some DNA on this divine baby in your belly, fine,
But I'm not so sure because I have crazy dreams.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
This might have been just a crazy dream.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
But he did what the angel had commanded him. That
the angel said something that is simple on the surface,
but there's great depth to it.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I'd like you to consider it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
In verse twenty, what is conceived in her is from
the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Simplify, what's in her is from Me.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And sometimes God wants you to know that what is
packaged as disappointment.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Is really destiny. Do you see it? What's in her
is from Me.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And sometimes when people cause you pain and when life
lets you down, it looks on the surface like God
has left you. But what's in her, what's happening in
your life, is from me, and he goes with it.
And I must have like a really bad version of
the Bible. This is a little older Bible that I
preach from. It's a great bible. It has Billy grahmsy
(13:00):
that you're in it. This Bible. He signed this Bible.
They told me he signed it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
I wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I never met him, but could have been Larry Bry
with some good penmanship.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I give him the benefit of the doubt, though, that
Billy Graham really signed the Bible.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And in this Bible.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
I was struggling because I couldn't find anybody else got
a Bible. I just want to cross references because my
Bible must be messed up because in my bible, let's
see your bible. Your Bible might be better than Mine's
a smaller Bible's pointing that out. Oh this is the
good one. This this might be the King James version
(13:38):
or something like that. Yeah, this one will have it.
I see, I'm looking twenty two version. We've seen give
birth to a son cous name Man and Joe being
raised from sleep. Nope, your Bible's your bible's missing it too.
I was looking for the part of the story where
the angel gave Joseph proof, and I couldn't find it
(14:00):
in my Bible or yours. Anybody else got a Bible
because our bibles are are missing stuff. It's disappointing. I
know they've got new translations. Surely it'll be in a
in this bible. What color do you call that, babe?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That's a.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
What color is his bible? Surely it'll be in your
pink bible. She's got tabs on her bible.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Surely it'll be.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
We'll see this one. This one's problematic too. It's pretty,
but it's it's problematic because now I'm looking for the
part where it tells me how Joseph felt. I can't
find it. All it says is that God said to Joseph,
(14:51):
it's me go forward, and he did it. I can't
find the part where they wrote in the clouds, no, really,
this is God's baby, you know, at their gender reveal party,
because they also needed to have a divinity revealed party.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I can't find the clouds. I can't find the sign.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
It was just the voice of God saying to Joseph
it's me go through, and I feel like that might
be the Lord for someone today. I know you don't
have the proof, I know you don't have the feeling,
and I know all signs point to stopping.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
But it's me go through.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
He must have really trusted Mary. But he couldn't trust
Mary now, could he. This is an arranged marriage. They
didn't date three years. He didn't to get to choose her,
pick her based on her profile Christian Singles dot com,
Christian Palestinians dot com. He didn't swipe for Mary. He
(16:04):
just that's the way it worked back then. You just
got her. He didn't know her like that. He must
have really trusted God enough to give him the benefit
of the doubt.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
What is the benefit of the doubt?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I asked God how we should define that term, and
he told me to ask Wikipedia.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Wikipedia says.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
That the benefit of the doubt is a favorable judgment
in the absence of full evidence.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
The benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It means that when it doesn't add up, the variable
is God for me.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And so it means that when.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I don't have evidence to support my conclusion that God
is good, that He is with me, and that He
is for me. Let's say those three things. God is good,
he is with me, he is for me. I want
you to say it again, and I'm looking all the
way to the back to the people with that little
(17:11):
Christmas attitude, say God is.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Good, he is with me, he is for me.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Now I have reached that verdict, not by the process
of deduction and looking at my life to see if
it lines up with that assertion. I reached that conclusion
by revelation. And once I came to believe that God
is good, he is with me, and he is for me,
I now live by that verdict and I collect the
(17:39):
evidence to support the verdict that I have already come to.
This is not how you reach a conclusion in a
court of law, but in the realm of faith. It
works like this verdict. First evidence, Second, what.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Does that mean.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I don't look to my bank account or my doctor's
report to see if God is a provider or a healer.
I've already come to the conclusion that he is Jehovah
Chirah and Jehovah Rafica. He is my provider and my healer.
That's the verdict. So now, no matter what the evidence says,
(18:21):
I can find greater evidence in the death of Jesus Christ.
See when he hugged for me. That's settled it out
of court. I don't need to take it before a
judge or a jury.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I already know he loves me this much.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I believe it. Not on always see it, but I
believe it. I doubt it sometimes, but I believe it.
You can't say both. You can't say both. You're not
allowed to say both in church. You can't say that
in church. You can't talk about doubt in church.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Because James Jap says, let him not doubt, let him
leave me his.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Heart, he should have aways say if he doubts like
way to see he Thos driven with.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Let let that man thank you see anything for the
Lord and staiment. I know that Bible verse bro, but.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I think it's confusing for people who think that faith
is the absence of doubt.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The Bible doesn't say that Joseph didn't doubt.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
It just said that he did what he had to
do even with the doubt in his heart.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Means he didn't let the doubt stop him. Don't let
him stop you.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Of course you'll have doubts, just don't let them be dead.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Ends, and a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Of people stand at the dead end of a destiny
that God is bringing them into because they will not
walk through the doubt to get.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
To the promise.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I meet these people and they say things to me
because of my profession. I guess they make assumptions about
me because there's a reve in front of my name.
They make assumptions about me that I don't have real doubts.
One gentleman that I was doing business with, he put
it this way. He was like, I envy you because
(20:21):
I would love to have faith. I always wanted to
believe in God, but I just always am the kind
of person that doubts a lot, and I envy you
that you don't have those doubts.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Now here's what I should have said back to him.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
It only took me four months to come up with this,
because he is assuming that faith is the absence of doubt.
For me, faith has never been the absence of doubt.
Faith is not the absence of doubt. It is the
means to overcome it. Do you hear what I'm saying.
(21:00):
We get in church and we just all go into
this walking, dead, willing suspension of disbelief, and we just
believe things that have no impact on our everyday life,
just like we're binge watching Netflix, like I'm just gonna
watch this for a little while and hear this little
comforting word. But then we go out into the world
and we doubt the stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
But we can't say we.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Doubt the stuff because doubt is bad, because isn't doubt bad.
One time, I even had a keptist pastor who was
giving an invitation like, we will give in a moment
for people who want to place their faith in Christ.
And when we do it at our church, we have
people repeat a prayer. It's just a means of allowing
(21:42):
them to express their heart to God so that they
can have a moment that they look back on and
say I placed my trust in Christ. And to me,
that prayer is a very sacred moment. It's not a
time for people to get their person get out and
beat the parking, and it's not a time for someone
who's preaching to start sharing their opinions. That is a
(22:03):
time to present the gospel and get out of the
way because only God can save a person. And now, well,
I believe this campus pastor mintwell, but what he said
I had to correct him on later.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And I'm not a mean guy, and I make mistakes.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Up here too, But to me, he made a really
big mistake when he was praying the prayer because he
was inviting the people to pray, and he said, if
you want to give your heart to Christ today and
know for sure that you have a relationship with him,
pray this. You know, Lord Jesus, I believe that I'm
a sinner in need of a savior, and I believe without.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
A doubt that's the part he should have left out.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I believe without a doubt that Jesus Christ, the Son
of God and the.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Savior of the world. Today, I give you my life.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
All of it was good, all of it was appropriate,
and there is no other way to be saved but
to confess with your mouth Jesus's Lord, believe in your
heart God raised him from the dead.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
You shall be saved.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
But that one parenthetical insert, without a doubt, I told him,
never again.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
When you stand in.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
The pulpit at elevation, do I want you to put
people in a position where you're telling them to pray
something that they can't honestly pray. As a matter of fact,
don't put them in a position to pray something that
you can't honestly pray because there is not one of
you in the room, even with tabs in your pink Bible,
(23:32):
that can honestly say without a doubt, not a.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
One of you.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And if you can hang on, you hadn't had teenagers.
Yet somebody to my backside backed me up on this.
The triumph of my faith is not the absence of doubt.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
The triumph of my faith.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Is the ability for the light to shine in the deepest,
darkest recesses.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Of my heart.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I got doubts, but I trust him anyway. So my
faith can say, even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death and the shadow of doubt.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
And the shadow of dysfunction.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I will fear no evil. It's not that I don't
go through valleys. I don't die there, even.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Though I walk.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Through the valley of the shadow of death. This is
Christmas preson people.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Even though.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Throw us in the fire, our God is able to
deliver us. But even if he doesn't, we will not
bow our knee to you, O King.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Never conness her.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
I know Lazarus is dead, but if Jesus is on
the scene, every dead end is a destiny waiting to begin.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Even now, I have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I don't believe this because I don't doubt it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
If you don't doubt.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
It, you're not reading.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It, or you're reading it with no intent to live it.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
My doubt is the evidence of my growth.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
The closer I get, the more questions I have.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I struggle to believe it that I'm forgiven, that he
forgives me not only for what I did before I
accepted him.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
But for what I still do.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh, y'all are gonna look at me like that on Christmas?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That's what you brought me, that face.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Maybe he could forgive the past stuff, but what about
the present stuff?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
What about that?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I have my doubts. I have my faith, but I
have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
My man thought he couldn't come to Christ because he
had the doubts. He thought that belief was the absence
of doubt.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
He didn't have.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
The revelation that real belief is the willingness to stand
on it even when you can't see it, feel it.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Or explain it.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
I read that if any man is in Christ, he's
a new creation and the oldest gone and the newest come.
But that versus still in progress in my life, there's
still some old stuff in me comes down out in traffic.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Hello.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
I have my doubts. I have my doubts. I have
my doubts.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I've read that whom the sun sets free is free indeed,
but sometimes I feel bound by stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I have my dows Is that all right?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Do you need to find another church now that you
know that the dude with.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
The mic has some dowts. I have my doubts.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I have my doubts.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
And Abby is already doing the thing that we all
do at some point in our life if we try
to be religious.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Where she's going?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Well, she said the other day, where did God come from?
And I'm like, you're six? Can he just have always
been there at age six? Do we really have to
start this now? But that was about the same time
I did it. She said it so funny. It was
like she had me on a witness stand or something.
She said she was waiting for me to get home
from work because she asked Holly, and Holly said, you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Ask your dad about that. He'll be home in a
couple hours.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And she said, Abby's got a question for you, And
Abby said, where did God come from?
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And who made him? And don't just say he's always
been there? And I'm going.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Already, yeah, already. This is the first gift of mystery
that Heaven is giving to my daughter. It is the
beginning of a lifetime of learning the art of.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Faith, which Richard Roh suggests is patience with mystery, not
the absence of it. Patience with it to take Mary home,
even when you don't know where this is headed. So
I did not give her a cookie cutter answer, partially
(29:03):
because she's smarter.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Than me and would have seen right through it. And said,
I welcomed the mystery. And I said, I used to
lay awake in my bed too thinking about that when
I was a little boy. I was probably seven or eight,
because boys are two years behind, but I had that
same thing. I just couldn't never make sense of it,
and I still haven't.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I have my doubts, but I believe it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I believed that while I was watching my dad die
and I had to preach my stuff back to myself,
and I didn't have the protective insulation.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Of this to stand behind or this to hold. Yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
It's a real problem because a lot of people are
waiting for the doubt to disappear.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Let's take the next step the faith.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
If the absence of doubt was a prerequisite for being
used by God, Mary could not have been.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
The mother of Jesus.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Over here, the Angel is talking to Joseph, but before
he came to Joseph, he spoke to Mary. He spoke
to them separately, because you have to experience faith for yourself.
You have to make your own decision as to who
God is and what he means to you. So while
(30:32):
he was speaking to Joseph, who had to endure the
embarrassment of walking through this.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Next season, he was speaking to Mary.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And you're familiar with the story, but just put it
on the screens real quick. This is Luke one where
he said to Mary, greetings, you who are highly favored.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
The Lord is with you. That's the verdict.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Before I give you the particulars of the situation, I
want to bring you back to the thing that you
can always know in every season of your life, if
you choose to.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Believe it.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Your verdict, should you choose to accept it, God is
with me. God is for me. You are highly favored.
God is for you, and He is with you in
this moment. Now, I got something I got to tell you.
The angel starts off by reminding Mary of his presence,
and it says that Mary was greatly troubled at his words. Now,
(31:36):
what's there to be troubled about? All he said was Hello,
God likes you. It seemed like YadA high fived him fistbalm.
But she wondered what this greeting might be. Often the
first impulse when God really shows up in your life
is fear, and it is only in pushing through the
(31:57):
fear that you find the love of God on the
other side of your fear.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
What's this all about? But the Angel said to her.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
You have found favor with God, and I got an
assignment for you. Because I find favor with God. You
will be with child and give birth to a son,
and you are to give him the name Jesus. And
he will be great and will be called the Son
of the Most High. And the Lord God will give
(32:28):
him the throne of his father David, and he will
reign over the House of Jacob forever.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
His kingdom will never end.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Now watch Mary's response, well, praise the Lord, and glory
to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and
good will to men on whom his favor rest.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And your words to me are like drops of gold assurance.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
In a heart of no Mary said first thing out
of her mouth was, how I know how pregnancy works?
How am I pregnant? I promise God? And Joseph been
keeping it clean? I promise God. We have nothing in
the back seat of a camel ac, I promise God.
(33:08):
How her first.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Instinct is not yes, it's how.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
That is always the response when God really knocks. How
how can I really be forgiven by someone who died
on a cross before I was ever born? How can
somebody else's death really affect my life?
Speaker 1 (33:34):
How that's a good starting place?
Speaker 2 (33:37):
How can you really use me? Look at me? I'm nobody,
I'm nothing. How How how can I move forward after this?
How can I believe that I still will see the
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
How? How?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
How see the greatest gifts that God ever gives? Are
on the other side of your How on the other
side of your question, on the other side of your
I don't get it. On the other side of your
I don't understand, on the other side of who me,
on the other side of what now, on the other
side of why.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
This, that's where the gift is.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in the manger. God wrapped his son in
something that looked so common that you would walk by
it if you weren't looking for it. Because the greatest
gifts that God gives are wrapped in doubt. And the
(34:47):
promise is wrapped in doubt for a reason, because if
He gave you proof, you wouldn't need faith. So he
hides it. He hides his promise in the darkness to
protect you. And this will not make sense in an
(35:08):
Instagram generation. But sometimes God needs to work on the
big picture of your life in the dark room to
let it develop. Doubt is where faith develops. Doubt is
where faith matures. Doubt is where faith gets hardened past
Christian cliches that fit on a bumper sticker or a pinterest.
(35:35):
Let it develop, Let patience have its perfect work in you,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking not.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
That it's the dark room. In fact, Isaiah, who was
quoted to Joseph also said.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
In Isaiah chapter nine, verse one, Nevertheless, there will be
no more gloom. I want to write a song one
day called nevertheless. It's one of my favorite Bible words.
It means it looks one way, but it's really another.
It means give it time, let it unfold. God is
up to something. It means that the that the verdict
(36:08):
has already submitted, Just give the evidence time.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
You will see it.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Nevertheless, no matter what you see right now, it means
that the ruling on the field can be overturned at
any time. It means that there is a review booth
called Heaven. Y'all didn't come to have church today. Y'all
come to just check it out the list and stock
us stuffing with some cute little stuff. Nevertheless, there will
be no more gloom for those who were in distress.
(36:35):
In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulin in
the land of Neftali. But in the future he will
honor Galilee of the Gentiles by the way of the
sea along the Jordan. Oh. I need to insert this
because Galilee means valley of shade.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Now watch what happens in the darkest valley.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
The prophet says, the people walking in darkness have seen
a great light. And I would confused at this point
because I thought he was talking about something that would
happen seven hundred years later. The prophet Isaiah prophesied seven hundred.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Years before the birth of Christ.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
But now he is speaking about something that has yet
to be, as if it already happened. This is called
the prophetic perfect. You see it often in scripture. It's
when God, who stands outside of time, knows exactly what
you're going through, how long you're going to go through it,
and what he's going to do. On the other side
is the God who spoke, Let there be light, and
(37:31):
molecules and particles rearranged themselves to spread out into the universe,
to talk in every corner.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Of this splode.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
My faith gives me the ability to stand in the
darkest valley believing that the light has already come. If
I let it develop. Faith is developed now. Faint always
develops in doubt. If faith learns to depend.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
On God because of doubt. If you never doubted God,
you would be him. Before long.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You would start worshiping yourself and singing, how great Thou
art in your full length mirror, and God is not
going to allow you to become so arrogant that you.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Never have doubts.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
If he removed the doubt, he would remove the need
for him for you to know that He is God
and you are not. That's why you doubt. There are
benefits to the doubt. There's a benefit to having to
wrestle with God and wrestle with where you are, and
wrestle with yourself and wrestle like Jacob did.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
That's where you find the revelation of.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
The goodness of God, not in your self confidence, but
in your self doubt.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Mary said, how will this be? I am a virgin.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
The angel said, the power of the most High will
overshadow you. But you must make the decision to believe
God in the face of evidences. SEMs to contradict his
promise to believe God.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
That every dead end.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Is a doorway if you decide to go through it,
and there is someone here who is standing at a
doorway today called doubt, and if you will walk through
it and make the decision to trust God in this situation,
you will find on the other side a greater glory
revealed to you than you have ever known.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
But if you stop here. If you stop with how
and why and when and what?
Speaker 2 (39:37):
If you wait till you have all the evidence to
trust God, you will never take Mary home, and you
will never see the promise of God come to pass.
All of the greatest faith is on the other side
of your deepest out. I want to ask, with no
(39:58):
one leaving, please don't leave in this moment.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
This is that invitation moment that.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
I spoke about earlier that is so sacred to us,
and I want to ask at every campus that you
would stand to your feet right now, because this is
a moment of decision for many, for those who say
(40:26):
what one man said to Jesus, who needed the gift
of healing. I want to believe. Help my unbelief. I
want to believe, but I feel unworthy. I want to believe,
but I have my doubts. God has a grace that
(40:47):
is greater than every doubt, and all he requires is
the next step in the light that you do have.
I believe there are many here today who need to
receive the gift of salvation, but you can't receive it
uppear You can't receive it with these and you can't
receive it with your own effort.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
It is by grace you are saved through faith. I
know you have your doubts.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
When Peter walked towards Jesus on the water, he had faith,
but it flipped so quick. The next thing you know,
he was sinking, and Jesus asked him a question, why
did you doubt?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
And when he asked him that question, he didn't push
him back under the water to teach him a lesson.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
He reached out his hand to bring him back to
the boat and to show him who he was all along.
So this message is for the doubters. We often sing
it Christmas, Oh come all ye faithful. Today the invitation is,
come all ye doubtful, with questions and dysfunctions and conflicts,
(41:53):
to place your faith in the God who is the Great.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
I am with you. Bow your head and close your eyes.
At every location.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I want to pray a prayer right now for those
who want to come into a relationship with Christ. Receive
forgiveness by faith because of his finished work on the cross,
and live a new life in his name, because of
his resurrection from the dead, and make a decision of
faith today to put your hope in him.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
We're going to pray a prayer right now out loud.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Our whole church family will pray it for the benefit
of those who are coming to God for the first
time or are coming back to God. And if this
is the prayer of your heart, God will hear you
from heaven and will save you from your sin. Let's
pray together right now, repeat after me, Heavenly Father. I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and
(42:47):
the Savior of the world. And today I make Jesus
the Lord of my life. I believe he died for
me to forgive my sin. I believe he rose again
to give me life. I receive this new life. I
(43:09):
will follow you from this stay forward. I received your grace.
This is my new beginning. Had still bowed, eyes still closed.
If you just prayed that prayer, shoot your hand up
in the air on the count of three, one two three,
no hesitation.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
All over this room and all of our campuses.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
God, bless you, God, bless you, God, bless you.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
What a wonderful thing. Come on, I think we can
celebrate better than that. What a wonderful thing to witness
souls being reborn.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Come on, Church, can we celebrate the goodness of God.
I think we ought to sing with the angels a
little while. If the angels in heaven rejoiced when one
senter repents, let the people of God proclaim Christ is
born this day in your mind, in your mind.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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