December 12, 2025 • 48 mins
The prompt God gives you today could lead to the provision you receive tomorrow.
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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. Welcome today to all of our locations.
Can we thank God for all of our campuses and locations? Said?
Can we thank God for all of our campuses and locations? Amen?
(00:33):
I was doing my stalker thing where I go around
to all the campuses pushing buttons with cameras that are
set up in the auditoriums I've been on. Do I
look tired? I was on a trip. I went to
Asheville and Columbia, and I even went to Toronto for a minute,
all through technology, of course, before I came out to
see you, some little jed life. Thank God for the
(00:55):
great work he's doing also with our Ethan around the
world and our interns Our Fall twenty eighteen in terms,
come on, thank God for Thank God for them, thank
God for their wardrobes, for their sense of style and fashion.
I'm gonna tell you why they're up here in a minute,
I'm going to keep you in suspense. But hey, one
(01:18):
thing that I really always feel good about is when
I'm doing exactly what I know God wants me to do.
When I stand up here on the stage and as
we get ready for next weekend, which is going to
be phenomenal where so many people around the world and
here at our church locally, are going to participate in
(01:38):
our game change or offering where we get to bring
God something of significance and value to us, and we
all get to make that opportunity count to invest something
in what can't be taken away, as we have so
many times before. As we get ready for that, I
(01:59):
pray and I try to see how God wants me
to preach that would position us, each of us for
the season that He's taking us into. And that's important
to me. Not to follow a formula, it's important to me.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing it
the same way every time, because you know, we take
up these offerings for expansion and we use so much
(02:21):
of it for outreach each year. So I guess it
would be fine if I just repeated the pattern each year.
But maybe it's just my personality. I can't do that.
And even more than that, I don't want to start
trusting in some kind of formula. I guess that's the
best way to say it. If I'm going to preach
about faith, I want to demonstrate faith in the way
that I preach about what I'm preaching about. So does
(02:44):
that make sense? Why? Anyway, Whether it made sense or not,
here's what I'm going to do today. Because when I
was praying about what we should do as we set
up what's going to happen next weekend, and I pray
that you would not skip church next weekend, you know,
some people will always do that like it's going to
be a guilt trip. It's not. It's not like there's
going to be a cover charge next week or something
(03:05):
like that. It's for everyone, but it'll be really beautiful
to be special. But this week is probably the most
important because this is where we set it up. And
any good comedian can tell you that the setup is
often more important than the punchline. And so, but there's
nothing funny about the Word of God. So let's go.
Let's go to the Word of God today. I want
(03:26):
to share the same scripture just a few verses. If
I drop a few verses down from what I shared
last week, did you get to hear the message last weekend?
It's mine to manage. Touch somebody say it's God's to give,
but it's mine to manage. And I talked about this
concept that we are stewards of the story, the story
(03:50):
of how God has saved us and how God has
sustained us. And as a pastor, I'm coming to understand
my role more and more as a steward of the
story that God is telling through this church. And it's
God's story, but it's ours to manage. So powerful, and
so let me get into this real quick, and this
(04:11):
will be a little different today. I think you can
tell that I'm a little I'm excited. I'm really excited,
but I'm sitting down. I'm seated, so I'm not gonna
scream as much. Those of you who don't like all that. Anyway,
this is your this is your weekend, and I'm just
gonna talk to you a little bit today. You'll laughed
a little too much of that made me feel self conscious.
(04:31):
I might holler once or twice, but I really just
want to talk to you. And I got all this
stuff in my Bible, and I'll tell you what it
all is in a moment. Some notes and some money
and i'll tell you about that. An envelope and some
post it notes, and we'll get to all that in
a moment. But first, let me read this. This is
so important as a backdop for what I believe God
wants to give you as a backstory today. Every blessing
has a backstory. Okay, every blessing has a backstory, and
(04:57):
so this is one. For the nation of Israel Josha
before nineteen on the tenth day of the first month,
the people went up from the Jordan and camped at
Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho, and Joshua set up.
Everybody says set up, and Joshua was set up at Gilgal.
The twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan.
(05:17):
Now they're not in the Promised Land yet, but God
is setting them up. And as a part of the
setup is kind of elaborate. God is like, hey, take
the stones from the Jordan, which represents the miracle that
I just did for you, and set it up. And
then after you've set up the stones, this is the
purpose of them. They're not just props. I don't want
you to just collect these stones for props and put
(05:39):
them in a trophy case somewhere. But rather than just trophies,
these are triggers, these stones that you set up because
I'm not done with you yet, and there's a great
thing that I'm doing through you, and so I want
to use the stones as a setup. And then what's
verse twenty one. It gives the purpose he said to
the Israelites. In the future, when you descendants ask their parents,
(06:01):
not stop right there. He's teaching them to think generationally.
He's thinking them. He's teaching them not to just settle
for instant gratifications and what's in it for me. So
in the future, when your kids are asking what do
these stones mean? Tell them tell them very important, because
(06:23):
the stones can't speak for themselves. Right. This is not
like Siri, Hey, Siri, bring me lemonade it. This is
not that kind of thing. This is not some magic trick.
You've got to speak and tell them when you see
the stones, when they see the stones, tell them, I
love this stuff. I love these Old Testament stories so
(06:43):
much in them. Tell them Israel cross the Jordan on
dry ground, for the Lord your God dried up the
Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord
your God did to the Jordan what he had done
to the Red Sea when he dried it up before
until we had crossed over. Every generation is to experience
(07:04):
their own move of God, not just worship something God
did in the past, but to move forward into the
future full of faith. And so I want to speak
to you for a few moments today on the power
of the prompt. The prompt if you'd like to write
that down, it's just a little title that I'm given
(07:25):
the message. If you wouldn't like to write it down,
it's still the title that I'm given the message, the
power of the Prompt. So about these interns. They're pretty
cool Elevation Church dot org slash Internship Shameless Pluck. They're
(07:48):
two weeks out from finishing their internship and I got
to meet with them Thursday, and we had the best time. Right,
We're supposed to go minutes and it went two and
a half hours. And then, for the first time that
has ever happened, I met them at the movies because
(08:11):
as a part of their discipleship process, I took them
to see Creed two. Amen, Come on, I'm a good,
good pastor. It's who I am. Now what prompted me
to do that? Well, when I was getting to know them,
I like to do an icebreaker. Hey, you know, what's
your favorite music? And then they'll always say Christian bands
(08:34):
because I'm the pastor. And then I turn around, No,
it's you what do you really listen to? And then
they'll I'll ask us your favorite TV shows? They all
said the Office. I think everybody said the Office. And
I said, cool, y'all are too young for the Office,
but anyway, I understand. And then they said, I said
what's your favorite movie? And one of the kids screams
out Rocky. He said it, you know, like you like
(08:56):
sometimes you're in a worship service and somebody go Jesus.
But he said the name of Rocky. And when he
invoked the name of Rocky, he won my heart. In fact,
come here, Gabe, real quick.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
L J.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Just in honor, in honor of Gabe. Let's do this
real quick. Let's go ahead, go ahead, l J. Gotta
take stairs, got take Oh you want to run the stairs?
I like that big who goes to us stairs over there? Yet?
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Go all the way, Take take upstairs. Yeah, yeah, I
want to see ya. Don't know, man, bake me cow
(10:00):
after running out of time, So this could be you
Eleviation Church dot org slash intern chef. Thanks for coming.
(10:24):
Now let's go sit down there, listen, catch your breath.
You know you hadn't done that much cardio in months.
So I was like, you like Rocky? He goes yeah.
I said, now this is the real test. I said,
what's the best? Rocky? He said, and he didn't have
to pray, he didn't have to think, and this is
all my a test if he's a true man of God.
He said, he wants to go in ministry one day.
(10:46):
And there's an answer to this, and it's it's definitely
not It's definitely not five. We all know that could
be three. But he said the RCT answer. He said
Rocky four. When he said Rocky four, I said, I
perceived that thou art a prophet and the words of life.
I was like, just because that's the first one my
dad showed me. I remember my dad. On a Friday night,
(11:09):
we stopped by National Home Video in Monk's Corner VHS
tape and he said, you're ready for Rocky four. You're
ready for you're ready to see. By the way, it's
just so I can know who to pray for that
needs the Lord. How many of you have not seen
Rocky a single Rocky movie? Oh, come to the altar?
(11:31):
Are you serious? Your parents haven't shown you Rocky four?
They called DSS on those parents. I almost felt like
with my kids it was a generational responsibility, you know,
to show them how the Cold War really ended with
Rocky deceiting Drago and and then so when I found
(11:51):
out that Creed two was the sequel to Rocky four,
I was like, oh, man, this is the This is
the equivalent of Joshua and Moses. This is like the
Red Sea and the Jordan, you know, is to This
is probably taking the illustration too far, but I almost
had a spiritual experience. I met them at the theater
(12:11):
on on Thursday night and we watched Rocky. I think
we annoyed everybody in the theater. We were so loud
at Stonecrest. But we went to the Temple of Stonecrest
and we watched the Gospel according to Rocky Baboa, And
there's so much gospel and Rocky But you probably don't
know the backstory to it, and so you know it
(12:32):
prompted me. Sermons come to me from all kinds of places.
But I'm sitting there, Graham and Elijah went with me,
and we're watching Creed two, and I won't tell you
how it ends, because your homework this week is to
prepare your offering, read your Bible, and go see Creed
two and past there and then and then I was thinking,
Graham was sitting with me, Elijah was sitting with me,
(12:53):
the interns were there, and I was thinking, like, remember
my dad's in heaven now, and so I always remember
when he showed me. It was just a moment where
I was like, every generation gets their own Rocky. It's cool.
And then I thought, I wonder how many of them
know the backstory of how Rocky Balboa was created. I
wonder how many of I wonder how many of them
(13:15):
know what these stones mean? You know, they know that
Michael B. Jordan wasn't the first Creed. I wonder if
they know. And I don't know how much of this
you knew gave. But when Sylvester Stallone created Rocky, he
was inspired because he was broke right. He had been
in one movie and he had moderate success, but he
(13:39):
moved to la because he wanted to start really trying
to write, and he would walk around writing stuff, and
that he went to see Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Webner.
How many of you didn't know any of this, Just
raise your hand real quick. Okay, this is important. This
is almost biblical. Rocky is canonical, and I promise you
would be in Joshua in just a moment. But let
(14:00):
me get the backstory this. And when he was watching
Chuck Webner fight Muhammad Ali and go the distance even
though he didn't win and put the champ down, he
was inspired by the story of an underdog. He thought,
that's what I need to write. And he spent the
next three days writing the rough draft of Rocky. Three
days three days, so for those of you who don't
believe that Rocky is biblical. Three days. And then when
(14:27):
he finished writing it, he remember he was prompted just
by something that he saw. Talk about the power of
a prompt He was prompted watching it. I need to
write that. He wrote it, and then somebody asked him
what he was working on when he went for an
audition one time, and he almost didn't want to tell
him because he didn't know if he was any good,
but he show him him working on this thing. He's prompted.
(14:50):
And then they offered him twenty five thousand dollars for
the script, fifty one hundred. No, because they weren't going
to let him be Rocky, and he wanted to play
Rocky and something in told him, you know, you need
to play this character. This is what's a lifetime thing.
And then they offered him two hundred fifty thousand dollars,
three hundred thousand dollars, three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
He had one hundred and six dollars in his bank account,
(15:14):
and they offered him three hundred and sixty thousand dollars
from the script. He said no, he had already sold
his dog, Buckus, Buckus, He sold his dog Buckus, and
he turned it down. And finally they gave him a
million dollars to make the movie, which wasn't much, and
he made it. And as of twenty seventeen, according to
(15:35):
what Light Google, the Rocky franchise has earned in the
box office alone over one point four billion dollars. So
let's thank god for Rocky. And then and then we'll
move on into something I want to pay you about.
I just told you I can see some of you like,
come on, man, I ain't come for all this. Let's
shut up. I'm trying to get to something here, all right.
(15:56):
I got a reason for telling you this, because everything
great that I've ever seen I would attribute to the
hand of God in my life started with a prompting,
a prompting. And the thing about game changers and game
changing decisions is that they don't feel like game changers
(16:16):
in the moment. It doesn't. A promise from God usually
doesn't feel like a promise. Here's how it operates in
the pattern of scripture. Okay, that God will give you
a promise, and then he will give you a prompting
to act on the promise that he gave. And learning
to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit is
(16:39):
the most crucial skill that you could ever acquire in
your life. It takes courage, it takes discernments, it takes
sometimes being still shutting the other voices off. But the
promptings of the Holy Spirit. I mean, how many times
have I missed the blessing of God in an area
(17:00):
of my life because I did not respond to a prompting.
How many times have we come to church and heard
a sermon and then we experienced a prompting, But because
we didn't respond to the prompt we did not receive
the promise. It could be the smallest things. One time
(17:25):
God prompted me to send somebody a voice memo. They
said they saved it for four years on their phone.
I didn't know that they were going to save it
for four years. I just knew they were going through something,
and I sent it to them prompting, prompting, And it
must have seemed weird to the Israelites. Right set up
the stones, But the stones are not there to serve
the purpose that they seem to be serving on the surface.
(17:46):
They are to prompt the story. Now I'm preaching to
you today because there are some things that God has
placed in your life and some things that he's doing
that if you will pay attention, God is trying to
use that thing to prompt you in an area of
your life where He intends to bless you. The stones
prompt the story, and then the story is meant to
(18:08):
prompt the faith of the people so that they can
continue on. And this is how God works. So I
want to practice this today. I want to do this
in front of you. It's one thing to preach it,
it's another thing to practice it. And I realized that
the Israelites didn't go back to that place in Gilgal
(18:29):
and tell their children the story. That's why in Judges
two ten it says that the next generation didn't know.
Why didn't they know because their parents didn't revisit the place.
They got so far from where they started that they
lost their sense of who brought them. Now, I don't
(18:50):
want that to happen to us as a church, and
so I thought what might be appropriate today to help
prompt your faith is to share stones, not twelve. I'm
not going to do twelve. Like the twelve stones. We
don't have that long. If I just want to take five,
I just want to take five prompts. And this is
(19:10):
where the post it notes come in, because I wrote
down five prompts, you know, like a writing prompt that
you get writing prompt And I'm going to hand these
one at a time to these interns and I'm going
to ask them to tell me the story. And you
can ask me anything you want, as long as it's
exactly what's written on this post it note, and I'm
(19:30):
gonna answer it to prompt everybody, say prompt. Prompt, that's
the word God gave me. Prompt to learn how to
respond to the prompting of God. That's what this offering
is about. That's what life is about. That's what forgiveness
is about. God is going to prompt you, and will
you respond to the prompt That determines how you experienced
the promise. So I've got five of these and they
(19:54):
will prompt the story like those stones prompted the stories,
and I pray that God is it. You want to
read the first one? He didn't get to go last night? Okay,
it's the same ones as last night, though. Yeah, I
didn't change him because it went good last night. So
read me last. Tell me about the time you thought
your college roommate was going crazy? What was actually setting
(20:15):
an example you would follow for the next twenty years.
What a great question. Thank you for asking me that.
So my college roommate my junior and senior year, was
named Alex Early, which is funny because he would get
up super early and he would pray I would get
up last minute seven fifty seven for an eight am class.
We went to North Greenville University. It's where I got
(20:36):
my degree. It's where I got my wife. If you
were to ask me which of those two has served
a greater purpose in my life, it would no doubt
be that one. So I hadn't shown anybody my degree
in a while, but I show her off all the time. Anyway.
My roommate was Alex Early. He was very spiritual, but
he's also one of these people who wasn't so spiritual
that he wasn't funny. He was like able to He
could quote John Calvin to you, but he could also
(20:57):
make the funniest prank phone calls. And he would call
he had this this this redneck persona called dew Wyane
McGraw d u w I a n E with a
thing over the e because it's French, dew Wane McGraw
and he called He modeled after roy D Mercer and
had the best time in college. But what I learned
from him that I never forget that I'm so glad
you asked me about and thank you for asking me.
That is. One day he came running back to the
(21:19):
room between classes and he looked like he looked like
he was in a state of absolute emergency. Was in
a panic mode. And he starts grabbing out of the
drawers all the money he can find in the room.
Not my money, his money. He starts grabbing all the
money out of the room. And I was like, what
are you doing. He's like, I'll have time to talk
about it. I'll tell you when I get back. Like,
oh my god, what is Alex? What is Alex into?
(21:41):
Just like some Walter White crap going on? And so
he uh, he came back. He wouldn't talk, tell me
what he was doing. And he came back. He said
he looked so relieved. I was like, what was that?
And he and he said he was real serious. He goes,
God convicted me, Bro, I've been hold on. Let me
(22:02):
tell you what he said. Next, said Max. He said,
since I've been here at college, I haven't been tied in.
He belonged to a church that I really admire in
his hometown in Woodstock, Georgia, first Baptist Woodstock pastor Johnny Hunt.
And he said, I am I'm sending my tithe. I
(22:22):
calculated God spoke to me that his money was in
my bank account. And I've been telling myself the whole
time I was here at college. That since I was away,
and since I didn't have much anyway, he said, but
God convicted me not to keep his money in my account.
And that boy mailed the cash and he had coins
(22:42):
and everything he could find and send it in the mail,
and God used him. One of the ways God will
prompt you sometimes is through the example of somebody else.
That's why I always do the giving on the weekend
where people come in and give, because I think that
sometimes an example is better than a sermon. Amen. And
(23:07):
when he did that, God spoke to me, you know,
because my mom had taught me the same principle of tithing.
And yet I found so many excuses. And you know
what I did. Next. Thing I did well, I had
a checking account. I didn't think it had to be
as ghetto as he made it out to be, like
he's throwing cash in the mail. But I did the
same thing. I decided, you know what, he's right, He's right.
(23:30):
If I can't trust God with that ten percent, how
can I say everything I have comes from him? And
I said it, yeah, Amen, see I'm not I need
you to know this in case you're new or a
guest or something. I am not one bit timid about
preaching this stuff. This is my testimony. I don't apologize
for it. I believe in what we do. I believe
in what God's work teaches. I've seen it in my life.
(23:53):
So like, if you need me to get up here
and say, eh, it don't be okay, I order God.
That's not me. That's not how I feel about God.
That's not how I feel about his word. That's not
how I feel about his principles, that's not how I
feel about his promises. I believe this stuff, man. So
(24:15):
it prompted me and I never kept God's money in
my bank account after that, no matter how much I
had didn't have, and he got harder when you have more.
You know, ten percent of fifty dollars, isn't that hard
to sin? Sin God? Some coupons in the mall or
something like that. But then when God starts blessing you,
you have to decide do you want to trust him
(24:35):
on the next level. Amen. So I believe God's going
to prompt some people this year in that you've been
holding on to what is God's I should move on
from this point. Feel super uncomfortable, but these are just
my stones, These are my stories. This is what God
has done for me. So here's another one. I really
(24:55):
like this one, This is probably my favorite one. Who
wants to do this one? You want the prompt? Yeah, okay,
let's get her a mic Ben Landier. By the way, Ben,
who's your favorite intern on the stage right now? Don't
answer that. I'll just give it to Mike. Just give it.
Like to tell me about the big decision you made
at the kitchen table that made you feel like you
were going to throw up in your mouth. And I
(25:17):
wrote it in an acceptable way. I think I actually
did throw up in my mouth and swallow it back down.
So here's the story. It's too vivid, I understand. You know,
when Holly and I got married, she taught school and
I traveled, and we saved up and put a down
payment on a house, and we did what Dave Ramsey
(25:40):
taught in his financial piece, stuff like no debt and
all that. We try to do that, but other than
our house. But then another thing we did was he said,
put an emergency fund. And Dave Ramsey said it, he
said it. It scared me to not do it the
way he said it. And he said that it should
be a certain amount of your expenses in case something happens,
and he said, do it as quick as you can. Well,
(26:02):
we were just married, and we didn't start with a
lot of money or anything like that. We started with
no money. But over time I was able to build
up and I'll never forget. Like we're in our house
at three thirty dell Wood Drive, Shelby, North Carolina. Could
go by there and knock on the door and ask
the person and say hey, hello, and then go into
the kitchen and then sit down and you'll see the
spot where this happened. Okay, all right, So we had
(26:27):
just put that amount of money. We just hit the
amount in the savings account. And I was going in
to tell Holly, Hey, good news. We got our emergency fund.
We hit the number because we set the number, hit
the number, and when I went in to tell her,
prompt something prompted me, And at first I thought it
was the devil. I really did, because it was like, Hey,
(26:49):
what if you gave that money instead. We didn't have
kids yet, we didn't have that pressure of providing for children.
Yet we were young. We could afford number one combo
at the Mexican restaurant, and so it was like, what
if you gave it away? Would you do that? So
(27:10):
when I sat down at the table, I told Holly, hey,
I got good news and bad news. The good news
is we've got our emergency fund, like the less deposit
we made it to the she said, let's say bad news.
I think God, God might be I don't know if
I use the word prompting, but I feel like an
impression that we should give it away. And see, I'm
(27:32):
counting on her to say that's not God, Like I'm
counting on her to have no faith, right because then
I can say, well, Lord, the woman that you gave me,
you know, And she goes, oh cool, I trust you.
God spoke to you this book. You know it's good.
It's good. Dang it woman. And so I remember sitting
(27:59):
down writing fives. I remember who we wrote them to.
It's not important. We didn't have Elevation Church at the
church we were part of at the time, another ministry,
and we gave it away. But the funniest thing was
while I was doing it, I was like my hands
were shaking, and right when I've written the last one,
I felt like a piece. And the way that I
(28:20):
interpreted what the piece that I felt was like God
was saying to me, keep your hands open to me,
no matter how much I bless you with, no matter
how hard things get at certain times in your life,
or how tired it seems. And I've experienced both of those.
Keep your hands open, and if you keep your hands
open to me, You'll always have everything you need to
(28:40):
do everything I've called you to do. Now, let me
tell you the sequel to that. Because every Rocky four
has a creed to every red sea has a Jordan.
Just as past Monday, I got to sit down with
our kids at the kitchen table, and it was some
holy sacred moment. In fact, they were running around. They
(29:04):
were I think, annoyed that they had to sit and
listen to these stories again. I think Graham said, Dad,
we know this already. But what I did I told
them our testimony, and I asked them to bring all
their money to the table, which is really technically my money.
You have no money, you understand that, But bring my
money that I let you pretend like is your money
and keeping your little stupid wallet, bring it to the table.
(29:28):
Abby has more money than the boys. I don't know
what she's running on the side of school selling some
jolly ranchers or something. Abby is so loaded. She's like
says to her brothers all the time, you need to
visit the bank of Abby seven. I sound and I'm like, hey,
it's time. It's your end offering. You know, we did
this with Waymaker, we did this with Surround, we did this.
(29:50):
We've been doing this since they were conscious. Like here's
mommy and Daddy and remember Da da Dad Bo Bob.
Because different times we've done that over and over again,
not the tithe but above and beyond. And then we
pray about it. And sometimes God will give me, like
a specific number that's meaningful. Sometimes I'll think I have
the number, and then it's not the right one because
it doesn't take faith. And God will stretch me because
(30:13):
one will be what I can do, and then one
will be something that really says how I need him.
But when I was walking him through that and I'm like,
sit down and listen to this. You know you need
to hear this story. I realized something that just this
year we hit a milestone where now Holly and I,
(30:37):
by the grace of God, have been able to give
to this church Elevation Church. Not what we originally gave
at the kitchen table and shelby the emergency fund, and
not two times that. But over the course of this church,
we've been able to give not ten times and I
couldn't really believe this number, not one hundred times, but
(30:57):
a thousand times what we gave at that hitching table
through this ministry. And I'm not going to tell you
the amount because it's not about the size of the gift.
It's about the sacrifice. That's what it's always about. Like
some people sit through this teaching and God prompts them
(31:18):
to give a million dollars, and they're able to do that.
We've seen that. But some people God prompts, and God
prompts them to do something that would seem small, but
to him it's bigger because it represents something that comes
from your heart. That's all God is. I went I
went to Elevution who just talked about money. Now talking
(31:39):
about money and talking about your heart where your treasure is,
your heart will be also and we talk about every
element of your heart. But until this happens, until your
hands are open to God, That's that's what the offering
is about. It's about getting your hands open. Not because
God needs what you have, You need what He has.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I'm preaching on this stool. I don't even need a
pulpit for this sermon. I am preaching on this school DRUGO.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I'm grateful, you know, like when we first gave to Outreach,
I had no idea that it was a set up
to see it as a stepping stone. It was a
stepping stone. God was setting the table because when this
church didn't have much money, Hurricane Katrina hit and I
felt a prompting reach out to somebody in New Orleans
(32:32):
or in the area, and I found a pastor in
slide El, Louisiana, and we sent him sixteen hundred bucks
that we did not have. We needed that money for
our church. But I was operating out of the same principle,
you keep your hands open to me and see what
I will do through you. And now the fact that
we've given and will have given by the end of
(32:52):
this year, over forty million dollars away to those in need,
come on, sin you right now, the praise God for
what we've been able to do around the world. You
kind of go back and you wonder, you wonder, you
(33:14):
wonder what if what if we had said no back then?
What if I said now, I'm gonna keep my little
sixteen dollars for our outreach. I'm gonna keep my And
God is prompting some of you to open your hands
to him, and I pray that you'll know that. Joy,
it's a real privilege. It's a real privilege. Let's just
(33:34):
do another prompt. I think we got time for one
or two more. You win you this one? You sure
this is a big one. Don't screw it up. Take
the post it now, a shiny cross around your neck.
Tell me about the silver bullet of the church planting,
the silver bullet of church planting. You want to know
(33:57):
about that? You sure? I don't know if you can
handle the silver bullet of church planting. I certainly wasn't
ready for the silver bullet of church planting. So imagine
this church has not started yet. I'm meeting with the
seven families that moved here to start the church. Come on,
let's go back to the Jordan for a minute. You
got to go back to where you started and revisit
these miracles. So at that time I didn't know anything
(34:21):
to teach these people. So all we did was read
books from people who knew how to start church because
we never started one. I was twenty five years old.
I had no idea. I mean, I'm scared to death,
but I feel like God is prompting us to start
this church. And we had just decided to come to
Charlotte to start it. We put up a map and anyway,
you don't need to know all that point is. I
(34:41):
brought in a guy who I thought was like an
expert in church planting, and I asked him talk to
my team, tell him anything you want, and I'll give
you a fifty dollars Chili's gift card. At the time
that seemed generous. We got it from credit card rebate points. Okay,
And so he's like, you don't have to give me anything,
just stop coming. Nice guy, and he shared with us
(35:02):
a little bit about evangelism, a little bit about marketing,
a little bit about team building, unity groups, all the
typical stuff. But then when it was over, we'd been
recording the whole session so we could listen to it
and learn from it and taking notes, and all the
families are sitting around the table and he's like at
the end, he goes, okay, can you turn that off
a minute. Can you stop recording? You turn off? And
(35:26):
he goes, can you shut the door? What's about to
happen here? And we shut the door and he's like,
now I'm gonna give you the silver bullet of church planting.
I'm about I'm about to hear this. And then he goes,
(35:52):
there's friends that you have that belong to other churches,
and those churches are big, and they tithed to their church,
but their church wouldn't miss it if they stopped. Get
them to transfer their tithe from that big church to
your little church for twenty four months. And when he
said it, it felt like a bullet, not a silver bullet,
(36:13):
but it felt like if we did that, if we
started this church on that kind of manipulation, then we
would always have to manipulate. And I thanked him. I
didn't correct him until he left the room. I said,
thank you for coming, appreciate it. God bless you. He prayed,
he left. I shut the door again. When he left,
I said to the team, I said, we will not
(36:36):
build this church on those types of principles. If we're
going to do God's work and God's will, we'll have
to do it God's way, and it was a temptation
in the moment, you know, because it was strategic. And
(36:57):
sometimes sometimes you'll be prompted to take a shortcut and
to do it your way, and you can justify it,
you know. But in that moment, here's what God prompted
me to ask of that team. And these are just
normal people, some of them with small children, all of
them moving with no job. We didn't have some big funding.
It was nothing like that. It's nothing like that. I
(37:19):
just said, what if we gave ten percent the tithe
to the church that we're currently a part of until
we leave that is sending us, and another ten percent
to the new one we're starting. But if we all
committed to lead the way and to do that so
that when we stand up and ask people to be
a part of this, we will have set an example
(37:41):
that they can follow. Do you want to know why
God is using this ministry today? And now, like I
look in the camera and it's like in Singapore and
Cape Town and Gastonia and all kinds of places all
around the world. It's not because of it's not because
of great preaching. It's because of personal sacrifice that people
(38:05):
were willing to make and hear me.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
I appreciate the front row, but I want to say
something to everybody watching this sermon.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
If we become now just consumers Christian consumers where it's
like I didn't really like the word today. I didn't
do my song today. I was a guest today. I
was of this. If it becomes about that, God will
shut it all down, because that is not what this
church was founded on. You see how they're looking at
(38:38):
me out there. It's like this, you are sitting right
now in somebody else's sacrifice. I always thought that was
so crazy. People come and go. I don't. I don't
like when the church talks about giving. How do you
think there was a church for you to come to?
(38:58):
If somebody didn't get me too? JJ. I love to
tell the story of how that original core team they're
all still here at the church. By the way, all
of those families. Do you know how rare that is
that God kept those families together these twelve and a
half years. And now God is calling on another generation.
(39:24):
And I really don't have time for the last two stones.
I'd like to give them to you, but I'm only
going to be able to give you one of them,
and I'm gonna let you vote on this one. Which
one you want. Do you want to hear about the
time that John the Baptists came into my office? Or
(39:45):
option A? Or do you hear about the time that
we took a bus ride from Hell? These are your options.
Pray about it. See if God prompts you. Who wants
to hear John the Baptists make some noise at every location.
Who wants to hear about the bus ride from Hell?
Makes them all right? So John the Baptist, I'm gonna
(40:10):
tell you this one real quick. That's the time that
John Butler, who was a Baptist who yeah, he was
a Baptist preacher, and he came in my office. Listen
to this. You heard this last night, but listen again.
You need to hear these stories over and over again.
He came in and he had three hundred thousand dollars.
He had a denominational job. He'd been coming to the church.
The church was full. He sits on my couch in
(40:32):
my office. He asked for meeting with me, and he said, well, preacher,
you were full this Sunday. I noticed you were full.
I noticed there wasn't an empty seat in the house.
And I'm so proud of that. I was like, yes, sir,
praise the Lord, you know, spiritualize it, but really I
was proud of it. Yes, sir, praise the Lord. We
prayed for it. Praise God. He goes, Preacher, that's a problem.
(40:52):
I said, no, it's not a problem. It's a goal.
I want a full house. He said, yeah, but you're
telling these people to bring their friends. Friend's gonna sit.
You need to start another campus. And I have three
hundred thousand dollars that a little old lady who died
left to the Baptist Convention for church planting, and I'll
give it to you if you'll start another campus. And
(41:14):
here's what I said. And I'm ashamed to tell you
this to this day because for all of you that
think this is just a brag session to tell you
about my great faith, it's not. It's about God's faithfulness
in spite of it. Because I looked at that man
and says, I don't have the gifts to do that.
People will not watch me preach on a screen. So
(41:44):
I thank God for what he said. Next so powerful.
He said, here's how it works, preacher, And he's talking
to me like a like, like a young punk like
I was. But he said it would love to He said,
if you get ahead of God trying to obey him,
(42:06):
he'll just shut the door. If you get behind God
and won't obey him, he'll just get somebody else to
do it. You take a few days and pray about it, preacher,
and let me know what you want to do. And
he got up to walk out. I say, you gotta
come back. We'll do it. We'll do We'll do that.
Don't want God to make somebody else. Come on.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I want in on this. I want to be in
the middle of what God is doing. And now today
watch this over over.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
I want to say it's seventeen locations. It's more than that,
because somebody's watching this in a hospital room on a screen,
somebody's watching this on television, somebody's watching this in a prison.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
And it it starts when you respond to a prompting. So,
for just a moment, would you just see that right
there where you are, for a moment, would you make
a space right now in your heart for the Holy
Spirit to prompt you in an area of your life
(43:21):
where He is speaking to you. But you have not
yet responded, Joshua said, set up these stones so that
when the children of Israel ask you what these stones mean,
you can tell them what God did. I did my
best today in the little bit of time that we
had to tell you some of the things that God
(43:44):
has done for us in the twelve and a half
years that we've been a church, some of it before
you got here. Some of you have been here for
many of these miracles. And I did it in hopes
that it would prompt you to know that when faith
skips a generation, and when we start to stand in
the middle of something that God did that was extraordinary
(44:05):
and treated as common, miracles start to dry up and
all I'm asking you to do as we prepare for
next weekend online around the world. You know, we've already
had the conversation with our family. Here's here's Abby's money.
That's the biggest money, is the kid's money. That's what
(44:27):
God prompted them to do. Holly and I have have
been praying, and I didn't tell you this yet, but
in my heart while I was preaching last night, my
number went up. So we need to talk again. Because
one number was comfortable and then the other number represented
a commitment to not rest on what God has already done,
(44:50):
but to make way for what He wants to do.
And the ask is very simple. Ask God, ask him
to prompt you. Some of you have never been through
this process, so you've never taken it seriously, and I
understand it. It's uncomfortable. But this card is a prompt.
It's a prompt for you. You know what a great
(45:11):
word prompt, prompt, prompt. It also means a media prompt, prompt. Yes,
God is yours. Of course God. Of course I would
advance your work. Of course I would give to you.
Of course I would be generous. Of course I would
want to make away for someone else like you made
away for me. Of course, Lord, it's yours. When you
get that kind of spirit in your heart, you begin
(45:32):
to experience promises of God that you could never imagine.
This is not some name it claimant, blabbit grab it
weird theology where I'm telling you that you can get
a Mercedes if you give God ten dollars. I'm believe
in that. I'm appreach that never have, never will. What
I'm telling you is a testimony that God has made
a way for me time after time, and I want
to see him do the same in your life. If
(45:54):
that means that right now you're in a season where
you can't give, then let this be the season that
someone else carries the load. There's nothing wrong with that.
But you pray, you pray that those who are able
to give will give, not on the level that's comfortable,
but on the level that represents a true commitment to
the cause of Christ. Maybe never become like this when
(46:15):
we started like this. So want you to buy your
head and close your eyes, no one moving. This is
a pretty important moment right now is a setup for
something that God wants to do in the future. And
I'd like to just give you one minute, just sixty
seconds after I stopped talking, and if you would ask
(46:38):
God silently. You don't have to pray out loud or
anything like that. Maybe you want to just open your hands,
just physically, like right in front of you. That's what
I'd do sometimes when I'm praying about a message or
when I'm asking God for direction in my life, maybe
just with your hands open and just say, God, would
you prompt me, prompt me to respond to the gospel
(47:04):
that You've freely given me? As I get the opportunity
to share it with others. You speak to me specifically, God,
show me how I can be used as I prepare
my offering side give it online this week or bring
it back next weekend. Show me what you've given me
(47:25):
that came from you, that I can now give back
as an offering. And in just a moment, I'm going
to allow you to sit. You know, God often doesn't shout,
He doesn't like draw stuff in the sky. He doesn't
always respond with a big sign that comes from Heaven
out loud. He speaks in a whisper, still, small voice.
(47:50):
He prompts you, and it is your response to that
prompting that determines how much of His promises you experience. So, Father,
now speak to your people in this minute of silence
and throughout the next week, and prompt them as to
what you would have them to do in obedience. Thank
(48:11):
you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
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 if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
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. Welcome today to all of our locations.
Can we thank God for all of our campuses and locations? Said?
Can we thank God for all of our campuses and locations? Amen?
(00:33):
I was doing my stalker thing where I go around
to all the campuses pushing buttons with cameras that are
set up in the auditoriums I've been on. Do I
look tired? I was on a trip. I went to
Asheville and Columbia, and I even went to Toronto for a minute,
all through technology, of course, before I came out to
see you, some little jed life. Thank God for the
(00:55):
great work he's doing also with our Ethan around the
world and our interns Our Fall twenty eighteen in terms,
come on, thank God for Thank God for them, thank
God for their wardrobes, for their sense of style and fashion.
I'm gonna tell you why they're up here in a minute,
I'm going to keep you in suspense. But hey, one
(01:18):
thing that I really always feel good about is when
I'm doing exactly what I know God wants me to do.
When I stand up here on the stage and as
we get ready for next weekend, which is going to
be phenomenal where so many people around the world and
here at our church locally, are going to participate in
(01:38):
our game change or offering where we get to bring
God something of significance and value to us, and we
all get to make that opportunity count to invest something
in what can't be taken away, as we have so
many times before. As we get ready for that, I
(01:59):
pray and I try to see how God wants me
to preach that would position us, each of us for
the season that He's taking us into. And that's important
to me. Not to follow a formula, it's important to me.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing it
the same way every time, because you know, we take
up these offerings for expansion and we use so much
(02:21):
of it for outreach each year. So I guess it
would be fine if I just repeated the pattern each year.
But maybe it's just my personality. I can't do that.
And even more than that, I don't want to start
trusting in some kind of formula. I guess that's the
best way to say it. If I'm going to preach
about faith, I want to demonstrate faith in the way
that I preach about what I'm preaching about. So does
(02:44):
that make sense? Why? Anyway, Whether it made sense or not,
here's what I'm going to do today. Because when I
was praying about what we should do as we set
up what's going to happen next weekend, and I pray
that you would not skip church next weekend, you know,
some people will always do that like it's going to
be a guilt trip. It's not. It's not like there's
going to be a cover charge next week or something
(03:05):
like that. It's for everyone, but it'll be really beautiful
to be special. But this week is probably the most
important because this is where we set it up. And
any good comedian can tell you that the setup is
often more important than the punchline. And so, but there's
nothing funny about the Word of God. So let's go.
Let's go to the Word of God today. I want
(03:26):
to share the same scripture just a few verses. If
I drop a few verses down from what I shared
last week, did you get to hear the message last weekend?
It's mine to manage. Touch somebody say it's God's to give,
but it's mine to manage. And I talked about this
concept that we are stewards of the story, the story
(03:50):
of how God has saved us and how God has
sustained us. And as a pastor, I'm coming to understand
my role more and more as a steward of the
story that God is telling through this church. And it's
God's story, but it's ours to manage. So powerful, and
so let me get into this real quick, and this
(04:11):
will be a little different today. I think you can
tell that I'm a little I'm excited. I'm really excited,
but I'm sitting down. I'm seated, so I'm not gonna
scream as much. Those of you who don't like all that. Anyway,
this is your this is your weekend, and I'm just
gonna talk to you a little bit today. You'll laughed
a little too much of that made me feel self conscious.
(04:31):
I might holler once or twice, but I really just
want to talk to you. And I got all this
stuff in my Bible, and I'll tell you what it
all is in a moment. Some notes and some money
and i'll tell you about that. An envelope and some
post it notes, and we'll get to all that in
a moment. But first, let me read this. This is
so important as a backdop for what I believe God
wants to give you as a backstory today. Every blessing
has a backstory. Okay, every blessing has a backstory, and
(04:57):
so this is one. For the nation of Israel Josha
before nineteen on the tenth day of the first month,
the people went up from the Jordan and camped at
Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho, and Joshua set up.
Everybody says set up, and Joshua was set up at Gilgal.
The twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan.
(05:17):
Now they're not in the Promised Land yet, but God
is setting them up. And as a part of the
setup is kind of elaborate. God is like, hey, take
the stones from the Jordan, which represents the miracle that
I just did for you, and set it up. And
then after you've set up the stones, this is the
purpose of them. They're not just props. I don't want
you to just collect these stones for props and put
(05:39):
them in a trophy case somewhere. But rather than just trophies,
these are triggers, these stones that you set up because
I'm not done with you yet, and there's a great
thing that I'm doing through you, and so I want
to use the stones as a setup. And then what's
verse twenty one. It gives the purpose he said to
the Israelites. In the future, when you descendants ask their parents,
(06:01):
not stop right there. He's teaching them to think generationally.
He's thinking them. He's teaching them not to just settle
for instant gratifications and what's in it for me. So
in the future, when your kids are asking what do
these stones mean? Tell them tell them very important, because
(06:23):
the stones can't speak for themselves. Right. This is not
like Siri, Hey, Siri, bring me lemonade it. This is
not that kind of thing. This is not some magic trick.
You've got to speak and tell them when you see
the stones, when they see the stones, tell them, I
love this stuff. I love these Old Testament stories so
(06:43):
much in them. Tell them Israel cross the Jordan on
dry ground, for the Lord your God dried up the
Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord
your God did to the Jordan what he had done
to the Red Sea when he dried it up before
until we had crossed over. Every generation is to experience
(07:04):
their own move of God, not just worship something God
did in the past, but to move forward into the
future full of faith. And so I want to speak
to you for a few moments today on the power
of the prompt. The prompt if you'd like to write
that down, it's just a little title that I'm given
(07:25):
the message. If you wouldn't like to write it down,
it's still the title that I'm given the message, the
power of the Prompt. So about these interns. They're pretty
cool Elevation Church dot org slash Internship Shameless Pluck. They're
(07:48):
two weeks out from finishing their internship and I got
to meet with them Thursday, and we had the best time. Right,
We're supposed to go minutes and it went two and
a half hours. And then, for the first time that
has ever happened, I met them at the movies because
(08:11):
as a part of their discipleship process, I took them
to see Creed two. Amen, Come on, I'm a good,
good pastor. It's who I am. Now what prompted me
to do that? Well, when I was getting to know them,
I like to do an icebreaker. Hey, you know, what's
your favorite music? And then they'll always say Christian bands
(08:34):
because I'm the pastor. And then I turn around, No,
it's you what do you really listen to? And then
they'll I'll ask us your favorite TV shows? They all
said the Office. I think everybody said the Office. And
I said, cool, y'all are too young for the Office,
but anyway, I understand. And then they said, I said
what's your favorite movie? And one of the kids screams
out Rocky. He said it, you know, like you like
(08:56):
sometimes you're in a worship service and somebody go Jesus.
But he said the name of Rocky. And when he
invoked the name of Rocky, he won my heart. In fact,
come here, Gabe, real quick.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
L J.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Just in honor, in honor of Gabe. Let's do this
real quick. Let's go ahead, go ahead, l J. Gotta
take stairs, got take Oh you want to run the stairs?
I like that big who goes to us stairs over there? Yet?
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Go all the way, Take take upstairs. Yeah, yeah, I
want to see ya. Don't know, man, bake me cow
(10:00):
after running out of time, So this could be you
Eleviation Church dot org slash intern chef. Thanks for coming.
(10:24):
Now let's go sit down there, listen, catch your breath.
You know you hadn't done that much cardio in months.
So I was like, you like Rocky? He goes yeah.
I said, now this is the real test. I said,
what's the best? Rocky? He said, and he didn't have
to pray, he didn't have to think, and this is
all my a test if he's a true man of God.
He said, he wants to go in ministry one day.
(10:46):
And there's an answer to this, and it's it's definitely
not It's definitely not five. We all know that could
be three. But he said the RCT answer. He said
Rocky four. When he said Rocky four, I said, I
perceived that thou art a prophet and the words of life.
I was like, just because that's the first one my
dad showed me. I remember my dad. On a Friday night,
(11:09):
we stopped by National Home Video in Monk's Corner VHS
tape and he said, you're ready for Rocky four. You're
ready for you're ready to see. By the way, it's
just so I can know who to pray for that
needs the Lord. How many of you have not seen
Rocky a single Rocky movie? Oh, come to the altar?
(11:31):
Are you serious? Your parents haven't shown you Rocky four?
They called DSS on those parents. I almost felt like
with my kids it was a generational responsibility, you know,
to show them how the Cold War really ended with
Rocky deceiting Drago and and then so when I found
(11:51):
out that Creed two was the sequel to Rocky four,
I was like, oh, man, this is the This is
the equivalent of Joshua and Moses. This is like the
Red Sea and the Jordan, you know, is to This
is probably taking the illustration too far, but I almost
had a spiritual experience. I met them at the theater
(12:11):
on on Thursday night and we watched Rocky. I think
we annoyed everybody in the theater. We were so loud
at Stonecrest. But we went to the Temple of Stonecrest
and we watched the Gospel according to Rocky Baboa, And
there's so much gospel and Rocky But you probably don't
know the backstory to it, and so you know it
(12:32):
prompted me. Sermons come to me from all kinds of places.
But I'm sitting there, Graham and Elijah went with me,
and we're watching Creed two, and I won't tell you
how it ends, because your homework this week is to
prepare your offering, read your Bible, and go see Creed
two and past there and then and then I was thinking,
Graham was sitting with me, Elijah was sitting with me,
(12:53):
the interns were there, and I was thinking, like, remember
my dad's in heaven now, and so I always remember
when he showed me. It was just a moment where
I was like, every generation gets their own Rocky. It's cool.
And then I thought, I wonder how many of them
know the backstory of how Rocky Balboa was created. I
wonder how many of I wonder how many of them
(13:15):
know what these stones mean? You know, they know that
Michael B. Jordan wasn't the first Creed. I wonder if
they know. And I don't know how much of this
you knew gave. But when Sylvester Stallone created Rocky, he
was inspired because he was broke right. He had been
in one movie and he had moderate success, but he
(13:39):
moved to la because he wanted to start really trying
to write, and he would walk around writing stuff, and
that he went to see Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Webner.
How many of you didn't know any of this, Just
raise your hand real quick. Okay, this is important. This
is almost biblical. Rocky is canonical, and I promise you
would be in Joshua in just a moment. But let
(14:00):
me get the backstory this. And when he was watching
Chuck Webner fight Muhammad Ali and go the distance even
though he didn't win and put the champ down, he
was inspired by the story of an underdog. He thought,
that's what I need to write. And he spent the
next three days writing the rough draft of Rocky. Three
days three days, so for those of you who don't
believe that Rocky is biblical. Three days. And then when
(14:27):
he finished writing it, he remember he was prompted just
by something that he saw. Talk about the power of
a prompt He was prompted watching it. I need to
write that. He wrote it, and then somebody asked him
what he was working on when he went for an
audition one time, and he almost didn't want to tell
him because he didn't know if he was any good,
but he show him him working on this thing. He's prompted.
(14:50):
And then they offered him twenty five thousand dollars for
the script, fifty one hundred. No, because they weren't going
to let him be Rocky, and he wanted to play
Rocky and something in told him, you know, you need
to play this character. This is what's a lifetime thing.
And then they offered him two hundred fifty thousand dollars,
three hundred thousand dollars, three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
He had one hundred and six dollars in his bank account,
(15:14):
and they offered him three hundred and sixty thousand dollars
from the script. He said no, he had already sold
his dog, Buckus, Buckus, He sold his dog Buckus, and
he turned it down. And finally they gave him a
million dollars to make the movie, which wasn't much, and
he made it. And as of twenty seventeen, according to
(15:35):
what Light Google, the Rocky franchise has earned in the
box office alone over one point four billion dollars. So
let's thank god for Rocky. And then and then we'll
move on into something I want to pay you about.
I just told you I can see some of you like,
come on, man, I ain't come for all this. Let's
shut up. I'm trying to get to something here, all right.
(15:56):
I got a reason for telling you this, because everything
great that I've ever seen I would attribute to the
hand of God in my life started with a prompting,
a prompting. And the thing about game changers and game
changing decisions is that they don't feel like game changers
(16:16):
in the moment. It doesn't. A promise from God usually
doesn't feel like a promise. Here's how it operates in
the pattern of scripture. Okay, that God will give you
a promise, and then he will give you a prompting
to act on the promise that he gave. And learning
to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit is
(16:39):
the most crucial skill that you could ever acquire in
your life. It takes courage, it takes discernments, it takes
sometimes being still shutting the other voices off. But the
promptings of the Holy Spirit. I mean, how many times
have I missed the blessing of God in an area
(17:00):
of my life because I did not respond to a prompting.
How many times have we come to church and heard
a sermon and then we experienced a prompting, But because
we didn't respond to the prompt we did not receive
the promise. It could be the smallest things. One time
(17:25):
God prompted me to send somebody a voice memo. They
said they saved it for four years on their phone.
I didn't know that they were going to save it
for four years. I just knew they were going through something,
and I sent it to them prompting, prompting, And it
must have seemed weird to the Israelites. Right set up
the stones, But the stones are not there to serve
the purpose that they seem to be serving on the surface.
(17:46):
They are to prompt the story. Now I'm preaching to
you today because there are some things that God has
placed in your life and some things that he's doing
that if you will pay attention, God is trying to
use that thing to prompt you in an area of
your life where He intends to bless you. The stones
prompt the story, and then the story is meant to
(18:08):
prompt the faith of the people so that they can
continue on. And this is how God works. So I
want to practice this today. I want to do this
in front of you. It's one thing to preach it,
it's another thing to practice it. And I realized that
the Israelites didn't go back to that place in Gilgal
(18:29):
and tell their children the story. That's why in Judges
two ten it says that the next generation didn't know.
Why didn't they know because their parents didn't revisit the place.
They got so far from where they started that they
lost their sense of who brought them. Now, I don't
(18:50):
want that to happen to us as a church, and
so I thought what might be appropriate today to help
prompt your faith is to share stones, not twelve. I'm
not going to do twelve. Like the twelve stones. We
don't have that long. If I just want to take five,
I just want to take five prompts. And this is
(19:10):
where the post it notes come in, because I wrote
down five prompts, you know, like a writing prompt that
you get writing prompt And I'm going to hand these
one at a time to these interns and I'm going
to ask them to tell me the story. And you
can ask me anything you want, as long as it's
exactly what's written on this post it note, and I'm
(19:30):
gonna answer it to prompt everybody, say prompt. Prompt, that's
the word God gave me. Prompt to learn how to
respond to the prompting of God. That's what this offering
is about. That's what life is about. That's what forgiveness
is about. God is going to prompt you, and will
you respond to the prompt That determines how you experienced
the promise. So I've got five of these and they
(19:54):
will prompt the story like those stones prompted the stories,
and I pray that God is it. You want to
read the first one? He didn't get to go last night? Okay,
it's the same ones as last night, though. Yeah, I
didn't change him because it went good last night. So
read me last. Tell me about the time you thought
your college roommate was going crazy? What was actually setting
(20:15):
an example you would follow for the next twenty years.
What a great question. Thank you for asking me that.
So my college roommate my junior and senior year, was
named Alex Early, which is funny because he would get
up super early and he would pray I would get
up last minute seven fifty seven for an eight am class.
We went to North Greenville University. It's where I got
(20:36):
my degree. It's where I got my wife. If you
were to ask me which of those two has served
a greater purpose in my life, it would no doubt
be that one. So I hadn't shown anybody my degree
in a while, but I show her off all the time. Anyway.
My roommate was Alex Early. He was very spiritual, but
he's also one of these people who wasn't so spiritual
that he wasn't funny. He was like able to He
could quote John Calvin to you, but he could also
(20:57):
make the funniest prank phone calls. And he would call
he had this this this redneck persona called dew Wyane
McGraw d u w I a n E with a
thing over the e because it's French, dew Wane McGraw
and he called He modeled after roy D Mercer and
had the best time in college. But what I learned
from him that I never forget that I'm so glad
you asked me about and thank you for asking me.
That is. One day he came running back to the
(21:19):
room between classes and he looked like he looked like
he was in a state of absolute emergency. Was in
a panic mode. And he starts grabbing out of the
drawers all the money he can find in the room.
Not my money, his money. He starts grabbing all the
money out of the room. And I was like, what
are you doing. He's like, I'll have time to talk
about it. I'll tell you when I get back. Like,
oh my god, what is Alex? What is Alex into?
(21:41):
Just like some Walter White crap going on? And so
he uh, he came back. He wouldn't talk, tell me
what he was doing. And he came back. He said
he looked so relieved. I was like, what was that?
And he and he said he was real serious. He goes,
God convicted me, Bro, I've been hold on. Let me
(22:02):
tell you what he said. Next, said Max. He said,
since I've been here at college, I haven't been tied in.
He belonged to a church that I really admire in
his hometown in Woodstock, Georgia, first Baptist Woodstock pastor Johnny Hunt.
And he said, I am I'm sending my tithe. I
(22:22):
calculated God spoke to me that his money was in
my bank account. And I've been telling myself the whole
time I was here at college. That since I was away,
and since I didn't have much anyway, he said, but
God convicted me not to keep his money in my account.
And that boy mailed the cash and he had coins
(22:42):
and everything he could find and send it in the mail,
and God used him. One of the ways God will
prompt you sometimes is through the example of somebody else.
That's why I always do the giving on the weekend
where people come in and give, because I think that
sometimes an example is better than a sermon. Amen. And
(23:07):
when he did that, God spoke to me, you know,
because my mom had taught me the same principle of tithing.
And yet I found so many excuses. And you know
what I did. Next. Thing I did well, I had
a checking account. I didn't think it had to be
as ghetto as he made it out to be, like
he's throwing cash in the mail. But I did the
same thing. I decided, you know what, he's right, He's right.
(23:30):
If I can't trust God with that ten percent, how
can I say everything I have comes from him? And
I said it, yeah, Amen, see I'm not I need
you to know this in case you're new or a
guest or something. I am not one bit timid about
preaching this stuff. This is my testimony. I don't apologize
for it. I believe in what we do. I believe
in what God's work teaches. I've seen it in my life.
(23:53):
So like, if you need me to get up here
and say, eh, it don't be okay, I order God.
That's not me. That's not how I feel about God.
That's not how I feel about his word. That's not
how I feel about his principles, that's not how I
feel about his promises. I believe this stuff, man. So
(24:15):
it prompted me and I never kept God's money in
my bank account after that, no matter how much I
had didn't have, and he got harder when you have more.
You know, ten percent of fifty dollars, isn't that hard
to sin? Sin God? Some coupons in the mall or
something like that. But then when God starts blessing you,
you have to decide do you want to trust him
(24:35):
on the next level. Amen. So I believe God's going
to prompt some people this year in that you've been
holding on to what is God's I should move on
from this point. Feel super uncomfortable, but these are just
my stones, These are my stories. This is what God
has done for me. So here's another one. I really
(24:55):
like this one, This is probably my favorite one. Who
wants to do this one? You want the prompt? Yeah, okay,
let's get her a mic Ben Landier. By the way, Ben,
who's your favorite intern on the stage right now? Don't
answer that. I'll just give it to Mike. Just give it.
Like to tell me about the big decision you made
at the kitchen table that made you feel like you
were going to throw up in your mouth. And I
(25:17):
wrote it in an acceptable way. I think I actually
did throw up in my mouth and swallow it back down.
So here's the story. It's too vivid, I understand. You know,
when Holly and I got married, she taught school and
I traveled, and we saved up and put a down
payment on a house, and we did what Dave Ramsey
(25:40):
taught in his financial piece, stuff like no debt and
all that. We try to do that, but other than
our house. But then another thing we did was he said,
put an emergency fund. And Dave Ramsey said it, he
said it. It scared me to not do it the
way he said it. And he said that it should
be a certain amount of your expenses in case something happens,
and he said, do it as quick as you can. Well,
(26:02):
we were just married, and we didn't start with a
lot of money or anything like that. We started with
no money. But over time I was able to build
up and I'll never forget. Like we're in our house
at three thirty dell Wood Drive, Shelby, North Carolina. Could
go by there and knock on the door and ask
the person and say hey, hello, and then go into
the kitchen and then sit down and you'll see the
spot where this happened. Okay, all right, So we had
(26:27):
just put that amount of money. We just hit the
amount in the savings account. And I was going in
to tell Holly, Hey, good news. We got our emergency fund.
We hit the number because we set the number, hit
the number, and when I went in to tell her,
prompt something prompted me, And at first I thought it
was the devil. I really did, because it was like, Hey,
(26:49):
what if you gave that money instead. We didn't have
kids yet, we didn't have that pressure of providing for children.
Yet we were young. We could afford number one combo
at the Mexican restaurant, and so it was like, what
if you gave it away? Would you do that? So
(27:10):
when I sat down at the table, I told Holly, hey,
I got good news and bad news. The good news
is we've got our emergency fund, like the less deposit
we made it to the she said, let's say bad news.
I think God, God might be I don't know if
I use the word prompting, but I feel like an
impression that we should give it away. And see, I'm
(27:32):
counting on her to say that's not God, Like I'm
counting on her to have no faith, right because then
I can say, well, Lord, the woman that you gave me,
you know, And she goes, oh cool, I trust you.
God spoke to you this book. You know it's good.
It's good. Dang it woman. And so I remember sitting
(27:59):
down writing fives. I remember who we wrote them to.
It's not important. We didn't have Elevation Church at the
church we were part of at the time, another ministry,
and we gave it away. But the funniest thing was
while I was doing it, I was like my hands
were shaking, and right when I've written the last one,
I felt like a piece. And the way that I
(28:20):
interpreted what the piece that I felt was like God
was saying to me, keep your hands open to me,
no matter how much I bless you with, no matter
how hard things get at certain times in your life,
or how tired it seems. And I've experienced both of those.
Keep your hands open, and if you keep your hands
open to me, You'll always have everything you need to
(28:40):
do everything I've called you to do. Now, let me
tell you the sequel to that. Because every Rocky four
has a creed to every red sea has a Jordan.
Just as past Monday, I got to sit down with
our kids at the kitchen table, and it was some
holy sacred moment. In fact, they were running around. They
(29:04):
were I think, annoyed that they had to sit and
listen to these stories again. I think Graham said, Dad,
we know this already. But what I did I told
them our testimony, and I asked them to bring all
their money to the table, which is really technically my money.
You have no money, you understand that, But bring my
money that I let you pretend like is your money
and keeping your little stupid wallet, bring it to the table.
(29:28):
Abby has more money than the boys. I don't know
what she's running on the side of school selling some
jolly ranchers or something. Abby is so loaded. She's like
says to her brothers all the time, you need to
visit the bank of Abby seven. I sound and I'm like, hey,
it's time. It's your end offering. You know, we did
this with Waymaker, we did this with Surround, we did this.
(29:50):
We've been doing this since they were conscious. Like here's
mommy and Daddy and remember Da da Dad Bo Bob.
Because different times we've done that over and over again,
not the tithe but above and beyond. And then we
pray about it. And sometimes God will give me, like
a specific number that's meaningful. Sometimes I'll think I have
the number, and then it's not the right one because
it doesn't take faith. And God will stretch me because
(30:13):
one will be what I can do, and then one
will be something that really says how I need him.
But when I was walking him through that and I'm like,
sit down and listen to this. You know you need
to hear this story. I realized something that just this
year we hit a milestone where now Holly and I,
(30:37):
by the grace of God, have been able to give
to this church Elevation Church. Not what we originally gave
at the kitchen table and shelby the emergency fund, and
not two times that. But over the course of this church,
we've been able to give not ten times and I
couldn't really believe this number, not one hundred times, but
(30:57):
a thousand times what we gave at that hitching table
through this ministry. And I'm not going to tell you
the amount because it's not about the size of the gift.
It's about the sacrifice. That's what it's always about. Like
some people sit through this teaching and God prompts them
(31:18):
to give a million dollars, and they're able to do that.
We've seen that. But some people God prompts, and God
prompts them to do something that would seem small, but
to him it's bigger because it represents something that comes
from your heart. That's all God is. I went I
went to Elevution who just talked about money. Now talking
(31:39):
about money and talking about your heart where your treasure is,
your heart will be also and we talk about every
element of your heart. But until this happens, until your
hands are open to God, That's that's what the offering
is about. It's about getting your hands open. Not because
God needs what you have, You need what He has.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I'm preaching on this stool. I don't even need a
pulpit for this sermon. I am preaching on this school DRUGO.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I'm grateful, you know, like when we first gave to Outreach,
I had no idea that it was a set up
to see it as a stepping stone. It was a
stepping stone. God was setting the table because when this
church didn't have much money, Hurricane Katrina hit and I
felt a prompting reach out to somebody in New Orleans
(32:32):
or in the area, and I found a pastor in
slide El, Louisiana, and we sent him sixteen hundred bucks
that we did not have. We needed that money for
our church. But I was operating out of the same principle,
you keep your hands open to me and see what
I will do through you. And now the fact that
we've given and will have given by the end of
(32:52):
this year, over forty million dollars away to those in need,
come on, sin you right now, the praise God for
what we've been able to do around the world. You
kind of go back and you wonder, you wonder, you
(33:14):
wonder what if what if we had said no back then?
What if I said now, I'm gonna keep my little
sixteen dollars for our outreach. I'm gonna keep my And
God is prompting some of you to open your hands
to him, and I pray that you'll know that. Joy,
it's a real privilege. It's a real privilege. Let's just
(33:34):
do another prompt. I think we got time for one
or two more. You win you this one? You sure
this is a big one. Don't screw it up. Take
the post it now, a shiny cross around your neck.
Tell me about the silver bullet of the church planting,
the silver bullet of church planting. You want to know
(33:57):
about that? You sure? I don't know if you can
handle the silver bullet of church planting. I certainly wasn't
ready for the silver bullet of church planting. So imagine
this church has not started yet. I'm meeting with the
seven families that moved here to start the church. Come on,
let's go back to the Jordan for a minute. You
got to go back to where you started and revisit
these miracles. So at that time I didn't know anything
(34:21):
to teach these people. So all we did was read
books from people who knew how to start church because
we never started one. I was twenty five years old.
I had no idea. I mean, I'm scared to death,
but I feel like God is prompting us to start
this church. And we had just decided to come to
Charlotte to start it. We put up a map and anyway,
you don't need to know all that point is. I
(34:41):
brought in a guy who I thought was like an
expert in church planting, and I asked him talk to
my team, tell him anything you want, and I'll give
you a fifty dollars Chili's gift card. At the time
that seemed generous. We got it from credit card rebate points. Okay,
And so he's like, you don't have to give me anything,
just stop coming. Nice guy, and he shared with us
(35:02):
a little bit about evangelism, a little bit about marketing,
a little bit about team building, unity groups, all the
typical stuff. But then when it was over, we'd been
recording the whole session so we could listen to it
and learn from it and taking notes, and all the
families are sitting around the table and he's like at
the end, he goes, okay, can you turn that off
a minute. Can you stop recording? You turn off? And
(35:26):
he goes, can you shut the door? What's about to
happen here? And we shut the door and he's like,
now I'm gonna give you the silver bullet of church planting.
I'm about I'm about to hear this. And then he goes,
(35:52):
there's friends that you have that belong to other churches,
and those churches are big, and they tithed to their church,
but their church wouldn't miss it if they stopped. Get
them to transfer their tithe from that big church to
your little church for twenty four months. And when he
said it, it felt like a bullet, not a silver bullet,
(36:13):
but it felt like if we did that, if we
started this church on that kind of manipulation, then we
would always have to manipulate. And I thanked him. I
didn't correct him until he left the room. I said,
thank you for coming, appreciate it. God bless you. He prayed,
he left. I shut the door again. When he left,
I said to the team, I said, we will not
(36:36):
build this church on those types of principles. If we're
going to do God's work and God's will, we'll have
to do it God's way, and it was a temptation
in the moment, you know, because it was strategic. And
(36:57):
sometimes sometimes you'll be prompted to take a shortcut and
to do it your way, and you can justify it,
you know. But in that moment, here's what God prompted
me to ask of that team. And these are just
normal people, some of them with small children, all of
them moving with no job. We didn't have some big funding.
It was nothing like that. It's nothing like that. I
(37:19):
just said, what if we gave ten percent the tithe
to the church that we're currently a part of until
we leave that is sending us, and another ten percent
to the new one we're starting. But if we all
committed to lead the way and to do that so
that when we stand up and ask people to be
a part of this, we will have set an example
(37:41):
that they can follow. Do you want to know why
God is using this ministry today? And now, like I
look in the camera and it's like in Singapore and
Cape Town and Gastonia and all kinds of places all
around the world. It's not because of it's not because
of great preaching. It's because of personal sacrifice that people
(38:05):
were willing to make and hear me.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
I appreciate the front row, but I want to say
something to everybody watching this sermon.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
If we become now just consumers Christian consumers where it's
like I didn't really like the word today. I didn't
do my song today. I was a guest today. I
was of this. If it becomes about that, God will
shut it all down, because that is not what this
church was founded on. You see how they're looking at
(38:38):
me out there. It's like this, you are sitting right
now in somebody else's sacrifice. I always thought that was
so crazy. People come and go. I don't. I don't
like when the church talks about giving. How do you
think there was a church for you to come to?
(38:58):
If somebody didn't get me too? JJ. I love to
tell the story of how that original core team they're
all still here at the church. By the way, all
of those families. Do you know how rare that is
that God kept those families together these twelve and a
half years. And now God is calling on another generation.
(39:24):
And I really don't have time for the last two stones.
I'd like to give them to you, but I'm only
going to be able to give you one of them,
and I'm gonna let you vote on this one. Which
one you want. Do you want to hear about the
time that John the Baptists came into my office? Or
(39:45):
option A? Or do you hear about the time that
we took a bus ride from Hell? These are your options.
Pray about it. See if God prompts you. Who wants
to hear John the Baptists make some noise at every location.
Who wants to hear about the bus ride from Hell?
Makes them all right? So John the Baptist, I'm gonna
(40:10):
tell you this one real quick. That's the time that
John Butler, who was a Baptist who yeah, he was
a Baptist preacher, and he came in my office. Listen
to this. You heard this last night, but listen again.
You need to hear these stories over and over again.
He came in and he had three hundred thousand dollars.
He had a denominational job. He'd been coming to the church.
The church was full. He sits on my couch in
(40:32):
my office. He asked for meeting with me, and he said, well, preacher,
you were full this Sunday. I noticed you were full.
I noticed there wasn't an empty seat in the house.
And I'm so proud of that. I was like, yes, sir,
praise the Lord, you know, spiritualize it, but really I
was proud of it. Yes, sir, praise the Lord. We
prayed for it. Praise God. He goes, Preacher, that's a problem.
(40:52):
I said, no, it's not a problem. It's a goal.
I want a full house. He said, yeah, but you're
telling these people to bring their friends. Friend's gonna sit.
You need to start another campus. And I have three
hundred thousand dollars that a little old lady who died
left to the Baptist Convention for church planting, and I'll
give it to you if you'll start another campus. And
(41:14):
here's what I said. And I'm ashamed to tell you
this to this day because for all of you that
think this is just a brag session to tell you
about my great faith, it's not. It's about God's faithfulness
in spite of it. Because I looked at that man
and says, I don't have the gifts to do that.
People will not watch me preach on a screen. So
(41:44):
I thank God for what he said. Next so powerful.
He said, here's how it works, preacher, And he's talking
to me like a like, like a young punk like
I was. But he said it would love to He said,
if you get ahead of God trying to obey him,
(42:06):
he'll just shut the door. If you get behind God
and won't obey him, he'll just get somebody else to
do it. You take a few days and pray about it, preacher,
and let me know what you want to do. And
he got up to walk out. I say, you gotta
come back. We'll do it. We'll do We'll do that.
Don't want God to make somebody else. Come on.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
I want in on this. I want to be in
the middle of what God is doing. And now today
watch this over over.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
I want to say it's seventeen locations. It's more than that,
because somebody's watching this in a hospital room on a screen,
somebody's watching this on television, somebody's watching this in a prison.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
And it it starts when you respond to a prompting. So,
for just a moment, would you just see that right
there where you are, for a moment, would you make
a space right now in your heart for the Holy
Spirit to prompt you in an area of your life
(43:21):
where He is speaking to you. But you have not
yet responded, Joshua said, set up these stones so that
when the children of Israel ask you what these stones mean,
you can tell them what God did. I did my
best today in the little bit of time that we
had to tell you some of the things that God
(43:44):
has done for us in the twelve and a half
years that we've been a church, some of it before
you got here. Some of you have been here for
many of these miracles. And I did it in hopes
that it would prompt you to know that when faith
skips a generation, and when we start to stand in
the middle of something that God did that was extraordinary
(44:05):
and treated as common, miracles start to dry up and
all I'm asking you to do as we prepare for
next weekend online around the world. You know, we've already
had the conversation with our family. Here's here's Abby's money.
That's the biggest money, is the kid's money. That's what
(44:27):
God prompted them to do. Holly and I have have
been praying, and I didn't tell you this yet, but
in my heart while I was preaching last night, my
number went up. So we need to talk again. Because
one number was comfortable and then the other number represented
a commitment to not rest on what God has already done,
(44:50):
but to make way for what He wants to do.
And the ask is very simple. Ask God, ask him
to prompt you. Some of you have never been through
this process, so you've never taken it seriously, and I
understand it. It's uncomfortable. But this card is a prompt.
It's a prompt for you. You know what a great
(45:11):
word prompt, prompt, prompt. It also means a media prompt, prompt. Yes,
God is yours. Of course God. Of course I would
advance your work. Of course I would give to you.
Of course I would be generous. Of course I would
want to make away for someone else like you made
away for me. Of course, Lord, it's yours. When you
get that kind of spirit in your heart, you begin
(45:32):
to experience promises of God that you could never imagine.
This is not some name it claimant, blabbit grab it
weird theology where I'm telling you that you can get
a Mercedes if you give God ten dollars. I'm believe
in that. I'm appreach that never have, never will. What
I'm telling you is a testimony that God has made
a way for me time after time, and I want
to see him do the same in your life. If
(45:54):
that means that right now you're in a season where
you can't give, then let this be the season that
someone else carries the load. There's nothing wrong with that.
But you pray, you pray that those who are able
to give will give, not on the level that's comfortable,
but on the level that represents a true commitment to
the cause of Christ. Maybe never become like this when
(46:15):
we started like this. So want you to buy your
head and close your eyes, no one moving. This is
a pretty important moment right now is a setup for
something that God wants to do in the future. And
I'd like to just give you one minute, just sixty
seconds after I stopped talking, and if you would ask
(46:38):
God silently. You don't have to pray out loud or
anything like that. Maybe you want to just open your hands,
just physically, like right in front of you. That's what
I'd do sometimes when I'm praying about a message or
when I'm asking God for direction in my life, maybe
just with your hands open and just say, God, would
you prompt me, prompt me to respond to the gospel
(47:04):
that You've freely given me? As I get the opportunity
to share it with others. You speak to me specifically, God,
show me how I can be used as I prepare
my offering side give it online this week or bring
it back next weekend. Show me what you've given me
(47:25):
that came from you, that I can now give back
as an offering. And in just a moment, I'm going
to allow you to sit. You know, God often doesn't shout,
He doesn't like draw stuff in the sky. He doesn't
always respond with a big sign that comes from Heaven
out loud. He speaks in a whisper, still, small voice.
(47:50):
He prompts you, and it is your response to that
prompting that determines how much of His promises you experience. So, Father,
now speak to your people in this minute of silence
and throughout the next week, and prompt them as to
what you would have them to do in obedience. Thank
(48:11):
you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
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 if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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