November 23, 2025 • 62 mins
Some things look “stupid” to the world… until God uses them to change everything. If you’ve been holding back because you need everything to make sense, this will call you to trust what God promised and practice gratitude in the hard place.
If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: ele.vc/tIepfr
Scripture References:
Genesis 28, verses 13-22
Matthew 21, verse 42
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Nothing like the Lord, Nobody beside him, nobody like him.
(00:22):
Can't contain him, can't describe him. You know, I can
tell you about the river, or we can just step
right in. And that's the way it is with the Lord.
I can tell you, but sometimes you've got to taste
and see that the Lord is good. Open your mouth
wide and let him feel it today. Come on, open
(00:45):
your mouth wide and let him feel it today. Glory, Glory, glory, glory.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you for my health. Thank you
for my strength. Thank you for my salvation. Thank you Lord,
thank you for keeping me. Thank you for my sanity.
Thank you for clothes on my body. Thank you for
food in my belly. Thank you Lord, Thank you Jesus.
(01:10):
Thank you for my wife. Thank you for my three kids.
Thank you for my mom. Thank you for this church. God,
thank you for the ministry that goes forth from this place.
This is holy ground. You're a worthy God. You're a
mighty God. You're a magnificent God. You're an all sufficient God.
(01:30):
You're a wonder working God. You're away making God. There's
nothing too hard for you. I trust you, your God.
I love you, your God. I'll worship you. I believe you,
take you at your word, I respect you. I need you. Come,
(02:00):
Holy Spirit for the moments that we share together. Speak
to every heart. I give you all the credit in advance.
I know that anything good that happens today won't be
because of an idea that I had from my human mind.
It'll be because you used my vocal corese and my
(02:21):
lips of claim. But God, they've got to have an
open heart. Won't do any good for us to sing
all this beautiful music and say all the profound words
with all of the correct theology if their heart isn't open.
So I thank you that heaven is open. May our
(02:44):
hearts speak to every distraction. Every disappointment. Got to go
out the room right now, because Jesus is here. You
have our attention. Lord, have your way Jesus' name, and
(03:08):
all God's people sit together. Come on from Valentine to riverwalk.
All God's people said together all over the world, our evam,
we want you to know you're welcome here, welcome to church.
Come on, Valentine, let's send the amnesphe are for all
of those words joining us today. I want to go
(03:31):
back to Genesis chapter twenty eight as we study God's
word together today. I'm so excited about the word that
the Lord has given me to gift to you. I
pray that I won't mess it up. I don't want
to dilute it. I don't want to pollute it. I
don't want to take from it. I don't want to
add to it. Just what he said. And I pray
that in these moments that you would just create that
(03:54):
quiet place inside of you, away from all the noise.
I know you got three people you need to text back.
I know you've got somebody you don't want to see
that you got to meet up with it two forty
five today. None of that matters. Right now. The Lord
is in this place and wherever you are, I say
it with equal confidence. You say, well, I'm not in
a church building. The Lord is in that place. You say, well,
(04:20):
I'm not in a really good place. Right now, man,
I really haven't been doing good. I've really just been
struggling back with some old things.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Again, the Lord is in that place.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So as we receive God's word and we stand on
God's promise, and we thank him for his presence, let's
study together in Genesis chapter twenty eight thirteen. Y'all think
when I preach a scripture two weeks in a row,
it's because I didn't want to study the second week.
It's really just because I didn't get it done the
first week. I'm going to read some of the first
half where Jacob is running from his brother Esau, who
(04:53):
wants to kill him. And Esau is good with the
bow and arrow. By the way, Jacob is good with
kitchen utensils and good with weapons. So when Jacob steals
the blessing from Esau, he gets blessed. But have you
ever been blessed? But that's why Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. Man.
(05:17):
It's such a blessing to have all of our family together.
But well, I'm gonna let y'all sort that out. On Thursday,
this is the day that the Lord has made everybody
put in the chat blessed. But tell your neighbor real quick.
I'm blessed, but he's blessed, but he's also in the
(05:38):
time of isolation. And he's on his way four hundred
miles from his father's house to stay with his uncle
Laban for a little while till he figures out exactly
what he's going to do next. And I preached last
week on your next messy step, just to let you
know that it's not always clear, and that's okay if
you just be strong and courageous every place you set
(05:59):
your foot, God will give it to you as you go.
But you can't get paralyzed now, and you can't let
the fact that you can't see the next five hundred
steps keep you from taking the next one. Now, as
Jacob is trying to get some sleep on the hard
ground with a pillow made out of a rock under
his head, the Bible says that there was a ladder
(06:21):
that came from heaven, and there above it verse thirteen
stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord,
the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.
Notice he does not yet say I'm the God of Jacob,
because Jacob has not made that decision yet for himself.
(06:42):
That's what we're going to find out. Is he going
to be your God too? And he told him, I'm
the generational God who made a promise to your grandfather
and your father. I will give you and your descendants
the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will
be like the dust of the earth, and you will
(07:03):
spread out to the west and to the east, to
the north and to the south. It makes me think
chunks about all these campuses that God has given us
all over the place. The Lord even gave us one
in Canada Happy Month, late Canadian Thanksgiving, to our Toronto campuses.
(07:25):
But just God is going to do something so mind blowing,
something so much bigger than just our church or our campus.
Is this is God's original promise to his people, to
his nation Israel. And now, of course we're standing in
that promise today as most of us who are maybe
gentiles by birth or grafted in through Christ. So that
promise is being spoken over Jacob. He said, You're gonna
(07:48):
spread out like dust. It's gonna be messy, but I'm
going to do it. It's gonna be dirty, but I'm
going to do it, and all peoples on earth will
be blessed through you. When are you gonna stop just
coming to church to be blessed and start asking God,
make me a blessing. I want to be a blessing
(08:10):
today to somebody. God, he said, all the nations of
the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring,
even though you don't have children yet. God will speak
about things that have not even started yet in the natural,
and he'll speak it supernaturally. And this is the promise
I want you to receive for yourself today Verse fifteen.
(08:30):
I am with you and will watch over you wherever
you go, and I'll bring you back to this land.
I will not leave you until I have done what
I promised you. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought,
surely the Lord is in this place. Just took me
(08:51):
a while to catch up with it. He was afraid
and said, how awesome is this place? This is none
other than the House of God. This is the g
of Heaven. Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone
he had placed under his head and set it up
as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.
We didn't talk about any of this last week. We're
(09:12):
gon't talk about all of it today. He called that
place Bethel, which means house of God. Yeah, that's not
just a worship ministry out there in California. That's in
the Bible. The place was called the House of God.
That's what it's named after. And it's not just in
one location, it's anywhere that God visits. Yeah, he called
(09:32):
that place Bethel though the city used to be called
LUs and LUs means almond tree. Wow, that's a big
jump from a nut tree to the House of God.
Tell somebody next to you, this is crazy. This is crazy.
This is crazy now Verse twenty. Then Jacob made a
vow saying, if God will be with me and will
(09:56):
watch over me on the journey I am taking, and
will give me food to eat and clothes to wear,
so that I return safely to my father's household, then
the Lord will be my God, and this stone that
I have set up as a pillar will be God's house.
And of all that you give me, God, I know
(10:18):
you're my source. Of all that you give me, I
have nothing without you. Of all that you give me,
I will give you a tenth amen. Verse eleven is
where I want to take my title from so that
I return safely to my father's household. Then the Lord
will be my God. Then the Lord will be my God.
(10:40):
Then the Lord will be my God. The Lord told
me to preach to you today three words. This is, then,
this is then. And I can tell that's a little
bit like mystical or whatever. So just turn to your neighbor,
give them my subtitle. Tell them God uses stupid. Yeah,
(11:05):
tell them this one might be for you, because God,
I have a strong feeling. Father, if you can speak
through a donkey, speak through me in Jesus' name, Amen,
touch three people, say this is your word today, This
is then? God uses stupid Now, Pastor Steve, I wish
(11:29):
you wouldn't say words like stupid up there in the pulpit.
That's not a sanctified word, and I don't appreciate it.
I'll bring my kids into service. Well, you ought to
drop them in E kids. We have excellent volunteers and
juice boxes. Do we give them juice boxes and E kids?
I don't know. I hadn't checked. You know how our
(11:53):
ministry seems so strategic when you see it up there
on the screens, and we have E groups and E kids.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
And eteams and E bikes and no E cigarettes yet
in the church, but it sounds so strategic.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I said something last week and I got a testimony
of a miracle from one of our campus pastors. So
I want to say it again to you, because miracles
are already happening in this season. Miracles are already happening
in this season. And he was telling me a very
difficult season that he's been through, and then God began
to bring some resolution and he saw it. And the
(12:31):
thing that I said that helped him for his faith
is that a lot of times what you explain later
as strategy, you experience as surrender. How many heard me
say that last week from this very pulpit, and I'm
gonna say it again. You experience a lot of things
as surrender in real time. What I mean by surrender,
(12:54):
you don't know what else to do, and then when
you get through it, you look back and you start saying, well,
step one, step two, step three, step four. You know,
somebody else might struggle with an addiction that you came through,
and you're kind of coaching them later. And now you're
kind of arrogant because you got, you know, nine or
ten years under your belt, and you're like, well, the
(13:15):
first thing you need to do, and then the second thing.
And I found it very helpful. And you may mean, well,
but just make sure you tell them that the first
thing you do is help God. I need you. I
don't know what to do without you. And some of
the things that look strategic in your life you actually
stumbled into. If you'll be honest about it, it was
(13:35):
the hand of God guiding you. It was the voice
of God calling you. It was his net that caught you.
It was his word that kept you. Many of the
things in our ministry that felt very strategic in year
five and in year ten were actually things that at
the time just felt like, what do we do next? God,
(13:59):
we are a multi let's welcome all of our locations today,
all twenty locations our EPAM all over the world. We
strategically place these locations on a multi site church with
the campuses that we have in the model that we have,
so we could reach people. Right, it was strategic, No,
it was surrender. We were out of space, no more
(14:21):
room to put people. What can we do, Well, maybe
we can get another high school auditorium down the road.
It was surrender. What do we do? Who do we bribe?
Who do we pay off, How can we get that
other auditorium? Why isn't the video working? Why isn't the
video working again the next week?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
And it's messy like that, and his steps like that,
and it's trusting like that, and is falling like that,
and it's standing like that, and it's waiting like that,
and it's moving like that, and it's zigging and it's zagging.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Remember, and it's zigging and it's zagging, and it's having
and it's losing and it's getting back. And this is
what growth feels like, more like surrender, less like strategy.
Later you can explain it a you can write your
book Seven Steps to a Healthier Marriage. But the truth
is you got down on your knees that third month
of marriage and said, God, I don't believe in divorce,
(15:11):
but I don't know where I am a murder. And
if you don't help me with this white man.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And the strategic explanation off in camouflages the surrendered experience, why.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Tell me that? Because I know right now you don't
know what to do about this thing in your life.
And yet I would suggest to you personally and pastorally
that God has already already done enough for you to
trust him. I met with a financial adviser and the
first time I met him, he said, I just need
you to trust me. I said, whoa bukaroo. We ain't
(15:52):
about to build a trust off of one meeting when
you get paid on commission. The only way trust is
going to be building this relationship is through results, and
that's gonna take years, not months. So if you need
me to trust you from this meeting, just know I
don't trust you one bit. I don't trust you. I
(16:12):
don't get paid to trust you. And as a matter
of fact, I want you to know that I am
operating from a fundamental distrust of you because I am
not going to work this hard to provide for my family.
And then just because you have a nice smile and
a button down shirt, I'm supposed to just trust you.
I got button down shirts. Serial killers have button down shirts.
I don't trust you. You got to show me something
(16:35):
to trust in. Is that good wisdom for business? Is
that good wisdom for faith? Jacob seems to be saying
here at this threshold of his own journey, I don't
know if I can trust you yet. God, I don't
know you like that. I don't know yet if I
(16:56):
can fully believe what you say to me. Oh, Shacob,
how dare you doubt the sovereignty of God? People? He's
far from home, he doesn't have a Bible to read.
He just had a dream or a vision in which
he saw a staircase that went from earth to heaven.
(17:18):
And he's supposed to just wake up and say, let's
go God, wherever you take me, I'm with you. So
he does something very interesting, and I want to show
it to you because as I studied it, two words
stood out to me in the text. And a lot
of you have been listening to me preach for a
long time. Show of hands or just put a raised
hand in the chat. How many of you have been
listening to me preach for at least one year? How
(17:41):
many have you been listening to me preach for about
three years or more? Raise your hand, keep them up
five years or more? How many you started listening to
me preach before you wanted to? But somebody in your
house had me preaching and you had to listen to
him because they wouldn't turn it all. That's all right too.
I am not going to take this a step further
and ask if you even want to be here today.
I'm drawing the line, but by the time you've heard
(18:05):
me preach, maybe you can pick up my rhythm. There's
something Jacob says, and I want you to catch it.
It's two words. It's kind of like a continuum that
he establishes here, and I believe it's the continuum that
we're living in as well. In verse twenty, Jacob makes
a vow, and in that vow he said, if God
will be with me and we'll watch over me on
this journey I am taking, and will give me food
(18:26):
to eat and clothes to wear so that I returned
safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be
my God. The two words are in those two verses,
and I wonder if you've been listening to me preach
Jim and Livy for like thirteen, fourteen, eighteen years, can
you guess which words just went to me? Because I'm
picturing this congregation that I'm preaching to remember, some people
(18:50):
lost their job this week, some people got a promotion.
Some people are complaining about their job. Some people would
love to snatch up the job that that person is
complaining about. Somebody right here this week is saying I
got to lose some weight. Somebody's trying to put on
some weight, drinking all the protein they've got. Somebody is
wishing they were single again. Somebody is saying, God, rescue
me from this season of singleness. Somebody is saying, God,
(19:12):
I don't know what to do. Somebody is saying, God,
I know what to do, but I don't want to
do it. Someone pretend like I don't know what you
want me to do, so I can continue to pretend
like I'm waiting for direction when really I'm procrastinating my
faith and calling it patience. Everything is happening in this room.
And what I saw in the text, it was just
two little words. Let's read it again. He said, if
(19:34):
that was the first one, if God will be with
me and will watch over me on this journey I
am taking, and will give me food to eat and
clothes to wear. And now, remember God just told him
I'm gonna give you the north, the south, the east,
(19:55):
and the west. But that's gonna come later. Jacob says,
I don't even need need you to give me real
estate right now. If you will just give me food
to eat and close to wear. Everybody say if, if
you'll do that for me, if you will be with
me and give me food to eat and close to wear,
(20:19):
If you will be with me, give me food to
eat and close to wear, so that I return safely
to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God.
The second word is then if then if then sounds
(20:42):
like the boy thinks he can bargain with the most high.
Sounds like the boy thinks that God is trying out
to be his financial adviser. Here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna sit there and have a quarterly meeting, and
if you profitable to me, then I'll serve you. I
don't read it that way at all. At this date
age in my life. I think Jacob is saying, it
(21:03):
doesn't take much for me to trust you. I just
need you to show me enough, just enough that I'll
know three things. One that you're with me, One that
I've got something to eat and something to wear. I
can't run through this desert naked, and I can't go
to the next stop hungry. So I need you to
(21:24):
be with me. I need you to feed me, and
I need you to watch over me. I need you
to be with me. I need you to watch over me.
I need you to feed me. And if you'll do
that that much, that much, if you'll do that much,
then you'll be my God. If you'll be with me.
(21:45):
That's a prayer for God's presence. When you pray your
Thanksgiving prayer this week, thank God for his presence. When
you sit down to eat a big old ham, what
you're gonna have this week? You know by coming to
church the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Your calori these are automatically
divided by three. Give the Lord a praise for that
fake word I just gave you. I say that every
(22:09):
year on this Sunday. Every year, on this Sunday, for
every amen that you say, all of the sugar is
translated into protein to build your wouldn't that be cool
if it worked like that? And when you sit down
to pray, whoever's going to pray, say, Lord, I want
to thank you first of all for your presence. You've
(22:33):
been with me. How many know the truth that God
has been with you when nobody else was. You might
be there right now, It might have been last night
you were saying, God, I sure am lonely, but even
in your greatest loneliness. There was light, wasn't there come on?
Even when you were a little girl and you were
twelve or thirteen years old and you just felt so
(22:55):
weird and so strange, there was something inside of you
that you knew you weren't alone, even though you felt alone,
that even though you didn't get invited to the parties,
there was something in you that knew that I have
a purpose. You were never alone, not for any of it.
He is present, and I don't need a feeling to
prove his presence. You know, I don't need more proof
(23:17):
of his presence than I already have. He told me
he was with me, So he is with me. It's
just a matter of me becoming aware of it. Surely
the Lord is in this place, and I was not
aware of it. So thank God for his presence. Number two,
Thank him for his protection, his protection. He said, Lord,
(23:39):
if you'll be with me, and if you'll watch over me,
if you'll protect me. God. What does it mean that
God protected me? It doesn't mean that you never broke
your toe and set out. It doesn't mean that he
kept every weapon from being formed. It means that, in
spite of whatever weapon was formed, you had the faith
(24:00):
to endure it. And I want you to thank Him
for your shield and your buckler. I want you to
thank him that there have been angels around you that
kept you from car accidents that you didn't see come in.
I want you to thank him for slow drivers that
got in front of you and you cussed at them,
and they kept you from getting to the next intersection
(24:20):
where there was going to be a drunk driver. But
you were too busy cussing at the slow driver to
know about the drunk driver. So I want you to
thank God for the protection that you haven't even recognized yet.
I want you to just go back over your life
and realize that there were some things that God did.
I want you to praise him for the crazy person
(24:41):
that you asked him to make fall in love with you,
because you had not turned the corner and seen there
crazy yet. And you found out four years later that
when God said no, when you said please, God was
doing you the greatest favor of your life. He was
protecting you. Don't you see that He wasn't punishing me
(25:01):
because he hated me. He was punishing me to protect me.
There is a punishment, a discipline that comes from God
that is meant to protect. If God is convicting you
right now of a sin in your life, I want
you to praise Him for his protection. He's looking out
for you. He hasn't given up on you. He's not
gonna let your heart get so hard that you keep
(25:22):
on doing it till you die from it. I want
you to praise God for his protection. I want you
to thank him that he kept your mind from going
absolutely buck wild over twenty twenty five. Your mom lost
her mind. You didn't lose yours. You kept your sanity.
He brought you here, He woke you up, look at
(25:44):
your neighbor and say, you know what's crazy. I woke
up this morning, food on my table, close on my back.
I thank God for his prisoness w I thank God
for his protection, and I thank him for his provision.
How many no? God to be a good good father
(26:05):
brains on the righteous and the unrighteous, the just and
the unjust. He blessed me when I did it right.
He blessed me when I turned left. He provided for me.
He gave me some things. He opened some doors and
nobody could shut. He closed some doors and nobody could open.
(26:25):
He provided for me. He didn't always give me what
I wanted, but he gave me what I needed. He
is my Jehovah Jyra. I had to blade in the air,
but there was a ram in the bush. God made
a way for me. Didn't look like it would work,
felt like it shouldn't work, probably wasn't gonna work. Already
(26:48):
planned out my speech, but he left me in the
middle of the road, and he gave me a ring,
and he gave me a row. Praise him for his
pro Oh yeah, I'm trying to get you to praise God.
I'm trying to get you to praise God. I'm trying
to you know how they use rage bait to try
(27:11):
to get you to go off and crash out. You
know that rage bait. How my kids will rage bait
each other. Well, the Lord told me today, I have
an assignment for you, Fordick. I want you to praise
bait my people and try to find if you can
finally push the button, because some of them are waiting
(27:32):
like they don't have anything to praise me for. But
if you can get them to look back. Don't even
have to look back that far. Just look back over
your last step and you'll see that isn't it have nothing?
(27:53):
Come on high five three people and say I'm passed.
Do I'm pasted, dou I'm passed to what you mean? I?
Oh God, this praise. I'm a praise bader, trying to
get you to think about how good he is, trying
(28:13):
to get you to think about the mercy he showed you,
Trying to get you to think about what you have left,
Trying to get you to think about how the rain
came and the wind blew and the storm rolls by
my house. Didn't know by a surviser. I'm bad not
bade praise, and now I'm praising you. Know, somebody probably
(28:45):
thinks you look stupid praising him like that. Somebody probably
thinks you look stupid praising him like that. But look
at your neighbor and say, after all I've seen, I'd
be stupid not to after all he does for me,
I'd be stupid not to say thank you. I'd be
(29:08):
stupid not to get an I'd be stupid. Looks pretty
(29:30):
stupid if you hadn't seen him make away. But if
you were coming up on something and you didn't see
it away, and all you had in your hand was
a staff and you saw him take something as stupid
as a staff and split something as big as a se.
(29:51):
It'll make you shake your tambourine when you get on
the other side. And by the way, one time, the
Lord really spanked me, The Lord really checked me. The
Lord really corrected me. Yeah, he's got to ride in
a staff. One is to comfort and one is to confront.
(30:12):
And I was telling the Lord one day, I'll be
so thankful when I get through this. When I get
through this, then I'll be so thankful. The Lord says,
switch it. When you get thankful, you'll get through this.
Because the way you're thinking right now, you ain't gonna
(30:34):
make it. You ain't gonna make it unless you get
a little crazy, you get a little stupid, start thanking
God for stupid stuff. Uh huh. And I want to
take it a little bit further. Not only did the
things in my life that now look the most strategic
at the time seem the stupidest, but some other people
(30:55):
said they were stupid. Well, I told my friends that
want named the church Elevation. And you know, now we
got a lot of cool church names, but they weren't
churches called things like Elevation, not that many. I'm never
there with some. I'm not saying I'm the originator, but
I just thought, Wow, it'd be great to call it elevation.
You know, lift up, Jesus, lift up people, you're going high,
(31:20):
you know, elevation. Remember one dude looked at me and said,
sounds stupid. It sounds like the name of a youth group.
It sounds like if you two had a youth group.
That's what he said. It's a fine line. I said.
I like it. I like it. I like it. I
like it. There's a stupid name for a church elevation
(31:43):
that never worked. I had a flashback the other day.
I don't know if y'all remember this Janet this dude,
because think about now. You've got Jacob and he says
this thing. I'm gonna take this rock and I'm gonna
pour oil on it, freaking out man, And this rock
is gonna be your house. God, I'm gonna turn this
(32:05):
stone into your house, and of everything you give me.
I mean, he's just disoriented. He doesn't know what to do.
So he just says, if you will show me enough,
if you give me your presence, your protection, your provision,
I will trust you. And he pours this oil on
a rock. Well, it made me think about some of
(32:26):
the things we did that seem stupid at the time
when the church was young, because I want to share
it with these lovely people, because God still wants to
use stupid today in your family, in your athletic career,
in your business, and your spiritual life, in your emotions.
God wants to use what people call stupid. One of
the first things that I remember was when the man
(32:48):
came to give us a strategy on giving. He said,
the strategic move when you're starting a church. Now, listen
to this. Tell me this doesn't sound strategic on the surface,
because the world's with them sounds strategic on the surface.
Is how do it? And this is what you get
right and then you'll be blessed. But so here's what
(33:09):
he said to do, and to me it felt like
a compromise of my integrity. He said, you're not going
to have any money. That was true. He said, you
don't have that many members, and that was true. He said,
so each of you know somebody who is a member
of another church, asked them for the next twenty four
months to redirect their tithe that they would give to
their church and give it to you instead. Their church
(33:29):
won't miss it, and it'll make or break you. I
thanked him for his time. At the time, we were
so broke. I didn't even have any money to pay
him to come and give us the speech. So I
gave him a Chili's gift card and I said thank
you for coming. I saw broke. We were so In
a way, what he said sounded really good. I do
know some people I've been traveling doing ministry. I've got
(33:49):
some contacts. Maybe I should reach out and do it
that way, but the spirit of the Lord wouldn't let
me do it like that. You ever had the spirit
tell you to do something that seems stupid? See that
seems smart. But here's what the Lord told me to
tell our team Instead. I shut the door, I let
him leave. I said what he just said. If we
(34:10):
do it that way, it might work for a while,
but it's going to set up a pattern where we
did not build it on the rock. We got to
trust God. Tell your neighbor. I got to trust God,
So I asked him, didn't I said, so, can we
(34:31):
do this instead? While we're still at this church waiting
to go start our church? We were being sent from
a church with permission and blessing. I said, while we're
still under the covering of this church, let's keep giving
ten percent of our income to this church, and let's
give an additional ten to the one we're starting. And
they all did it. As far as I know. I
(34:52):
didn't check the W two's to do the math, but
they all did it. So when I said you today
that it is my desire as a pastor that every
single family in this church, every single individual in this church,
would put God first through the tithe and give ten percent,
(35:13):
I'm not telling you that because of a need we have.
I'm telling you that because it's the foundation that everything
you see today was built on. And I say it
with confidence and I say it with clarity. Well, I
like that first part of the sermon you were preaching,
(35:34):
Pastor Steve, and that was really good and fun, like
that calorie cancelation blessing. Can we go back to that? No,
we can't, because now I got to talk to you.
We all love the part where God said to Jacob,
I'll be with you. But what about the part where
Jacob said to God, if you'll be with me, then
I'm with you. I always thought ten percent sounded like
(35:58):
a lot until I figured out it all came from God,
and maybe the ninety that he lets me keep is
a lot, and maybe the ten that he asked me
to give isn't that big. Right, I'm just talking to
you about trust in God. Trust in God is not
(36:18):
because you sang the chorus really loud. Trust in God
is not because you clapped your hands on the beat.
Trust in God is not because you have a good
feeling about this. Trust in God is when you say
I'm in and I know it looks stupid, but you
gave it all to me. You gave it all to
(36:39):
me anyway, another stupid thing. Can I just tell you
a little bit of a testimony of stupid stuff that
God used in our life? This might help you. How
many of y'all are kind of newly married, like you say,
like a year or two or something like that. Just
raise your hand at me real quick, newly marry? How
many of y'all hope to be raising your hand when
I asked that question years from now? All right, check
(37:03):
out the market research in here. This is a great
place to come to meet all of your life needs.
I came to her and I said, woman, the Lord
don't want us to be in debt. The Lord don't
want us to have cars we can't afford. The Lord
don't want us to have furniture that we haven't paid
for yet. What's the thing that they have where you
(37:24):
can pay for a jacket and put it eighteen dollars
a month and be paying for it for eighteen years. Klarna,
he says, it's called klarna. You said karma. I said,
We're not clarna. We're not laying away. The only way
we're going to buy for something is if we can
afford it. And that meant that our house was filled
(37:46):
at the beginning of our marriage with furniture that came
from Eric's dad's trailer and he was over the trailer park,
so he would repoe people's furniture and save it. And
so our marriage was built on the foundation of furniture
from the trailer park that was repoed from people who
didn't pay the rent. That's who your pastor is. That's
(38:09):
how smart I am. Follow me? Is I follow christ?
That's who I am, buddy. That's who I am, buddy.
But I paid for everything we ever put in our house,
and I don't mean that to say, if you're in
debt that you did it wrong. I'm just telling you,
as a matter of fact, it would feel stupid sometimes.
When I knew we could just put it on a card.
See what the world calls, Wyse, what the world calls strategic,
(38:34):
God calls stupid, And what the world calls stupid God
calls strategic? Ain't that crazy? And as a matter of fact,
once brother Dave Ramsey got me convinced on the emergency fund,
how many of y'all did the emergency fund that Dave
Ramsey talked about. It's a great practice, man. It's like,
save what is it, three months to six months of
your living expenses and put it away so that when
(38:56):
the tire goes flat, you don't have to go in
debt to replace it. Did that like in our first
two years of marriage. And I was so proud when
that number hit. I figured out what the number would be.
Boom boom, boom boom boom this how much we need
to save? Saved it up got to the level and
that night when I went to tell her in the
kitchen that we've hit our emergency fund, go, I felt
a prompting from the Lord that I tried to rebuke
(39:17):
as Satan, and the prompting said give it all away.
I said, that's stupid, Not to the Lord. I thought
it was the devil. I thought it was the devil
because Dave said I had to save it. I full disclosure. Now,
(39:40):
many times over the Lord has blessed us, and I
have not kept my savings at Zero's every time since
that day. But I remember walking in and saying, you
know that emergency fund, it's about to be a missions gift. Stupid,
isn't it. I don't know. You tell me because when
we wrote those checks at that kitchen table, I remember
(40:02):
the place, so you never forget the place where God
makes you a promise. That's why Jacob named the place Bethel.
He said, this is God's house. You say it's stupid
to call a rock the house of God. Not when
God spoke to you there. Stupid unless you had God
speak to you there. And the Lord spoke to me
two sentences. He said, if you keep your hands open
(40:23):
to me, then you will always have everything you need.
You will always be able to do everything I've called
you to do. He spoke that to me at that
kitchen table that came from the trailer park, repossessed furniture
that was scratched up and dinged up, and I had
(40:45):
money to buy a new one, and the Lord said,
this time, I want you to give it. We didn't
have kids yet. It wasn't like we were being irresponsible.
You're like, I can already see people misapplying this message.
Do you know what I mean? Like the Lord says,
the Lord said he would use stupid. Baby, that's the
word I've been waiting for. Did you hear what pastor
(41:05):
said today? I'm getting a boat. I'm getting a boat.
Man of God said I could get a boat. Don't
pervert this word. You know what I'm talking about. Keep
me in context. And I want to ask you a question.
(41:26):
Was it stupid? I don't know. One of the things
we gave to was this. Look around. Some of your
kids have been baptized here. I don't think it was stupid.
(41:48):
Some of you had your life put back together here.
I don't think it was stupid. Some of you afraid
to receive Christ here. I don't call that stupid. He
is no fool who he gives what he cannot keep
to gain what he cannot lose. You call it stupid.
(42:08):
I call it surrender. And Jacob takes the oil. Remember
he has very little with him. He's on the run,
and he takes the little bit of oil that he
has and pours it on the rock. The rock is stupid,
The oil is stupid. The whole thing is stupid unless
God is in it. But God uses stupid and he
(42:33):
says this.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
He says, I'll trust you, and I'll give to you
if you will be with me, and if you will
give me food, and if you will give me clothes.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And if you will watch out for me and watch
over me, if then you will be my God. So
I want to ask a question, and I need some
participation on this. How many of you, if we take
Jacob's rubric, if we take Jacob's grid, if we take
Jacob's prayer, if we take Jacob's not negotiation, but if
we take Jacob's surrender to the Lord as a template,
(43:07):
how many of you would say that God has been
with you? Make some noise? How many of you would
say that God put food on your table. You're cheering
a little soft about that one. Maybe you're hungry right now,
(43:31):
but I'm saying you're gonna have something to eat before
the sun goes down. How many of you have clothes
on your body, even if the waist fits a little
tighter in November than it did in January. Come on,
I got clothes on my body, food on my table.
How many would say God has kept me alive. Jacob said,
(43:59):
if you will be present, if you will protect, and
if you will provide, if verse twenty one, then you
will be my God. And the Lord said to tell
you if he's been with you presence, if he's provided
for you food and clothing, if he's watched out for
you protection, if he's done that for you, then this
(44:25):
is then. You don't need more proof. This is then
say it. This is then, and I know you've been
postponing your joy. Oh I'll be happy then. No, this
is then when my kids come back to God, I'm
(44:47):
gonna throw a big party and celebrate. No, no, no,
God is working in their life right now. I'm gonna
go down this road with the praise for the prodigal
because this is then when I get this amount in
the bank, I'll be secure. No, you won't. You'll pay taxes.
So the fact that you have enough, you had gas
(45:09):
in the tank to get here. You had energy in
your body to get here. This is then you better
take that rock that you got and that oil that
you got and pour what you've got on where you're
at and praise God at a kitchen table that was
(45:33):
repowed from somebody's trailer park and ask God, what would
you have me to do next for you? Wow? This
is then the Lord made Jacob a promise. I'm gonna
bring the blessing of the Lord through your offspring. He
(45:54):
had no kids, but then he had twelve, and then
those twelve has some and those became nations, and the
nations became a tribe. Each of the nations became their
own tribe. And then those tribes they took the land
that God had promised to Jacob, that he had promised
to Isaac, that he had promised to Abraham. God is
(46:16):
a prophise keeper. He's a promise keeper in your life.
He's not just getting started in your life. Is already
in progress. The thing that you're praying about is already
in progress. The thing that you're worried about, He's already
working on the thing that you need. He already knows it.
The thing that you lack, he already supplies the thing
that you're not. He already is. God's already worked in
(46:37):
on this, because then that nation gave birth to a savior.
Jesus came from the tribe of Judah, and the Messiah
was born, and the Messiah died on a cross. And
the Bible says something very interesting from Jesus's own mouth
in Matthew twenty one, Verses forty three and forty four,
he said to them, have you never read into Scriptures
(46:57):
forty two? The stone? What did Jacob lay his head on?
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Somebody shout,
(47:20):
the Lord has done this, And it is marvelous in
our eyes. I see it now. I see that Jacob's
rock was pointing to Jesus. I see that Jacob, who
was the second born, not the chosen one, was the
one who was blessed, was pointing to Jesus, who was
(47:42):
born of a virgin, who became the rock on which
the church was built. And now I see what Jesus
means when he says that God selected what man rejected,
because Jesus was what the people rejected, But it's what
God wanted all along. So Jesus is saying that the
thing that you need is right in front of you,
(48:04):
but you are rejecting it, and you cannot expect the
blessing of God and reject the way he sends it.
So God says, I know you're in a hard place
right now, a rocky place right now, a place that
you can't fully call home right now. I understand that.
Look at me, Look at me, Look at me. I've
been praying for you this week. I've been praying that
(48:25):
God would say what it is right now that he
wants you to anoint, because you can anoint a rock
and it can become a place where God meets with you.
That means you're anointed for the hard place. That means
you're anointed for the difficult thing. That means God is
teaching you to trust him in transition. And I hear
(48:45):
the spirit of the Lord saying, what more do I
have to do to get you to trust me? When
is it going to be then for you? If experience
was going to teach us to trust God, we would
have trusted him by now. He's done enough for you
to trust him. He's done enough for you to trust him.
(49:07):
He can be trusted the fact that he put you
on this planet, the fact that he kept you to
this day, the fact that he provided for you through
every season of your life. He's done enough. And if
he never does anything else, I trust him. If he
never goes any He died for me, he forgave me,
(49:31):
He cast my sins from the east to the west.
And you don't need more proof to trust him. You
just need more practice. You need more practice saying God,
(49:53):
I trust you. You know how we get through something
really hard, and we get through it and then we
forget that. We told God if we got through it,
we would serve him. Not this time, baby, This is then.
You said if God would give you the responsibility, you
(50:14):
would shoulder it. Well, this is then. You got it. Baby,
You're the one for the job. You said that if
God would give you the blessing, you would take care
of it. This is then, and God is calling you
to trust him with it because it didn't start with
you and it's not on you to sustain it. But
I'm praying that you would show.
Speaker 6 (50:33):
Up with oil to every hard place in your life
this week, and I'm praying that you would do something
stupid to see God do something supernatural.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
That is the word of the Lord. Give him praise
and glory in this house. Give him praise and glory
and thanks. If he's been good to you, then lift
up a shout of praise for your own self, for
(51:14):
your own journey. Everyone's standing, no one moving. We'll dismiss altogether.
This is then. This is then. Jacob said, if you'll
(51:38):
just be with me, watch over me, and provide for me,
then you'll be my God. And I'm here to tell
you He's done all three for me. Thank him for
his presence, Thank him for his protection, Thank him for
his provision. Everybody in this church that ain't a tithe
(52:03):
ought to be online setting up your tithing when I
finished this message, and I ought not have to beg
for it. God's been too good to you. What would
it take? How much more would God have to do
to get you to trust him? I can't afford not
to trust him. He's my God, He's my God. I've
seen too much. This is the Lord's doing, aren't you glad?
(52:31):
God uses stupid that I don't have to figure it out.
Just have enough faith to move forward. I want to pray.
I was thinking about how do I close this message.
This is such a personal thing to talk about. It's
such a festive season to be in. It's festive, it's fun,
it's all that, but it's also so full. Start getting
(52:54):
panic attacks just seeing Rudolph, you know what I mean,
Just want to shoot Rudolph and be like, leave me alone.
Come back next December. I'm not ready for you yet.
And I know we're all feeling all those different things.
And here I am challenging you. You're like this, this dude,
this preacher coming up, You're talking about giving to God.
(53:15):
Doesn't he understand how stretched we already are? Exactly That's
why you need God in this situation. And until you
put him first, you're never going to figure it out.
I think it's significant that Jacob had to anoint what
he had before God could give him what he promised.
Even if all you have isn't that much. What did
(53:38):
Jesus say when the disciples said, we don't have enough
food to feed all these what do you have? Bring
them here to me? And when they brought him the
fish and the loads, he took it, he blessed it,
he broke it, he gave it to them, And the
Bible says, then they gave to the people as much
as they wanted. The Lord said, this is then on
(54:03):
December the fourteenth, we'll be taking an offering for our
expansion and our outreach, and it'll be wonderful, but we're
really taking an offering for your faith. Don't wait to
do tomorrow what God is telling you to do right now,
whether it's in the area of your finances, which is
thousands of you. There are thousands of people connected to
this ministry who do not yet trust God in this way.
Today is your day. But as I was praying how
(54:25):
to close it, the Lord said, don't pray about the money,
pray about the trust. Pray about the trust. That you've
seen God do enough to trust him. What else would
he have to do? Come here. This is my best
friend since high school. You'll give him a hand. Eric Phillips.
(54:49):
When we were boys, I gave my life to Christ.
He was still he was still building his testimony. I
love him to death. Man, he was wild buck wild.
I sat down with him, and this was on Black Friday.
We were sixteen years old, and I remember I was
a very very passionate evangelist, even before I had a church,
(55:11):
always telling everybody that they needed to get right or
get left, turn or burn. And I'm telling this guy
right across the table, I'm like, you know, the Lord
wants you to get saved, and you can't keep living
like this. I said, what's it going to take for
you to give your life to the Lord. What's it
going to take for God to get your attention? He said,
I don't know. I'm having a lot of fun living
my life. I think he's going to have to do
(55:32):
something pretty dramatic. I said, if he does something dramatic,
then will you give your life to Christ? If then
the next night he went out and got so drunk
he had to go to the emergency room. Members died
of alcohol poisoning. The next Monday, we were sharing a
testimony at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes where everybody was
(55:53):
crying about how Doc came into his life. A week later,
he was back running from God again because the temptation
was too strong. Two or three years later, he came
and said, I'm finally ready. Now, I'm finally ready to
give my life to Christ. I'm finally ready. I said,
I've seen this song and dance before. You have to
(56:14):
prove it to me. This time. So I'm really ready now,
I'm really ready. I'm really ready to receive Jesus and
we pray and he was one of the first people
who came here to start the church with us, and
he's still here. But but I heard the question, what's
(56:37):
it going to take for you? What's it going to take?
How much more will God have to do? And I'm
asking you now, how much more is God going to
have to do to get your attention? How much more
is God going to have to show you that he
can be trusted and others cannot. How much more is
God going to have to do to get you to
see that He has you where he wants you and
(56:59):
you are the one he chose for that situation. How
much more is God going to have to do? What
is your if? Hasn't He already done it? Hasn't he
already proven to you his love. Hasn't he already shown
you through every season of your life that He's enough.
Didn't you have warmth in the winter? Didn't you have
(57:20):
cool in the summer? Didn't you have his hand undergirding you.
Didn't you have his love calling you back home? Do
you not have the forgiveness of your sins. Do you
not have the assurance of your salvation? What more would
God have to do to get you to trust him?
I'm telling you this is Then goal your head and
(57:42):
close your eyes. Thank you. I wanted to give that
picture because there's somebody who's there right now. You need
to give your life to Jesus. You need to trust
him with your life. Some of you you've trusted him
with your life, but you're just not trusting him with
this part of it. Going to say that again, that
(58:02):
was the word of the Lord to somebody's heart. You've
trusted him with your life, but not this part of it.
How much more is he going to have to do
to show you He's the God of every season, the
God of every generation. I pray that you would trust God.
(58:22):
Why don't you just lift your hands to him right now?
You don't have to. I can't make you, nobody can
make you surrender. But if you will, if you give
it to God, he tell you what he told me.
If you'll keep your hands open to me, you will
always have everything you need to do everything that I've
called you to do for every season of your life.
(58:46):
I speak that over you right now in the name
of Jesus. So Father, here we are rich and poor,
great and small, happy and sad, gathered together against all odds,
built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, the one
foundation that the storm can't shake, the foundation of your name.
(59:07):
We came to say that this is then we're not
going to trust you in rejoicing you and praise you
and worship you and serve you when everything looks good,
sounds good, feels good. No, no, right now, not when we
see how it turns out. Right now, you're good. So
I give you this right now, and tomorrow I'll give
it to you again, and five minutes later I'll give
it back to you. Surrender. With every step you can
(59:30):
put your your hands down, but keep your head balant
and your eyes closed. I want to pray for somebody
who needs to give your life to Jesus Christ. Please,
right now, don't let this moment pass you by. What
is God going to have to do to get your attention?
What is God going to have to do to show
you how much He loves you? He brought you here
(59:50):
so right now I want to lead you in a prayer.
This prayer is you expressing to God your faith in
Jesus Christ. It's not a magical prayer, but aracle happens
when you pray it. For the Bible says that if
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. It'll happen right now. This is
(01:00:12):
your then, this is the moment for you to give
your life to Christ. Stop running and believe, Stop doubting,
and have faith. God is here and he loves you
so much. We're going to pray out loud as a
church family for the benefit of those who are coming
to God, are coming back to God. Repeat after me,
Heavenly Father. I am a sinner in need of a savior,
(01:00:36):
and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God and the savior of the world. And today I
make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he
died that I would be forgiven and rose again to
(01:00:57):
give me life. I receive this new life. This is
my new beginning. I am a child of God. On
the counter, three shoot your hand up one two three.
If you've prayed that prayer, praise the Lord. I knew
it would be a lot today I could feel up
what I preach. This is your homecoming, man, this is
(01:01:21):
your homecoming. I praise God for you, so do all
of these people. We welcome you to the family of God.
Come on, give the Lord of great soul of praise. Hallelujah.
(01:01:41):
Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
link in the description to give now, or visit Elevation
Church dot org slash podcast for more information and if
you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share
it with your friends. You can click the share button,
(01:02:03):
take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening.
God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Nothing like the Lord, Nobody beside him, nobody like him.
(00:22):
Can't contain him, can't describe him. You know, I can
tell you about the river, or we can just step
right in. And that's the way it is with the Lord.
I can tell you, but sometimes you've got to taste
and see that the Lord is good. Open your mouth
wide and let him feel it today. Come on, open
(00:45):
your mouth wide and let him feel it today. Glory, Glory, glory, glory.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you for my health. Thank you
for my strength. Thank you for my salvation. Thank you Lord,
thank you for keeping me. Thank you for my sanity.
Thank you for clothes on my body. Thank you for
food in my belly. Thank you Lord, Thank you Jesus.
(01:10):
Thank you for my wife. Thank you for my three kids.
Thank you for my mom. Thank you for this church. God,
thank you for the ministry that goes forth from this place.
This is holy ground. You're a worthy God. You're a
mighty God. You're a magnificent God. You're an all sufficient God.
(01:30):
You're a wonder working God. You're away making God. There's
nothing too hard for you. I trust you, your God.
I love you, your God. I'll worship you. I believe you,
take you at your word, I respect you. I need you. Come,
(02:00):
Holy Spirit for the moments that we share together. Speak
to every heart. I give you all the credit in advance.
I know that anything good that happens today won't be
because of an idea that I had from my human mind.
It'll be because you used my vocal corese and my
(02:21):
lips of claim. But God, they've got to have an
open heart. Won't do any good for us to sing
all this beautiful music and say all the profound words
with all of the correct theology if their heart isn't open.
So I thank you that heaven is open. May our
(02:44):
hearts speak to every distraction. Every disappointment. Got to go
out the room right now, because Jesus is here. You
have our attention. Lord, have your way Jesus' name, and
(03:08):
all God's people sit together. Come on from Valentine to riverwalk.
All God's people said together all over the world, our evam,
we want you to know you're welcome here, welcome to church.
Come on, Valentine, let's send the amnesphe are for all
of those words joining us today. I want to go
(03:31):
back to Genesis chapter twenty eight as we study God's
word together today. I'm so excited about the word that
the Lord has given me to gift to you. I
pray that I won't mess it up. I don't want
to dilute it. I don't want to pollute it. I
don't want to take from it. I don't want to
add to it. Just what he said. And I pray
that in these moments that you would just create that
(03:54):
quiet place inside of you, away from all the noise.
I know you got three people you need to text back.
I know you've got somebody you don't want to see
that you got to meet up with it two forty
five today. None of that matters. Right now. The Lord
is in this place and wherever you are, I say
it with equal confidence. You say, well, I'm not in
a church building. The Lord is in that place. You say, well,
(04:20):
I'm not in a really good place. Right now, man,
I really haven't been doing good. I've really just been
struggling back with some old things.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Again, the Lord is in that place.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So as we receive God's word and we stand on
God's promise, and we thank him for his presence, let's
study together in Genesis chapter twenty eight thirteen. Y'all think
when I preach a scripture two weeks in a row,
it's because I didn't want to study the second week.
It's really just because I didn't get it done the
first week. I'm going to read some of the first
half where Jacob is running from his brother Esau, who
(04:53):
wants to kill him. And Esau is good with the
bow and arrow. By the way, Jacob is good with
kitchen utensils and good with weapons. So when Jacob steals
the blessing from Esau, he gets blessed. But have you
ever been blessed? But that's why Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. Man.
(05:17):
It's such a blessing to have all of our family together.
But well, I'm gonna let y'all sort that out. On Thursday,
this is the day that the Lord has made everybody
put in the chat blessed. But tell your neighbor real quick.
I'm blessed, but he's blessed, but he's also in the
(05:38):
time of isolation. And he's on his way four hundred
miles from his father's house to stay with his uncle
Laban for a little while till he figures out exactly
what he's going to do next. And I preached last
week on your next messy step, just to let you
know that it's not always clear, and that's okay if
you just be strong and courageous every place you set
(05:59):
your foot, God will give it to you as you go.
But you can't get paralyzed now, and you can't let
the fact that you can't see the next five hundred
steps keep you from taking the next one. Now, as
Jacob is trying to get some sleep on the hard
ground with a pillow made out of a rock under
his head, the Bible says that there was a ladder
(06:21):
that came from heaven, and there above it verse thirteen
stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord,
the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.
Notice he does not yet say I'm the God of Jacob,
because Jacob has not made that decision yet for himself.
(06:42):
That's what we're going to find out. Is he going
to be your God too? And he told him, I'm
the generational God who made a promise to your grandfather
and your father. I will give you and your descendants
the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will
be like the dust of the earth, and you will
(07:03):
spread out to the west and to the east, to
the north and to the south. It makes me think
chunks about all these campuses that God has given us
all over the place. The Lord even gave us one
in Canada Happy Month, late Canadian Thanksgiving, to our Toronto campuses.
(07:25):
But just God is going to do something so mind blowing,
something so much bigger than just our church or our campus.
Is this is God's original promise to his people, to
his nation Israel. And now, of course we're standing in
that promise today as most of us who are maybe
gentiles by birth or grafted in through Christ. So that
promise is being spoken over Jacob. He said, You're gonna
(07:48):
spread out like dust. It's gonna be messy, but I'm
going to do it. It's gonna be dirty, but I'm
going to do it, and all peoples on earth will
be blessed through you. When are you gonna stop just
coming to church to be blessed and start asking God,
make me a blessing. I want to be a blessing
(08:10):
today to somebody. God, he said, all the nations of
the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring,
even though you don't have children yet. God will speak
about things that have not even started yet in the natural,
and he'll speak it supernaturally. And this is the promise
I want you to receive for yourself today Verse fifteen.
(08:30):
I am with you and will watch over you wherever
you go, and I'll bring you back to this land.
I will not leave you until I have done what
I promised you. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought,
surely the Lord is in this place. Just took me
(08:51):
a while to catch up with it. He was afraid
and said, how awesome is this place? This is none
other than the House of God. This is the g
of Heaven. Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone
he had placed under his head and set it up
as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.
We didn't talk about any of this last week. We're
(09:12):
gon't talk about all of it today. He called that
place Bethel, which means house of God. Yeah, that's not
just a worship ministry out there in California. That's in
the Bible. The place was called the House of God.
That's what it's named after. And it's not just in
one location, it's anywhere that God visits. Yeah, he called
(09:32):
that place Bethel though the city used to be called
LUs and LUs means almond tree. Wow, that's a big
jump from a nut tree to the House of God.
Tell somebody next to you, this is crazy. This is crazy.
This is crazy now Verse twenty. Then Jacob made a
vow saying, if God will be with me and will
(09:56):
watch over me on the journey I am taking, and
will give me food to eat and clothes to wear,
so that I return safely to my father's household, then
the Lord will be my God, and this stone that
I have set up as a pillar will be God's house.
And of all that you give me, God, I know
(10:18):
you're my source. Of all that you give me, I
have nothing without you. Of all that you give me,
I will give you a tenth amen. Verse eleven is
where I want to take my title from so that
I return safely to my father's household. Then the Lord
will be my God. Then the Lord will be my God.
(10:40):
Then the Lord will be my God. The Lord told
me to preach to you today three words. This is, then,
this is then. And I can tell that's a little
bit like mystical or whatever. So just turn to your neighbor,
give them my subtitle. Tell them God uses stupid. Yeah,
(11:05):
tell them this one might be for you, because God,
I have a strong feeling. Father, if you can speak
through a donkey, speak through me in Jesus' name, Amen,
touch three people, say this is your word today, This
is then? God uses stupid Now, Pastor Steve, I wish
(11:29):
you wouldn't say words like stupid up there in the pulpit.
That's not a sanctified word, and I don't appreciate it.
I'll bring my kids into service. Well, you ought to
drop them in E kids. We have excellent volunteers and
juice boxes. Do we give them juice boxes and E kids?
I don't know. I hadn't checked. You know how our
(11:53):
ministry seems so strategic when you see it up there
on the screens, and we have E groups and E kids.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
And eteams and E bikes and no E cigarettes yet
in the church, but it sounds so strategic.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I said something last week and I got a testimony
of a miracle from one of our campus pastors. So
I want to say it again to you, because miracles
are already happening in this season. Miracles are already happening
in this season. And he was telling me a very
difficult season that he's been through, and then God began
to bring some resolution and he saw it. And the
(12:31):
thing that I said that helped him for his faith
is that a lot of times what you explain later
as strategy, you experience as surrender. How many heard me
say that last week from this very pulpit, and I'm
gonna say it again. You experience a lot of things
as surrender in real time. What I mean by surrender,
(12:54):
you don't know what else to do, and then when
you get through it, you look back and you start saying, well,
step one, step two, step three, step four. You know,
somebody else might struggle with an addiction that you came through,
and you're kind of coaching them later. And now you're
kind of arrogant because you got, you know, nine or
ten years under your belt, and you're like, well, the
(13:15):
first thing you need to do, and then the second thing.
And I found it very helpful. And you may mean, well,
but just make sure you tell them that the first
thing you do is help God. I need you. I
don't know what to do without you. And some of
the things that look strategic in your life you actually
stumbled into. If you'll be honest about it, it was
(13:35):
the hand of God guiding you. It was the voice
of God calling you. It was his net that caught you.
It was his word that kept you. Many of the
things in our ministry that felt very strategic in year
five and in year ten were actually things that at
the time just felt like, what do we do next? God,
(13:59):
we are a multi let's welcome all of our locations today,
all twenty locations our EPAM all over the world. We
strategically place these locations on a multi site church with
the campuses that we have in the model that we have,
so we could reach people. Right, it was strategic, No,
it was surrender. We were out of space, no more
(14:21):
room to put people. What can we do, Well, maybe
we can get another high school auditorium down the road.
It was surrender. What do we do? Who do we bribe?
Who do we pay off, How can we get that
other auditorium? Why isn't the video working? Why isn't the
video working again the next week?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
And it's messy like that, and his steps like that,
and it's trusting like that, and is falling like that,
and it's standing like that, and it's waiting like that,
and it's moving like that, and it's zigging and it's zagging.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Remember, and it's zigging and it's zagging, and it's having
and it's losing and it's getting back. And this is
what growth feels like, more like surrender, less like strategy.
Later you can explain it a you can write your
book Seven Steps to a Healthier Marriage. But the truth
is you got down on your knees that third month
of marriage and said, God, I don't believe in divorce,
(15:11):
but I don't know where I am a murder. And
if you don't help me with this white man.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And the strategic explanation off in camouflages the surrendered experience, why.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Tell me that? Because I know right now you don't
know what to do about this thing in your life.
And yet I would suggest to you personally and pastorally
that God has already already done enough for you to
trust him. I met with a financial adviser and the
first time I met him, he said, I just need
you to trust me. I said, whoa bukaroo. We ain't
(15:52):
about to build a trust off of one meeting when
you get paid on commission. The only way trust is
going to be building this relationship is through results, and
that's gonna take years, not months. So if you need
me to trust you from this meeting, just know I
don't trust you one bit. I don't trust you. I
(16:12):
don't get paid to trust you. And as a matter
of fact, I want you to know that I am
operating from a fundamental distrust of you because I am
not going to work this hard to provide for my family.
And then just because you have a nice smile and
a button down shirt, I'm supposed to just trust you.
I got button down shirts. Serial killers have button down shirts.
I don't trust you. You got to show me something
(16:35):
to trust in. Is that good wisdom for business? Is
that good wisdom for faith? Jacob seems to be saying
here at this threshold of his own journey, I don't
know if I can trust you yet. God, I don't
know you like that. I don't know yet if I
(16:56):
can fully believe what you say to me. Oh, Shacob,
how dare you doubt the sovereignty of God? People? He's
far from home, he doesn't have a Bible to read.
He just had a dream or a vision in which
he saw a staircase that went from earth to heaven.
(17:18):
And he's supposed to just wake up and say, let's
go God, wherever you take me, I'm with you. So
he does something very interesting, and I want to show
it to you because as I studied it, two words
stood out to me in the text. And a lot
of you have been listening to me preach for a
long time. Show of hands or just put a raised
hand in the chat. How many of you have been
listening to me preach for at least one year? How
(17:41):
many have you been listening to me preach for about
three years or more? Raise your hand, keep them up
five years or more? How many you started listening to
me preach before you wanted to? But somebody in your
house had me preaching and you had to listen to
him because they wouldn't turn it all. That's all right too.
I am not going to take this a step further
and ask if you even want to be here today.
I'm drawing the line, but by the time you've heard
(18:05):
me preach, maybe you can pick up my rhythm. There's
something Jacob says, and I want you to catch it.
It's two words. It's kind of like a continuum that
he establishes here, and I believe it's the continuum that
we're living in as well. In verse twenty, Jacob makes
a vow, and in that vow he said, if God
will be with me and we'll watch over me on
this journey I am taking, and will give me food
(18:26):
to eat and clothes to wear so that I returned
safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be
my God. The two words are in those two verses,
and I wonder if you've been listening to me preach
Jim and Livy for like thirteen, fourteen, eighteen years, can
you guess which words just went to me? Because I'm
picturing this congregation that I'm preaching to remember, some people
(18:50):
lost their job this week, some people got a promotion.
Some people are complaining about their job. Some people would
love to snatch up the job that that person is
complaining about. Somebody right here this week is saying I
got to lose some weight. Somebody's trying to put on
some weight, drinking all the protein they've got. Somebody is
wishing they were single again. Somebody is saying, God, rescue
me from this season of singleness. Somebody is saying, God,
(19:12):
I don't know what to do. Somebody is saying, God,
I know what to do, but I don't want to
do it. Someone pretend like I don't know what you
want me to do, so I can continue to pretend
like I'm waiting for direction when really I'm procrastinating my
faith and calling it patience. Everything is happening in this room.
And what I saw in the text, it was just
two little words. Let's read it again. He said, if
(19:34):
that was the first one, if God will be with
me and will watch over me on this journey I
am taking, and will give me food to eat and
clothes to wear. And now, remember God just told him
I'm gonna give you the north, the south, the east,
(19:55):
and the west. But that's gonna come later. Jacob says,
I don't even need need you to give me real
estate right now. If you will just give me food
to eat and close to wear. Everybody say if, if
you'll do that for me, if you will be with
me and give me food to eat and close to wear,
(20:19):
If you will be with me, give me food to
eat and close to wear, so that I return safely
to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God.
The second word is then if then if then sounds
(20:42):
like the boy thinks he can bargain with the most high.
Sounds like the boy thinks that God is trying out
to be his financial adviser. Here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna sit there and have a quarterly meeting, and
if you profitable to me, then I'll serve you. I
don't read it that way at all. At this date
age in my life. I think Jacob is saying, it
(21:03):
doesn't take much for me to trust you. I just
need you to show me enough, just enough that I'll
know three things. One that you're with me, One that
I've got something to eat and something to wear. I
can't run through this desert naked, and I can't go
to the next stop hungry. So I need you to
(21:24):
be with me. I need you to feed me, and
I need you to watch over me. I need you
to be with me. I need you to watch over me.
I need you to feed me. And if you'll do
that that much, that much, if you'll do that much,
then you'll be my God. If you'll be with me.
(21:45):
That's a prayer for God's presence. When you pray your
Thanksgiving prayer this week, thank God for his presence. When
you sit down to eat a big old ham, what
you're gonna have this week? You know by coming to
church the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Your calori these are automatically
divided by three. Give the Lord a praise for that
fake word I just gave you. I say that every
(22:09):
year on this Sunday. Every year, on this Sunday, for
every amen that you say, all of the sugar is
translated into protein to build your wouldn't that be cool
if it worked like that? And when you sit down
to pray, whoever's going to pray, say, Lord, I want
to thank you first of all for your presence. You've
(22:33):
been with me. How many know the truth that God
has been with you when nobody else was. You might
be there right now, It might have been last night
you were saying, God, I sure am lonely, but even
in your greatest loneliness. There was light, wasn't there come on?
Even when you were a little girl and you were
twelve or thirteen years old and you just felt so
(22:55):
weird and so strange, there was something inside of you
that you knew you weren't alone, even though you felt alone,
that even though you didn't get invited to the parties,
there was something in you that knew that I have
a purpose. You were never alone, not for any of it.
He is present, and I don't need a feeling to
prove his presence. You know, I don't need more proof
(23:17):
of his presence than I already have. He told me
he was with me, So he is with me. It's
just a matter of me becoming aware of it. Surely
the Lord is in this place, and I was not
aware of it. So thank God for his presence. Number two,
Thank him for his protection, his protection. He said, Lord,
(23:39):
if you'll be with me, and if you'll watch over me,
if you'll protect me. God. What does it mean that
God protected me? It doesn't mean that you never broke
your toe and set out. It doesn't mean that he
kept every weapon from being formed. It means that, in
spite of whatever weapon was formed, you had the faith
(24:00):
to endure it. And I want you to thank Him
for your shield and your buckler. I want you to
thank him that there have been angels around you that
kept you from car accidents that you didn't see come in.
I want you to thank him for slow drivers that
got in front of you and you cussed at them,
and they kept you from getting to the next intersection
(24:20):
where there was going to be a drunk driver. But
you were too busy cussing at the slow driver to
know about the drunk driver. So I want you to
thank God for the protection that you haven't even recognized yet.
I want you to just go back over your life
and realize that there were some things that God did.
I want you to praise him for the crazy person
(24:41):
that you asked him to make fall in love with you,
because you had not turned the corner and seen there
crazy yet. And you found out four years later that
when God said no, when you said please, God was
doing you the greatest favor of your life. He was
protecting you. Don't you see that He wasn't punishing me
(25:01):
because he hated me. He was punishing me to protect me.
There is a punishment, a discipline that comes from God
that is meant to protect. If God is convicting you
right now of a sin in your life, I want
you to praise Him for his protection. He's looking out
for you. He hasn't given up on you. He's not
gonna let your heart get so hard that you keep
(25:22):
on doing it till you die from it. I want
you to praise God for his protection. I want you
to thank him that he kept your mind from going
absolutely buck wild over twenty twenty five. Your mom lost
her mind. You didn't lose yours. You kept your sanity.
He brought you here, He woke you up, look at
(25:44):
your neighbor and say, you know what's crazy. I woke
up this morning, food on my table, close on my back.
I thank God for his prisoness w I thank God
for his protection, and I thank him for his provision.
How many no? God to be a good good father
(26:05):
brains on the righteous and the unrighteous, the just and
the unjust. He blessed me when I did it right.
He blessed me when I turned left. He provided for me.
He gave me some things. He opened some doors and
nobody could shut. He closed some doors and nobody could open.
(26:25):
He provided for me. He didn't always give me what
I wanted, but he gave me what I needed. He
is my Jehovah Jyra. I had to blade in the air,
but there was a ram in the bush. God made
a way for me. Didn't look like it would work,
felt like it shouldn't work, probably wasn't gonna work. Already
(26:48):
planned out my speech, but he left me in the
middle of the road, and he gave me a ring,
and he gave me a row. Praise him for his
pro Oh yeah, I'm trying to get you to praise God.
I'm trying to get you to praise God. I'm trying
to you know how they use rage bait to try
(27:11):
to get you to go off and crash out. You
know that rage bait. How my kids will rage bait
each other. Well, the Lord told me today, I have
an assignment for you, Fordick. I want you to praise
bait my people and try to find if you can
finally push the button, because some of them are waiting
(27:32):
like they don't have anything to praise me for. But
if you can get them to look back. Don't even
have to look back that far. Just look back over
your last step and you'll see that isn't it have nothing?
(27:53):
Come on high five three people and say I'm passed.
Do I'm pasted, dou I'm passed to what you mean? I?
Oh God, this praise. I'm a praise bader, trying to
get you to think about how good he is, trying
(28:13):
to get you to think about the mercy he showed you,
Trying to get you to think about what you have left,
Trying to get you to think about how the rain
came and the wind blew and the storm rolls by
my house. Didn't know by a surviser. I'm bad not
bade praise, and now I'm praising you. Know, somebody probably
(28:45):
thinks you look stupid praising him like that. Somebody probably
thinks you look stupid praising him like that. But look
at your neighbor and say, after all I've seen, I'd
be stupid not to after all he does for me,
I'd be stupid not to say thank you. I'd be
(29:08):
stupid not to get an I'd be stupid. Looks pretty
(29:30):
stupid if you hadn't seen him make away. But if
you were coming up on something and you didn't see
it away, and all you had in your hand was
a staff and you saw him take something as stupid
as a staff and split something as big as a se.
(29:51):
It'll make you shake your tambourine when you get on
the other side. And by the way, one time, the
Lord really spanked me, The Lord really checked me. The
Lord really corrected me. Yeah, he's got to ride in
a staff. One is to comfort and one is to confront.
(30:12):
And I was telling the Lord one day, I'll be
so thankful when I get through this. When I get
through this, then I'll be so thankful. The Lord says,
switch it. When you get thankful, you'll get through this.
Because the way you're thinking right now, you ain't gonna
(30:34):
make it. You ain't gonna make it unless you get
a little crazy, you get a little stupid, start thanking
God for stupid stuff. Uh huh. And I want to
take it a little bit further. Not only did the
things in my life that now look the most strategic
at the time seem the stupidest, but some other people
(30:55):
said they were stupid. Well, I told my friends that
want named the church Elevation. And you know, now we
got a lot of cool church names, but they weren't
churches called things like Elevation, not that many. I'm never
there with some. I'm not saying I'm the originator, but
I just thought, Wow, it'd be great to call it elevation.
You know, lift up, Jesus, lift up people, you're going high,
(31:20):
you know, elevation. Remember one dude looked at me and said,
sounds stupid. It sounds like the name of a youth group.
It sounds like if you two had a youth group.
That's what he said. It's a fine line. I said.
I like it. I like it. I like it. I
like it. There's a stupid name for a church elevation
(31:43):
that never worked. I had a flashback the other day.
I don't know if y'all remember this Janet this dude,
because think about now. You've got Jacob and he says
this thing. I'm gonna take this rock and I'm gonna
pour oil on it, freaking out man, And this rock
is gonna be your house. God, I'm gonna turn this
(32:05):
stone into your house, and of everything you give me.
I mean, he's just disoriented. He doesn't know what to do.
So he just says, if you will show me enough,
if you give me your presence, your protection, your provision,
I will trust you. And he pours this oil on
a rock. Well, it made me think about some of
(32:26):
the things we did that seem stupid at the time
when the church was young, because I want to share
it with these lovely people, because God still wants to
use stupid today in your family, in your athletic career,
in your business, and your spiritual life, in your emotions.
God wants to use what people call stupid. One of
the first things that I remember was when the man
(32:48):
came to give us a strategy on giving. He said,
the strategic move when you're starting a church. Now, listen
to this. Tell me this doesn't sound strategic on the surface,
because the world's with them sounds strategic on the surface.
Is how do it? And this is what you get
right and then you'll be blessed. But so here's what
(33:09):
he said to do, and to me it felt like
a compromise of my integrity. He said, you're not going
to have any money. That was true. He said, you
don't have that many members, and that was true. He said,
so each of you know somebody who is a member
of another church, asked them for the next twenty four
months to redirect their tithe that they would give to
their church and give it to you instead. Their church
(33:29):
won't miss it, and it'll make or break you. I
thanked him for his time. At the time, we were
so broke. I didn't even have any money to pay
him to come and give us the speech. So I
gave him a Chili's gift card and I said thank
you for coming. I saw broke. We were so In
a way, what he said sounded really good. I do
know some people I've been traveling doing ministry. I've got
(33:49):
some contacts. Maybe I should reach out and do it
that way, but the spirit of the Lord wouldn't let
me do it like that. You ever had the spirit
tell you to do something that seems stupid? See that
seems smart. But here's what the Lord told me to
tell our team Instead. I shut the door, I let
him leave. I said what he just said. If we
(34:10):
do it that way, it might work for a while,
but it's going to set up a pattern where we
did not build it on the rock. We got to
trust God. Tell your neighbor. I got to trust God,
So I asked him, didn't I said, so, can we
(34:31):
do this instead? While we're still at this church waiting
to go start our church? We were being sent from
a church with permission and blessing. I said, while we're
still under the covering of this church, let's keep giving
ten percent of our income to this church, and let's
give an additional ten to the one we're starting. And
they all did it. As far as I know. I
(34:52):
didn't check the W two's to do the math, but
they all did it. So when I said you today
that it is my desire as a pastor that every
single family in this church, every single individual in this church,
would put God first through the tithe and give ten percent,
(35:13):
I'm not telling you that because of a need we have.
I'm telling you that because it's the foundation that everything
you see today was built on. And I say it
with confidence and I say it with clarity. Well, I
like that first part of the sermon you were preaching,
(35:34):
Pastor Steve, and that was really good and fun, like
that calorie cancelation blessing. Can we go back to that? No,
we can't, because now I got to talk to you.
We all love the part where God said to Jacob,
I'll be with you. But what about the part where
Jacob said to God, if you'll be with me, then
I'm with you. I always thought ten percent sounded like
(35:58):
a lot until I figured out it all came from God,
and maybe the ninety that he lets me keep is
a lot, and maybe the ten that he asked me
to give isn't that big. Right, I'm just talking to
you about trust in God. Trust in God is not
(36:18):
because you sang the chorus really loud. Trust in God
is not because you clapped your hands on the beat.
Trust in God is not because you have a good
feeling about this. Trust in God is when you say
I'm in and I know it looks stupid, but you
gave it all to me. You gave it all to
(36:39):
me anyway, another stupid thing. Can I just tell you
a little bit of a testimony of stupid stuff that
God used in our life? This might help you. How
many of y'all are kind of newly married, like you say,
like a year or two or something like that. Just
raise your hand at me real quick, newly marry? How
many of y'all hope to be raising your hand when
I asked that question years from now? All right, check
(37:03):
out the market research in here. This is a great
place to come to meet all of your life needs.
I came to her and I said, woman, the Lord
don't want us to be in debt. The Lord don't
want us to have cars we can't afford. The Lord
don't want us to have furniture that we haven't paid
for yet. What's the thing that they have where you
(37:24):
can pay for a jacket and put it eighteen dollars
a month and be paying for it for eighteen years. Klarna,
he says, it's called klarna. You said karma. I said,
We're not clarna. We're not laying away. The only way
we're going to buy for something is if we can
afford it. And that meant that our house was filled
(37:46):
at the beginning of our marriage with furniture that came
from Eric's dad's trailer and he was over the trailer park,
so he would repoe people's furniture and save it. And
so our marriage was built on the foundation of furniture
from the trailer park that was repoed from people who
didn't pay the rent. That's who your pastor is. That's
(38:09):
how smart I am. Follow me? Is I follow christ?
That's who I am, buddy. That's who I am, buddy.
But I paid for everything we ever put in our house,
and I don't mean that to say, if you're in
debt that you did it wrong. I'm just telling you,
as a matter of fact, it would feel stupid sometimes.
When I knew we could just put it on a card.
See what the world calls, Wyse, what the world calls strategic,
(38:34):
God calls stupid, And what the world calls stupid God
calls strategic? Ain't that crazy? And as a matter of fact,
once brother Dave Ramsey got me convinced on the emergency fund,
how many of y'all did the emergency fund that Dave
Ramsey talked about. It's a great practice, man. It's like,
save what is it, three months to six months of
your living expenses and put it away so that when
(38:56):
the tire goes flat, you don't have to go in
debt to replace it. Did that like in our first
two years of marriage. And I was so proud when
that number hit. I figured out what the number would be.
Boom boom, boom boom boom this how much we need
to save? Saved it up got to the level and
that night when I went to tell her in the
kitchen that we've hit our emergency fund, go, I felt
a prompting from the Lord that I tried to rebuke
(39:17):
as Satan, and the prompting said give it all away.
I said, that's stupid, Not to the Lord. I thought
it was the devil. I thought it was the devil
because Dave said I had to save it. I full disclosure. Now,
(39:40):
many times over the Lord has blessed us, and I
have not kept my savings at Zero's every time since
that day. But I remember walking in and saying, you
know that emergency fund, it's about to be a missions gift. Stupid,
isn't it. I don't know. You tell me because when
we wrote those checks at that kitchen table, I remember
(40:02):
the place, so you never forget the place where God
makes you a promise. That's why Jacob named the place Bethel.
He said, this is God's house. You say it's stupid
to call a rock the house of God. Not when
God spoke to you there. Stupid unless you had God
speak to you there. And the Lord spoke to me
two sentences. He said, if you keep your hands open
(40:23):
to me, then you will always have everything you need.
You will always be able to do everything I've called
you to do. He spoke that to me at that
kitchen table that came from the trailer park, repossessed furniture
that was scratched up and dinged up, and I had
(40:45):
money to buy a new one, and the Lord said,
this time, I want you to give it. We didn't
have kids yet. It wasn't like we were being irresponsible.
You're like, I can already see people misapplying this message.
Do you know what I mean? Like the Lord says,
the Lord said he would use stupid. Baby, that's the
word I've been waiting for. Did you hear what pastor
(41:05):
said today? I'm getting a boat. I'm getting a boat.
Man of God said I could get a boat. Don't
pervert this word. You know what I'm talking about. Keep
me in context. And I want to ask you a question.
(41:26):
Was it stupid? I don't know. One of the things
we gave to was this. Look around. Some of your
kids have been baptized here. I don't think it was stupid.
(41:48):
Some of you had your life put back together here.
I don't think it was stupid. Some of you afraid
to receive Christ here. I don't call that stupid. He
is no fool who he gives what he cannot keep
to gain what he cannot lose. You call it stupid.
(42:08):
I call it surrender. And Jacob takes the oil. Remember
he has very little with him. He's on the run,
and he takes the little bit of oil that he
has and pours it on the rock. The rock is stupid,
The oil is stupid. The whole thing is stupid unless
God is in it. But God uses stupid and he
(42:33):
says this.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
He says, I'll trust you, and I'll give to you
if you will be with me, and if you will
give me food, and if you will give me clothes.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And if you will watch out for me and watch
over me, if then you will be my God. So
I want to ask a question, and I need some
participation on this. How many of you, if we take
Jacob's rubric, if we take Jacob's grid, if we take
Jacob's prayer, if we take Jacob's not negotiation, but if
we take Jacob's surrender to the Lord as a template,
(43:07):
how many of you would say that God has been
with you? Make some noise? How many of you would
say that God put food on your table. You're cheering
a little soft about that one. Maybe you're hungry right now,
(43:31):
but I'm saying you're gonna have something to eat before
the sun goes down. How many of you have clothes
on your body, even if the waist fits a little
tighter in November than it did in January. Come on,
I got clothes on my body, food on my table.
How many would say God has kept me alive. Jacob said,
(43:59):
if you will be present, if you will protect, and
if you will provide, if verse twenty one, then you
will be my God. And the Lord said to tell
you if he's been with you presence, if he's provided
for you food and clothing, if he's watched out for
you protection, if he's done that for you, then this
(44:25):
is then. You don't need more proof. This is then
say it. This is then, and I know you've been
postponing your joy. Oh I'll be happy then. No, this
is then when my kids come back to God, I'm
(44:47):
gonna throw a big party and celebrate. No, no, no,
God is working in their life right now. I'm gonna
go down this road with the praise for the prodigal
because this is then when I get this amount in
the bank, I'll be secure. No, you won't. You'll pay taxes.
So the fact that you have enough, you had gas
(45:09):
in the tank to get here. You had energy in
your body to get here. This is then you better
take that rock that you got and that oil that
you got and pour what you've got on where you're
at and praise God at a kitchen table that was
(45:33):
repowed from somebody's trailer park and ask God, what would
you have me to do next for you? Wow? This
is then the Lord made Jacob a promise. I'm gonna
bring the blessing of the Lord through your offspring. He
(45:54):
had no kids, but then he had twelve, and then
those twelve has some and those became nations, and the
nations became a tribe. Each of the nations became their
own tribe. And then those tribes they took the land
that God had promised to Jacob, that he had promised
to Isaac, that he had promised to Abraham. God is
(46:16):
a prophise keeper. He's a promise keeper in your life.
He's not just getting started in your life. Is already
in progress. The thing that you're praying about is already
in progress. The thing that you're worried about, He's already
working on the thing that you need. He already knows it.
The thing that you lack, he already supplies the thing
that you're not. He already is. God's already worked in
(46:37):
on this, because then that nation gave birth to a savior.
Jesus came from the tribe of Judah, and the Messiah
was born, and the Messiah died on a cross. And
the Bible says something very interesting from Jesus's own mouth
in Matthew twenty one, Verses forty three and forty four,
he said to them, have you never read into Scriptures
(46:57):
forty two? The stone? What did Jacob lay his head on?
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Somebody shout,
(47:20):
the Lord has done this, And it is marvelous in
our eyes. I see it now. I see that Jacob's
rock was pointing to Jesus. I see that Jacob, who
was the second born, not the chosen one, was the
one who was blessed, was pointing to Jesus, who was
(47:42):
born of a virgin, who became the rock on which
the church was built. And now I see what Jesus
means when he says that God selected what man rejected,
because Jesus was what the people rejected, But it's what
God wanted all along. So Jesus is saying that the
thing that you need is right in front of you,
(48:04):
but you are rejecting it, and you cannot expect the
blessing of God and reject the way he sends it.
So God says, I know you're in a hard place
right now, a rocky place right now, a place that
you can't fully call home right now. I understand that.
Look at me, Look at me, Look at me. I've
been praying for you this week. I've been praying that
(48:25):
God would say what it is right now that he
wants you to anoint, because you can anoint a rock
and it can become a place where God meets with you.
That means you're anointed for the hard place. That means
you're anointed for the difficult thing. That means God is
teaching you to trust him in transition. And I hear
(48:45):
the spirit of the Lord saying, what more do I
have to do to get you to trust me? When
is it going to be then for you? If experience
was going to teach us to trust God, we would
have trusted him by now. He's done enough for you
to trust him. He's done enough for you to trust him.
(49:07):
He can be trusted the fact that he put you
on this planet, the fact that he kept you to
this day, the fact that he provided for you through
every season of your life. He's done enough. And if
he never does anything else, I trust him. If he
never goes any He died for me, he forgave me,
(49:31):
He cast my sins from the east to the west.
And you don't need more proof to trust him. You
just need more practice. You need more practice saying God,
(49:53):
I trust you. You know how we get through something
really hard, and we get through it and then we
forget that. We told God if we got through it,
we would serve him. Not this time, baby, This is then.
You said if God would give you the responsibility, you
(50:14):
would shoulder it. Well, this is then. You got it. Baby,
You're the one for the job. You said that if
God would give you the blessing, you would take care
of it. This is then, and God is calling you
to trust him with it because it didn't start with
you and it's not on you to sustain it. But
I'm praying that you would show.
Speaker 6 (50:33):
Up with oil to every hard place in your life
this week, and I'm praying that you would do something
stupid to see God do something supernatural.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
That is the word of the Lord. Give him praise
and glory in this house. Give him praise and glory
and thanks. If he's been good to you, then lift
up a shout of praise for your own self, for
(51:14):
your own journey. Everyone's standing, no one moving. We'll dismiss altogether.
This is then. This is then. Jacob said, if you'll
(51:38):
just be with me, watch over me, and provide for me,
then you'll be my God. And I'm here to tell
you He's done all three for me. Thank him for
his presence, Thank him for his protection, Thank him for
his provision. Everybody in this church that ain't a tithe
(52:03):
ought to be online setting up your tithing when I
finished this message, and I ought not have to beg
for it. God's been too good to you. What would
it take? How much more would God have to do
to get you to trust him? I can't afford not
to trust him. He's my God, He's my God. I've
seen too much. This is the Lord's doing, aren't you glad?
(52:31):
God uses stupid that I don't have to figure it out.
Just have enough faith to move forward. I want to pray.
I was thinking about how do I close this message.
This is such a personal thing to talk about. It's
such a festive season to be in. It's festive, it's fun,
it's all that, but it's also so full. Start getting
(52:54):
panic attacks just seeing Rudolph, you know what I mean,
Just want to shoot Rudolph and be like, leave me alone.
Come back next December. I'm not ready for you yet.
And I know we're all feeling all those different things.
And here I am challenging you. You're like this, this dude,
this preacher coming up, You're talking about giving to God.
(53:15):
Doesn't he understand how stretched we already are? Exactly That's
why you need God in this situation. And until you
put him first, you're never going to figure it out.
I think it's significant that Jacob had to anoint what
he had before God could give him what he promised.
Even if all you have isn't that much. What did
(53:38):
Jesus say when the disciples said, we don't have enough
food to feed all these what do you have? Bring
them here to me? And when they brought him the
fish and the loads, he took it, he blessed it,
he broke it, he gave it to them, And the
Bible says, then they gave to the people as much
as they wanted. The Lord said, this is then on
(54:03):
December the fourteenth, we'll be taking an offering for our
expansion and our outreach, and it'll be wonderful, but we're
really taking an offering for your faith. Don't wait to
do tomorrow what God is telling you to do right now,
whether it's in the area of your finances, which is
thousands of you. There are thousands of people connected to
this ministry who do not yet trust God in this way.
Today is your day. But as I was praying how
(54:25):
to close it, the Lord said, don't pray about the money,
pray about the trust. Pray about the trust. That you've
seen God do enough to trust him. What else would
he have to do? Come here. This is my best
friend since high school. You'll give him a hand. Eric Phillips.
(54:49):
When we were boys, I gave my life to Christ.
He was still he was still building his testimony. I
love him to death. Man, he was wild buck wild.
I sat down with him, and this was on Black Friday.
We were sixteen years old, and I remember I was
a very very passionate evangelist, even before I had a church,
(55:11):
always telling everybody that they needed to get right or
get left, turn or burn. And I'm telling this guy
right across the table, I'm like, you know, the Lord
wants you to get saved, and you can't keep living
like this. I said, what's it going to take for
you to give your life to the Lord. What's it
going to take for God to get your attention? He said,
I don't know. I'm having a lot of fun living
my life. I think he's going to have to do
(55:32):
something pretty dramatic. I said, if he does something dramatic,
then will you give your life to Christ? If then
the next night he went out and got so drunk
he had to go to the emergency room. Members died
of alcohol poisoning. The next Monday, we were sharing a
testimony at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes where everybody was
(55:53):
crying about how Doc came into his life. A week later,
he was back running from God again because the temptation
was too strong. Two or three years later, he came
and said, I'm finally ready. Now, I'm finally ready to
give my life to Christ. I'm finally ready. I said,
I've seen this song and dance before. You have to
(56:14):
prove it to me. This time. So I'm really ready now,
I'm really ready. I'm really ready to receive Jesus and
we pray and he was one of the first people
who came here to start the church with us, and
he's still here. But but I heard the question, what's
(56:37):
it going to take for you? What's it going to take?
How much more will God have to do? And I'm
asking you now, how much more is God going to
have to do to get your attention? How much more
is God going to have to show you that he
can be trusted and others cannot. How much more is
God going to have to do to get you to
see that He has you where he wants you and
(56:59):
you are the one he chose for that situation. How
much more is God going to have to do? What
is your if? Hasn't He already done it? Hasn't he
already proven to you his love. Hasn't he already shown
you through every season of your life that He's enough.
Didn't you have warmth in the winter? Didn't you have
(57:20):
cool in the summer? Didn't you have his hand undergirding you.
Didn't you have his love calling you back home? Do
you not have the forgiveness of your sins. Do you
not have the assurance of your salvation? What more would
God have to do to get you to trust him?
I'm telling you this is Then goal your head and
(57:42):
close your eyes. Thank you. I wanted to give that
picture because there's somebody who's there right now. You need
to give your life to Jesus. You need to trust
him with your life. Some of you you've trusted him
with your life, but you're just not trusting him with
this part of it. Going to say that again, that
(58:02):
was the word of the Lord to somebody's heart. You've
trusted him with your life, but not this part of it.
How much more is he going to have to do
to show you He's the God of every season, the
God of every generation. I pray that you would trust God.
(58:22):
Why don't you just lift your hands to him right now?
You don't have to. I can't make you, nobody can
make you surrender. But if you will, if you give
it to God, he tell you what he told me.
If you'll keep your hands open to me, you will
always have everything you need to do everything that I've
called you to do for every season of your life.
(58:46):
I speak that over you right now in the name
of Jesus. So Father, here we are rich and poor,
great and small, happy and sad, gathered together against all odds,
built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, the one
foundation that the storm can't shake, the foundation of your name.
(59:07):
We came to say that this is then we're not
going to trust you in rejoicing you and praise you
and worship you and serve you when everything looks good,
sounds good, feels good. No, no, right now, not when we
see how it turns out. Right now, you're good. So
I give you this right now, and tomorrow I'll give
it to you again, and five minutes later I'll give
it back to you. Surrender. With every step you can
(59:30):
put your your hands down, but keep your head balant
and your eyes closed. I want to pray for somebody
who needs to give your life to Jesus Christ. Please,
right now, don't let this moment pass you by. What
is God going to have to do to get your attention?
What is God going to have to do to show
you how much He loves you? He brought you here
(59:50):
so right now I want to lead you in a prayer.
This prayer is you expressing to God your faith in
Jesus Christ. It's not a magical prayer, but aracle happens
when you pray it. For the Bible says that if
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved. It'll happen right now. This is
(01:00:12):
your then, this is the moment for you to give
your life to Christ. Stop running and believe, Stop doubting,
and have faith. God is here and he loves you
so much. We're going to pray out loud as a
church family for the benefit of those who are coming
to God, are coming back to God. Repeat after me,
Heavenly Father. I am a sinner in need of a savior,
(01:00:36):
and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God and the savior of the world. And today I
make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he
died that I would be forgiven and rose again to
(01:00:57):
give me life. I receive this new life. This is
my new beginning. I am a child of God. On
the counter, three shoot your hand up one two three.
If you've prayed that prayer, praise the Lord. I knew
it would be a lot today I could feel up
what I preach. This is your homecoming, man, this is
(01:01:21):
your homecoming. I praise God for you, so do all
of these people. We welcome you to the family of God.
Come on, give the Lord of great soul of praise. Hallelujah.
(01:01:41):
Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
link in the description to give now, or visit Elevation
Church dot org slash podcast for more information and if
you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share
it with your friends. You can click the share button,
(01:02:03):
take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening.
God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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