November 16, 2025 • 53 mins
This message is for when life feels uncertain and you’re not sure what God wants you to do next. We often look for strategy or certainly, but God’s looking for surrender. Pastor Steven teaches from the life of Jacob how to take the next “messy” step.
If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: ele.vc/tIepfr
Scripture References:
Genesis 28, verses 10-22
John 1, verses 50-51
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. 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. Slap your neighbors say, wake up, Here
comes the word of God. I hope you didn't take
(00:27):
that literally when I said slap him. We don't have
that kind of insurance coverage at the church. What a
privilege it is to share God's word with you today.
I appreciate on this passage of scripture since twenty eighteen. Wow,
and this is one of my absolute favorites. The Lord
(00:47):
will surely meet us here. Look at Genesis chapter twenty eight,
verse ten through twenty two. The Bible says Jacob left
Beersheba and set out for Huran. When he reached a
certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun
had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put
it under his head and lay down to sleep. He
(01:10):
had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting
on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and
the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
There above it stood the Lord. I like that. I
like that God is above whatever I'm going through. That's
just a good reminder, refresher for my faith and encourages
(01:32):
my heart. Today there above it stood the Lord, and
he said, I am the Lord, the God of your
father Abraham, and the God of Isaac. I will give
you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You will spread out to the west and to the east,
to the north and to the south. All peoples on
earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And listen to this promise, and let it get in
your heart for a moment.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Today. I am with you and will watch over you
wherever you go, and I will 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, and
I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said,
(02:27):
how awesome is this place. This is none other than
the House of God. This is the Gate 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. He called
that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
(02:48):
Then Jacob made a vow saying, 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, 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
(03:10):
give me, I will give you a tenth Say amen
for the word of God. Go back to verse fourteen
for a moment. Your descendants will be like the dust
of the earth, and you will spread out. Your descendants
will be like the dust of the earth, and you
will spread out. So we've got dust and expansion in
(03:31):
the same sentence.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And what I want to.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Talk to you about today is your next step. But
very specifically, for those of you who are in a
season of uncertainty or confusion or fear, I want to
talk to you about your next messy step, your next
(03:54):
messy step. Father, We roll up our sleeves today to
dig into your word to see what you might say
to each and every one of us. I ask now
that you would use me. I am nothing without you.
But if you breathe through me, speak through me, this
could be monumental. In these moments, God, we stand before
a person in a passage of scripture who lived hundreds
(04:17):
of years ago. But he faced the same things that
we face. He needed direction and provision from you, and
so do we. So we ask now, God that you
would speak to us no less than you spoke to Jacob.
Remind us what you're doing, reveal to us who you are,
have your way, and give us the courage to respond
to what you say. In Jesus' name, Amen, you may
(04:38):
be seated your next messy step. I wrote that phrase
down today to use as a title, your next messy step.
And I want to talk for a moment about what
it's like for me as a pastor when we go
down the memory lane of different things that have happened
(04:59):
in this church and talk about all the things that
God has done.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
See when we're showing a.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Highlight video like we showed earlier, of all the amazing
things that God did in this church, there's a part
of me that celebrates and I can clap for it now,
But a lot of the things that I can clap
about now I cried through then. A lot of times
I'm hesitant to teach leadership to other pastors, not because
(05:25):
I don't care for them, but because it's a lot
different to explain something than it was to experience it.
And I never just want to be one of these
hypocrites who gets up here and hides the humanity of
the struggle, of the steps that I've taken in my
life in order to just accentuate and elevate the heavenly
(05:48):
parts of our journey where God moved. The truth of
the matter is, every time God has greatly moved in
our ministry and in my life, it was messy. I
don't remember one time that God really moved where there
wasn't a real mess. I don't remember one thing that
God did in this ministry that was significant that was
(06:08):
not sacrificial. I don't remember one time when I did
something for God and my hands weren't shaking before I
came out and steadied myself behind this pulpit and announced it.
I don't remember many times when I opened my mouth
to preach to you that I didn't feel like I
wanted to throw up and swallow it back down before
I did. That is true to this day. And y'all
(06:30):
don't like that kind of stuff when I talk about
throwing up this early in my sermon, because you just
want the message, you don't want the mess. But the
fact of the matter is there is no message where
there is no mess. It's true of your life. You know,
the ways that we asked God to use us, in
the ways that we ask God.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
To bless us, we kind of want the blessing without
the mess.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
In Jacob's life in Genesis chapter twenty eight, you could
say it was the best of times because he just
met God.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
You could say it was the worst of times because
he met him on the run.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
It was the blest of times. It was the mess
of times. Jacob has made a mess of his family situation.
When I read the context of the passage only to
refer to the blessing, I left out the mess so
that we could talk about it together right now. I
(07:28):
told you that Jacob set out for a place called Hauran,
but I didn't tell you that he ran to Haran.
He ran to Haran not because he was going on
vacation there. He ran there because his brother Esaul wanted
to kill him. His brother Esau wanted to kill him
because Jacob stole his blessing from their father Isaac, who
(07:49):
was going blind. And Genesis twenty eight starts out with
Jacob moving to a new place, not because he made
a decision that would benefit his career or his future,
but because he had no other options. Jacob is in
a place of vulnerability. He has come to the end
of himself and he has to relocate in the middle
(08:09):
of his life to a place he's never been before.
This is the context of the blessing of God on
the life of Jacob. And now looking back on Jacob's life,
we know that he became a great nation called Israel.
The twelve tribes of Israel were born from the twelve
sons that would be born to him in the place
where he was going. When he got where he was going,
(08:31):
he would meet his wife Leah and his wife Rachel.
Don't do that. Those were different times, and the Bible
says that after they had birthed all of those babies.
In the messy sibling rivalry of two sisters who were
trying to prove that one was more productive or more
loved than the other. A nation set out and Jacob
(08:53):
became that nation twenty years later. I'm telling you all
of this because we can see now the strategy of
God and how he birthed the nation through Jacob. But
as I've already told you at the beginning of my sermon,
what is explained as strategic is often experienced as surrender.
(09:16):
And the reason I don't really like to teach pastors
about church growth or leadership or strategic objectives is because
I can explain it as the steps that we took
to get where we are. But at the time I
was not experiencing it as steps, not in the strategic sense.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I was experiencing it as surrender.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
What I'm trying to say to you is most everything
I've ever done right in my life was me doing
what I thought God was telling me because I didn't
have anything else to do, because everything else I had
tried to do didn't work, so I finally had to
give up and do it God's way. So I can
explain it to you strategically. You know, how do you
start a worship ministry like elevation worship I can tell
you strategic about a record label. I can tell you
(10:02):
strategically about DSPs and streaming services, and I can tell
you strategically about anthems that are written for the church
and touring strategies. And I can tell you strategically about
putting together a team. And I can tell you strategically
about bands and sounds and systematations, systems and systems and
strategies and all of that. But the real secret to
all of it was surrender. That at the beginning of
(10:24):
starting our ministry, I said, Lord, I believe you want
us to have a worship ministry that will touch the world.
And that's where it started with surrender because I knew
I didn't have the skills to do it by myself,
so God sent others. I knew I wasn't smart enough
to do it by myself, so God gave wisdom. I
knew that I could not figure it out on my own,
(10:44):
so God by faith did what I could not do
by flesh. And so you explain things as strategic, but
you experience them as surrender. You look back and you say, well,
here's how we raised our kids.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
See, when they were five, taught them about them.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Then and when they were seven, we moved them onto
the blank and the nine.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
We taught them about the nine. And when they were eleven,
we taught them.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
About the And in stage one you're more like a coach,
and in stage two you're more like a consultant, and
then in stage three you're more like a confidant.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And here are the.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Stages and the steps for raising godly kids.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And there's really only one.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You're God one step to raising godly kids. Here, God,
They're yours. Parenting can be explained strategically. I mean, you
can write a book about it all you want, but
the truth is, you really know that if God didn't
give you what it took to raise those kids, you
(11:44):
would have lost your mind a long time ago. So
I'm trying to get you to see that in this
journey called faith, what we explain as strategy, we experience
as surrender.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Why is that important for our lesson today?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
In case you don't know what God is calling you
to do next, and you think that because you don't
know the next step, that means that God is not
in it. That's not true. Everything God is ever in
feels uncertain. Look at Genesis twenty eight, verse ten. The
(12:21):
Bible says that Jacob set out for Haram. Verse eleven
says when he reached a certain place, everybody say a
certain place. Now. Isn't that ironic that the Bible calls
it a certain place and Jacob's life has never been
more uncertain? How many of you feel like? I'm in
(12:41):
an uncertain place right now in my life?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Come on, I'm.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Uncertain about who to talk to. I'm uncertain about who
to trust. I'm uncertain if I'm in the right job.
I'm uncertain if I'm at the right school. I'm uncertain
if I have what it takes. I'm uncertain whether God
is calling me to step out the boat or stay
in the boat. I'm uncertain about whether God wants me
to quit because this is not him, or he wants
me to persevere because it is. I hear you talk
(13:08):
about how you can tell you're in God's will when
the enemy attacks. But I'm not so sure if it's
an attack from the enemy, or if it's actually a
bad decision I made that I need to go back
and remake. I'm uncertain. Raise your hand again. I'm in
an uncertain place now. I tell your neighbor don't feel bad.
I don't know either. When we started the church, one
(13:29):
of the books they told us to read was pretty good.
It was about building your church with strategy. And they
gave me the book and I like most of it,
but there was one part. Matt, I couldn't stand this part,
and I did not adhere to it. It said that
when you bring people into discipleship in your church, it's
like taking them around the basis at a baseball game,
(13:49):
and when you go to the base one, it looks
like this, and this is what discipleship looks like with
first base, and then you take them to the second
and then this is what the second stage looks like,
the third base and the.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Home play, and then you get them all home and
they're all disciple.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I read that and I wanted that, and I would
like that because that would be cool if it was
that clear, not only for me as a pastor, but
for me as a person. See, your walk with God
goes like this. You do this, and then you do that,
and then you do that and then your home. But
home is called heaven and you have to die to
(14:24):
go there. So now, as long as we're on this earth,
I found that life is more like dirt and less
like a diamond on a baseball field.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
It's more dirt less diamond.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Because my spiritual journey, I don't know about yours, has
not looked like home. My spiritual journey. If I'm really
telling you the truth, I could explain it that way.
I took step one. I accepted Jesus Christ as my
Lord and savior. I took step two. I was baptized
in his name. I took step three. I began to
share my faith with others. I took step four, And
(14:59):
now I am a wonderful, beautiful child of God with
absolutely no blemish and no flaw. But the fact of
the matter is that God formed me, and I'm flawed,
that I am following Jesus flawed, And so it has
not looked like this, And there have not always been
(15:22):
base coaches telling me is safe to come. It has
looked more like I should draw this for you. But
you'll get the picture. All the base path people. Teach
(15:47):
me how you know so clearly what to do next?
Teach me how you know so certainly what God is
calling you to do right now? Because most of my
discipleship has been through making the wrong decision, repenting, learning, trusting,
(16:09):
and growing. Most of my discipleship has looked like I'm
doing everything that I think I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And I'm all over the place, and I'm all over.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
The map, and God, I going to do this and
that and finally just this. Okay, God and the true
everybody over fifty back your man up. Today it looks
like this. I'm up, I'm growing, I'm down. I feel
like I'm dying. I want to die. I'm back up,
(16:40):
I'm back down.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I'm left.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I'm right. I dated him. God said he was the one.
But that wasn't God talking. That was my loneliness. Back
down to singleness. Back up, here's another chance. Took that job,
looked like a good job, you know. I get a promotion,
got a new manager, wanted to walk out, stayed for
three years, wondered if I stayed thirty six months too long.
(17:03):
Don't even know right now what I'm doing. Not I
was gonna retire. Made an investment in crypto, Still learning
how to do it. It's like this, look at your
neighbor and make some swiggles and some scribbles and some
zigs and some zags and say it's like this. It's
like this and like that. It's like this and like that.
(17:25):
It's like this and it's like that. But everywhere I've gone,
I ran head on into grace. Everywhere I've been, I
ran right into God. Whether I went to the right
or to the left. Somehow I heard a voice saying, No,
this is the way. Walk in it. This is the way.
(17:46):
This is the way. I'm zigging, and I'm zagging, and
I'm up and I'm down and I'm back and I'm four.
I don't know if this is third base or second
base or the outfield. Sometimes I feel like I'm just
the dugouts. I'm gonna put me in coach. I'm ready
to play. Sometimes I feel like I'm eating a hot
dog in the Chief Seas. But I'm here for it
(18:08):
and I'm in the game, and God is with me.
That's what God told Jacob in verse fifteen. Show him.
He said, I am with you and will watch over
you wherever you go. You're not always gonna go like
this and like that. You're not always gonna even know
where homeplate is. Every umpire is not going to agree
(18:31):
with your opinion of a striking a ball. You're gonna
miss some stuff. You're gonna slide into some stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
But the promise is this, I will be with you, right,
I will be with you.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
M He didn't say I will be with you, He
said I am with you. Which one would you rather have?
A God who will be with you or a God
who already is? So when it comes to your next
step that God has given you to take, and I
(19:08):
don't know if that's walking someone that you love through
a difficult medical procedure that may be your next step.
I don't know if that is working through this addiction
issue that's really really got you by the throat. I
don't know whether that's just you continuing to be faithful
in something that feels kind of boring and mundane. I
don't know if that's you getting together with all of
(19:28):
those people in a couple of weeks for a meal
without cursing any of them out. Whatever your next step is,
I want to talk to you about it, and I
want to let you know what God told Jacob. See,
Jacob is such a messy man, and I'm glad for
(19:54):
that because the Bible says that the steps of a
good man are ordered by the Lord. But Jacob shows
me that the steps of God's man, even if he's
not a good man, are ordered by the Lord too.
Because for Jacob to steal Esau's blessing and his name
(20:15):
literally to mean trick, it means he was messy. He
is at this point in his life grown enough to
know better, and he should be mature. But we see
three things in the passage that may be going on
in your life too. One is a mistake, one is
a middle, and the other is a move. A mistake,
(20:40):
a middle, and a move, all in one passage, all
happening in the life of one man. You may say
it wasn't a mistake for him to steal Esau's blessing,
because God is sovereign, and the Book of Romans says, Jacob,
have I loved and saw, have I hated? And it
was predestined by God. Yet be that as it may
he went about. It wasn't right. He lied to get
(21:03):
this blessing. He's blessed, but it's messy. He's successful, but
it's messy. He is increasing, but he's isolated. That's a
crazy place to be where you find yourself in a
certain place because of a mistake. You know, as we
(21:27):
talk about God. We say things like where God guides,
he provides, But in this specific situation of Jacob's life,
we get an indication that even if it wasn't God
guiding you there, he will provide for you there if
you will turn to him and trust him. I don't
know who this is for, but you need to go
(21:48):
ahead and own the mistake that you made. Don't even
blame the devil for it. The devil didn't make Jacob
dress up and take his brother's blessing. He decided to
do it, and it was his mom's idea. He was
seventy one years old when he did it. It's too
late to blame your mom when you are seventy one
years old. So sometimes you got to come to the
(22:09):
place and say, God, I'm in this place because of
my mistake. Not all four jobs that you lost in
the last eight years were the result of the devil
attacking you. If it was one job in eight years,
maybe it was the devil. If it was four jobs
in eight years, maybe there are some decisions, not just devils.
(22:29):
They don't like me today, not one bit in the
world today. How can the grace come until the mistake
is acknowledged and accept it. So I'm in this mess.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
God, I'm in this mess.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I don't know what to do about this mess.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
God, it was my stubbornness that got me here.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I think it's so great when we preach about Jonah,
you know, because he's an example of somebody who made
his own mess. But so is Jacob. In fact, Jacob
literally made his bed and had to lie in it.
I don't know if you noticed this or not. It
said that when he got there to the place in
verse twelve, in a certain place that wasn't so certain,
(23:11):
he had a dream on which he saw a stairway
resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven.
But go to the verse before that so we can
get the full context. When he saw this beautiful dream,
It says he reached a certain place stop for the
night because the sun had set, and taking one of
the stones there, he put it under his head and
lay down to sleep. He is literally in a hard place,
(23:39):
and it's not hard because of God. It's hard because
of him. This is not in my notes, So bear
with me and be patient. Sometimes it's not him making
it hard. Sometimes it's us and our decisions making it hard.
Sometimes it's our being pair in the past that's making
(24:01):
it so hard. Sometimes it's our grabbing after things that
God told us to give up that makes it hard.
And the problem with preaching is that people will clap
for the clips that we put on the Internet that
say that if life is hard for you right now,
it's because God has something great for you. But sometimes
we need to also say, if life is hard for
(24:22):
you right now, it might be because God is trying
to change you. It can be both. It can be both.
Waking up with a hangover every morning is not God
testing you or the devil attacking you. Getting yourself excluded
from each opportunity because you are never on time is
(24:45):
not the devil attacking you. The devil is not in
the traffic. You cannot rebuke traffic. The remedy for traffic
is not rebuke. Remedy for traffic is ten minutes earlier.
Now y'all want me to move on, clap a little louder,
(25:11):
and I'll think about it. I'm not playing with y'all
no more. I'm not playing with y'all no more. Because
you have to admit I am why I'm here. I
am why I'm here. You know, God sends some opportunities
for me to have some friends, but I wasn't friendly.
He's saying, rejection is God's protection. Maybe it's a maybe
(25:35):
it's a bad personality. Maybe you need to be nicer,
Maybe you need to ask other people how are they doing?
They rejected me, that was God redirecting me. No, they
rejected you because you're mean, because your drama, because you're messy.
(26:03):
And before you just ghost them and move your mess
around to the next person who hasn't figured you out yet,
take some time to say, Hey, God, is there a
reason why I don't have the same friends at the
end of every year? Hey, God, is there a reason
why I continue to fly off the handle with my
(26:25):
temper and think about how others made me lose it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I didn't even intend to preach like.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
This today, but notice in the mistake that Jacob made,
God gets in the middle of Jacob's mistake. Well, that
really blessed me, because you would think that if you
got yourself here, you've got to get yourself out of this.
(26:57):
Or I would at least think that if Jacob wanted
God to visit him, he would have to pray and
ask him to come show me in Genesis twenty eight
where Jacob prayed, it's not there. Show me in Genesis
twenty eight, where Jacob repented it's not there. Show me
in Genesis twenty eight where Jacob took seven steps to
get his life together.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Show me where Jacob set up on the base path.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And the first step, and the second step and the
third step. I burned that book when I read it.
I was like, people aren't coming to church because they're
in a baseball game. They're coming to church because they're
in a battle. It is a battlefield, and it looks
like this, and it looks like that, and it looks
like this, and it looks like that, and get this
(27:41):
little league Christianity out of your mind. God will meet
me in the middle, right on the mound. God will
set up and throw me another pitch, no matter how
the last one went down. That's what I see in
Genesis twenty eight. The Bible says in verse eleven that
with Jacob's pillow being a rock, this is horrible for
(28:05):
your posture and the sun being set, because not only
does God come into the middle of hard places, he
comes into the middle of dark places. God does some
of the best stuff in the dark, and Jacob stops
in a place he doesn't even know the name of.
I'm gonna tell you a story about that in a minute.
(28:27):
Look at this story, he said. He took one of
the stones, put on his head, laid down to sleep,
and verse twelve, he had a dream in which he
saw a stairway pay attention resting on the earth, with
its top reaching to heaven, and the angels were going
up and down on it. That's what he saw with
(28:49):
his eyes closed, that's what he saw. Laying on a rock,
That's what he saw in a hard place, trying to
decide which set the stairs to come over to. This
one feels right today. This is the right one. It
went up and down the angels. Now the angels are
(29:12):
moving Jacob, isn't Jacob is stopped because the sun is set.
But just because the sunset stopped you doesn't mean to
stop God. Oh, I love to make the Bible come
alive for people. Can you see it? Isn't it crazy?
In all of Jacob's scheming, he got blessed by his dad,
(29:33):
But in Jacob's sleeping he got blessed by God. And
the angels are moving up and down and up and
down because life ain't always like this, it's up and down.
(29:58):
So the angels are doing what life does, ascending, descending.
The angels are doing what your bank account does. The
angels are doing what your mood does. Am I not
(30:21):
preaching this thing? I haven't preached this since twenty eighteen,
so I've been waiting to get back to it. Up
and down and up and down and up and down
like your life, and Jacob isn't moving because God shows
up in the middle of his mistake, and in the
middle of the night, and in the middle of sleep.
So that you and I know that it is not
(30:43):
when we get there that God shows up. It is
not when we accomplish that that he shows up. It
is not when we reach the place of our goal
that we meet God. God meets me in the middle.
And this is the a I sermon where you touch
five people and say He met me in the middle,
(31:04):
and you.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Don't have to say any more than that.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You don't have to say what it was the middle of.
If it was the middle of a divorce, if it
was the middle of a diagnosis, if it was the
middle of a battle with sickness, if it was the
middle of a season of depression, if it was the
middle of you losing your mind, if it was the
middle of a nervous breakdown, if it was in the
middle of the street when you sit there and said, God,
I don't know which way to go. I'm too young
(31:28):
to be old, I'm too old to be young. God
met me in the middle. I'm too happy to be sad,
too sad to be happy. And he met me in
the middle. I can't quite name this place yet, but
God met Jacob in the middle. And Jacob did not
even know the name of the place where he was.
(31:48):
But he didn't have to know the name of the
place because God knew his name. There is a woman
who brought me a letter in Atlanta, Georgia. Her name
is Lish.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
She's watching on line right now from Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Everybody say, hey, Lish, I want to show you her
picture so you can see who we're talking about. This
is Lish getting baptized just recently at one of our
pop ups at Elevation, Atlanta pop up.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Did y'all know our church has to pop ups?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Did you know we have pop ups? We go to
different cities. We popped up in Riverside, California today, we're
having a pop up You could take the picture down
right now. Why do we have pop up church because
we have a pop up God. Because the devil is
a pop up devil, and the devil will just pop
up at times you don't expect him. So we just
take church wherever people are and God will pop up
(32:42):
in the middle of a place. God will pop up
in the middle of a struggle. God will pop up
in the middle of a panic attack. Have you ever
had God just pop up for you? Black boom, zam,
wig wock. There it is, Sam. God just popped up.
Looked like it was over looked like it was done,
felt like it was over. He felt like it was done.
Thank God popped up. He turned a grave into a garden.
(33:06):
They were weeping for Lazarus, but Jesus popped up, and
Lazarus popped up when he said his name. So we
baptized her.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It to pop up.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
But she told me I haven't always been on such
a good track. Listen what she told me. She said,
I had opened several doors to the enemy through the
course of my life, and because of that, I ended
up on the run from many abusive situations, and one
in particular She didn't tell me what those situations were,
but she told me that it got so bad for
(33:39):
her that she was going.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
From place to place to place.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Now stop, you're thinking, well, my life isn't that bad,
is but we go from place to place to place.
She was doing it physically, but some of us do
it emotionally. From place, come on to place. I'm going
to preach to everybody in this church will admit that
is this, and it's that is this, and it's that
(34:05):
is this and it's that. So she wrote me this
letter and she gave it to me, and she said
it got so bad at one point that I had
to go live with a friend and my friend would
always play Christian TV and it was so annoying.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And one night I walked in and this guy was preaching.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
She was talking to me, and it really spoke to
my situation, and it spoke so straight to me. I
felt like I didn't even know what to call it,
because I wasn't yet a Christian, but I felt something.
I didn't know what it was called. I just felt something.
She said I had to leave there suddenly, and I
didn't get to ask my friend what was the name
of that Preacher that we watched.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
She said, for three years, I would think about it.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well, I kept making the wrong decisions for three years,
and my situation didn't get better. It got worse.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Eventually, she said, I was in a car wreck and
I wasn't.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Able to walk for six months after it. She said.
During the six months, I would try to watch the
Christian TV anywhere I was, but I couldn't find that
preacher again. And the other stuff was good, she said,
but there was just she said. I wish I could
say that it got better from there, but it didn't
get better from there. As I went from safe house
to safe house. At one point it got so bad
that I thought, I don't even know if I want
to go on living anymore. What is my life worth
(35:19):
when I'm just going from place to place to place
to place to place to place, she said.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
One night at the safe house, I just decided to.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Turn on the old clock radio. It was the only
thing in the room, and I turned it on. I
wanted to hear some music, and some music started playing
and it was very beautiful, but I didn't know what
it was. And then they started saying the name of
Jesus on the song she said, and I reached to
grab for the dial because I was not trying to
listen to Christian music.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
But before I touched the dial, the most beautiful.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Thing that I've heard happened, and she played played the
intro real quick to more than Able. She said, the
most beautiful music that I've heard came on the radio,
and she said, the presence of God looking back. I
(36:11):
didn't know what to call it when the presence of
God met me in that room, and I began to
cry and I began to weep, and she said, I
honestly feel that God came into my life when that
song was playing, and it said, I've come a long way.
I've seen how you work. There's so much goodness and grace,
much more than I deserve. And I know who I am,
(36:33):
and I can't stay where I'm at. We've come this
far by faith, and I just can't turn back because
you're not done with me yet. I listen, she said,
I'm crying, and when the DJ comes on after the song,
he says, that was elevation worship with more than Abel
and she said, I thought to myself, what is an
(36:54):
elevation worship? That's literally what she wrote me. In the note,
she said, I thought to myself. This is her note.
She said, I literally thought to myself, what is an
elevation worship? I borrowed a computer from the counselor the
next morning and googled what is an elevation worship? This
(37:18):
is what Lich said in her letter to me, and
I was led to the Elevation Church website. After years
of looking for you, I found you. But I want
to say something. Don't clap for that. It's not after
years of looking for me. She found me. It's not
about finding me at all. It's after years of running
(37:38):
God found her. I messed up by showing you the
first picture before I read you the letter, because you
would have just thought that she went like this and
(37:59):
like this and like this and now she's home. But
she told me that it was like this and like this,
and like this and like this and like this, and
then with a clock radio, the Lord found her. She said,
(38:23):
she's doing good now. She said. The Lord is working
in her life. She said, she teaches at a Christian school.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Not like this, but like this and like this and
like this and like this and like this.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I came to find somebody today who has been doing
all of this and this and this and this and
this and this and this and this and this and this,
and I came with an announcement. The Lord is in
this place, and it's messy. I know it is. But
(39:05):
we're celebrating a holiday called Christmas in a few weeks.
And it kind of proves that the greatest miracles start
in the messiest situations. After all, why will millions of
people sing all around the world of a baby who
was born in a manger, who was really the king
of kings. Now you may say, what does that have
to do with me? Because I see you trying to
(39:27):
make your next step. I saw it when I was
praying about this message. I saw people like Jacob who
know I have made this mistake and I don't really
can't go back to where I came from. I can't
really figure out where I'm supposed to God? What is
my next step? And the Lord said it is going
to be your next messy step. And what messy means
(39:50):
is you're not going to know if it's the right one. Oh,
you'll look back and you'll say, this was my path,
But what is it explained as a path? Later? Was
really experienced as a problem in real time. Everything that
God ever did for me that later I could be like.
And then God directed my path. It was really this
(40:13):
and this and this and this and this. I don't
know what kind of day you're having today. You might
be doing like this and your life. That's wonderful for
that lady, But what does it mean for me? I'll
tell you what it means for you. It means that
you cannot forget the God who brought you this far
when you remember that you started at rock bottom. You
(40:37):
can't come all this way and say look what I did. No,
if it had not been for the Lord, come on,
if it had not been for the Lord on my side,
I would be I would be down, I would be over.
But God is Abel. But God is Abel. So you
(41:03):
have Jacob lying on the ground, and you have God
speaking to Jacob, and you have both things happening simultaneously.
You have the nation of Israel in this man who
is lying on the ground with no one, with nothing.
God is speaking of his descendants and he doesn't even
have one child. God is speaking of his future and
(41:27):
he doesn't even have a single friend. God is speaking
to you about things that you can't see in your life.
But notice what verse fourteen says. It says that there
was a ladder that started on the earth and went
to heaven, and a voice from the Lord who stood
over it, and he said, your descendants will be like
the dust.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
God does stuff in dust. God does stuff in dust.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Y'all, I'm having a moment right now where I know
I'm preaching to a lish I am preaching to somebody
who is going to write me a year from now
and say I was in the dust. Well, that's how
your whole life got started. Did you ever read the
(42:25):
Book of Genesis. We talk about destiny. I'm talking about destiny, huh.
I'm talking about God knows the plans he hasks for you,
plans to give you a hope in a future. I'm
talking about God speaks to the youth that he formed
from the dust, and he breathed the breath of life
(42:47):
into him, and he formed you from the dust. And
now you are following the God who formed you from
the dust. And it's going to be messy. Sometimes it
was messy for the disciples following Jesus. Air up and
we're down, and we're here, and we're there and it's
working and it's not, and Hosanna and crucify him and
(43:07):
we get it and we don't and we understand and
we're confused. And that's okay because God leads people through
messy next steps, just a messy next step. It doesn't
have to be a beautiful next step. You don't have
to have a choreographed next step. You don't have to
(43:29):
dance into your future. You can just absolutely, Okay, God,
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna call it Christian counselor.
I don't even know if this's the right one. If
they're weird, I'll fire him and get another one. There's
a whole lot of counselors, and chat GIVT doesn't count
as a counselor. So I'm gonna get a real human being,
(43:51):
a real human being, because I'm gonna take that messy step. See,
a controlled step is you keep trying to deal with
things that the love well, you can see things. But
what if the next step for you is that God
wants to show you a staircase. Remember, God can do
more while you're sleeping than you can do while you're striving.
(44:11):
It is not It is not you figuring this out.
It is you following Jesus into the mess. When Jesus
called his disciples, he called one disciple named Nathaniel, and
Nathaniel was confused. He was like, how do you know me?
How do you see me under the fig tree? How
did you know who I was? And in John chapter one,
(44:33):
verse fifty Jesus said to Nathaniel, you are amazed and
believed because I saw you under the fig tree. You
will see greater things than that.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Watch this skinner verse fifty one.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
He said, very truly, I tell you will see heaven
open and you will see the angels of God. Watch
this flashback Genesis twenty eight. He said, you will see
the Angel of God Us sending and descending, not on
(45:06):
Jacob's ladder. But Jesus said, you will see the angels
Us sending from a versa voice and descending on the
son of Man. Who's the son of man? Jesus, who
is the ladder that appeared to Jacob in the wilderness. Jesus,
who is the one who is calling to you in
(45:26):
this season of your life, saying we can do this,
we can move forward in this. And I came to
declare to you that it is not your next step
that matters. It is the step that God has already
made toward you. It's a mistake, it's a middle and
(45:54):
it's a move. But it wasn't Jacob's move that saved him.
It was God's move. God is moving in your situation. Man.
You say I can't see him, that's because he puts
you to sleep to do it. You say I can't
see it, that's because it's covered in dust. But whether
(46:16):
it's Genesis or whether it's Jesus who been down in
the dirt when a woman who committed adultery was about
to be stone, God does stuff in the dust. Your
next messy step, that's all it's going to take. It's
(46:37):
just your next messy step because God has already done
the real work. Now you will know what it is
today that the Lord is speaking to you about. How
could I now? God?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
You will know the place in your life where he
has felt like.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I feel like I'm speaking to somebody though, who you
thought you had arrived and now you've been in a
setback and you're surprised by it a little bit. Well, surprise,
God is in the setback too, because this is this
is this is this is this everyone's standing all over
(47:20):
this auditorium and nobody moving to leave at this moment.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Where did the Lord find you today?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Was it like this where you're like, yo, man, I
don't even see a way forward? Or is it like
Jacob who should have been at the top of his
life but was empty inside.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
This is a moment for you to decide.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Is he your God? And do you trust him? In
verse fifteen, he told Jacob, I am with you, and
I will be with you wherever you go, and I
will bring you back to this land. I will not
leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
You know, the Lord didn't say he was going to
do everything that we prayed for. He said he would
(48:06):
do everything that he promised. Who is that for? And
you think for you to take the next step, God
has to answer your last prayer. No, he's already done enough.
And if the next step he called you to take
is just stand still, then you do that. Because the
(48:27):
Lord is in this place. Father, I've administered your word
with the grace and conviction with which you ministered it
to me. Now put it in your hands.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
These are your children, these people, they're precious to you.
You see where they're running to, you see what they're
running from, and you know where you're leading them. I
believe that your hand is on each and every one
of them, none too dusty, none too dirty, none too messy,
none too far gone. I believe there are some people
(49:02):
God who have accomplished a lot in earthly standards.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
There is a spiritual vacuum, and they're starting to feel it.
Right about now, Lord, would you meet that person in
that place?
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And there's somebody listening to me God at a point.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
In between, like ah, I just don't feel like I
know what God has called me to do next. I
pray that heavens would be open over them, even if
it's just for thirty seconds while I'm praying this prayer,
and they would know that angels are coming up and
down for the high times, for the low times, that
(49:41):
this staircase, this step did not start with them, as
started with you. And now Father, we commit our lives
to your grace. Like Jacob said, I will make you
my God, I will follow you forward. I thank you,
Lord for what you know about them that they don't
know about. I thank you for what you see in
(50:01):
them that they've lost sight of. I thank you for
what you're doing that I just can't perceive. Now, lift
your hands just a little bit and give that situation
to the Lord.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Surrender it. You know what it is. I want you
to have a strategy.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I want you to have a plan, but I want
you to have His presence, so you could just surrender
it to him. Every time in the church I didn't
know what to do, I did this, and God did something.
Every time with my kids, when I don't know what
to do, I do this, and I trust God to
do something every time in my life when I don't
know what to do, I do this. Because it's not
(50:36):
strategy that blesses your life. It is surrender. Father.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
You see all these hands lifted to you right now.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Everything they're caring, every burden that they bear, we place
it on Jesus. We see angels ascending and descending on
the son of Man. Jesus, the burden bear, the shame remover,
the way maker, the God who is always with us.
Put your hands down for a moment. If your head's
(51:06):
bowed and your eyes closed, is there one here today,
even just one who God brought you here and met
you here? Because you need to give your life to
Jesus Christ. Maybe you've been running from God, or maybe
you've never really even stopped to consider it. But I
believe that God brought you to this moment so that
you could give him your heart. Right now, in the
(51:29):
stillness of this moment, I want to lead you in
a prayer, and if you are ready to give your
life to Jesus Christ, I want you to repeat this
prayer after me. Now, the prayer is not magical. The
prayer does not save you. God saves you. The Bible
says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus
is Lord, and believe in your heart God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved. So right now,
(51:52):
this is your day, and God is calling you home.
I want you to repeat after me. We're going to
pray it out loud as a church family for the
benefit of those who are coming to God. Repeat after me,
Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a savior,
and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God and the Savior of the world. And today I
(52:17):
make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he
died that I would be forgiven and rose again to
give me life. I receive this new life. This is
my new beginning. I am a child of God. On
(52:38):
the counter, three, shoot your hand up high in the air.
If you prayed that one. Two chree.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
I want to celebrate with you.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Praise the Lord. That's awesome. Less God, come on, let's go.
That's amazing. 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
(53:06):
visit Elevationchurch 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,
take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
and tag us at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. 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. Slap your neighbors say, wake up, Here
comes the word of God. I hope you didn't take
(00:27):
that literally when I said slap him. We don't have
that kind of insurance coverage at the church. What a
privilege it is to share God's word with you today.
I appreciate on this passage of scripture since twenty eighteen. Wow,
and this is one of my absolute favorites. The Lord
(00:47):
will surely meet us here. Look at Genesis chapter twenty eight,
verse ten through twenty two. The Bible says Jacob left
Beersheba and set out for Huran. When he reached a
certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun
had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put
it under his head and lay down to sleep. He
(01:10):
had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting
on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and
the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
There above it stood the Lord. I like that. I
like that God is above whatever I'm going through. That's
just a good reminder, refresher for my faith and encourages
(01:32):
my heart. Today there above it stood the Lord, and
he said, I am the Lord, the God of your
father Abraham, and the God of Isaac. I will give
you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
You will spread out to the west and to the east,
to the north and to the south. All peoples on
earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And listen to this promise, and let it get in
your heart for a moment.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Today. I am with you and will watch over you
wherever you go, and I will 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, and
I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said,
(02:27):
how awesome is this place. This is none other than
the House of God. This is the Gate 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. He called
that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
(02:48):
Then Jacob made a vow saying, 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, 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
(03:10):
give me, I will give you a tenth Say amen
for the word of God. Go back to verse fourteen
for a moment. Your descendants will be like the dust
of the earth, and you will spread out. Your descendants
will be like the dust of the earth, and you
will spread out. So we've got dust and expansion in
(03:31):
the same sentence.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And what I want to.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Talk to you about today is your next step. But
very specifically, for those of you who are in a
season of uncertainty or confusion or fear, I want to
talk to you about your next messy step, your next
(03:54):
messy step. Father, We roll up our sleeves today to
dig into your word to see what you might say
to each and every one of us. I ask now
that you would use me. I am nothing without you.
But if you breathe through me, speak through me, this
could be monumental. In these moments, God, we stand before
a person in a passage of scripture who lived hundreds
(04:17):
of years ago. But he faced the same things that
we face. He needed direction and provision from you, and
so do we. So we ask now, God that you
would speak to us no less than you spoke to Jacob.
Remind us what you're doing, reveal to us who you are,
have your way, and give us the courage to respond
to what you say. In Jesus' name, Amen, you may
(04:38):
be seated your next messy step. I wrote that phrase
down today to use as a title, your next messy step.
And I want to talk for a moment about what
it's like for me as a pastor when we go
down the memory lane of different things that have happened
(04:59):
in this church and talk about all the things that
God has done.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
See when we're showing a.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Highlight video like we showed earlier, of all the amazing
things that God did in this church, there's a part
of me that celebrates and I can clap for it now,
But a lot of the things that I can clap
about now I cried through then. A lot of times
I'm hesitant to teach leadership to other pastors, not because
(05:25):
I don't care for them, but because it's a lot
different to explain something than it was to experience it.
And I never just want to be one of these
hypocrites who gets up here and hides the humanity of
the struggle, of the steps that I've taken in my
life in order to just accentuate and elevate the heavenly
(05:48):
parts of our journey where God moved. The truth of
the matter is, every time God has greatly moved in
our ministry and in my life, it was messy. I
don't remember one time that God really moved where there
wasn't a real mess. I don't remember one thing that
God did in this ministry that was significant that was
(06:08):
not sacrificial. I don't remember one time when I did
something for God and my hands weren't shaking before I
came out and steadied myself behind this pulpit and announced it.
I don't remember many times when I opened my mouth
to preach to you that I didn't feel like I
wanted to throw up and swallow it back down before
I did. That is true to this day. And y'all
(06:30):
don't like that kind of stuff when I talk about
throwing up this early in my sermon, because you just
want the message, you don't want the mess. But the
fact of the matter is there is no message where
there is no mess. It's true of your life. You know,
the ways that we asked God to use us, in
the ways that we ask God.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
To bless us, we kind of want the blessing without
the mess.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
In Jacob's life in Genesis chapter twenty eight, you could
say it was the best of times because he just
met God.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
You could say it was the worst of times because
he met him on the run.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
It was the blest of times. It was the mess
of times. Jacob has made a mess of his family situation.
When I read the context of the passage only to
refer to the blessing, I left out the mess so
that we could talk about it together right now. I
(07:28):
told you that Jacob set out for a place called Hauran,
but I didn't tell you that he ran to Haran.
He ran to Haran not because he was going on
vacation there. He ran there because his brother Esaul wanted
to kill him. His brother Esau wanted to kill him
because Jacob stole his blessing from their father Isaac, who
(07:49):
was going blind. And Genesis twenty eight starts out with
Jacob moving to a new place, not because he made
a decision that would benefit his career or his future,
but because he had no other options. Jacob is in
a place of vulnerability. He has come to the end
of himself and he has to relocate in the middle
(08:09):
of his life to a place he's never been before.
This is the context of the blessing of God on
the life of Jacob. And now looking back on Jacob's life,
we know that he became a great nation called Israel.
The twelve tribes of Israel were born from the twelve
sons that would be born to him in the place
where he was going. When he got where he was going,
(08:31):
he would meet his wife Leah and his wife Rachel.
Don't do that. Those were different times, and the Bible
says that after they had birthed all of those babies.
In the messy sibling rivalry of two sisters who were
trying to prove that one was more productive or more
loved than the other. A nation set out and Jacob
(08:53):
became that nation twenty years later. I'm telling you all
of this because we can see now the strategy of
God and how he birthed the nation through Jacob. But
as I've already told you at the beginning of my sermon,
what is explained as strategic is often experienced as surrender.
(09:16):
And the reason I don't really like to teach pastors
about church growth or leadership or strategic objectives is because
I can explain it as the steps that we took
to get where we are. But at the time I
was not experiencing it as steps, not in the strategic sense.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I was experiencing it as surrender.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
What I'm trying to say to you is most everything
I've ever done right in my life was me doing
what I thought God was telling me because I didn't
have anything else to do, because everything else I had
tried to do didn't work, so I finally had to
give up and do it God's way. So I can
explain it to you strategically. You know, how do you
start a worship ministry like elevation worship I can tell
you strategic about a record label. I can tell you
(10:02):
strategically about DSPs and streaming services, and I can tell
you strategically about anthems that are written for the church
and touring strategies. And I can tell you strategically about
putting together a team. And I can tell you strategically
about bands and sounds and systematations, systems and systems and
strategies and all of that. But the real secret to
all of it was surrender. That at the beginning of
(10:24):
starting our ministry, I said, Lord, I believe you want
us to have a worship ministry that will touch the world.
And that's where it started with surrender because I knew
I didn't have the skills to do it by myself,
so God sent others. I knew I wasn't smart enough
to do it by myself, so God gave wisdom. I
knew that I could not figure it out on my own,
(10:44):
so God by faith did what I could not do
by flesh. And so you explain things as strategic, but
you experience them as surrender. You look back and you say, well,
here's how we raised our kids.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
See, when they were five, taught them about them.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Then and when they were seven, we moved them onto
the blank and the nine.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
We taught them about the nine. And when they were eleven,
we taught them.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
About the And in stage one you're more like a coach,
and in stage two you're more like a consultant, and
then in stage three you're more like a confidant.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And here are the.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Stages and the steps for raising godly kids.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
And there's really only one.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You're God one step to raising godly kids. Here, God,
They're yours. Parenting can be explained strategically. I mean, you
can write a book about it all you want, but
the truth is, you really know that if God didn't
give you what it took to raise those kids, you
(11:44):
would have lost your mind a long time ago. So
I'm trying to get you to see that in this
journey called faith, what we explain as strategy, we experience
as surrender.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Why is that important for our lesson today?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
In case you don't know what God is calling you
to do next, and you think that because you don't
know the next step, that means that God is not
in it. That's not true. Everything God is ever in
feels uncertain. Look at Genesis twenty eight, verse ten. The
(12:21):
Bible says that Jacob set out for Haram. Verse eleven
says when he reached a certain place, everybody say a
certain place. Now. Isn't that ironic that the Bible calls
it a certain place and Jacob's life has never been
more uncertain? How many of you feel like? I'm in
(12:41):
an uncertain place right now in my life?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Come on, I'm.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Uncertain about who to talk to. I'm uncertain about who
to trust. I'm uncertain if I'm in the right job.
I'm uncertain if I'm at the right school. I'm uncertain
if I have what it takes. I'm uncertain whether God
is calling me to step out the boat or stay
in the boat. I'm uncertain about whether God wants me
to quit because this is not him, or he wants
me to persevere because it is. I hear you talk
(13:08):
about how you can tell you're in God's will when
the enemy attacks. But I'm not so sure if it's
an attack from the enemy, or if it's actually a
bad decision I made that I need to go back
and remake. I'm uncertain. Raise your hand again. I'm in
an uncertain place now. I tell your neighbor don't feel bad.
I don't know either. When we started the church, one
(13:29):
of the books they told us to read was pretty good.
It was about building your church with strategy. And they
gave me the book and I like most of it,
but there was one part. Matt, I couldn't stand this part,
and I did not adhere to it. It said that
when you bring people into discipleship in your church, it's
like taking them around the basis at a baseball game,
(13:49):
and when you go to the base one, it looks
like this, and this is what discipleship looks like with
first base, and then you take them to the second
and then this is what the second stage looks like,
the third base and the.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Home play, and then you get them all home and
they're all disciple.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I read that and I wanted that, and I would
like that because that would be cool if it was
that clear, not only for me as a pastor, but
for me as a person. See, your walk with God
goes like this. You do this, and then you do that,
and then you do that and then your home. But
home is called heaven and you have to die to
(14:24):
go there. So now, as long as we're on this earth,
I found that life is more like dirt and less
like a diamond on a baseball field.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
It's more dirt less diamond.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Because my spiritual journey, I don't know about yours, has
not looked like home. My spiritual journey. If I'm really
telling you the truth, I could explain it that way.
I took step one. I accepted Jesus Christ as my
Lord and savior. I took step two. I was baptized
in his name. I took step three. I began to
share my faith with others. I took step four, And
(14:59):
now I am a wonderful, beautiful child of God with
absolutely no blemish and no flaw. But the fact of
the matter is that God formed me, and I'm flawed,
that I am following Jesus flawed, And so it has
not looked like this, And there have not always been
(15:22):
base coaches telling me is safe to come. It has
looked more like I should draw this for you. But
you'll get the picture. All the base path people. Teach
(15:47):
me how you know so clearly what to do next?
Teach me how you know so certainly what God is
calling you to do right now? Because most of my
discipleship has been through making the wrong decision, repenting, learning, trusting,
(16:09):
and growing. Most of my discipleship has looked like I'm
doing everything that I think I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And I'm all over the place, and I'm all over.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
The map, and God, I going to do this and
that and finally just this. Okay, God and the true
everybody over fifty back your man up. Today it looks
like this. I'm up, I'm growing, I'm down. I feel
like I'm dying. I want to die. I'm back up,
(16:40):
I'm back down.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I'm left.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I'm right. I dated him. God said he was the one.
But that wasn't God talking. That was my loneliness. Back
down to singleness. Back up, here's another chance. Took that job,
looked like a good job, you know. I get a promotion,
got a new manager, wanted to walk out, stayed for
three years, wondered if I stayed thirty six months too long.
(17:03):
Don't even know right now what I'm doing. Not I
was gonna retire. Made an investment in crypto, Still learning
how to do it. It's like this, look at your
neighbor and make some swiggles and some scribbles and some
zigs and some zags and say it's like this. It's
like this and like that. It's like this and like that.
(17:25):
It's like this and it's like that. But everywhere I've gone,
I ran head on into grace. Everywhere I've been, I
ran right into God. Whether I went to the right
or to the left. Somehow I heard a voice saying, No,
this is the way. Walk in it. This is the way.
(17:46):
This is the way. I'm zigging, and I'm zagging, and
I'm up and I'm down and I'm back and I'm four.
I don't know if this is third base or second
base or the outfield. Sometimes I feel like I'm just
the dugouts. I'm gonna put me in coach. I'm ready
to play. Sometimes I feel like I'm eating a hot
dog in the Chief Seas. But I'm here for it
(18:08):
and I'm in the game, and God is with me.
That's what God told Jacob in verse fifteen. Show him.
He said, I am with you and will watch over
you wherever you go. You're not always gonna go like
this and like that. You're not always gonna even know
where homeplate is. Every umpire is not going to agree
(18:31):
with your opinion of a striking a ball. You're gonna
miss some stuff. You're gonna slide into some stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
But the promise is this, I will be with you, right,
I will be with you.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
M He didn't say I will be with you, He
said I am with you. Which one would you rather have?
A God who will be with you or a God
who already is? So when it comes to your next
step that God has given you to take, and I
(19:08):
don't know if that's walking someone that you love through
a difficult medical procedure that may be your next step.
I don't know if that is working through this addiction
issue that's really really got you by the throat. I
don't know whether that's just you continuing to be faithful
in something that feels kind of boring and mundane. I
don't know if that's you getting together with all of
(19:28):
those people in a couple of weeks for a meal
without cursing any of them out. Whatever your next step is,
I want to talk to you about it, and I
want to let you know what God told Jacob. See,
Jacob is such a messy man, and I'm glad for
(19:54):
that because the Bible says that the steps of a
good man are ordered by the Lord. But Jacob shows
me that the steps of God's man, even if he's
not a good man, are ordered by the Lord too.
Because for Jacob to steal Esau's blessing and his name
(20:15):
literally to mean trick, it means he was messy. He
is at this point in his life grown enough to
know better, and he should be mature. But we see
three things in the passage that may be going on
in your life too. One is a mistake, one is
a middle, and the other is a move. A mistake,
(20:40):
a middle, and a move, all in one passage, all
happening in the life of one man. You may say
it wasn't a mistake for him to steal Esau's blessing,
because God is sovereign, and the Book of Romans says, Jacob,
have I loved and saw, have I hated? And it
was predestined by God. Yet be that as it may
he went about. It wasn't right. He lied to get
(21:03):
this blessing. He's blessed, but it's messy. He's successful, but
it's messy. He is increasing, but he's isolated. That's a
crazy place to be where you find yourself in a
certain place because of a mistake. You know, as we
(21:27):
talk about God. We say things like where God guides,
he provides, But in this specific situation of Jacob's life,
we get an indication that even if it wasn't God
guiding you there, he will provide for you there if
you will turn to him and trust him. I don't
know who this is for, but you need to go
(21:48):
ahead and own the mistake that you made. Don't even
blame the devil for it. The devil didn't make Jacob
dress up and take his brother's blessing. He decided to
do it, and it was his mom's idea. He was
seventy one years old when he did it. It's too
late to blame your mom when you are seventy one
years old. So sometimes you got to come to the
(22:09):
place and say, God, I'm in this place because of
my mistake. Not all four jobs that you lost in
the last eight years were the result of the devil
attacking you. If it was one job in eight years,
maybe it was the devil. If it was four jobs
in eight years, maybe there are some decisions, not just devils.
(22:29):
They don't like me today, not one bit in the
world today. How can the grace come until the mistake
is acknowledged and accept it. So I'm in this mess.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
God, I'm in this mess.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I don't know what to do about this mess.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
God, it was my stubbornness that got me here.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
I think it's so great when we preach about Jonah,
you know, because he's an example of somebody who made
his own mess. But so is Jacob. In fact, Jacob
literally made his bed and had to lie in it.
I don't know if you noticed this or not. It
said that when he got there to the place in
verse twelve, in a certain place that wasn't so certain,
(23:11):
he had a dream on which he saw a stairway
resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven.
But go to the verse before that so we can
get the full context. When he saw this beautiful dream,
It says he reached a certain place stop for the
night because the sun had set, and taking one of
the stones there, he put it under his head and
lay down to sleep. He is literally in a hard place,
(23:39):
and it's not hard because of God. It's hard because
of him. This is not in my notes, So bear
with me and be patient. Sometimes it's not him making
it hard. Sometimes it's us and our decisions making it hard.
Sometimes it's our being pair in the past that's making
(24:01):
it so hard. Sometimes it's our grabbing after things that
God told us to give up that makes it hard.
And the problem with preaching is that people will clap
for the clips that we put on the Internet that
say that if life is hard for you right now,
it's because God has something great for you. But sometimes
we need to also say, if life is hard for
(24:22):
you right now, it might be because God is trying
to change you. It can be both. It can be both.
Waking up with a hangover every morning is not God
testing you or the devil attacking you. Getting yourself excluded
from each opportunity because you are never on time is
(24:45):
not the devil attacking you. The devil is not in
the traffic. You cannot rebuke traffic. The remedy for traffic
is not rebuke. Remedy for traffic is ten minutes earlier.
Now y'all want me to move on, clap a little louder,
(25:11):
and I'll think about it. I'm not playing with y'all
no more. I'm not playing with y'all no more. Because
you have to admit I am why I'm here. I
am why I'm here. You know, God sends some opportunities
for me to have some friends, but I wasn't friendly.
He's saying, rejection is God's protection. Maybe it's a maybe
(25:35):
it's a bad personality. Maybe you need to be nicer,
Maybe you need to ask other people how are they doing?
They rejected me, that was God redirecting me. No, they
rejected you because you're mean, because your drama, because you're messy.
(26:03):
And before you just ghost them and move your mess
around to the next person who hasn't figured you out yet,
take some time to say, Hey, God, is there a
reason why I don't have the same friends at the
end of every year? Hey, God, is there a reason
why I continue to fly off the handle with my
(26:25):
temper and think about how others made me lose it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I didn't even intend to preach like.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
This today, but notice in the mistake that Jacob made,
God gets in the middle of Jacob's mistake. Well, that
really blessed me, because you would think that if you
got yourself here, you've got to get yourself out of this.
(26:57):
Or I would at least think that if Jacob wanted
God to visit him, he would have to pray and
ask him to come show me in Genesis twenty eight
where Jacob prayed, it's not there. Show me in Genesis
twenty eight, where Jacob repented it's not there. Show me
in Genesis twenty eight where Jacob took seven steps to
get his life together.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Show me where Jacob set up on the base path.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And the first step, and the second step and the
third step. I burned that book when I read it.
I was like, people aren't coming to church because they're
in a baseball game. They're coming to church because they're
in a battle. It is a battlefield, and it looks
like this, and it looks like that, and it looks
like this, and it looks like that, and get this
(27:41):
little league Christianity out of your mind. God will meet
me in the middle, right on the mound. God will
set up and throw me another pitch, no matter how
the last one went down. That's what I see in
Genesis twenty eight. The Bible says in verse eleven that
with Jacob's pillow being a rock, this is horrible for
(28:05):
your posture and the sun being set, because not only
does God come into the middle of hard places, he
comes into the middle of dark places. God does some
of the best stuff in the dark, and Jacob stops
in a place he doesn't even know the name of.
I'm gonna tell you a story about that in a minute.
(28:27):
Look at this story, he said. He took one of
the stones, put on his head, laid down to sleep,
and verse twelve, he had a dream in which he
saw a stairway pay attention resting on the earth, with
its top reaching to heaven, and the angels were going
up and down on it. That's what he saw with
(28:49):
his eyes closed, that's what he saw. Laying on a rock,
That's what he saw in a hard place, trying to
decide which set the stairs to come over to. This
one feels right today. This is the right one. It
went up and down the angels. Now the angels are
(29:12):
moving Jacob, isn't Jacob is stopped because the sun is set.
But just because the sunset stopped you doesn't mean to
stop God. Oh, I love to make the Bible come
alive for people. Can you see it? Isn't it crazy?
In all of Jacob's scheming, he got blessed by his dad,
(29:33):
But in Jacob's sleeping he got blessed by God. And
the angels are moving up and down and up and
down because life ain't always like this, it's up and down.
(29:58):
So the angels are doing what life does, ascending, descending.
The angels are doing what your bank account does. The
angels are doing what your mood does. Am I not
(30:21):
preaching this thing? I haven't preached this since twenty eighteen,
so I've been waiting to get back to it. Up
and down and up and down and up and down
like your life, and Jacob isn't moving because God shows
up in the middle of his mistake, and in the
middle of the night, and in the middle of sleep.
So that you and I know that it is not
(30:43):
when we get there that God shows up. It is
not when we accomplish that that he shows up. It
is not when we reach the place of our goal
that we meet God. God meets me in the middle.
And this is the a I sermon where you touch
five people and say He met me in the middle,
(31:04):
and you.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Don't have to say any more than that.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You don't have to say what it was the middle of.
If it was the middle of a divorce, if it
was the middle of a diagnosis, if it was the
middle of a battle with sickness, if it was the
middle of a season of depression, if it was the
middle of you losing your mind, if it was the
middle of a nervous breakdown, if it was in the
middle of the street when you sit there and said, God,
I don't know which way to go. I'm too young
(31:28):
to be old, I'm too old to be young. God
met me in the middle. I'm too happy to be sad,
too sad to be happy. And he met me in
the middle. I can't quite name this place yet, but
God met Jacob in the middle. And Jacob did not
even know the name of the place where he was.
(31:48):
But he didn't have to know the name of the
place because God knew his name. There is a woman
who brought me a letter in Atlanta, Georgia. Her name
is Lish.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
She's watching on line right now from Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Everybody say, hey, Lish, I want to show you her
picture so you can see who we're talking about. This
is Lish getting baptized just recently at one of our
pop ups at Elevation, Atlanta pop up.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Did y'all know our church has to pop ups?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Did you know we have pop ups? We go to
different cities. We popped up in Riverside, California today, we're
having a pop up You could take the picture down
right now. Why do we have pop up church because
we have a pop up God. Because the devil is
a pop up devil, and the devil will just pop
up at times you don't expect him. So we just
take church wherever people are and God will pop up
(32:42):
in the middle of a place. God will pop up
in the middle of a struggle. God will pop up
in the middle of a panic attack. Have you ever
had God just pop up for you? Black boom, zam,
wig wock. There it is, Sam. God just popped up.
Looked like it was over looked like it was done,
felt like it was over. He felt like it was done.
Thank God popped up. He turned a grave into a garden.
(33:06):
They were weeping for Lazarus, but Jesus popped up, and
Lazarus popped up when he said his name. So we
baptized her.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It to pop up.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
But she told me I haven't always been on such
a good track. Listen what she told me. She said,
I had opened several doors to the enemy through the
course of my life, and because of that, I ended
up on the run from many abusive situations, and one
in particular She didn't tell me what those situations were,
but she told me that it got so bad for
(33:39):
her that she was going.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
From place to place to place.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Now stop, you're thinking, well, my life isn't that bad,
is but we go from place to place to place.
She was doing it physically, but some of us do
it emotionally. From place, come on to place. I'm going
to preach to everybody in this church will admit that
is this, and it's that is this, and it's that
(34:05):
is this and it's that. So she wrote me this
letter and she gave it to me, and she said
it got so bad at one point that I had
to go live with a friend and my friend would
always play Christian TV and it was so annoying.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And one night I walked in and this guy was preaching.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
She was talking to me, and it really spoke to
my situation, and it spoke so straight to me. I
felt like I didn't even know what to call it,
because I wasn't yet a Christian, but I felt something.
I didn't know what it was called. I just felt something.
She said I had to leave there suddenly, and I
didn't get to ask my friend what was the name
of that Preacher that we watched.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
She said, for three years, I would think about it.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well, I kept making the wrong decisions for three years,
and my situation didn't get better. It got worse.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Eventually, she said, I was in a car wreck and
I wasn't.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Able to walk for six months after it. She said.
During the six months, I would try to watch the
Christian TV anywhere I was, but I couldn't find that
preacher again. And the other stuff was good, she said,
but there was just she said. I wish I could
say that it got better from there, but it didn't
get better from there. As I went from safe house
to safe house. At one point it got so bad
that I thought, I don't even know if I want
to go on living anymore. What is my life worth
(35:19):
when I'm just going from place to place to place
to place to place to place, she said.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
One night at the safe house, I just decided to.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Turn on the old clock radio. It was the only
thing in the room, and I turned it on. I
wanted to hear some music, and some music started playing
and it was very beautiful, but I didn't know what
it was. And then they started saying the name of
Jesus on the song she said, and I reached to
grab for the dial because I was not trying to
listen to Christian music.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
But before I touched the dial, the most beautiful.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Thing that I've heard happened, and she played played the
intro real quick to more than Able. She said, the
most beautiful music that I've heard came on the radio,
and she said, the presence of God looking back. I
(36:11):
didn't know what to call it when the presence of
God met me in that room, and I began to
cry and I began to weep, and she said, I
honestly feel that God came into my life when that
song was playing, and it said, I've come a long way.
I've seen how you work. There's so much goodness and grace,
much more than I deserve. And I know who I am,
(36:33):
and I can't stay where I'm at. We've come this
far by faith, and I just can't turn back because
you're not done with me yet. I listen, she said,
I'm crying, and when the DJ comes on after the song,
he says, that was elevation worship with more than Abel
and she said, I thought to myself, what is an
(36:54):
elevation worship? That's literally what she wrote me. In the note,
she said, I thought to myself. This is her note.
She said, I literally thought to myself, what is an
elevation worship? I borrowed a computer from the counselor the
next morning and googled what is an elevation worship? This
(37:18):
is what Lich said in her letter to me, and
I was led to the Elevation Church website. After years
of looking for you, I found you. But I want
to say something. Don't clap for that. It's not after
years of looking for me. She found me. It's not
about finding me at all. It's after years of running
(37:38):
God found her. I messed up by showing you the
first picture before I read you the letter, because you
would have just thought that she went like this and
(37:59):
like this and like this and now she's home. But
she told me that it was like this and like this,
and like this and like this and like this, and
then with a clock radio, the Lord found her. She said,
(38:23):
she's doing good now. She said. The Lord is working
in her life. She said, she teaches at a Christian school.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Not like this, but like this and like this and
like this and like this and like this.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I came to find somebody today who has been doing
all of this and this and this and this and
this and this and this and this and this and this,
and I came with an announcement. The Lord is in
this place, and it's messy. I know it is. But
(39:05):
we're celebrating a holiday called Christmas in a few weeks.
And it kind of proves that the greatest miracles start
in the messiest situations. After all, why will millions of
people sing all around the world of a baby who
was born in a manger, who was really the king
of kings. Now you may say, what does that have
to do with me? Because I see you trying to
(39:27):
make your next step. I saw it when I was
praying about this message. I saw people like Jacob who
know I have made this mistake and I don't really
can't go back to where I came from. I can't
really figure out where I'm supposed to God? What is
my next step? And the Lord said it is going
to be your next messy step. And what messy means
(39:50):
is you're not going to know if it's the right one. Oh,
you'll look back and you'll say, this was my path,
But what is it explained as a path? Later? Was
really experienced as a problem in real time. Everything that
God ever did for me that later I could be like.
And then God directed my path. It was really this
(40:13):
and this and this and this and this. I don't
know what kind of day you're having today. You might
be doing like this and your life. That's wonderful for
that lady, But what does it mean for me? I'll
tell you what it means for you. It means that
you cannot forget the God who brought you this far
when you remember that you started at rock bottom. You
(40:37):
can't come all this way and say look what I did. No,
if it had not been for the Lord, come on,
if it had not been for the Lord on my side,
I would be I would be down, I would be over.
But God is Abel. But God is Abel. So you
(41:03):
have Jacob lying on the ground, and you have God
speaking to Jacob, and you have both things happening simultaneously.
You have the nation of Israel in this man who
is lying on the ground with no one, with nothing.
God is speaking of his descendants and he doesn't even
have one child. God is speaking of his future and
(41:27):
he doesn't even have a single friend. God is speaking
to you about things that you can't see in your life.
But notice what verse fourteen says. It says that there
was a ladder that started on the earth and went
to heaven, and a voice from the Lord who stood
over it, and he said, your descendants will be like
the dust.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
God does stuff in dust. God does stuff in dust.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Y'all, I'm having a moment right now where I know
I'm preaching to a lish I am preaching to somebody
who is going to write me a year from now
and say I was in the dust. Well, that's how
your whole life got started. Did you ever read the
(42:25):
Book of Genesis. We talk about destiny. I'm talking about destiny, huh.
I'm talking about God knows the plans he hasks for you,
plans to give you a hope in a future. I'm
talking about God speaks to the youth that he formed
from the dust, and he breathed the breath of life
(42:47):
into him, and he formed you from the dust. And
now you are following the God who formed you from
the dust. And it's going to be messy. Sometimes it
was messy for the disciples following Jesus. Air up and
we're down, and we're here, and we're there and it's
working and it's not, and Hosanna and crucify him and
(43:07):
we get it and we don't and we understand and
we're confused. And that's okay because God leads people through
messy next steps, just a messy next step. It doesn't
have to be a beautiful next step. You don't have
to have a choreographed next step. You don't have to
(43:29):
dance into your future. You can just absolutely, Okay, God,
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna call it Christian counselor.
I don't even know if this's the right one. If
they're weird, I'll fire him and get another one. There's
a whole lot of counselors, and chat GIVT doesn't count
as a counselor. So I'm gonna get a real human being,
(43:51):
a real human being, because I'm gonna take that messy step. See,
a controlled step is you keep trying to deal with
things that the love well, you can see things. But
what if the next step for you is that God
wants to show you a staircase. Remember, God can do
more while you're sleeping than you can do while you're striving.
(44:11):
It is not It is not you figuring this out.
It is you following Jesus into the mess. When Jesus
called his disciples, he called one disciple named Nathaniel, and
Nathaniel was confused. He was like, how do you know me?
How do you see me under the fig tree? How
did you know who I was? And in John chapter one,
(44:33):
verse fifty Jesus said to Nathaniel, you are amazed and
believed because I saw you under the fig tree. You
will see greater things than that.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Watch this skinner verse fifty one.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
He said, very truly, I tell you will see heaven
open and you will see the angels of God. Watch
this flashback Genesis twenty eight. He said, you will see
the Angel of God Us sending and descending, not on
(45:06):
Jacob's ladder. But Jesus said, you will see the angels
Us sending from a versa voice and descending on the
son of Man. Who's the son of man? Jesus, who
is the ladder that appeared to Jacob in the wilderness. Jesus,
who is the one who is calling to you in
(45:26):
this season of your life, saying we can do this,
we can move forward in this. And I came to
declare to you that it is not your next step
that matters. It is the step that God has already
made toward you. It's a mistake, it's a middle and
(45:54):
it's a move. But it wasn't Jacob's move that saved him.
It was God's move. God is moving in your situation. Man.
You say I can't see him, that's because he puts
you to sleep to do it. You say I can't
see it, that's because it's covered in dust. But whether
(46:16):
it's Genesis or whether it's Jesus who been down in
the dirt when a woman who committed adultery was about
to be stone, God does stuff in the dust. Your
next messy step, that's all it's going to take. It's
(46:37):
just your next messy step because God has already done
the real work. Now you will know what it is
today that the Lord is speaking to you about. How
could I now? God?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
You will know the place in your life where he
has felt like.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
I feel like I'm speaking to somebody though, who you
thought you had arrived and now you've been in a
setback and you're surprised by it a little bit. Well, surprise,
God is in the setback too, because this is this
is this is this is this everyone's standing all over
(47:20):
this auditorium and nobody moving to leave at this moment.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Where did the Lord find you today?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Was it like this where you're like, yo, man, I
don't even see a way forward? Or is it like
Jacob who should have been at the top of his
life but was empty inside.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
This is a moment for you to decide.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Is he your God? And do you trust him? In
verse fifteen, he told Jacob, I am with you, and
I will be with you wherever you go, and I
will bring you back to this land. I will not
leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
You know, the Lord didn't say he was going to
do everything that we prayed for. He said he would
(48:06):
do everything that he promised. Who is that for? And
you think for you to take the next step, God
has to answer your last prayer. No, he's already done enough.
And if the next step he called you to take
is just stand still, then you do that. Because the
(48:27):
Lord is in this place. Father, I've administered your word
with the grace and conviction with which you ministered it
to me. Now put it in your hands.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
These are your children, these people, they're precious to you.
You see where they're running to, you see what they're
running from, and you know where you're leading them. I
believe that your hand is on each and every one
of them, none too dusty, none too dirty, none too messy,
none too far gone. I believe there are some people
(49:02):
God who have accomplished a lot in earthly standards.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
There is a spiritual vacuum, and they're starting to feel it.
Right about now, Lord, would you meet that person in
that place?
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And there's somebody listening to me God at a point.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
In between, like ah, I just don't feel like I
know what God has called me to do next. I
pray that heavens would be open over them, even if
it's just for thirty seconds while I'm praying this prayer,
and they would know that angels are coming up and
down for the high times, for the low times, that
(49:41):
this staircase, this step did not start with them, as
started with you. And now Father, we commit our lives
to your grace. Like Jacob said, I will make you
my God, I will follow you forward. I thank you,
Lord for what you know about them that they don't
know about. I thank you for what you see in
(50:01):
them that they've lost sight of. I thank you for
what you're doing that I just can't perceive. Now, lift
your hands just a little bit and give that situation
to the Lord.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Surrender it. You know what it is. I want you
to have a strategy.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I want you to have a plan, but I want
you to have His presence, so you could just surrender
it to him. Every time in the church I didn't
know what to do, I did this, and God did something.
Every time with my kids, when I don't know what
to do, I do this, and I trust God to
do something every time in my life when I don't
know what to do, I do this. Because it's not
(50:36):
strategy that blesses your life. It is surrender. Father.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
You see all these hands lifted to you right now.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Everything they're caring, every burden that they bear, we place
it on Jesus. We see angels ascending and descending on
the son of Man. Jesus, the burden bear, the shame remover,
the way maker, the God who is always with us.
Put your hands down for a moment. If your head's
(51:06):
bowed and your eyes closed, is there one here today,
even just one who God brought you here and met
you here? Because you need to give your life to
Jesus Christ. Maybe you've been running from God, or maybe
you've never really even stopped to consider it. But I
believe that God brought you to this moment so that
you could give him your heart. Right now, in the
(51:29):
stillness of this moment, I want to lead you in
a prayer, and if you are ready to give your
life to Jesus Christ, I want you to repeat this
prayer after me. Now, the prayer is not magical. The
prayer does not save you. God saves you. The Bible
says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus
is Lord, and believe in your heart God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved. So right now,
(51:52):
this is your day, and God is calling you home.
I want you to repeat after me. We're going to
pray it out loud as a church family for the
benefit of those who are coming to God. Repeat after me,
Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a savior,
and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God and the Savior of the world. And today I
(52:17):
make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he
died that I would be forgiven and rose again to
give me life. I receive this new life. This is
my new beginning. I am a child of God. On
(52:38):
the counter, three, shoot your hand up high in the air.
If you prayed that one. Two chree.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
I want to celebrate with you.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Praise the Lord. That's awesome. Less God, come on, let's go.
That's amazing. 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
(53:06):
visit Elevationchurch 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,
take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
and tag us at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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