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June 13, 2025 • 24 mins

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Awakened to Grace. Thanks so much for listening today.
My name is Pastor Chad Robertson. I believe God has
connected us for a great purpose. You're about to hear
a powerful sermon that I know is going to encourage you.
If you like what you hear, share it with a
friend and download our free mobile app, Awaken to Grace
wherever you get your favorite apps. My prayer for you

(00:28):
is that this year is the best yet Isaiah chapter
sixty one. I just want to share one thought with you,
one thought that has really captivated me, especially when I
look at someone like Eric, When I look at someone

(00:49):
who has truly lost everything in the world's eyes, it
would appear that Eric gained the world in so California,
that he was losing his soul. He had gained everything.
He had a level of success that few people rarely obtain.

(01:14):
But it brought him no joy. It brought him no
real happiness. It certainly did not bring him any peace.
And you know, there are many of us today that
we are looking for something. We're trying to find it.
We try to find it in relationships, and we don't
seem to ever obtain it. We try to find it

(01:38):
by changing careers, but we feel just as empty as
ever before. We tried to fill it with substance, and
we try this and we try that, and it seems
like nothing ever fills this gaping whole within. And then

(02:00):
many of us are like Eric, where we have reached
a place in life where we look around and it
feels like our lives are destroyed. I don't know if
you've ever been there before. The imagery that I get
is of a forest that is completely burnt and is
left with nothing but ashes. And maybe today you're listening

(02:26):
to me, and maybe that's exactly where you feel. Your
life is nothing but ashes, ruined, will never be the same,
will never be what it once was. Well, I want
to share with you this remarkable verse today Isaiah sixty one,

(02:47):
verse three. It says that God will give a crown
of beauty for ashes, oil of glass, sadness for sadness,
and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness.

(03:10):
And then these verses stun me. It says that you
will be an oak of a righteousness, a planting of
the Lord for his glory. What a remarkable verse today,
If you look at your life and it feels like
it is devastated. It feels like a forest of nothing

(03:34):
but ash, and you feel like you're going through the fire. Well,
I've got good gospel news for you today. Do you
know why a forest can regrow after it suffers a fire?
Do you know why a forest can come back after

(03:56):
a wildfire? It's because God puts in certain trees this
seed that's called a pyro seed. And it's unbelievable. These
seeds will lie dormant within trees, within forest. It will
lie dormant for years upon years, and there that seed

(04:20):
is tucked away inside of it. And do you know
why scientists call them pyro seeds? It's because their dormant
until fire unlocks them. Once lightning strikes a tree or
there's a man made or a man calls wildfire and

(04:43):
a forest just burnt. Do you know what germinates? Do
you know what begins to grow again? Those pyro seeds?
And I want you to know that if you look
around your life today and it looks like nothing but ash,
I want you to know that God has put seeds

(05:06):
within you. Do you know why? Because you don't what
the Bible calls you. It calls you an oak of righteousness.
Let me translate that that means that you're strong. That
means you're stronger than you think you are. That means
you're steady. That means you're sturdy. That means that there's

(05:29):
a strength about your life that perhaps you don't even
realize that it is there. But do you know why
so often we don't feel the strength like God intends? Well,
when an acorn goes into the ground and an oak

(05:50):
tree begins to grow, you know, it really fascinates me.
As a matter of fact, it makes me kind of
chuckle because an oak tree will take up to twenty
years before it ever reproduces a seed. But do you
know an oak tree doesn't mature until seventy five years?
Don't that sound like some of us? An oak tree

(06:19):
has the ability to reproduce up to ten thousand acorns.
It can reproduce itself up to ten thousand times. The
wonder of how God creates this earth. And you know
what is amazing about an oak tree. Its root system

(06:40):
will grow three to five feet deep into the ground.
Because of that, it can sustained winds up to one
hundred and ten miles per hour. Oak trees are symbols
of strength and sturdiness. An oak tree is meant to

(07:02):
grow between eighty to one hundred and fifty feet tall.
Now isn't that amazing? Now? Say amen, if you're with
me right now, But do you know you can limit
an oak tree? Do you know that if you just
take a small pot and you plant that acorn in

(07:22):
a small pot, do you know that that oak tree
will never grow to its real potential. There's some of
you listening to me right now. You're not who God
really wants you to be. You're not all that God
wants you to be. You've limited yourself. Some of you

(07:44):
are limited by the people that you have in your life.
There's certain friends that you won't walk away from. There's
certain influences that when you get around them, you're limited
and you can't become that oak of righteousness that God
truly is calling you to be. There's some of you that,

(08:05):
by your negative thinking, you can't become who God wants
you to be. God will deal with you. God will
convict you about negativity in your life. And rather than
embracing God's word, rather than embracing who God says you
are or what God says about your life. Instead, you
embrace that negativity, and because of that, you're not becoming

(08:28):
who God really intends you to be. Some of you
have embraced You've chosen apathy, You've chosen laziness, and because
of that, that's like a potted plant instead of this
eighty to one hundred foot oak tree. You're just limited
by your environment. You're limited by your surroundings because you're

(08:51):
not becoming who God really has intended you to be.
So I want to encourage you today. Do you see
yourself the way God sees you? Do you see your
potential the way God sees your potential? Or do you
think to yourself, I'll always be bound by his substance,

(09:14):
I'll always have this negativity about me. I'll never be
who I think I should be spiritually, and so I
might as well quit trying. Know, my friends, Satan wants
you to think that way. God doesn't want you to
think that way. Do you know how God wants you
to think? God says I've got gifts for you. God

(09:37):
says I've got blessings and I've got favor for your life.
That here's what I'm willing to do. Out of the
ashes of your life. I'll give you a crown of beauty.
Can we say amen to that? He says, out of
the sadness of your life, I will exchange and I'll
give you the oil of gladness. Amen. God says that

(09:59):
hea us that spirit of depression, that spirit of heaviness
that weighs upon you. God says, trade it in, exchange
it in, And God says, I'll give you a garment
of praise.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
That's what I want.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Amen. But what does it take. It takes receiving from
the Lord. It takes saying I believe what God says,
not what I feel, not what I think. Those times
that I would pray with Eric because his bones weren't
coming back together. I mean, you saw the pictures of them,

(10:40):
and times that doctors were saying, we don't see an
improvement and it's gonna require yet another surgery and things
are not lining up. Let me tell you something. If
you're gonna walk with God, if you're gonna believe God,
you gotta turn a deaf fear to some things that
other people say. Right to turn a deaf fear to

(11:01):
what circumstances are trying to tell you? And you have
to say, God despite what I see, or for some
of us, despite what I don't see. I believe you
are God. I believe you'll do what you say you'll do,
and I trust you. And if you'll believe God today,

(11:24):
and if you'll believe him when he says you are
an oak of righteousness, you are an Oh complanting of
the Lord. You know what that means. That means you
are by great design, God planted you. I love Eric's story.

(11:45):
He thinks, he thinks he went to Indiana University, graduated
from there, and had all this success and competed in
in in all of those extremes sports, and then he
thought that he was making a good move and go
to southern California and get all these clothing apparel endorsements,

(12:10):
and all this money starts flowing in. And then he
thought he would go to work for Larry Flint and
do all this stuff. And he thought all along the
way he was charting his own course. But you know what,
God was planting him the whole time. And then he
looks around and there's nothing but Ash has left. And

(12:37):
God sends him to Chattanooga. And what does God do.
He plants him. God introduces him to Amber plants, and
God introduces him to Chris McDaniel plants, and they moved
to Pennsylvania for work, and he goes into the prisons
and begins celebrate recovery programs and watching people set free.

(13:02):
God plants him, and then God brings him the Kingsport.
Why why Because he's a planting of the Lord. So
were you. And right now things may not make sense.
I heard someone say, actually just this morning, about how

(13:24):
they would always enjoy putting puzzles together, and it would
take weeks to put a puzzle together. And he said,
you know, in that course of time, inevitably, he said,
it happened to me all the time. I would find
a piece and he say, I was certain, with all certainty,

(13:47):
this piece is a mistake. This piece doesn't fit. The
manufacturer added an extra piece. This is from a different puzzle.
The manufacturer has messed up. But he said, you know what,
I didn't realize. I couldn't see it until the other
pieces began to come into place. Eric had no idea

(14:13):
what God was doing in his life until more pieces
began to come into place. And maybe that's where you
are today. Maybe you don't understand why you struggle the
way you do. Maybe you don't understand why you doubt
the way you do. Maybe you don't understand why you

(14:33):
look around and it feels like God helps and blesses
everybody but your life. Well, friends, that may be you're
just waiting on some missing pieces. It may be that
God has more pieces to your story than what you've
seen right now, don't give up. Like Eric said, hope

(14:55):
in God. Trust in God. Began to say over your
life what God says about you, you are an oak
of righteousness. I'm gonna ask Missy to come right now.
I'm gonna ask you about your head. You know, many
people came forward today and received help. Many people came

(15:16):
and they got prayer for many different things in their life.
Have you received help from God today? If not, now
it's your opportunity. Why don't you say God, I invite
you right there, right where you are, Say God, I

(15:37):
invite you into my life. I can't make sense of this.
I can't make sense of that. But that's why your God,
and that's why i'm not. Maybe today you're exactly who
I'm talking to. There's nothing left of your life but ashes,

(16:01):
nothing left but ruin. No there's hope for you. There's
hope for you. There's hope because God's put seeds in
you that are pyro seeds that the very fire, the
very fire that's devastated your life. It's going to be

(16:24):
what in locks, those seeds of greatness in you, those
seeds of faith in you. Jeremiah twenty ninety eleven. God says,
I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
Not your mama's plans, not your friends' plans, not even

(16:46):
your plans. God says, I know the plans I have
for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and
not to harm you, to give you a hope and
to give you a future.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Today.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
If your life is ashes, well there's beauty that's going
to arise out of those ashes. If there's nothing but
ruin and devastation, all, let me tell you God's not
done with you.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
He's just began.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Head. Let's sing together, search the buddy.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
It couldn't feel me.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Man's empty, prigs, stresses and and a never in.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Then you came along. Can you put me back together?

Speaker 1 (18:16):
In?

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Every desire is now satisfying.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
Hearing your there's a bathy coming better than you. Lord,
there's a bad thing nothing nothing better than you.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Lord. That isn't bapen nothing is better than you?

Speaker 1 (18:46):
What?

Speaker 4 (18:47):
No, it's true.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
I'm not afraid.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Show you mar my failures in Florence.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Lord, you've seen the more in. You still call me brick.

Speaker 4 (19:12):
Just the god of the mousin.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Here's the child the vine.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
And there's not a place.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
You're mercye Briggs won't find me again.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
Oh there's about matter than you. Lord.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
There's about me nothing nothing better than Lord.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
There's about nothing is better than.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Oh there's about me I any Lord, there isn't not
being nothing better. Lord, there's a math.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
You're nothing is better than you? Sern Lord, it's a
tim You can't y for your shaes. You s a shame.

(20:33):
It's a blocky. You're these fly the world you get
user morettacis you can't y for sis user shame is

(20:54):
the blomy. You're the love word. You certain bred scenes
of god.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
You turn boes into argy, You cern scenes into the Hollys.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
You're the way, You're the one. Oh, there isn't nothing,
Come on, choir.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Better who nothing is better?

Speaker 4 (21:45):
Thank you? Oh there's nothing.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Better thing Lord, there's about mean nothing of the Lord.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
Here's a.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Nothing is blitter y.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
You.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
Certain crame scenes are God.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
And.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
You turn bounds into.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
You, Cern seasons and lays You're the only.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
You.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Certain rameses a God and.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
You sern bouncing to army You Cern seasons, You're the.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
You're only your to be.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
You the.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
You're the.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Did you know that? I'm a pastor, husband and father
of four who suddenly went blind in twenty eighteen. Today
I teach people how life is not random, but it
is actually orchestrated by God for a great purpose. Learn
more about my story and awaken to Grace at Chad
Roberts dot org
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