December 21, 2025 • 48 mins
We live in a time when it’s getting harder and harder to believe things. But it’s so important to remember that in a world full of illusion and deception, God is still true. Pastor Holly Furtick shares from Mary’s perspective some truths about God we can believe as we cling to faith this Christmas.
If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: ele.vc/tIepfr
Scripture References:
Luke 1, verses 34-45
Luke 1, verses 26-30
John 16, verse 13
Luke 1, verses 8-13
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
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.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Ladies and gentlemen, remain standing and welcome to our epam
all over the world as you continue to hug your neighbors,
your friends, your family, and complete strangers.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It is my great joy to announce to you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That today, preaching her final sermon of the year twenty
twenty five, it's my favorite Verdic, your favorite Fernich, everybody's
favorite Arnach.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Y'all give it up for holly.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Let me just get a good look at you.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
What an amazing time we have had in worship today.
Feels so good in here. The Lord is present in
this place.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Amen. The Bible says that He.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Inhabits the praises of his people. I think that means
he's here with us today. And you made it to
church on the Sunday before Christmas, whether you're at one
of our.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Locations or you're joining us online. I know that that means.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
That your heart is expectant today, that you want more
than just checking off things off your to do list
this week, that you want to get your heart right
this week?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Can you want to be in the presence of Jesus?
Speaker 5 (01:49):
And I believe that God has a word for us
today and I'm really honored that I get.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
To bring it to you.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
So, okay, real quick, before you take your seats, I
just want to read our scripture for today. I'm going
to be reading from Luke chapter one if you.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Have a Bible.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And last week Pastor Stephen talked about how God provides
and he prompts.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
It was so powerful. Were you here? Amazing?
Speaker 5 (02:19):
The sermon was called Mary's Prayer, and so I want
to pick up today with a little bit more of
Mary's story and we're going to start reading. In the
middle of the passage, the Angel has come to Mary
and he's announced to her that she's going to give
birth to the Son of God.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And we're going to start reading right there.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
In verse thirty four, Mary asked the angel, but how
can this happen?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I am a virgin.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
So the baby to be born will be holy, and
he will be called.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
The Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has
become pregnant.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
In her old age, people used to say she was barren,
but she has conceived a son and is now in
her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.
Mary replied, I am the Lord's servant. May everything that
you have said about me come true? And then the
angel left her. A few days later, Mary hurried to
(03:23):
the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived.
She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
At the sound of.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was
filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry
and exclaimed to Mary, God has blessed you above all women,
and your child is blessed. Why am I so honored
that the mother of my Lord should visit me. When
I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped
(03:51):
for joy. You are blessed because you believed that the
Lord would do what he said. Father, would you bless
the reading of this word today.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
We love you, we want to hear from you. It's
in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. All right, the.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Title of my sermon don't sit Downia, don't it Donia.
The title of my sermon is blessed because you believed.
On your way to your seat, ask your neighbor, are
you blessed? So several weeks ago, my husband stood up
(04:36):
here and he told all of you about how I
am a terrible liar.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It's true.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I don't know why, but I am really just the
worst liar. And what that means is, don't ask me
if I like your haircut. Please do not put me
on the spot like that, because sometimes I just can't
think of anything to say, and like the best thing
that I might be able to come up with is like, wow,
(05:06):
you look so good, and then you won't believe me.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And I'm you know, I just I'm a terrible liar.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
And what that means, though, also is that my inability
to lie it also makes me extremely gullible. I'm just
I'm a believer. Okay, So I am a car salesman's dream, you.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Know, Like I'm gonna be like yeah, like.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
Oh, a little old lady drove this car. She only
drove it to church in the grocery store every week.
I mean, I just I just believe what people say
to me, and I also believe. I've recently come to
realize everything that comes into my Instagram feed, and this
drives my family crazy. Like I will frequently show my
(05:48):
kids videos and be like, look at this, this is amazing,
and my kids will look back at me and they're like, Mom,
that's not real. And so then I find another one
I want to show. I gotta showsting this baby. You're
not gonna believe this, and he'll look at me and
they'll be like, hell, you know that's AI right, Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So I'm slow.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
I'm learning because I just believe that things are true.
Like the other day, this video came into my feet
on Instagram, and I don't know if you guys saw
this one, but it was ring doorbell footage and which
means it's true. And there was a cat and a
baby on a front porch and a bear wanders up
(06:30):
and the cat hissses and like swats at the bear
and saves the baby. And when I saw this video,
I thought, wow, Dad is one amazing cat. And soon
A couple days later, another one comes into my feet.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Different porch, different cat, different baby, and I thought, I
think we need to get a cat.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
So then a third one came, and this time I thought,
wait a minute, like, how many moms are.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Leaving their babies alone on a porch? This must be AI.
You can't fool me three times.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
I recently saw another one of this family of dolphins
and they were like breaching the water and this tiny
little baby dolphin like.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Pops up out of the water. It was the.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
Cutest thing I have seen in twenty twenty five, and
I was like, oh, wait, maybe this So I went
to the comments, because you know, in the comments, people
will let you know if this is AI. If one
of the first comments that I saw, this woman said,
if this is AI, don't tell me. I don't want
to know, And I was like, Amen, it's real.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
How many of you would agree.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
It's getting harder and harder to believe. When I was
in my twenties, I thought that belief was black and white.
This is what I believe, this is what I do
not believe, and I believe that this is what you
should believe too. I was really fun to be around you,
would have enjoyed it. As I've gotten older, though, I've
learned to let go kind of of the black and white,
(08:07):
and I've had to learn that believing God is so
much more about who He is than it is about
what I think he should do. And in our story,
Elizabeth told Mary that she was blessed because she believed.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And when I read this, those words just leapt off
of the page.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
For me, the blessings in my life are directly tied
to my beliefs.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
What I believe about God has.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
To be at the center of everything that I say
and everything that I do. And what I want you
to know today is that God is not Santa. We
don't grow out of believing in him.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
We grow into.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Our belief as we walk with Him, as.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
We begin our journey with Him. Well, we begin it
with salvation, right.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
Maybe you accepted Jesus as a child and you've known
him your whole life. Maybe you accepted Jesus here at
elevation you raise your hand and you got one of
those orange Bibles. Maybe you accepted Jesus online through our ministry.
We begin by knowing Jesus as our savior, but then
we get to know that God is so much more
(09:22):
than that. God never intended for us to stop with salvation.
The gospel is not about accepting Jesus just so that
we can go to heaven. That's the beginning and the end.
But you will be blessed because you believed in Him.
The Gospel is about believing in God and getting to
know Him in the middle part, in the time that
(09:43):
we have here on earth. We get to know God
when we worship him, when we bring our questions to Him,
and our sorrows and our disappointments, and when we lay
them before Him and we begin to grow in.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Our belief of who He is.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
This February, our church is going to celebrate our twentieth anniversary, and.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I'm so excited. I just want you to know We're
going big.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
I've told my husband, I was like, we're doing this right.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Twenty years is a big deal.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
So I've been coming through old videos and pictures and
I've just been feeling all of the feelings of what
it's been like these past twenty years, and I just
want to tell you it has been the blessing of
a lifetime. To believe that God could use two kids
from South Carolina to be able to lead a church
(10:39):
and a ministry like this. We were twenty five years
old when we started this church. I don't know who
wanted to come to a church led by q twenty
five year old kids, but thank you for coming. And
I'm so glad that God did actually call us to
start this when we were young. When we started this church,
(11:00):
I was so naive. And Stephen tells this story. I'm
sure you've heard about how we were on our front
porch in Shelby, North Carolina, and I looked at him
and I said, it's time for us to start this church.
And I believed with all of my heart that God
was calling us to go and to do this and
to step out in faith and to follow him. But
(11:20):
I had no idea how much I would grow in
my understanding of who He is as we walked out
what we believed that He was calling us to do.
I want you to know that I have come to
know God as Jehovah Jirah, because from the moment that
we took the first step to move to Charlotte, We've
(11:42):
seen Him provide over and over and over again, every
person that he put in our path, every resource that
he prompted someone to give every connection that led us
to the next step. I've also come to know him
as Jehovah Nissi, the one who fights our.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Battles for us. I've come to know him as Jehovah Rafa,
the God who heals.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
And I've seen him bring healing and restoration to so
many people across our ministries, families that were put back together,
marriages that were restored.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I've come to know him as Emmanuel.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
God with us in the ups and the downs and
in everything in between.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I have come to know that God is with me.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
I am blessed because I believed, and you are blessed
because you believe. And the Christmas Story is about a
cast of characters who dared to believe that God, God
was telling them what would come to pass, and that
it was true. So my message.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Today is very simple.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
It's so simple that I'm almost embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That this is what I'm bringing to you.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
It's very common sense. And in the time that we
have left, I want to show you three things that
I believe about God that I see in this part
of the Christmas Story.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And I just want to warn you my parts, my points.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
They're not catchy, they don't rhyme, they don't spell anything
at the end, so don't be prepared to be in
awe at the end. We're going to leave that for
when Pastor Stephen comes back.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's just a simple message today.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Three truths that we can believe about God this Christmas,
and the first one is I believe that God believes
in me.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Let's go back to our scripture, verse twenty six.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the
angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a
virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to
a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel
appeared to her and said, greetings, favored woman, the Lord.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Is with you.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel
could mean. Don't be afraid, the angel told her, for
you have found favor with God.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Now.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
Nowhere in this passage do we find a reason why
God picked Mary. God didn't pick Mary because she was strong.
It doesn't say that God didn't pick Mary because she
was accomplished. It doesn't say that God didn't pick Mary
because she was experienced.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
She did not apply for this job.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
She did not campaign for this job, and she did
not volunteer for this job. But one day an angel
comes to her and he says, you have found favor
with God. Now, when I think of the mother that
I would have picked for Jesus if I was God,
I would have picked a woman that already had a
(14:46):
full brood of children, a woman whose children were homeschooled
and responsible, like they had a chure charte that they
actually used. And a woman who's children were respectful, a woman.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Whose children like looked after each other.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
And you know, I would have picked a woman who
knew the difference between croup and pneumonia. I would have
picked a woman whose house was clean and orderly, and
especially I would have picked a woman who could cook good,
home cooked meals for the son of God.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
But God picked Mary.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
And all we know about Mary is that she was
a virgin who was blessed because she believed that she
was the one for the job.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And that's all that God requires of you as well.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
And I wonder how different my day would be if
I woke up each morning and I set out loud.
God picked me for this. God picked me for this day.
God picked me for this job. God picked me for
this child. Whatever the circumstances were that led me to
this moment that I am in today, I am going
(15:57):
to operate under the belief that God believed I am.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
The one for this now.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
I think we all live in the tension of the
things in our life that we feel called to and
the things in our life that we might not necessarily
have chosen for ourselves. Like, there are things in life
that we go after, right. God put a desire in
your heart. He gave you a gift and a passion.
And yes it's hard along the way, and yes there
(16:25):
are obstacles and things that you have to overcome, but
you're going after what you feel like you are supposed
to do. Anybody ever feel that way, And it's wonderful,
and you should.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
When you feel like you're called to do something, you
should go after it. But then there are things in
life that I don't know, it seems like.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
They go after you, right, Like the things that you
didn't plan for, or the things you didn't expect, or
the things that you don't feel qualified for, the things
that seem to have just been like placed in your
life or in your lap that you did not ask for.
And I want you to hear from me that God
(17:07):
believes in you.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
He chose you.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
He chose you to be born at this time, at
this place, in this family.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
He gave you the children that you have. He gave
you the opportunities that you have. He chose you.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
God believed in you before you believed in him, before
the world began. He knew the number of your days.
You are not an accident. You are chosen and selected
to glorify God with your life.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I don't care what you've done or what you have
not done. The only thing that.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Disqualifies you from being used by God is believing the
lie that He can't use you.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
God believes in you. You're chosen even when you don't
feel capable. You're chosen, even when you don't feel like
you did deserve it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You're chosen.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
And if you wait until you feel ready or worthy
or qualified or prepared enough, you're gonna miss what God
has for you.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
You're gonna miss the opportunities that are right in front
of you today.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
So Mary accepted the calling that God placed on her life.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
She said, I am the Lord's servant. May it be
to me as you have said.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
It's my favorite verse in the whole Bible. It's the
thing I want to operate from. Is the way I
want to live my life. Okay, God, I'm your servant.
May be to me as you have said. And then
the scripture tells us that she moved in the direction
that she felt that God was leading her. So the
second thing that I believe is I believe that God
(18:49):
leads me. Now this one is tricky because unfortunately God
does not always spell.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Everything out for us.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Right. He doesn't like write our next steps in the sky,
but he does strongly suggest what we should do next.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Look at Mary again. This is verse thirty five.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
It says the angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come
upon you, and the power of the Most.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
High will overshadow you.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
So the baby to be born will be holy and
he will be called the Son of God. What's more,
your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant. In her old age,
people used to say that she was barren, but she
has conceived a sun and is now in her six months.
For the word of God will never fail. And Mary responded,
here it is I'm the Lord servant. May everything you
said about me come true, and then the angel left her.
(19:43):
I want you to know that sometimes what's next is
what you already know. The angel left Mary, and I
imagine that she had to sort of.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Like take in everything that had just happened. She was like, Okay,
did that just happen? Okay, what happened? And she's replaying
it in her mind. Okay.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The angel came and he said I was going to
give birth the Son of God. But then he said
something about my relative Elizabeth. Elizabeth is pregnant. Well, let
me go see if that's true. So verse thirty nine says.
A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country
of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived. She entered
(20:34):
the house and greeted Elizabeth. Sometimes the next step is
the thing that you already know to do, but you
haven't done it yet. The thing is, God's not going
to reveal more to you until you do that. Now.
(20:55):
One of the ways that God leads us is through
the people that he puts on our path. So God
led Mary to Elizabeth. But when Mary got to elizabeth
elizabeth home, she enters the house.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And the moment she opens her.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Mouth to say hello, the baby and Elizabeth's womb jumps
and confirms what the angel said. And Elizabeth says to Mary,
why am I so honored that the mother of my
Lord should visit me. God will send you people when
you moved towards what you know. God led Mary and
(21:30):
Joseph to Bethlehem because of the census that was ordered,
and it was there that the baby was.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Born in a barn. But it was also there.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
That the shepherds came and visited them, and they said,
we saw an entire host of angels, and we came
to worship the Christ Child. And in eight days after
that they took Jesus to the temple.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It was the custom. It was the thing that they
were supposed to do.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
It was what you did with your baby when they
were eight days old. You came to the temple and
you dedicated them there. And when they were there, Mary
and Joseph they into two different people, Simeon and Anna,
the prophetess. And at the temple, both Simeon and Anna
confirm what God is doing, and they said, they said,
this is Jesus, and they became, we have seen the salvation.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Of the Lord.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
The path for Mary was going to be so challenging,
But I believe that every time that doubt crept into
Mary's heart when she thought she didn't have what it
took to be a good mom, and she thought she
didn't know how she was going to protect her son
or how she was supposed to provide for him, I
believe that she could recall what God had spoken to
(22:39):
her through Elizabeth, through Simeon, through Anna, through the Shepherds,
through the wise Man.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And I want you to know that God is going
to guide you too.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
He's going to tell you what you need to know,
and as long as you keep moving and what you know,
he's going to send people to confirm that you are
on the right path. But it's important to know. Oh,
God's not gonna reveal the entire plan to you. God
is gonna show you what you need to see when
you need to see it. The Angel came to Mary
(23:10):
and said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
The Angel didn't give her a timeline.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
He didn't say, see, we know the story, so it's
easier for us, right. But the Angel didn't say to her, Okay,
first you're gonna have the baby, and he's gonna be
born in Bethlehem. I know that's weird, but you're gonna
be there by accident kind of for the census.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Then you're gonna go to.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Egypt for two years because Herod's gonna kill all the
baby boys and it's not gonna be.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Safe for Jesus to stay in Judea.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
But eventually you're gonna come back and you're gonna settle
in Nazareth.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And Jesus' ministry isn't gonna even.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Start until he's thirty, so you'll have him for thirty
years with you, and then you're gonna get to see
him do this amazing ministry and he's gonna perform these
incredible ministry miracles, and then the things that he's gonna
do is just gonna blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
But then he's gonna die on.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
The cross and it's gonna be awful, but don't worry,
because he's gonna rise again on the third.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It's all part of the planet.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
And I think, like, as parents, we want that for
our kids, Like, wouldn't it be nice if they came
with a timeline and we were like, it's okay, it's
all part of the plan. Here's where they're going to struggle,
here's where they're gonna shine, and this is what you
should do when this happens. And this is what you
should do when that happens. And you should intervene here.
But don't worry here. God doesn't work like that, because
(24:27):
God is more concerned with you than he is about
your situation. God wants a relationship with you. A couple
of weeks ago, Pastor Stephen preached something that.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I will never forget.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
It was just a small point in his sermon, but
he did this visual thing that just like I don't know,
it just like reached into my heart and I don't
think I'll ever forget it.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
But I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
He said, faith is more like this, and he kind
of like closed his eyes and he put his hands
like this out and he said, it's like.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Grappling in the dark.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
It's like feeling your way around and trusting God with
each tiny step that you take. He said, it's more
like this than it is like this holding tight to
what I thought this was gonna be. And then he said,
you hold tight to the promise, but you hold loosely
(25:25):
to the plan.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Babe. That might have been the most impactful thing that
you said this year. It marked me.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
It helped me because how many times in my life
have I thought that faith is not wavering, it's not
letting go of the original plan. I have to believe
if I just believe, if I just come to Him
over and over again, reminding him of my plan, and
eventually everything will happen the way that I thought. It's
so hard to let go of what I thought was
(25:54):
the plan. I don't even want to think about how
many times I have.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Said something to God that was of the nature of God.
This was not the plan. Maybe you feel that way today,
like God.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Divorce was not in my plan, sickness was not in
my plan. Job loss at Christmas time was not in
my plan. And I'm not saying that God causes these
hard things to happen to us in life.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
What I am.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Saying is that faith is remembering His name will be
called Emmanuel. God with us. His plan is to be
with me every step of the way. His plan is
to comfort us. His plan is to guide us through
(26:46):
the difficulties. His plan is to grow us, mature us,
and strengthen us in the process. That's God's plan.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
God says to Jeremiah, I know the plans I have
for you, Plans to prosper you, not to harm you,
Plans to give you a hope in the future. This
this verse has gotten me through some really hard times
because it helps me know that when my plans don't
go my way, I hold on to the promise that
He has good plans for me. The plans are his,
(27:23):
The plans are his. He holds the plans. We hold
on to him. The very first promise that was made
to marry was that the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
And you know you have that promise too. Jesus told
(27:43):
the disciples this is John sixteen thirteen. He said, when
the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into
all truth. The promise that we cling to is that
the Spirit will guide you. The promise is not a
map with and by turn directions. The promise is that
you're taking a journey with the ultimate Guide, who you
(28:06):
know is going to lead you through the hard parts.
Belief is not knowing how God will do it. Belief
is trusting the one who will. We hold tight to
the promise, not to the plan. I have to tell
myself this over and over and over again. My job
is not how man I wanted to be, how I'm
(28:27):
really good at. How my job is not how my
job is. Who who do I trust? And who is
he calling me to be? When the plans aren't working
out the way that I thought?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I can't control the plan. I mean, you know what
I think. We all need to say that out loud.
Let's stay together.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
I can't control the plan. But you know what I
can't control me.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
I can control me. I can control what and who
I go to when I feel disappointed.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I can control what I say and what I don't
say when I feel frustrated.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I can control my attitude. I can control most of
the time. I can control my responses.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
When things don't go my way, I can do that.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
That's the faith part.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
When things don't go my way, can I release my
grip on what I thought would happen? Can I cling
to the one who promised to be with me and
do the things that I know he has already told
me to do.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You don't get.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
The next step until you do the things that you
know he's supposed to do. So maybe some of you
the word for you today is attitude. God's like I
just want you to work on your attitude in this situation?
Can you have a better attitude? Philippians one six says
he who began a good work and you will be
faithful to complete it. You don't have to know the plan.
(29:56):
You just have to stay close to the one who does.
You have to stay close to the one who promises
to be faithful to complete the work that he started,
not the work that I started, the work that He started.
And I know that so many of you came in
here this Sunday before Christmas feeling like you don't know
what to do next in this situation, and I want
(30:17):
you to know that God is going to show you
the next step.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
You don't have to solve the puzzle.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
You don't have to manipulate the situation. You don't have
to cheat your way into it. All you have to
do is take the hint, ask God to open your
eyes to see where he is working and ask him.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Ask him to stop asking.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
Him to change your situation and start asking him to
clearly show you what to do next. God spell it
out for me, make it plain, and I will obey.
The point is, though, that you're going to him. You
go to him with your problems. You go to him first,
and then like Mary, Mary heard from the Lord and
(31:02):
then she obeyed, and then God confirmed through Elizabeth. You
go to God and then He might send a person
to encourage you. He might give you a verse to
cling to. He might give you a song to sing
in this season. He might show you a tiny, little
next step to take. If you believe that He leads you,
you will be looking for him everywhere you go.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
God leads you believe that. Do you believe that God
will lead you in your situation?
Speaker 5 (31:38):
The last thing that I believe is that God hears me.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Oh, this is a hard one to accept.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I think when most people read the Christmas story, they
start where we started with the Angel coming to Mary.
But God, in the book of Luke, he begins to
Christmas story through Elizabeth, Mary's relative, and her husband Zechariah.
I don't know if you've ever read the first chapter
of Luke. It's really beautiful. It tells like this really
(32:11):
beautiful story that God is weaving. And so in the
beginning of Luke we find Zechariah. He was a priest
and his wife, Elizabeth was Mary's relative, and she was barren.
They had no children in a culture where having children
was actually like a mark of how blessed you were.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
It was everything.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
And Zachariah and Elizabeth had prayed for a child, but
God had not answered them. Look at what Luke tells
us about them. In verse eight. It says, one day,
Zechariah was serving God in the temple for his order.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Was on duty that week.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
As was the custom of the priest, he was chosen
by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and
burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great
crowd stood outside praying. And while while Zechariah was in
the sanctuary, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him,
standing to the right of the instance Altar. Zechariah was
shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him, but
(33:15):
the angel said, don't be afraid, Zechariah.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
God has heard your prayer.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Your wife Elizabeth will give you a son, and you
are to name him John.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
God has heard your prayer.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Now this prayer, this was a prayer Zachariah and Elizabeth
had put to rest. They had come to terms with
the fact that it was too late for them to
have a baby, and a baby is just it's just
not a part of our story. They're too old. But
yet the Bible tells us that they continued to faithfully
(33:57):
serve God. Zechariah was just doing his duty. He was
a priest. Burning incense was something that happened twice a
day in the temple, but this time he got chosen
to go in and burn the incense.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You know, I believe that.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
God often does the biggest work in the most ordinary
parts of my life. I believe that God saw every
single day that Zechariah showed up and continued his duties.
Day after day. Zechariah was on duty. He was doing
(34:36):
his job, and an angel comes to him and tells
him that his son, the one he never thought he
would have, the one he had given up on ever having,
his son, is going to be the forerunner of Christ.
All this time they had prayed for a child, they
(34:56):
believed for a baby, and it never came to pass
until the time was right and God was about to
place a baby in their laps. Just it wasn't just
any baby. This was a special baby. This was a
baby that the prophets Isaiah and Malachi foretold. This was
the baby that had to be born at this time,
and God chose Zechariah and Elizabeth to raise this baby.
(35:19):
You know who it was, right John the Baptist, the
one who would prepare the way for Jesus. I mean,
arguably the second most important baby born in the New Testament.
Right and God chose Elizabeth, but he wanted to use
her pregnancy in her old age to confirm to Mary
what was going to come to pass for her.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The time had finally come.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
I thought about calling this message he heard you the
first time, because I want you to know that God
hears our prayers. God hears our prayer. God here's your prayers,
and just like Pastor Stephen taught us last week, he
(36:07):
doesn't need our prompts. God has been speaking to me
so much about prayer this year, about what it is
and kind of more what it's not. And there's so
many beautiful aspects of prayer. There's written prayers, there's spoken prayers,
there's silent prayers, there's private prayers, there's public prayers.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But what I am learning is that prayer is.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Mostly about coming into God's presence, however you can do that.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
It's about bringing Him into.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
Your situation and as God's child, as God's children, we
have so many biblical examples that tell us that we
can and we should come to Him.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
With our requests.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
That is perfectly acceptable, and you should come to God
your request. But I want you to know, if all
you ever do is make requests, you are not going
to experience the power and the presence of God in
your life. If God worked like Sannah and you could
just send them a letter every December and magically all
(37:15):
your hopes and dreams would come true, there would be
no faith required in that.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
There wud be no relationship needed in that. It's just
some guy that you write a letter to. A couple
of months.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Ago, I was so frustrated about a situation that I've
been praying about for years. I mean, I have brought
this thing to God, and I've asked him to change it.
I have suggested many ways that I thought he could
change it. I've even been so good as to work
(37:48):
out the times that I thought that God would move
in this situation.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
And I found myself back in that same place of frustration.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
And I hope it's okay for me to tell you this,
but I said to God, God.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
I can't talk to you about this anymore. I just,
I just I just can't. I don't, God, I don't.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
I don't even know what to say to you anymore.
When I pray about this, nothing happens. So I I
just I'm just not gonna talk about it anymore. I
feel like God whispered right straight into my heart. I
feel like he said to me, good, I can work
(38:33):
with that. Just come into my presence, Holly, Just you
don't have to talk to me about it. Just come
into my presence. Just sit in my presence. I heard
you the first time. Now, Remember, there's nothing wrong with
being persistent and having the faith to keep praying for
God to do something in your life.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
The Bible supports that.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
But sometimes you need to exercise the faith that believes that.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
He hurt you and that he's working in.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Your situation, the faith that believes that He is telling
a story on this earth that is so much bigger than.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You and your situation.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
And faithfulness sometimes looks like showing up to the things
that we know we're called to do, just while we
wait for the things that we hope for.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
That's what Zachariah was doing.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
There's a lady who's a part of our EPAM, and
she sent this letter to Pastor Stephen and thank you,
by the way, to all of the people who who
send us letters. Your stories mean a lot to us.
And this story, I just I want to share this
parts of this story with you because it's just incredibly incredible.
(39:48):
She writes this, I have been faithfully watching Elevation Worship
services at nine thirty am Sunday mornings for the last
six years.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I wanted to write you for a long time.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
I've wanted to share my testimony with you and let
you know how you changed this particular chapter in my
life with one of your sermons.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And she says, sorry. The next place that I want
to read, she.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
Says, your sermons continue to bring me hope and comfort.
And she goes on to talk about how she was
raised in the church and her husband was raised in
the church, and they raised their children in church. They
had three boys and one baby girl after their three
(40:36):
boys were born, and they raised their children to believe
in God.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
They raised them in church, they taught them to love God.
Speaker 5 (40:43):
And then she begins to share how in twenty twenty one,
their daughter became involved with some very bad influences and
she began to make some really poor choices, and she
eventually ended up. This is every mother's nightmare. She ended
up living with a man who was an alcoholic and
(41:03):
who was abusive to her daughter, both mentally and physically.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
And she says that they.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
Prayed fervently for their daughter, and she says that finally
one day their daughter came to them and she said
she wanted to come home, but she said she couldn't
because she believed that this man would harm her and
harm her family if she left.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And the letter.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
In the letter, she says that the situation just felt
helpless and helpless, and then she says, on July second,
twenty two, we got a call that she had been
involved in an accident.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
And she said they rushed to the.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
Scene and they saw where her car was totaled and
found out that she had been drinking, and so right
there she was charged with a felony dui and they
took her to the hospital and they treated her for
bruises and broken knows in a broken hand. And she
writes this, She said, she said I had to help
(42:06):
her in the backseat of the police car. Once she
was released from the er. She was on her way
to jail for the night. And initially my thoughts were really, God,
we gave her to you to watch over her, and
this is what you allow to happen.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And then she says, yes.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
I believe he did, because she was able to get
out of that man's house safely and move back home
with us. And we know that without his intervention, she
would not have even survived the crash.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
And she came home, and she spent.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
The next several months in AA and in therapy. She
was extremely faithful to her recovery, and she made the
necessary changes in her life, and they were feeling really hopeful.
But her court date came around, and on February twentieth,
twenty twenty three, she goes on to say that, to
their utter devastation, their daughter was sentenced to one hundred
(43:08):
and eighty days in jail. And she goes on to
write she says, I was angry with God. I could
not believe that he would allow this to happen. Now,
after she had spent so many months turning.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Her life around.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
Jail, she said, I spent my whole life trusting in God.
And she says, side note, trust was my word for
the year, but now my trust was gone.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
This is where it gets good.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
The next Sunday, I was home alone and out of
habit I think, lol.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I turned your service on. The songs they sang that
day were all.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
My favorites, which I didn't want to hear, but they
made me cry. God was working despite my acceptance, despite
my anger. The title of your sermon was God is
up to something upstream. Anybody remember that one. I kept
telling myself he was up to something, but I wasn't
(44:11):
having it. You kept giving examples in the Bible of
how God was always twenty miles ahead of your situation
or circumstance. He's twenty miles ahead, He's twenty miles ahead.
I kept hearing it over and over again, and something
hit me. I grabbed my phone and typed in directions
to the county jail from my house.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I'm gonna cry. Guess how far away it was? Twenty miles,
she said. I dropped to the ground. Tears were flowing
down my face. God was twenty miles ahead, she said.
(44:54):
And a week or so later, in our conversation.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
She told me she was having Bible study in her
cell and teaching and singing elevation music to all the girls.
She did four and a half months time and the
day we picked her up was one of the best
days we have had. God gave us so much grace
(45:20):
and so much mercy during those months I thought I
would never make it through.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Wasn't inner plan.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
She said, Please keep my family and myself in your prayers.
We have learned to take one day at a time,
and we just keep praising our.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Father for all he does. Meant what a story.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
God is so faithful, He's so faithful, He hears us
when we pray.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
He heard you the first time. He knows things that
we don't know.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
And we have to trust the one who is working
in our situation even when it doesn't make sense. I
love how the letter ended with we just keep praising
our Father, one day at a time, because I think
that's it. Maybe if you find yourself in a place
(46:26):
this Christmas where you're wondering if God heard your prayer,
where you're feeling like nothing is happening in your situation,
maybe we can take our cues from this lady who's
a part of our ephan and from Mary. Because Mary
didn't prompt God, she didn't list out all of the
(46:47):
things that God was gonna need to do to work
everything out.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
For her.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
She didn't remind God of all the things that could
go wrong. She didn't suggest people who were more qualified
for this calling. She praised her. She was blessed because
she believed that God believed in her, that God was
going to lead her, and that God hurt her prayer.
She was blessed before she had seen any of these
(47:13):
things come to pass.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
And Luke tells us he gives us her prayer.
Speaker 5 (47:18):
It's called the magnificat, and she says, my soul magnifies
the Lord. My heart rejoices in God, my savior, for
he lifts the lowly, and he has done great things
for me.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
He hadn't even done anything for her yet when.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
She said that, she said, he has done great things
for me.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
And I want you to know that praise is a reset.
Speaker 5 (47:43):
It enables you to take your eyes off of your
situation and place them on your Savior.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
So I want us to follow Mary's.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Example today, and I want us to magnify the Lord together.
I want us to bless his name for who he
is and for what he's done, so that we can
trust him with what's next.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
link in the description to give now or visit 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
(48:27):
a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
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.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Ladies and gentlemen, remain standing and welcome to our epam
all over the world as you continue to hug your neighbors,
your friends, your family, and complete strangers.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It is my great joy to announce to you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That today, preaching her final sermon of the year twenty
twenty five, it's my favorite Verdic, your favorite Fernich, everybody's
favorite Arnach.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Y'all give it up for holly.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Let me just get a good look at you.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
What an amazing time we have had in worship today.
Feels so good in here. The Lord is present in
this place.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Amen. The Bible says that He.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Inhabits the praises of his people. I think that means
he's here with us today. And you made it to
church on the Sunday before Christmas, whether you're at one
of our.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Locations or you're joining us online. I know that that means.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
That your heart is expectant today, that you want more
than just checking off things off your to do list
this week, that you want to get your heart right
this week?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Can you want to be in the presence of Jesus?
Speaker 5 (01:49):
And I believe that God has a word for us
today and I'm really honored that I get.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
To bring it to you.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
So, okay, real quick, before you take your seats, I
just want to read our scripture for today. I'm going
to be reading from Luke chapter one if you.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Have a Bible.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And last week Pastor Stephen talked about how God provides
and he prompts.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
It was so powerful. Were you here? Amazing?
Speaker 5 (02:19):
The sermon was called Mary's Prayer, and so I want
to pick up today with a little bit more of
Mary's story and we're going to start reading. In the
middle of the passage, the Angel has come to Mary
and he's announced to her that she's going to give
birth to the Son of God.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And we're going to start reading right there.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
In verse thirty four, Mary asked the angel, but how
can this happen?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I am a virgin.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
So the baby to be born will be holy, and
he will be called.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
The Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has
become pregnant.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
In her old age, people used to say she was barren,
but she has conceived a son and is now in
her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.
Mary replied, I am the Lord's servant. May everything that
you have said about me come true? And then the
angel left her. A few days later, Mary hurried to
(03:23):
the hill country of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived.
She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
At the sound of.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was
filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry
and exclaimed to Mary, God has blessed you above all women,
and your child is blessed. Why am I so honored
that the mother of my Lord should visit me. When
I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped
(03:51):
for joy. You are blessed because you believed that the
Lord would do what he said. Father, would you bless
the reading of this word today.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
We love you, we want to hear from you. It's
in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. All right, the.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Title of my sermon don't sit Downia, don't it Donia.
The title of my sermon is blessed because you believed.
On your way to your seat, ask your neighbor, are
you blessed? So several weeks ago, my husband stood up
(04:36):
here and he told all of you about how I
am a terrible liar.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It's true.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I don't know why, but I am really just the
worst liar. And what that means is, don't ask me
if I like your haircut. Please do not put me
on the spot like that, because sometimes I just can't
think of anything to say, and like the best thing
that I might be able to come up with is like, wow,
(05:06):
you look so good, and then you won't believe me.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And I'm you know, I just I'm a terrible liar.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
And what that means, though, also is that my inability
to lie it also makes me extremely gullible. I'm just
I'm a believer. Okay, So I am a car salesman's dream, you.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Know, Like I'm gonna be like yeah, like.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
Oh, a little old lady drove this car. She only
drove it to church in the grocery store every week.
I mean, I just I just believe what people say
to me, and I also believe. I've recently come to
realize everything that comes into my Instagram feed, and this
drives my family crazy. Like I will frequently show my
(05:48):
kids videos and be like, look at this, this is amazing,
and my kids will look back at me and they're like, Mom,
that's not real. And so then I find another one
I want to show. I gotta showsting this baby. You're
not gonna believe this, and he'll look at me and
they'll be like, hell, you know that's AI right, Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So I'm slow.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
I'm learning because I just believe that things are true.
Like the other day, this video came into my feet
on Instagram, and I don't know if you guys saw
this one, but it was ring doorbell footage and which
means it's true. And there was a cat and a
baby on a front porch and a bear wanders up
(06:30):
and the cat hissses and like swats at the bear
and saves the baby. And when I saw this video,
I thought, wow, Dad is one amazing cat. And soon
A couple days later, another one comes into my feet.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Different porch, different cat, different baby, and I thought, I
think we need to get a cat.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
So then a third one came, and this time I thought,
wait a minute, like, how many moms are.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Leaving their babies alone on a porch? This must be AI.
You can't fool me three times.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
I recently saw another one of this family of dolphins
and they were like breaching the water and this tiny
little baby dolphin like.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Pops up out of the water. It was the.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
Cutest thing I have seen in twenty twenty five, and
I was like, oh, wait, maybe this So I went
to the comments, because you know, in the comments, people
will let you know if this is AI. If one
of the first comments that I saw, this woman said,
if this is AI, don't tell me. I don't want
to know, And I was like, Amen, it's real.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
How many of you would agree.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
It's getting harder and harder to believe. When I was
in my twenties, I thought that belief was black and white.
This is what I believe, this is what I do
not believe, and I believe that this is what you
should believe too. I was really fun to be around you,
would have enjoyed it. As I've gotten older, though, I've
learned to let go kind of of the black and white,
(08:07):
and I've had to learn that believing God is so
much more about who He is than it is about
what I think he should do. And in our story,
Elizabeth told Mary that she was blessed because she believed.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And when I read this, those words just leapt off
of the page.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
For me, the blessings in my life are directly tied
to my beliefs.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
What I believe about God has.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
To be at the center of everything that I say
and everything that I do. And what I want you
to know today is that God is not Santa. We
don't grow out of believing in him.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
We grow into.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Our belief as we walk with Him, as.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
We begin our journey with Him. Well, we begin it
with salvation, right.
Speaker 5 (09:02):
Maybe you accepted Jesus as a child and you've known
him your whole life. Maybe you accepted Jesus here at
elevation you raise your hand and you got one of
those orange Bibles. Maybe you accepted Jesus online through our ministry.
We begin by knowing Jesus as our savior, but then
we get to know that God is so much more
(09:22):
than that. God never intended for us to stop with salvation.
The gospel is not about accepting Jesus just so that
we can go to heaven. That's the beginning and the end.
But you will be blessed because you believed in Him.
The Gospel is about believing in God and getting to
know Him in the middle part, in the time that
(09:43):
we have here on earth. We get to know God
when we worship him, when we bring our questions to Him,
and our sorrows and our disappointments, and when we lay
them before Him and we begin to grow in.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Our belief of who He is.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
This February, our church is going to celebrate our twentieth anniversary, and.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
I'm so excited. I just want you to know We're
going big.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
I've told my husband, I was like, we're doing this right.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Twenty years is a big deal.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
So I've been coming through old videos and pictures and
I've just been feeling all of the feelings of what
it's been like these past twenty years, and I just
want to tell you it has been the blessing of
a lifetime. To believe that God could use two kids
from South Carolina to be able to lead a church
(10:39):
and a ministry like this. We were twenty five years
old when we started this church. I don't know who
wanted to come to a church led by q twenty
five year old kids, but thank you for coming. And
I'm so glad that God did actually call us to
start this when we were young. When we started this church,
(11:00):
I was so naive. And Stephen tells this story. I'm
sure you've heard about how we were on our front
porch in Shelby, North Carolina, and I looked at him
and I said, it's time for us to start this church.
And I believed with all of my heart that God
was calling us to go and to do this and
to step out in faith and to follow him. But
(11:20):
I had no idea how much I would grow in
my understanding of who He is as we walked out
what we believed that He was calling us to do.
I want you to know that I have come to
know God as Jehovah Jirah, because from the moment that
we took the first step to move to Charlotte, We've
(11:42):
seen Him provide over and over and over again, every
person that he put in our path, every resource that
he prompted someone to give every connection that led us
to the next step. I've also come to know him
as Jehovah Nissi, the one who fights our.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Battles for us. I've come to know him as Jehovah Rafa,
the God who heals.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
And I've seen him bring healing and restoration to so
many people across our ministries, families that were put back together,
marriages that were restored.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I've come to know him as Emmanuel.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
God with us in the ups and the downs and
in everything in between.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I have come to know that God is with me.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
I am blessed because I believed, and you are blessed
because you believe. And the Christmas Story is about a
cast of characters who dared to believe that God, God
was telling them what would come to pass, and that
it was true. So my message.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Today is very simple.
Speaker 5 (12:46):
It's so simple that I'm almost embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That this is what I'm bringing to you.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
It's very common sense. And in the time that we
have left, I want to show you three things that
I believe about God that I see in this part
of the Christmas Story.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And I just want to warn you my parts, my points.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
They're not catchy, they don't rhyme, they don't spell anything
at the end, so don't be prepared to be in
awe at the end. We're going to leave that for
when Pastor Stephen comes back.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's just a simple message today.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Three truths that we can believe about God this Christmas,
and the first one is I believe that God believes
in me.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Let's go back to our scripture, verse twenty six.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the
angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a
virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to
a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel
appeared to her and said, greetings, favored woman, the Lord.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Is with you.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel
could mean. Don't be afraid, the angel told her, for
you have found favor with God.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Now.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
Nowhere in this passage do we find a reason why
God picked Mary. God didn't pick Mary because she was strong.
It doesn't say that God didn't pick Mary because she
was accomplished. It doesn't say that God didn't pick Mary
because she was experienced.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
She did not apply for this job.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
She did not campaign for this job, and she did
not volunteer for this job. But one day an angel
comes to her and he says, you have found favor
with God. Now, when I think of the mother that
I would have picked for Jesus if I was God,
I would have picked a woman that already had a
(14:46):
full brood of children, a woman whose children were homeschooled
and responsible, like they had a chure charte that they
actually used. And a woman who's children were respectful, a woman.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Whose children like looked after each other.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
And you know, I would have picked a woman who
knew the difference between croup and pneumonia. I would have
picked a woman whose house was clean and orderly, and
especially I would have picked a woman who could cook good,
home cooked meals for the son of God.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
But God picked Mary.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
And all we know about Mary is that she was
a virgin who was blessed because she believed that she
was the one for the job.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And that's all that God requires of you as well.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
And I wonder how different my day would be if
I woke up each morning and I set out loud.
God picked me for this. God picked me for this day.
God picked me for this job. God picked me for
this child. Whatever the circumstances were that led me to
this moment that I am in today, I am going
(15:57):
to operate under the belief that God believed I am.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
The one for this now.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
I think we all live in the tension of the
things in our life that we feel called to and
the things in our life that we might not necessarily
have chosen for ourselves. Like, there are things in life
that we go after, right. God put a desire in
your heart. He gave you a gift and a passion.
And yes it's hard along the way, and yes there
(16:25):
are obstacles and things that you have to overcome, but
you're going after what you feel like you are supposed
to do. Anybody ever feel that way, And it's wonderful,
and you should.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
When you feel like you're called to do something, you
should go after it. But then there are things in
life that I don't know, it seems like.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
They go after you, right, Like the things that you
didn't plan for, or the things you didn't expect, or
the things that you don't feel qualified for, the things
that seem to have just been like placed in your
life or in your lap that you did not ask for.
And I want you to hear from me that God
(17:07):
believes in you.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
He chose you.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
He chose you to be born at this time, at
this place, in this family.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
He gave you the children that you have. He gave
you the opportunities that you have. He chose you.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
God believed in you before you believed in him, before
the world began. He knew the number of your days.
You are not an accident. You are chosen and selected
to glorify God with your life.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I don't care what you've done or what you have
not done. The only thing that.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Disqualifies you from being used by God is believing the
lie that He can't use you.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
God believes in you. You're chosen even when you don't
feel capable. You're chosen, even when you don't feel like
you did deserve it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You're chosen.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
And if you wait until you feel ready or worthy
or qualified or prepared enough, you're gonna miss what God
has for you.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
You're gonna miss the opportunities that are right in front
of you today.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
So Mary accepted the calling that God placed on her life.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
She said, I am the Lord's servant. May it be
to me as you have said.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
It's my favorite verse in the whole Bible. It's the
thing I want to operate from. Is the way I
want to live my life. Okay, God, I'm your servant.
May be to me as you have said. And then
the scripture tells us that she moved in the direction
that she felt that God was leading her. So the
second thing that I believe is I believe that God
(18:49):
leads me. Now this one is tricky because unfortunately God
does not always spell.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Everything out for us.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Right. He doesn't like write our next steps in the sky,
but he does strongly suggest what we should do next.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Look at Mary again. This is verse thirty five.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
It says the angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come
upon you, and the power of the Most.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
High will overshadow you.
Speaker 5 (19:18):
So the baby to be born will be holy and
he will be called the Son of God. What's more,
your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant. In her old age,
people used to say that she was barren, but she
has conceived a sun and is now in her six months.
For the word of God will never fail. And Mary responded,
here it is I'm the Lord servant. May everything you
said about me come true, and then the angel left her.
(19:43):
I want you to know that sometimes what's next is
what you already know. The angel left Mary, and I
imagine that she had to sort of.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Like take in everything that had just happened. She was like, Okay,
did that just happen? Okay, what happened? And she's replaying
it in her mind. Okay.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
The angel came and he said I was going to
give birth the Son of God. But then he said
something about my relative Elizabeth. Elizabeth is pregnant. Well, let
me go see if that's true. So verse thirty nine says.
A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country
of Judea, to the town where Zechariah lived. She entered
(20:34):
the house and greeted Elizabeth. Sometimes the next step is
the thing that you already know to do, but you
haven't done it yet. The thing is, God's not going
to reveal more to you until you do that. Now.
(20:55):
One of the ways that God leads us is through
the people that he puts on our path. So God
led Mary to Elizabeth. But when Mary got to elizabeth
elizabeth home, she enters the house.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And the moment she opens her.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Mouth to say hello, the baby and Elizabeth's womb jumps
and confirms what the angel said. And Elizabeth says to Mary,
why am I so honored that the mother of my
Lord should visit me. God will send you people when
you moved towards what you know. God led Mary and
(21:30):
Joseph to Bethlehem because of the census that was ordered,
and it was there that the baby was.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Born in a barn. But it was also there.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
That the shepherds came and visited them, and they said,
we saw an entire host of angels, and we came
to worship the Christ Child. And in eight days after
that they took Jesus to the temple.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It was the custom. It was the thing that they
were supposed to do.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
It was what you did with your baby when they
were eight days old. You came to the temple and
you dedicated them there. And when they were there, Mary
and Joseph they into two different people, Simeon and Anna,
the prophetess. And at the temple, both Simeon and Anna
confirm what God is doing, and they said, they said,
this is Jesus, and they became, we have seen the salvation.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Of the Lord.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
The path for Mary was going to be so challenging,
But I believe that every time that doubt crept into
Mary's heart when she thought she didn't have what it
took to be a good mom, and she thought she
didn't know how she was going to protect her son
or how she was supposed to provide for him, I
believe that she could recall what God had spoken to
(22:39):
her through Elizabeth, through Simeon, through Anna, through the Shepherds,
through the wise Man.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And I want you to know that God is going
to guide you too.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
He's going to tell you what you need to know,
and as long as you keep moving and what you know,
he's going to send people to confirm that you are
on the right path. But it's important to know. Oh,
God's not gonna reveal the entire plan to you. God
is gonna show you what you need to see when
you need to see it. The Angel came to Mary
(23:10):
and said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
The Angel didn't give her a timeline.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
He didn't say, see, we know the story, so it's
easier for us, right. But the Angel didn't say to her, Okay,
first you're gonna have the baby, and he's gonna be
born in Bethlehem. I know that's weird, but you're gonna
be there by accident kind of for the census.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Then you're gonna go to.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Egypt for two years because Herod's gonna kill all the
baby boys and it's not gonna be.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Safe for Jesus to stay in Judea.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
But eventually you're gonna come back and you're gonna settle
in Nazareth.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And Jesus' ministry isn't gonna even.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
Start until he's thirty, so you'll have him for thirty
years with you, and then you're gonna get to see
him do this amazing ministry and he's gonna perform these
incredible ministry miracles, and then the things that he's gonna
do is just gonna blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
But then he's gonna die on.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
The cross and it's gonna be awful, but don't worry,
because he's gonna rise again on the third.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It's all part of the planet.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
And I think, like, as parents, we want that for
our kids, Like, wouldn't it be nice if they came
with a timeline and we were like, it's okay, it's
all part of the plan. Here's where they're going to struggle,
here's where they're gonna shine, and this is what you
should do when this happens. And this is what you
should do when that happens. And you should intervene here.
But don't worry here. God doesn't work like that, because
(24:27):
God is more concerned with you than he is about
your situation. God wants a relationship with you. A couple
of weeks ago, Pastor Stephen preached something that.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I will never forget.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
It was just a small point in his sermon, but
he did this visual thing that just like I don't know,
it just like reached into my heart and I don't
think I'll ever forget it.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
But I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
He said, faith is more like this, and he kind
of like closed his eyes and he put his hands
like this out and he said, it's like.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Grappling in the dark.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
It's like feeling your way around and trusting God with
each tiny step that you take. He said, it's more
like this than it is like this holding tight to
what I thought this was gonna be. And then he said,
you hold tight to the promise, but you hold loosely
(25:25):
to the plan.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Babe. That might have been the most impactful thing that
you said this year. It marked me.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
It helped me because how many times in my life
have I thought that faith is not wavering, it's not
letting go of the original plan. I have to believe
if I just believe, if I just come to Him
over and over again, reminding him of my plan, and
eventually everything will happen the way that I thought. It's
so hard to let go of what I thought was
(25:54):
the plan. I don't even want to think about how
many times I have.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Said something to God that was of the nature of God.
This was not the plan. Maybe you feel that way today,
like God.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
Divorce was not in my plan, sickness was not in
my plan. Job loss at Christmas time was not in
my plan. And I'm not saying that God causes these
hard things to happen to us in life.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
What I am.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Saying is that faith is remembering His name will be
called Emmanuel. God with us. His plan is to be
with me every step of the way. His plan is
to comfort us. His plan is to guide us through
(26:46):
the difficulties. His plan is to grow us, mature us,
and strengthen us in the process. That's God's plan.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
God says to Jeremiah, I know the plans I have
for you, Plans to prosper you, not to harm you,
Plans to give you a hope in the future. This
this verse has gotten me through some really hard times
because it helps me know that when my plans don't
go my way, I hold on to the promise that
He has good plans for me. The plans are his,
(27:23):
The plans are his. He holds the plans. We hold
on to him. The very first promise that was made
to marry was that the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
And you know you have that promise too. Jesus told
(27:43):
the disciples this is John sixteen thirteen. He said, when
the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into
all truth. The promise that we cling to is that
the Spirit will guide you. The promise is not a
map with and by turn directions. The promise is that
you're taking a journey with the ultimate Guide, who you
(28:06):
know is going to lead you through the hard parts.
Belief is not knowing how God will do it. Belief
is trusting the one who will. We hold tight to
the promise, not to the plan. I have to tell
myself this over and over and over again. My job
is not how man I wanted to be, how I'm
(28:27):
really good at. How my job is not how my
job is. Who who do I trust? And who is
he calling me to be? When the plans aren't working
out the way that I thought?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
I can't control the plan. I mean, you know what
I think. We all need to say that out loud.
Let's stay together.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
I can't control the plan. But you know what I
can't control me.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
I can control me. I can control what and who
I go to when I feel disappointed.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
I can control what I say and what I don't
say when I feel frustrated.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I can control my attitude. I can control most of
the time. I can control my responses.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
When things don't go my way, I can do that.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
That's the faith part.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
When things don't go my way, can I release my
grip on what I thought would happen? Can I cling
to the one who promised to be with me and
do the things that I know he has already told
me to do.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You don't get.
Speaker 5 (29:31):
The next step until you do the things that you
know he's supposed to do. So maybe some of you
the word for you today is attitude. God's like I
just want you to work on your attitude in this situation?
Can you have a better attitude? Philippians one six says
he who began a good work and you will be
faithful to complete it. You don't have to know the plan.
(29:56):
You just have to stay close to the one who does.
You have to stay close to the one who promises
to be faithful to complete the work that he started,
not the work that I started, the work that He started.
And I know that so many of you came in
here this Sunday before Christmas feeling like you don't know
what to do next in this situation, and I want
(30:17):
you to know that God is going to show you
the next step.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
You don't have to solve the puzzle.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
You don't have to manipulate the situation. You don't have
to cheat your way into it. All you have to
do is take the hint, ask God to open your
eyes to see where he is working and ask him.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Ask him to stop asking.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
Him to change your situation and start asking him to
clearly show you what to do next. God spell it
out for me, make it plain, and I will obey.
The point is, though, that you're going to him. You
go to him with your problems. You go to him first,
and then like Mary, Mary heard from the Lord and
(31:02):
then she obeyed, and then God confirmed through Elizabeth. You
go to God and then He might send a person
to encourage you. He might give you a verse to
cling to. He might give you a song to sing
in this season. He might show you a tiny, little
next step to take. If you believe that He leads you,
you will be looking for him everywhere you go.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
God leads you believe that. Do you believe that God
will lead you in your situation?
Speaker 5 (31:38):
The last thing that I believe is that God hears me.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Oh, this is a hard one to accept.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
I think when most people read the Christmas story, they
start where we started with the Angel coming to Mary.
But God, in the book of Luke, he begins to
Christmas story through Elizabeth, Mary's relative, and her husband Zechariah.
I don't know if you've ever read the first chapter
of Luke. It's really beautiful. It tells like this really
(32:11):
beautiful story that God is weaving. And so in the
beginning of Luke we find Zechariah. He was a priest
and his wife, Elizabeth was Mary's relative, and she was barren.
They had no children in a culture where having children
was actually like a mark of how blessed you were.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
It was everything.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
And Zachariah and Elizabeth had prayed for a child, but
God had not answered them. Look at what Luke tells
us about them. In verse eight. It says, one day,
Zechariah was serving God in the temple for his order.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Was on duty that week.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
As was the custom of the priest, he was chosen
by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and
burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great
crowd stood outside praying. And while while Zechariah was in
the sanctuary, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him,
standing to the right of the instance Altar. Zechariah was
shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him, but
(33:15):
the angel said, don't be afraid, Zechariah.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
God has heard your prayer.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Your wife Elizabeth will give you a son, and you
are to name him John.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
God has heard your prayer.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Now this prayer, this was a prayer Zachariah and Elizabeth
had put to rest. They had come to terms with
the fact that it was too late for them to
have a baby, and a baby is just it's just
not a part of our story. They're too old. But
yet the Bible tells us that they continued to faithfully
(33:57):
serve God. Zechariah was just doing his duty. He was
a priest. Burning incense was something that happened twice a
day in the temple, but this time he got chosen
to go in and burn the incense.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You know, I believe that.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
God often does the biggest work in the most ordinary
parts of my life. I believe that God saw every
single day that Zechariah showed up and continued his duties.
Day after day. Zechariah was on duty. He was doing
(34:36):
his job, and an angel comes to him and tells
him that his son, the one he never thought he
would have, the one he had given up on ever having,
his son, is going to be the forerunner of Christ.
All this time they had prayed for a child, they
(34:56):
believed for a baby, and it never came to pass
until the time was right and God was about to
place a baby in their laps. Just it wasn't just
any baby. This was a special baby. This was a
baby that the prophets Isaiah and Malachi foretold. This was
the baby that had to be born at this time,
and God chose Zechariah and Elizabeth to raise this baby.
(35:19):
You know who it was, right John the Baptist, the
one who would prepare the way for Jesus. I mean,
arguably the second most important baby born in the New Testament.
Right and God chose Elizabeth, but he wanted to use
her pregnancy in her old age to confirm to Mary
what was going to come to pass for her.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The time had finally come.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
I thought about calling this message he heard you the
first time, because I want you to know that God
hears our prayers. God hears our prayer. God here's your prayers,
and just like Pastor Stephen taught us last week, he
(36:07):
doesn't need our prompts. God has been speaking to me
so much about prayer this year, about what it is
and kind of more what it's not. And there's so
many beautiful aspects of prayer. There's written prayers, there's spoken prayers,
there's silent prayers, there's private prayers, there's public prayers.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But what I am learning is that prayer is.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Mostly about coming into God's presence, however you can do that.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
It's about bringing Him into.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
Your situation and as God's child, as God's children, we
have so many biblical examples that tell us that we
can and we should come to Him.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
With our requests.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
That is perfectly acceptable, and you should come to God
your request. But I want you to know, if all
you ever do is make requests, you are not going
to experience the power and the presence of God in
your life. If God worked like Sannah and you could
just send them a letter every December and magically all
(37:15):
your hopes and dreams would come true, there would be
no faith required in that.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
There wud be no relationship needed in that. It's just
some guy that you write a letter to. A couple
of months.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Ago, I was so frustrated about a situation that I've
been praying about for years. I mean, I have brought
this thing to God, and I've asked him to change it.
I have suggested many ways that I thought he could
change it. I've even been so good as to work
(37:48):
out the times that I thought that God would move
in this situation.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
And I found myself back in that same place of frustration.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
And I hope it's okay for me to tell you this,
but I said to God, God.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
I can't talk to you about this anymore. I just,
I just I just can't. I don't, God, I don't.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
I don't even know what to say to you anymore.
When I pray about this, nothing happens. So I I
just I'm just not gonna talk about it anymore. I
feel like God whispered right straight into my heart. I
feel like he said to me, good, I can work
(38:33):
with that. Just come into my presence, Holly, Just you
don't have to talk to me about it. Just come
into my presence. Just sit in my presence. I heard
you the first time. Now, Remember, there's nothing wrong with
being persistent and having the faith to keep praying for
God to do something in your life.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
The Bible supports that.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
But sometimes you need to exercise the faith that believes that.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
He hurt you and that he's working in.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
Your situation, the faith that believes that He is telling
a story on this earth that is so much bigger than.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You and your situation.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
And faithfulness sometimes looks like showing up to the things
that we know we're called to do, just while we
wait for the things that we hope for.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
That's what Zachariah was doing.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
There's a lady who's a part of our EPAM, and
she sent this letter to Pastor Stephen and thank you,
by the way, to all of the people who who
send us letters. Your stories mean a lot to us.
And this story, I just I want to share this
parts of this story with you because it's just incredibly incredible.
(39:48):
She writes this, I have been faithfully watching Elevation Worship
services at nine thirty am Sunday mornings for the last
six years.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I wanted to write you for a long time.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
I've wanted to share my testimony with you and let
you know how you changed this particular chapter in my
life with one of your sermons.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And she says, sorry. The next place that I want
to read, she.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
Says, your sermons continue to bring me hope and comfort.
And she goes on to talk about how she was
raised in the church and her husband was raised in
the church, and they raised their children in church. They
had three boys and one baby girl after their three
(40:36):
boys were born, and they raised their children to believe
in God.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
They raised them in church, they taught them to love God.
Speaker 5 (40:43):
And then she begins to share how in twenty twenty one,
their daughter became involved with some very bad influences and
she began to make some really poor choices, and she
eventually ended up. This is every mother's nightmare. She ended
up living with a man who was an alcoholic and
(41:03):
who was abusive to her daughter, both mentally and physically.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
And she says that they.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
Prayed fervently for their daughter, and she says that finally
one day their daughter came to them and she said
she wanted to come home, but she said she couldn't
because she believed that this man would harm her and
harm her family if she left.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And the letter.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
In the letter, she says that the situation just felt
helpless and helpless, and then she says, on July second,
twenty two, we got a call that she had been
involved in an accident.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
And she said they rushed to the.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
Scene and they saw where her car was totaled and
found out that she had been drinking, and so right
there she was charged with a felony dui and they
took her to the hospital and they treated her for
bruises and broken knows in a broken hand. And she
writes this, She said, she said I had to help
(42:06):
her in the backseat of the police car. Once she
was released from the er. She was on her way
to jail for the night. And initially my thoughts were really, God,
we gave her to you to watch over her, and
this is what you allow to happen.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And then she says, yes.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
I believe he did, because she was able to get
out of that man's house safely and move back home
with us. And we know that without his intervention, she
would not have even survived the crash.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
And she came home, and she spent.
Speaker 5 (42:45):
The next several months in AA and in therapy. She
was extremely faithful to her recovery, and she made the
necessary changes in her life, and they were feeling really hopeful.
But her court date came around, and on February twentieth,
twenty twenty three, she goes on to say that, to
their utter devastation, their daughter was sentenced to one hundred
(43:08):
and eighty days in jail. And she goes on to
write she says, I was angry with God. I could
not believe that he would allow this to happen. Now,
after she had spent so many months turning.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Her life around.
Speaker 5 (43:24):
Jail, she said, I spent my whole life trusting in God.
And she says, side note, trust was my word for
the year, but now my trust was gone.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
This is where it gets good.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
The next Sunday, I was home alone and out of
habit I think, lol.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I turned your service on. The songs they sang that
day were all.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
My favorites, which I didn't want to hear, but they
made me cry. God was working despite my acceptance, despite
my anger. The title of your sermon was God is
up to something upstream. Anybody remember that one. I kept
telling myself he was up to something, but I wasn't
(44:11):
having it. You kept giving examples in the Bible of
how God was always twenty miles ahead of your situation
or circumstance. He's twenty miles ahead, He's twenty miles ahead.
I kept hearing it over and over again, and something
hit me. I grabbed my phone and typed in directions
to the county jail from my house.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I'm gonna cry. Guess how far away it was? Twenty miles,
she said. I dropped to the ground. Tears were flowing
down my face. God was twenty miles ahead, she said.
(44:54):
And a week or so later, in our conversation.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
She told me she was having Bible study in her
cell and teaching and singing elevation music to all the girls.
She did four and a half months time and the
day we picked her up was one of the best
days we have had. God gave us so much grace
(45:20):
and so much mercy during those months I thought I
would never make it through.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Wasn't inner plan.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
She said, Please keep my family and myself in your prayers.
We have learned to take one day at a time,
and we just keep praising our.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Father for all he does. Meant what a story.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
God is so faithful, He's so faithful, He hears us
when we pray.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
He heard you the first time. He knows things that
we don't know.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
And we have to trust the one who is working
in our situation even when it doesn't make sense. I
love how the letter ended with we just keep praising
our Father, one day at a time, because I think
that's it. Maybe if you find yourself in a place
(46:26):
this Christmas where you're wondering if God heard your prayer,
where you're feeling like nothing is happening in your situation,
maybe we can take our cues from this lady who's
a part of our ephan and from Mary. Because Mary
didn't prompt God, she didn't list out all of the
(46:47):
things that God was gonna need to do to work
everything out.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
For her.
Speaker 5 (46:51):
She didn't remind God of all the things that could
go wrong. She didn't suggest people who were more qualified
for this calling. She praised her. She was blessed because
she believed that God believed in her, that God was
going to lead her, and that God hurt her prayer.
She was blessed before she had seen any of these
(47:13):
things come to pass.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
And Luke tells us he gives us her prayer.
Speaker 5 (47:18):
It's called the magnificat, and she says, my soul magnifies
the Lord. My heart rejoices in God, my savior, for
he lifts the lowly, and he has done great things
for me.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
He hadn't even done anything for her yet when.
Speaker 5 (47:34):
She said that, she said, he has done great things
for me.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
And I want you to know that praise is a reset.
Speaker 5 (47:43):
It enables you to take your eyes off of your
situation and place them on your Savior.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
So I want us to follow Mary's.
Speaker 5 (47:52):
Example today, and I want us to magnify the Lord together.
I want us to bless his name for who he
is and for what he's done, so that we can
trust him with what's next.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
link in the description to give now or visit 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
(48:27):
a screenshot and share it on your social stories and
tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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