December 8, 2024 • 48 mins
God wants to show you what’s next, but He’s waiting on you. If you want to see God’s point of view, start by slowing down and going His speed. Breakthrough happens when you let go and allow God to show you the way.
Each year, we come together to stretch our faith by giving a sacrificial offering, believing that God will move in our lives and in our church in the coming year. To take part in this offering and help us in reaching more people with the gospel all around the world click here: http://www.elevationchurch.org/giving/
If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: http://ele.vc/tIepfr
Scripture References:
Romans 12, verses 1-2
Exodus 20, verses 22-24
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
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.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're gonna have such an amazing day.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
We're already having an amazing day.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
How many feel a little better now that you praise
God the last thirty minutes. In just a moment, Holly
is gonna come and preach our message today.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let's thank God in advance for the world he's going
to speak.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's say hello to our EPAM all over the world.
Come on, Elevation Valentine, lift up your voice and welcome
our EPHAM. Our campus is all over the world. We're
glad you're with us today. At the end of the
message today, there's going to be a year end offering.
And this is a very special opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
For each and every one of us.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
How many know that the Bible says you can praise
God with your lips, but your heart still be far
from Him.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
That can happen.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
But one thing that I've learned that will always help
me to draw near to God is through giving.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Is through giving.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So when people say I love to worship God, I
hope they don't just mean I like music about God,
because the greatest act of worship happens.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
When we bring Him our whole lives in full faith.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And today you're going to see thousands of people do that.
I'll cross all of our locations and online. Holly and
I have our offering ready, and don't get nervous. She's
not going to preach for forty minutes about money.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I know you're like I invited my relative today.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I thought there might be a Christmas sermon about a
baby in a blanket and the wise man and the Magi,
and the message today will be applicable to all of
us around the subject that I know God gave her
because we both said to each other a month ago.
That's the word that our church needs to hear on
our offering weekend. And so the Lord has really been
(02:00):
aligning this and I'm excited for you to hear it.
But I want to tell you that for me as
I bring my offering today for the nineteenth year, remember
when they used to call me a fly by night preacher, Well,
I've been flying for a long night nineteen years now,
(02:21):
and I'm just reminded of what we were singing.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
That was a great selection.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
We didn't work that in events, but you know, the
Bible says that the gates of hell will not prevail
against the Church, and actually the opposite happens when we
proclaim the name of Jesus. The gates of hell start
shaking when we show up. And I've just seen that
time and time again, no matter what the enemy has
tried to bring against our family and our church and
(02:45):
all of the wonderful people who make up this church,
that God keeps being faithful again and again. I've seen
it in seasons of abundance, seasons of plenty, seasons of praise,
seasons of criticism. I've seen it in seasons where my
own heart was broken but I was preaching to others.
I've seen it in seasons when I was on a
mountaintop with the victory that.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
God is my source. God is my source. And so.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
If you're like me, you probably had to look for
a check book. I don't write a lot of checks
these days manually, but I always write this one. Of course,
you can give online, and there will be instructions about
that later.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
But really, I don't want you to get so.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Caught up in the mechanics of what's going to happen
later on that you missed the ministry and the miracle
of it. Because I get so many testimonies from all
over the world. Some of them come from people who
are just living their lives normally and God blesses them
through the words and the worship and the ministry that
comes forth from this house, and some from life's lowest situations.
(03:51):
Some write me from prisons, some write me after miscarriages,
some write me as they're going through divorce. And you know,
whether it's the everyday moments that God uses, how many
would say that God has used this ministry to reach
your heart at a time where you needed him.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And notice I've said God did it.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
If you've ever been blessed through this ministry, it was
God blessing you. But the thing I love about Jesus
is that he always involves his disciples. One time, he
needed to feed a crowd, and he could have probably
just called down bread from heaven, but he asked them,
what do you have, not because he needed what they had,
but because they needed what he had. And when you
(04:33):
learn this principle, whether today you're beginning to tithe for
the first time, which is ten percent, or whether you're
giving what Holly and I came prepared to give an
above and beyond offering.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And by above and beyond, I mean it hurts my
feelings a little bit when I give it. That's how
I always test it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And whatever you're giving today, I want you to understand
what you're hooking into. We don't give to receive from God.
We give because everything we have already comes from Him.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So to all of you who are giving today.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
In just a little while after the sermon, I told Holly,
before you preach and just absolutely do what only you
can do.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Let me look at the people, and let.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Me look at the cameras for all the people that
I can't see at campuses like Roanoke and shout out
Ronoke Elevation, Ronoke Elevation, University City Elevation, Lake Norman, all
the amazing locations, all of our pop ups, all of
our watch parties, everybody here at Valentine, everybody watching this in.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
A hospital room.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I want to look at all of you who are
participating in this ministry and say thank you, Holly, and
I thank God for you for another year of amazing
ministry sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And just like you know, you.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Raised your hand and said, this ministry means a lot
to me and my family. Maybe you were saved through
this ministry, maybe you were brought back to God. Maybe
it's just been there for you in the times of
your deepest nee.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Just like you raise that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Hand, now you get to stretch that hand and give
a gift that will be meaningful to God in you.
And I love it because I don't want to end
Christmas just consumerism.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And busyness and all of that.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I want to stop and say thank you Jesus for
all You've done for me, and I trust you with
my future.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So I want to say a prayer.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And after I pray, we'll welcome Holly up real, proper
and strong. We'll clap with cheer, we'll lose our minds,
we'll let her know we're ready for what God spoke.
But would you join hands with the person next to you,
if that doesn't give you germaphobia on the highest level,
if it doesn't give you a panic attack, to touch
your neighbor. Grab their hand, because I want to pray
(06:45):
not only for Holly as she comes to share, and
for you as you listen. I want to pray for
the things in your life that you need to trust
God about. And whether you're giving a financial offering today,
I still want to pray for you. I want to
pray that the Lord would order your steps in the
season to come, that he would bring the right people
(07:06):
everybody say right people, that he would bring people who
can bless you and people you can bless across your path.
I want to pray that God would give you his
wisdom for all of the difficult decisions that you're facing.
I want to pray that you would hold on to
the gifts that He's given you and not give up
too easily. I want to pray that you would let
(07:28):
go of distress that you're not supposed to carry anyway.
Squeeze the hand of the person next to you, Let
them know that there's still life in front of them,
let them know that there's still hope inside of them.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Let them know that it's Christ in us, the hope
of glory.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And let's let the world know that we're preaching this
gospel of Jesus Christ, that we are not a divided church.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
We are a united church.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
We unite under one name, the name that can break chains,
the name that still makes ways, the name that makes
the gates of Hell's shaikh.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
We are the Church of the Living God and Father.
We give you praise today for the word that you're.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
About to speak through Pastor Holly Speak, Lord.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
We're listening in Jesus' name. Amen, clapt those hands.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Here comes Holly, Here comes the word for your life.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Well, Merry Christmas. I just have to add to that.
I love coming to church at Christmas time. It is
so easy to get caught up in the rush and
the hustle and bustle. But when you set aside time
to come to church and take a breath and worship
God and allow him to recenter your heart and your focus,
(08:56):
God always shows up and he blesses us. And I
just have to add I am so excited about today.
It's a special day at Elevation. We are bringing our
offerings together today, as Steven said, as JJ said, we
want to let you know we're bringing our offerings today.
And I'm so excited because I absolutely love watching people
(09:20):
worship God by giving. There's no greater way to express
your gratitude to Him than giving back a portion of Him.
And like Steven said, we're going to get to that
at the end. But for to have a word that
I'm so excited to share with you today. Are you
ready for the Word? All right, let's read our scripture
together real quick before you sit down. I want to
(09:41):
preach today from Romans chapter twelve, verses one and two,
one of the most iconic passages of Scripture, and I'm
excited that God is allowing me to preach from it today.
It says this, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters,
in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as
(10:02):
a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is
your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and
perfect will. The title of my sermon today is God
(10:23):
wants to show you. Let's pray one more time. Father,
would you bless the reading of your word today? Holy Spirit?
We welcome you in this place. We welcome you in
this room, in all of our campuses, wherever anybody is watching,
Holy Spirit come come into our hearts, speak to us today.
(10:45):
We are listening. Lord in Jesus' name. Amen, you can
have a seat. Earlier this month, I sat down with
a few staff members and we recorded a video where
we were looking back at all the amazing things that
has happened in our church over twenty twenty four. My
favorite part of the conversation, of course, was when we
(11:08):
all went around and we shared one of our favorite
messages from twenty twenty four. And when I was trying
to figure out what my favorite one was, I was
looking at a list of sermons that our pastor preached
only in this year, and I was in awe, partially
because I know how hard it is to prepare one sermon.
Just so you know, I f only preached three times
(11:30):
of this year, and he has preached I don't even
know how many times. But as I looked at each
title and I thought about the things that God has
spoken to me throughout the year through the messages of
our pastor, I was just amazed. I am a church girl,
you know, I'm a pastor's daughter. I grew up in church.
I guarantee you I've heard more sermons than anybody in
(11:53):
this room, and I have heard a lot of bad sermons.
And I do not take it for granted that every
single week our pastor brings us such an incredible beast.
If you don't get something from one of his sermons,
it is your fault. So the past several weeks have
been really special to me. I'm not sure if any
(12:15):
of you noticed, but Pastor Stephen did this sneaky little
non series series. He never called it anything, but all
of the sermon titles began with God and they were
followed by four words. Do you remember? It's okay if
you don't. I had to look up the titles, but
I want to remind you of them. The first one
he did was God can use this too. The second
(12:36):
one he did was God will work it in. The
third one was God's got the hard part. The fourth
one was God gave it to me. And today I
just want to do a little tag on message with
this sermon that I have called God wants to show you.
I love to share memes and funny videos from social media.
(13:00):
Anybody else like that? I think I have some people
in my life that are like can't keep up with
all the things that they're supposed to watch that I
show them. I love dog videos, I love people falling.
I love anything that will make me laugh. If your
feed is full of like politics and I don't know,
(13:21):
angry people, you would love my feed because it is
so funny. And sometimes I lay in bed at night
when Steven has fallen asleep, and I start scrolling through
my feed and I start giggling because you know, like
when you're supposed to be quiet and someone else is sleeping,
and I just start laughing. And I don't know, I
(13:42):
think things are funnier late at night too, and so
of course, like it's like, you know, twelve thirty, and
I just start sending stuff. And the funny thing about
memes is they show you how what you think is
the most hilarious thing in the world might not even
be remotely funny to someone else. So you have to
be really careful like who you show them to, because
(14:03):
they can make you feel like really dumb. Right, So
in my family, I'm not gonna call anyone out, but
I have learned the hard way. My husband thinks that
everything is fake or re enacted. He is such a skeptic.
My boys do not get me. They don't even open
(14:23):
my memes. I know because I'm like I said, did
you see that it was so funny? They don't even
open them. So Abby is my last shred of hope
in the family. But we haven't let her get Instagram yet.
So I have a saved folder called things to Show Abby,
and a lot of days I'll pick her up from
(14:45):
school and I'll say, oh, I have something so funny
to show you, and we will laugh together at memes.
And currently people dancing to songs from Wicked. So in
our passage today, let me get back to the Bible. Well,
Paul is trying to teach us that God is excited.
He has something he wants to show us, which is
(15:08):
his will. And every person here has something that they
want God to give them direction on, right. I mean,
maybe it is a relationship or a job, or a
change that you think God might be calling you to make.
Maybe you have something that you want to be set
free from, or a habit that you know that isn't
good for you. And we all want God to show
(15:29):
us his will for our lives. And what I want
to show you from this passage today is that God
wants to show you your next steps. He longs to
show He wants to show it to you more than
you want to see it. But God is not Santa Claus,
and you don't get to send him a letter with
(15:51):
all the grown up things that you want for Christmas.
You know, like, Dear God, this year, I would like
to lose twenty pounds, own a home, get married, and
get promoted at my job. And then on December twenty fifth,
you wake up and under the tree is a detailed
plan of all the decisions that you need to make
and all the steps you need to take in twenty
twenty five to accomplish these goals. That is not how
(16:12):
it works, and Paul is giving us instructions on how
to know what God's will is. But there is a
very critical step that we cannot skip. So look at
the verse again. It says, therefore, I urge you, brothers
and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your
(16:32):
bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true and proper worship. Second one, next verse,
do not conform to the pattern of this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then then
you will be able to test and approve what God's
will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. There are
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a lot of things that you have to do before
you get to that then, isn't there? And I want
to break that down for us today. Keep the verse
up there one more time. Look at it. Therefore, I
urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy.
You see, if you want to see things from God's
point of view, if you want God to show you
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the way, you need to go at his speed. And
I can tell you right now that you're probably going
too fast. So the first thing that you need to
do is slow down. I talk to the ladies at
Reflect about this, and I share with them this story.
It's too good not to share it with the whole church.
(17:37):
I'm going to shorten it though, because the ladies that
Reflect we like long stories, and I've been told that
that's not appropriate for Sunday morning. So anyway, one time,
my family took a trip to Pennsylvania and my mom
had planned for us to go to Gettysburg Military Park
and we were going to do this guided history tour.
And I know that might seem kind of strange, like
my family was really nerdy. We weren't, but for some
(17:59):
reason at the time, my sisters and my mom and
I were really into Civil War history. It probably has
to do it like some I don't know, series of
books that we were reading, or show we were watching
or whatever. So we arrived at Gettysburg, and we stopped
at the visitor center and we picked up our map
and our brochures and our guided cassette tape. I'm not
(18:21):
even gonna make a joke about what a guided cassette
tape is, Abby, I'll show you later. Now, very clearly
though the INDI instructions, it said that the vehicle must
maintain a speed of twenty miles per hour in order
to see the sites that the tour guide on the
(18:43):
cassette tape was going to be telling us about. Okay,
so we pop in the tape and we start out,
and the man starts saying something like, to begin our journey.
Look to your left, and you will see a statue,
a memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln in the seis place
where he gave the Gettysburg address. And I want you
(19:04):
to know that that was the only historical site of
Gettysburg that we got to see because my dad, who
was not really into Civil War history at the time,
just could not drive twenty miles an hour to save
his life. He had to have been going at least forty,
(19:25):
so every time the guy told us to look at something,
we'd already passed it five miles back. Now I fact
checked this story with my sister Emily, and she says
that not only was that true, but she remembers crying
because there was a statue of a dog that had
like remained with the injured soldiers or something, and she
really wanted to see it, and we never got to
see it because nothing on the tape matched up with
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what we were seeing. And I want you to imagine
my father in a car full of women who were
constantly telling him to slow down. And I want to
tell you today, but if you want God to show
you his will for your life, you're gonna have to
go with the speed that he requires. And if you
want to experience the peace and the presence of Christ
(20:11):
in your family this Christmas season, you're gonna have to
slow down. Now. I know that this time of year,
we all have a million things to do. There's responsibilities
and obligations and programs that we did not ask to
have to attend. And I know that some of you
are working over time because they're gonna be extra bills
that you're gonna have to pay. But I want you
(20:31):
to know that what I am learning in the Christmas
season and really throughout the year, is that the presence
of Christ can be found in every moment of my
day if I will slow down and look for it.
Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is
(20:53):
always present. And God, like that tour guide on the tape,
is trying to show me things along the way throughout
my day. He's trying to guide me. But if I'm
going forty in a twenty, I'm gonna miss the direction
and the instruction that God is trying to give me.
(21:14):
I rush because I'm over committed. I've packed too many
things into one day. I rush because I have things
that have to get done. There's work and appointments and
commitments and activities and errands and dinners and homework and chores.
Anybody with me, And sometimes I feel like I'm rushing
though on purpose because it keeps me from having to
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feel and from having to acknowledge the things that I'm feeling.
And I know that if I stay busy, then I
don't have to think about the things that I'm disappointed about.
So I put my shoes on at seven am and
I don't take them off until nine am PM. And
then I lay my head on my pillow at night,
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and I'm worried about everything that's going on. And then
I wonder why I'm so anxious and so run down
and so weary, and why I feel so far away
from the presence of God. And I don't want to
feel that way at the end of the year this year,
and you don't have to feel that way. And Paul's
(22:19):
writing this letter to Christians and Rome so when he
says to them, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
they would have automatically understood that a sacrifice was something
that you place on an altar. So in Biblical times,
beginning even with the patriarchs in Genesis with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, when something significant was about to happen,
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or something important had just happened, often they would stop
and build an altar, Like do you remember when Noah
got off the ark he stopped. He built an altar,
and the God showed him the rainbow of his promise.
So by the time we get to Moses and the
Ten Commandments, God is giving Moses the Ten Commandments. But
right after that he also instructs Moses to tell the
(23:08):
people this. Look at Exodus chapter twenty versus, starting in
verse twenty two, I think, yeah, says this. Then the
Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites this you have
seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven.
He's talking about the Ten Commandments. Do not make any
gods to be alongside me. Do not make for yourselves
(23:28):
gods of silver or gods of gold. Make an altar
of earth for me, and sacrifice on it your burnt
offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats, and your cattle.
Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will
come to you, and I will bless you. So the
people that Paul is writing to they understood this idea
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that God was giving this direction in Exodus twenty to
his children because they were going to be on the move.
They had just left slavery in Egypt, but their journey
was just beginning, and God knew that there were gonna
be moments of great victory and moments of great fear.
And he knew that they had battles ahead to fight,
and they knew that He knew that they had giants
(24:12):
ahead to face. And these moments could not wait for
a tabernacle to be set up or for a temple
to be built. That these moments called for an altar
right there in the place where they were, right there
in the feelings that they were feeling. And yes, you
should schedule in time to worship God. Please do not
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let anything come between you and getting to church every
single week. And you should be in an e group
where you can discuss what God is speaking to you.
And obviously you should set aside time with God in
your house where you pray and you read your Bible.
But if you think that worshiping God is segmented out
(24:53):
like that, you're gonna miss so many things that God
wants to show you in the one thousand moment moments
of your day. And if we want God to show
us where to go, we have to learn how to
slow down in the middle of our day at your desk,
in your car, in your kitchen, and bring God into
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the situation, bring him into the feelings that you're feeling.
These are alter moments. God told Moses to make an
earthen alter. That means that it doesn't have to be pretty.
It doesn't have to wait for Sunday. It can be
raw and it can be muddy. You can stop and
you can celebrate a victory right where you are, or
(25:35):
you can cry out to him for help. But you've
got to learn how to slow down and acknowledge your
feelings right there in the moment. Are you grateful? Are
you afraid? Are you anxious? Are you excited? Are you nervous?
Are you angry? Are you disappointed? Are you frustrated? God
can handle all of that. He wants you to bring
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him in to the moment, and he wants to meet
you right there. Then the next thing that you have
to do is you have to make a sacrifice. God
wants to show you his will, but you can't rush it,
and you also can't ignore the steps that he wants
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you to take along the journey. So in our passage,
Poll is saying to the church that God wants to
show us a new way. He's saying the old law,
the law of Moses, is done away with, and you
no longer have to offer a bull or sheep or
goats to a tone for your sins, because that's what
they were doing. But the new law says that God,
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in view of his great mercy, he sent Jesus to
die for our sins. So Jesus is already paid the price.
And all God wants in return for that great price
that he paid when he gave his son on the
cross for our sins is our bodies as a living sacrifice.
(27:01):
That means he wants all of you. He didn't just
die for the pretty parts of your life, the church
parts of your life. He died for all of it.
He died for your hopes and your dreams. He died
for your victories and your defeats. He died for your
pride and for your shame. He wants you to bring
it all to him. So what does it look like
(27:23):
to make a sacrifice. A sacrifice is something that has
value to you. It's a representation of trust. It's a
symbol that expresses that God means more to you than anything,
more than anything that you have, or anything that you
have had, or anything that you want to have. So
when you slow down and you have this moment where
(27:45):
you bring God into your situation. You mark the moment
by giving something back to God that's valuable to you.
So David was building an altar one time and he
said this statement, and it's so incredible. He said, I
will not offer the Lord something that costs me nothing.
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So sacrifice is something that costs you something. Sometimes you
have to sacrifice to God something that you love. I
have had so many moments in my life where I've
had to reluctantly let go of a dream, a dream
or an idea that I had about my life that
maybe just hasn't come to pass. And I've had to
(28:27):
come to a place where I have to release my
idea of what I thought my life would look like
by now. I thought I'd be further along than this,
or maybe I thought I would have a different career
by now. I thought i'd be married by now. I
thought have kids by now. We always all have these
thoughts and dreams and aspirations that maybe haven't come to
(28:50):
pass for us. And it's really hard at Christmas time
because we see everyone's beautiful Christmas cards and I think
when I look at them, sometimes I think, oh Am,
I falling behind, you know, like we kick ourselves because
we look at this family in this beautiful car and
we think God. And if I had started selling that
(29:12):
protein powder on Facebook to all my friends and family,
I'd be spending Christmas in e'rerop skiing. Right now, you
gotta be careful, you gotta slow down. It's okay, acknowledge
the disappointment. Give it to God. When I'm giving you
this stream, I'm giving it back. I'm laying it down
(29:35):
on the altar. And sometimes when I say, I'm like,
and Lord, if you want to give it back to me,
that's okay, I'll let But right now I'm letting go,
and I'm trusting that you are the God of immeasurably
more than I could ask or imagine, and perhaps you
have a better dream for me. I can't imagine something better,
but God, I'm giving you this one because I want
(29:58):
to sacrifice it to you right now, in this moment.
Sometimes you sacrifice a person that you love. Maybe it's
your spouse or your child, or a parent who you
need to release to God, who you need to stop
trying to control. And I've had so many moments. Sorry
to my kids, but you need to know where I
(30:21):
have come to God, and I have said, Lord, you
love this person more than I do. I know that.
So God, I'm letting go of my hopes and dreams
and expectations for them, knowing God that just like you
have good plans for me, you have good plans for them.
(30:42):
And God, I know that you do not need my help.
I'm available. Sometimes you have to let your disappointments go.
You have to give them to God. You have to say, God,
(31:02):
this did not turn out the way that I thought,
So I'm surrendering my expectations to you. Remember Pastor Stephen
preached don't let the funeral fool you, and he said,
he said, you have to have a funeral for your expectations.
And sometimes we said that that's a sacrifice that we
give to God because it can be so disappointing when
(31:23):
things and people don't turn out and don't treat us
the way that we thought that they would. Sometimes you
have to lay down a feeling or an emotion like anger.
I just have to say that I'm afraid that we
have become an angry generation of people, and every little
(31:46):
thing that gets on our nerves and we think we
need to tell everybody you know, Like, anything that gets
some matters, I'm gonna let you know about it. It
could be your spouse, or your teenager or a random
person on YouTube, but you're going to void your outrage.
And I just want to let you know you don't
have to tell everyone. If you're angry. You can be
angry and not say anything. And I know that anger
(32:09):
is often an indicator of a deeper feeling that we're feeling,
but I think that most angry people aren't really interested
in figuring out why they're angry, because it feels good
to be angry. Right. As long as you're angry, you
never have to change anything about yourself. You never have
to accept your own behavior because you just are angry
(32:31):
at everybody else's behavior. If they do this, or if
they wouldn't do this, or if they would have done this,
then I wouldn't be so angry. And I'm not saying
that there's never a time when you can't get angry,
but what I am saying is that you can't afford
to stay angry, because if you stay angry, then you
will become bitter, and you will become someone that you yourself
(32:51):
do not even like so put your anger on the altar.
God can handle it. He can take anything. He wants
all of you. He wants the ugly and the beautiful
parts of your life. Sometimes you have to put your
pride on the altar. Recently, I was having one of
these slow moments with God. And it wasn't very pretty.
(33:12):
It wasn't like a, oh, I need to grab my
Bible and a cup of tea and a candle and
have a quiet time. I was talking to God because
I was having a hard time. I was disappointed in
something that was going on and something that had happened,
and I was trying really hard to do all of this,
and I was trying to give it to God. But honestly,
(33:35):
all that I kept thinking about every time that I
was praying about it was these stories that I was
making up in my head about what other people were
saying about me. And I really was just telling God
how unfair I thought that the whole situation was. And
I wasn't making aid progress though, And I realize now
(33:57):
that I was trying to have an alter moment with
God without sacrificing anything to him. And it was a
few days later that I was talking to Stephen. And
as I was trying to get it out of what
I was so frustrated and angry about, I realized that
the maturity of my frustration wasn't actually in what happened,
(34:20):
like the event, but it was in my pride of
worrying about what other people were thinking about me, and
I was just making it about me. And I don't
want to acknowledge my pride in the situation. I just
wanted to be angry that it had happened. But it
wasn't until I began to surrender my pride that I
(34:41):
began to feel peace about the situation. It wasn't until
I was really able to be honest with God and say, God,
you know what, I'm making this about me, and help
me not make it about me. And when I was
praying about it, I began to see it from a
completely different perspective because I offered God the truth of
(35:05):
how I was really feeling. Paul says, Therefore, brothers and sisters,
in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your
true and proper worship. That's the real way you worship God.
When you get honest with him, and he says, do
(35:25):
not conform to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will
be able to test and improve what God's will is.
Then you will be able to test and approve what
God's will is. You see, we want to fast forward
from verse one to verse two. God show me your will.
Should I move jobs? Should what college? Should I go to?
(35:46):
Should I keep dating this guy? And God says, that's
not how it works. There needs to be a commitment here,
and that commitment is symbolized by my willingness to sacrifice
to God something that costs me, something that hurts sometimes.
And in this verse, this is so interesting. The word
(36:08):
sacrifice is actually translated killing, So if you were to
make a direct translation, it actually is saying make your
life a living killing. And Paul is saying to these people,
he's saying, we're not offering bulls and goats and sheep anymore.
That was actually easier. You bring it, you kill it,
(36:32):
it stays dead. But this sacrifice, it's a living killing.
That means that this thing is gonna crawl off the
altar every chance it gets. It would be nice if
we could just sacrifice our anger once and for all
and move forward. It would be nice if we could
just surrender our disappointments to God and move on, or
(36:53):
if we could let go of all of the weights
that we're carrying. It doesn't work like that. A living killing.
That means sometimes it's minute by minute, day by day.
You have to keep doing it. One scholar said, it
feels like a death, but on the other side of
(37:15):
it is life, and that's why it's a living sacrifice.
It's a sacrifice that leads to life. There's life when
you let go. There's life when you let go. You
want direction, you want guidance, you want peace about your decisions.
(37:36):
It begins with a sacrifice. We cannot see God's will
without doing things God's way. We don't get to skip
the part where we have to give God something that's
valuable to us. So we slow down, we build an altar,
(37:57):
we bring God into our situation, make a sacrifice, and
then we see our situation in a whole new way.
That's my last point. See, the more that you begin
to release your situation to God, the more that your
(38:18):
mind begins to be transformed. That's when you begin to
have a renewed vision of what God is actually trying
to do in your life. Not too long ago, I
was struggling with the same situation over and over and
(38:40):
over again. You ever been there, And I'm telling you,
I built many altars. I kept putting this situation on
the altar, and when I tell you, it kept climbing off.
It kept climbing off. And I was so disappointed because
I felt like God was not listening to me. I mean,
(39:03):
I had given him so many good ideas about how
to fix this situation. You could do this, you could
do that, God make them, do you know? I get
God lots of ideas, to the point where I got
so frustrated that I stopped talking to God about it,
(39:24):
and not in a good way. I was just like, well,
obviously God's not hearing me, and so I'm just I'm
just not even gonna pray about this anymore. But God
is so patient and he's so kind. And one day
I wasn't looking, I wasn't praying about it, but I
was reading my Bible and I came across this first
(39:45):
and it grabbed me. And I went about my day,
but I kept thinking about it. A couple of days
went by, I was like, I gotta look that first
back up. So I went back and I read it again,
and I realized that it was the exact thing that
I needed in that situation. So I printed out the
(40:06):
verse and I put it up everywhere. I mean, it's
kind of obnoxious that I put it up inside of
the cabinet where our coffee mugs are, so I would
see it first thing in the morning. I put it
up on my mirror, I put it in my car.
I taped it to a plant.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Every time I worried about the situation, God reminded me
of that verse. Every time I wondered what I was
supposed to do, I remembered that verse. And I have
to tell you something shifted in my heart. But nothing
changed about the situation. The only thing that actually changed
(40:46):
was my perspective and my attitude. And I'm telling you,
it felt like God had given me marching orders, like
he had given me the exact vision and direction that
I needed for that situation. And I began to have
peace because now I had a promise. I realize now
(41:10):
that I wasted so much of my prayer time trying
to show God what he needed to do God, you
see this, if you would fix this, if you would
change them, if you would make them understand and listen.
There's nothing wrong with asking God to change your situation.
Sometimes that's the only place where you can start right.
(41:32):
But what I found is that breakthrough happens when I
stop trying to show God what he needs to do,
and I let him show me a way through. I
feel like I need to say that again. Stop trying
to show God. Let him show you.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Now.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
I'm not going to share my verse with you, because
it's my verse. You got to find your own verse.
But I want to tell you something. The promises in
this book they are for you. This is not just
a book of stories. This book is life. This book
has power. And when this book says I will never
(42:19):
leave you nor forsake you, that means you. God is
with you. So if you feel lost or you feel lonely,
you put a promise on it. When you read that
Jesus said peace, I leave with you, that means you.
So when you feel anxious, you put a promise on it.
The Bible says that if the sun sets you free,
(42:39):
then you are free. Indeed, it's talking about you, So
put a promise over your addiction. You don't have to
wait for pastor Stephen to tell you about God's promises.
They are right here. We got free by If you
don't have a Bible, we got one for you. Pick
it up and read it, and put a promise over
(43:00):
your marriage, put a promise over your family. God's promises
are generational, and they are ours for the taking. Abraham
built an altar, and he called it the Lord will provide.
Jacob built an altar, and he called it Mighty House
of God. Moses built an altar, and he called it
(43:23):
the Lord is my Banner. Geton built an altar, and
he called it the Lord is my Peace. God wants to.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
Show you more than you want to see it. It
starts with a process, Paul says, off of your bodies
as a living sacrifice. Begin to transform and renew your
mind and see your situation in the new light. And
then then and only then will you be able to
test and approve what God's will is. Slow down, put
(43:52):
that thing back on the altar, and then put a
promise over your situation.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
That's where the past. It's right here. But you're going
so fast you don't even have time to open it
up and let God speak to you. Today is a
beautiful day at our church. It's a day when we
cheerfully bring an offering to God. And we've been telling
(44:22):
you for weeks to pray about it and prepare what
God would have you to give, because we want you
to give, because God has given so much to you.
And when we give it, we're saying thank you. We're
acknowledging that this is a place where you speak to
me God, and so I want to give so that
someone else can hear the messages that I'm hearing at
(44:44):
a new campus or online in a different city, or
maybe even a different country. And when we give, it
is a beautiful act of worship. But don't forget when
you give today that is sacrifice is often followed by
a promise. Don't forget to put a word on your
(45:06):
offering today. That's just as important. The word is just
as important as the gift, because as you head into
twenty twenty five, you're going to go in strong knowing
that God has gone before you, that he knows what's
ahead of you, and He's given you a promise to
cling to in the coming day so that when the
times get hard, you've got a word from God over
(45:30):
your life. Everyone should have received an envelope when you
came in. If you don't have one, an usher is
going to bring one to you online. There's a link
in the chat for you to participate, and in a moment,
we're going to bring our offerings. But I want us
to go slow today. I don't want us to just
start singing and come forward and put our offering in
(45:53):
the little thing. I want to make sure that you
get to have a moment with God right here where
you are. Whether you're watching in your home and you're
sitting in a seat at one of our campuses, you
can make the place where you're sitting an altar right now.
(46:14):
I just want you to take a minute. Has God
been grateful? Has God been good to you this year?
Are you grateful for that? What does He brought you through?
Maybe you need to surrender a disappointment to him. Maybe
you need to let go of a person that you
(46:35):
love and care about so much. I just want you
to take a minute to let God show you your
way forward. Take a minute to think about word your
promise for twenty twenty five that you're going to put
on the back of that envelope because when we come
forward and we give, even if you're not able to
(46:57):
participate in the offering today, we want you to bring
your word and we want you to place it in
the offering. And I want you to know we have
people who have signed up who are prepared today and
all week to pray over your word, to believe with
you what God is speaking over your life for this year.
(47:22):
So I just want to give you a moment. The
band's going to come and sing, and then your campus
pastor is going to come with instructions specifically on how
we're going to take the offering. But before they do
all of that, let God speak to you in this moment,
(47:43):
just pause. Who wants to show you? So let we
thank you for this word. We just steel it on
our hearts today. I love you. It's in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Amen. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information,
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're gonna have such an amazing day.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
We're already having an amazing day.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
How many feel a little better now that you praise
God the last thirty minutes. In just a moment, Holly
is gonna come and preach our message today.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Let's thank God in advance for the world he's going
to speak.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's say hello to our EPAM all over the world.
Come on, Elevation Valentine, lift up your voice and welcome
our EPHAM. Our campus is all over the world. We're
glad you're with us today. At the end of the
message today, there's going to be a year end offering.
And this is a very special opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
For each and every one of us.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
How many know that the Bible says you can praise
God with your lips, but your heart still be far
from Him.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
That can happen.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
But one thing that I've learned that will always help
me to draw near to God is through giving.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Is through giving.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So when people say I love to worship God, I
hope they don't just mean I like music about God,
because the greatest act of worship happens.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
When we bring Him our whole lives in full faith.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And today you're going to see thousands of people do that.
I'll cross all of our locations and online. Holly and
I have our offering ready, and don't get nervous. She's
not going to preach for forty minutes about money.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I know you're like I invited my relative today.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I thought there might be a Christmas sermon about a
baby in a blanket and the wise man and the Magi,
and the message today will be applicable to all of
us around the subject that I know God gave her
because we both said to each other a month ago.
That's the word that our church needs to hear on
our offering weekend. And so the Lord has really been
(02:00):
aligning this and I'm excited for you to hear it.
But I want to tell you that for me as
I bring my offering today for the nineteenth year, remember
when they used to call me a fly by night preacher, Well,
I've been flying for a long night nineteen years now,
(02:21):
and I'm just reminded of what we were singing.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
That was a great selection.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
We didn't work that in events, but you know, the
Bible says that the gates of hell will not prevail
against the Church, and actually the opposite happens when we
proclaim the name of Jesus. The gates of hell start
shaking when we show up. And I've just seen that
time and time again, no matter what the enemy has
tried to bring against our family and our church and
(02:45):
all of the wonderful people who make up this church,
that God keeps being faithful again and again. I've seen
it in seasons of abundance, seasons of plenty, seasons of praise,
seasons of criticism. I've seen it in seasons where my
own heart was broken but I was preaching to others.
I've seen it in seasons when I was on a
mountaintop with the victory that.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
God is my source. God is my source. And so.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
If you're like me, you probably had to look for
a check book. I don't write a lot of checks
these days manually, but I always write this one. Of course,
you can give online, and there will be instructions about
that later.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
But really, I don't want you to get so.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Caught up in the mechanics of what's going to happen
later on that you missed the ministry and the miracle
of it. Because I get so many testimonies from all
over the world. Some of them come from people who
are just living their lives normally and God blesses them
through the words and the worship and the ministry that
comes forth from this house, and some from life's lowest situations.
(03:51):
Some write me from prisons, some write me after miscarriages,
some write me as they're going through divorce. And you know,
whether it's the everyday moments that God uses, how many
would say that God has used this ministry to reach
your heart at a time where you needed him.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And notice I've said God did it.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
If you've ever been blessed through this ministry, it was
God blessing you. But the thing I love about Jesus
is that he always involves his disciples. One time, he
needed to feed a crowd, and he could have probably
just called down bread from heaven, but he asked them,
what do you have, not because he needed what they had,
but because they needed what he had. And when you
(04:33):
learn this principle, whether today you're beginning to tithe for
the first time, which is ten percent, or whether you're
giving what Holly and I came prepared to give an
above and beyond offering.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
And by above and beyond, I mean it hurts my
feelings a little bit when I give it. That's how
I always test it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And whatever you're giving today, I want you to understand
what you're hooking into. We don't give to receive from God.
We give because everything we have already comes from Him.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So to all of you who are giving today.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
In just a little while after the sermon, I told Holly,
before you preach and just absolutely do what only you
can do.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Let me look at the people, and let.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Me look at the cameras for all the people that
I can't see at campuses like Roanoke and shout out
Ronoke Elevation, Ronoke Elevation, University City Elevation, Lake Norman, all
the amazing locations, all of our pop ups, all of
our watch parties, everybody here at Valentine, everybody watching this in.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
A hospital room.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I want to look at all of you who are
participating in this ministry and say thank you, Holly, and
I thank God for you for another year of amazing
ministry sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And just like you know, you.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Raised your hand and said, this ministry means a lot
to me and my family. Maybe you were saved through
this ministry, maybe you were brought back to God. Maybe
it's just been there for you in the times of
your deepest nee.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Just like you raise that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Hand, now you get to stretch that hand and give
a gift that will be meaningful to God in you.
And I love it because I don't want to end
Christmas just consumerism.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And busyness and all of that.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I want to stop and say thank you Jesus for
all You've done for me, and I trust you with
my future.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So I want to say a prayer.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
And after I pray, we'll welcome Holly up real, proper
and strong. We'll clap with cheer, we'll lose our minds,
we'll let her know we're ready for what God spoke.
But would you join hands with the person next to you,
if that doesn't give you germaphobia on the highest level,
if it doesn't give you a panic attack, to touch
your neighbor. Grab their hand, because I want to pray
(06:45):
not only for Holly as she comes to share, and
for you as you listen. I want to pray for
the things in your life that you need to trust
God about. And whether you're giving a financial offering today,
I still want to pray for you. I want to
pray that the Lord would order your steps in the
season to come, that he would bring the right people
(07:06):
everybody say right people, that he would bring people who
can bless you and people you can bless across your path.
I want to pray that God would give you his
wisdom for all of the difficult decisions that you're facing.
I want to pray that you would hold on to
the gifts that He's given you and not give up
too easily. I want to pray that you would let
(07:28):
go of distress that you're not supposed to carry anyway.
Squeeze the hand of the person next to you, Let
them know that there's still life in front of them,
let them know that there's still hope inside of them.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Let them know that it's Christ in us, the hope
of glory.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And let's let the world know that we're preaching this
gospel of Jesus Christ, that we are not a divided church.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
We are a united church.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
We unite under one name, the name that can break chains,
the name that still makes ways, the name that makes
the gates of Hell's shaikh.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
We are the Church of the Living God and Father.
We give you praise today for the word that you're.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
About to speak through Pastor Holly Speak, Lord.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
We're listening in Jesus' name. Amen, clapt those hands.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Here comes Holly, Here comes the word for your life.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Well, Merry Christmas. I just have to add to that.
I love coming to church at Christmas time. It is
so easy to get caught up in the rush and
the hustle and bustle. But when you set aside time
to come to church and take a breath and worship
God and allow him to recenter your heart and your focus,
(08:56):
God always shows up and he blesses us. And I
just have to add I am so excited about today.
It's a special day at Elevation. We are bringing our
offerings together today, as Steven said, as JJ said, we
want to let you know we're bringing our offerings today.
And I'm so excited because I absolutely love watching people
(09:20):
worship God by giving. There's no greater way to express
your gratitude to Him than giving back a portion of Him.
And like Steven said, we're going to get to that
at the end. But for to have a word that
I'm so excited to share with you today. Are you
ready for the Word? All right, let's read our scripture
together real quick before you sit down. I want to
(09:41):
preach today from Romans chapter twelve, verses one and two,
one of the most iconic passages of Scripture, and I'm
excited that God is allowing me to preach from it today.
It says this, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters,
in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as
(10:02):
a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is
your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and
perfect will. The title of my sermon today is God
(10:23):
wants to show you. Let's pray one more time. Father,
would you bless the reading of your word today? Holy Spirit?
We welcome you in this place. We welcome you in
this room, in all of our campuses, wherever anybody is watching,
Holy Spirit come come into our hearts, speak to us today.
(10:45):
We are listening. Lord in Jesus' name. Amen, you can
have a seat. Earlier this month, I sat down with
a few staff members and we recorded a video where
we were looking back at all the amazing things that
has happened in our church over twenty twenty four. My
favorite part of the conversation, of course, was when we
(11:08):
all went around and we shared one of our favorite
messages from twenty twenty four. And when I was trying
to figure out what my favorite one was, I was
looking at a list of sermons that our pastor preached
only in this year, and I was in awe, partially
because I know how hard it is to prepare one sermon.
Just so you know, I f only preached three times
(11:30):
of this year, and he has preached I don't even
know how many times. But as I looked at each
title and I thought about the things that God has
spoken to me throughout the year through the messages of
our pastor, I was just amazed. I am a church girl,
you know, I'm a pastor's daughter. I grew up in church.
I guarantee you I've heard more sermons than anybody in
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this room, and I have heard a lot of bad sermons.
And I do not take it for granted that every
single week our pastor brings us such an incredible beast.
If you don't get something from one of his sermons,
it is your fault. So the past several weeks have
been really special to me. I'm not sure if any
(12:15):
of you noticed, but Pastor Stephen did this sneaky little
non series series. He never called it anything, but all
of the sermon titles began with God and they were
followed by four words. Do you remember? It's okay if
you don't. I had to look up the titles, but
I want to remind you of them. The first one
he did was God can use this too. The second
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one he did was God will work it in. The
third one was God's got the hard part. The fourth
one was God gave it to me. And today I
just want to do a little tag on message with
this sermon that I have called God wants to show you.
I love to share memes and funny videos from social media.
(13:00):
Anybody else like that? I think I have some people
in my life that are like can't keep up with
all the things that they're supposed to watch that I
show them. I love dog videos, I love people falling.
I love anything that will make me laugh. If your
feed is full of like politics and I don't know,
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angry people, you would love my feed because it is
so funny. And sometimes I lay in bed at night
when Steven has fallen asleep, and I start scrolling through
my feed and I start giggling because you know, like
when you're supposed to be quiet and someone else is sleeping,
and I just start laughing. And I don't know, I
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think things are funnier late at night too, and so
of course, like it's like, you know, twelve thirty, and
I just start sending stuff. And the funny thing about
memes is they show you how what you think is
the most hilarious thing in the world might not even
be remotely funny to someone else. So you have to
be really careful like who you show them to, because
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they can make you feel like really dumb. Right, So
in my family, I'm not gonna call anyone out, but
I have learned the hard way. My husband thinks that
everything is fake or re enacted. He is such a skeptic.
My boys do not get me. They don't even open
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my memes. I know because I'm like I said, did
you see that it was so funny? They don't even
open them. So Abby is my last shred of hope
in the family. But we haven't let her get Instagram yet.
So I have a saved folder called things to Show Abby,
and a lot of days I'll pick her up from
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school and I'll say, oh, I have something so funny
to show you, and we will laugh together at memes.
And currently people dancing to songs from Wicked. So in
our passage today, let me get back to the Bible. Well,
Paul is trying to teach us that God is excited.
He has something he wants to show us, which is
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his will. And every person here has something that they
want God to give them direction on, right. I mean,
maybe it is a relationship or a job, or a
change that you think God might be calling you to make.
Maybe you have something that you want to be set
free from, or a habit that you know that isn't
good for you. And we all want God to show
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us his will for our lives. And what I want
to show you from this passage today is that God
wants to show you your next steps. He longs to
show He wants to show it to you more than
you want to see it. But God is not Santa Claus,
and you don't get to send him a letter with
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all the grown up things that you want for Christmas.
You know, like, Dear God, this year, I would like
to lose twenty pounds, own a home, get married, and
get promoted at my job. And then on December twenty fifth,
you wake up and under the tree is a detailed
plan of all the decisions that you need to make
and all the steps you need to take in twenty
twenty five to accomplish these goals. That is not how
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it works, and Paul is giving us instructions on how
to know what God's will is. But there is a
very critical step that we cannot skip. So look at
the verse again. It says, therefore, I urge you, brothers
and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your
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bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true and proper worship. Second one, next verse,
do not conform to the pattern of this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then then
you will be able to test and approve what God's
will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. There are
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a lot of things that you have to do before
you get to that then, isn't there? And I want
to break that down for us today. Keep the verse
up there one more time. Look at it. Therefore, I
urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy.
You see, if you want to see things from God's
point of view, if you want God to show you
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the way, you need to go at his speed. And
I can tell you right now that you're probably going
too fast. So the first thing that you need to
do is slow down. I talk to the ladies at
Reflect about this, and I share with them this story.
It's too good not to share it with the whole church.
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I'm going to shorten it though, because the ladies that
Reflect we like long stories, and I've been told that
that's not appropriate for Sunday morning. So anyway, one time,
my family took a trip to Pennsylvania and my mom
had planned for us to go to Gettysburg Military Park
and we were going to do this guided history tour.
And I know that might seem kind of strange, like
my family was really nerdy. We weren't, but for some
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reason at the time, my sisters and my mom and
I were really into Civil War history. It probably has
to do it like some I don't know, series of
books that we were reading, or show we were watching
or whatever. So we arrived at Gettysburg, and we stopped
at the visitor center and we picked up our map
and our brochures and our guided cassette tape. I'm not
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even gonna make a joke about what a guided cassette
tape is, Abby, I'll show you later. Now, very clearly
though the INDI instructions, it said that the vehicle must
maintain a speed of twenty miles per hour in order
to see the sites that the tour guide on the
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cassette tape was going to be telling us about. Okay,
so we pop in the tape and we start out,
and the man starts saying something like, to begin our journey.
Look to your left, and you will see a statue,
a memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln in the seis place
where he gave the Gettysburg address. And I want you
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to know that that was the only historical site of
Gettysburg that we got to see because my dad, who
was not really into Civil War history at the time,
just could not drive twenty miles an hour to save
his life. He had to have been going at least forty,
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so every time the guy told us to look at something,
we'd already passed it five miles back. Now I fact
checked this story with my sister Emily, and she says
that not only was that true, but she remembers crying
because there was a statue of a dog that had
like remained with the injured soldiers or something, and she
really wanted to see it, and we never got to
see it because nothing on the tape matched up with
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what we were seeing. And I want you to imagine
my father in a car full of women who were
constantly telling him to slow down. And I want to
tell you today, but if you want God to show
you his will for your life, you're gonna have to
go with the speed that he requires. And if you
want to experience the peace and the presence of Christ
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in your family this Christmas season, you're gonna have to
slow down. Now. I know that this time of year,
we all have a million things to do. There's responsibilities
and obligations and programs that we did not ask to
have to attend. And I know that some of you
are working over time because they're gonna be extra bills
that you're gonna have to pay. But I want you
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to know that what I am learning in the Christmas
season and really throughout the year, is that the presence
of Christ can be found in every moment of my
day if I will slow down and look for it.
Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is
(20:53):
always present. And God, like that tour guide on the tape,
is trying to show me things along the way throughout
my day. He's trying to guide me. But if I'm
going forty in a twenty, I'm gonna miss the direction
and the instruction that God is trying to give me.
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I rush because I'm over committed. I've packed too many
things into one day. I rush because I have things
that have to get done. There's work and appointments and
commitments and activities and errands and dinners and homework and chores.
Anybody with me, And sometimes I feel like I'm rushing
though on purpose because it keeps me from having to
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feel and from having to acknowledge the things that I'm feeling.
And I know that if I stay busy, then I
don't have to think about the things that I'm disappointed about.
So I put my shoes on at seven am and
I don't take them off until nine am PM. And
then I lay my head on my pillow at night,
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and I'm worried about everything that's going on. And then
I wonder why I'm so anxious and so run down
and so weary, and why I feel so far away
from the presence of God. And I don't want to
feel that way at the end of the year this year,
and you don't have to feel that way. And Paul's
(22:19):
writing this letter to Christians and Rome so when he
says to them, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
they would have automatically understood that a sacrifice was something
that you place on an altar. So in Biblical times,
beginning even with the patriarchs in Genesis with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, when something significant was about to happen,
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or something important had just happened, often they would stop
and build an altar, Like do you remember when Noah
got off the ark he stopped. He built an altar,
and the God showed him the rainbow of his promise.
So by the time we get to Moses and the
Ten Commandments, God is giving Moses the Ten Commandments. But
right after that he also instructs Moses to tell the
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people this. Look at Exodus chapter twenty versus, starting in
verse twenty two, I think, yeah, says this. Then the
Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites this you have
seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven.
He's talking about the Ten Commandments. Do not make any
gods to be alongside me. Do not make for yourselves
(23:28):
gods of silver or gods of gold. Make an altar
of earth for me, and sacrifice on it your burnt
offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats, and your cattle.
Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will
come to you, and I will bless you. So the
people that Paul is writing to they understood this idea
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that God was giving this direction in Exodus twenty to
his children because they were going to be on the move.
They had just left slavery in Egypt, but their journey
was just beginning, and God knew that there were gonna
be moments of great victory and moments of great fear.
And he knew that they had battles ahead to fight,
and they knew that He knew that they had giants
(24:12):
ahead to face. And these moments could not wait for
a tabernacle to be set up or for a temple
to be built. That these moments called for an altar
right there in the place where they were, right there
in the feelings that they were feeling. And yes, you
should schedule in time to worship God. Please do not
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let anything come between you and getting to church every
single week. And you should be in an e group
where you can discuss what God is speaking to you.
And obviously you should set aside time with God in
your house where you pray and you read your Bible.
But if you think that worshiping God is segmented out
(24:53):
like that, you're gonna miss so many things that God
wants to show you in the one thousand moment moments
of your day. And if we want God to show
us where to go, we have to learn how to
slow down in the middle of our day at your desk,
in your car, in your kitchen, and bring God into
(25:15):
the situation, bring him into the feelings that you're feeling.
These are alter moments. God told Moses to make an
earthen alter. That means that it doesn't have to be pretty.
It doesn't have to wait for Sunday. It can be
raw and it can be muddy. You can stop and
you can celebrate a victory right where you are, or
(25:35):
you can cry out to him for help. But you've
got to learn how to slow down and acknowledge your
feelings right there in the moment. Are you grateful? Are
you afraid? Are you anxious? Are you excited? Are you nervous?
Are you angry? Are you disappointed? Are you frustrated? God
can handle all of that. He wants you to bring
(25:56):
him in to the moment, and he wants to meet
you right there. Then the next thing that you have
to do is you have to make a sacrifice. God
wants to show you his will, but you can't rush it,
and you also can't ignore the steps that he wants
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you to take along the journey. So in our passage,
Poll is saying to the church that God wants to
show us a new way. He's saying the old law,
the law of Moses, is done away with, and you
no longer have to offer a bull or sheep or
goats to a tone for your sins, because that's what
they were doing. But the new law says that God,
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in view of his great mercy, he sent Jesus to
die for our sins. So Jesus is already paid the price.
And all God wants in return for that great price
that he paid when he gave his son on the
cross for our sins is our bodies as a living sacrifice.
(27:01):
That means he wants all of you. He didn't just
die for the pretty parts of your life, the church
parts of your life. He died for all of it.
He died for your hopes and your dreams. He died
for your victories and your defeats. He died for your
pride and for your shame. He wants you to bring
it all to him. So what does it look like
(27:23):
to make a sacrifice. A sacrifice is something that has
value to you. It's a representation of trust. It's a
symbol that expresses that God means more to you than anything,
more than anything that you have, or anything that you
have had, or anything that you want to have. So
when you slow down and you have this moment where
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you bring God into your situation. You mark the moment
by giving something back to God that's valuable to you.
So David was building an altar one time and he
said this statement, and it's so incredible. He said, I
will not offer the Lord something that costs me nothing.
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So sacrifice is something that costs you something. Sometimes you
have to sacrifice to God something that you love. I
have had so many moments in my life where I've
had to reluctantly let go of a dream, a dream
or an idea that I had about my life that
maybe just hasn't come to pass. And I've had to
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come to a place where I have to release my
idea of what I thought my life would look like
by now. I thought I'd be further along than this,
or maybe I thought I would have a different career
by now. I thought i'd be married by now. I
thought have kids by now. We always all have these
thoughts and dreams and aspirations that maybe haven't come to
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pass for us. And it's really hard at Christmas time
because we see everyone's beautiful Christmas cards and I think
when I look at them, sometimes I think, oh Am,
I falling behind, you know, like we kick ourselves because
we look at this family in this beautiful car and
we think God. And if I had started selling that
(29:12):
protein powder on Facebook to all my friends and family,
I'd be spending Christmas in e'rerop skiing. Right now, you
gotta be careful, you gotta slow down. It's okay, acknowledge
the disappointment. Give it to God. When I'm giving you
this stream, I'm giving it back. I'm laying it down
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on the altar. And sometimes when I say, I'm like,
and Lord, if you want to give it back to me,
that's okay, I'll let But right now I'm letting go,
and I'm trusting that you are the God of immeasurably
more than I could ask or imagine, and perhaps you
have a better dream for me. I can't imagine something better,
but God, I'm giving you this one because I want
(29:58):
to sacrifice it to you right now, in this moment.
Sometimes you sacrifice a person that you love. Maybe it's
your spouse or your child, or a parent who you
need to release to God, who you need to stop
trying to control. And I've had so many moments. Sorry
to my kids, but you need to know where I
(30:21):
have come to God, and I have said, Lord, you
love this person more than I do. I know that.
So God, I'm letting go of my hopes and dreams
and expectations for them, knowing God that just like you
have good plans for me, you have good plans for them.
(30:42):
And God, I know that you do not need my help.
I'm available. Sometimes you have to let your disappointments go.
You have to give them to God. You have to say, God,
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this did not turn out the way that I thought,
So I'm surrendering my expectations to you. Remember Pastor Stephen
preached don't let the funeral fool you, and he said,
he said, you have to have a funeral for your expectations.
And sometimes we said that that's a sacrifice that we
give to God because it can be so disappointing when
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things and people don't turn out and don't treat us
the way that we thought that they would. Sometimes you
have to lay down a feeling or an emotion like anger.
I just have to say that I'm afraid that we
have become an angry generation of people, and every little
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thing that gets on our nerves and we think we
need to tell everybody you know, Like, anything that gets
some matters, I'm gonna let you know about it. It
could be your spouse, or your teenager or a random
person on YouTube, but you're going to void your outrage.
And I just want to let you know you don't
have to tell everyone. If you're angry. You can be
angry and not say anything. And I know that anger
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is often an indicator of a deeper feeling that we're feeling,
but I think that most angry people aren't really interested
in figuring out why they're angry, because it feels good
to be angry. Right. As long as you're angry, you
never have to change anything about yourself. You never have
to accept your own behavior because you just are angry
(32:31):
at everybody else's behavior. If they do this, or if
they wouldn't do this, or if they would have done this,
then I wouldn't be so angry. And I'm not saying
that there's never a time when you can't get angry,
but what I am saying is that you can't afford
to stay angry, because if you stay angry, then you
will become bitter, and you will become someone that you yourself
(32:51):
do not even like so put your anger on the altar.
God can handle it. He can take anything. He wants
all of you. He wants the ugly and the beautiful
parts of your life. Sometimes you have to put your
pride on the altar. Recently, I was having one of
these slow moments with God. And it wasn't very pretty.
(33:12):
It wasn't like a, oh, I need to grab my
Bible and a cup of tea and a candle and
have a quiet time. I was talking to God because
I was having a hard time. I was disappointed in
something that was going on and something that had happened,
and I was trying really hard to do all of this,
and I was trying to give it to God. But honestly,
(33:35):
all that I kept thinking about every time that I
was praying about it was these stories that I was
making up in my head about what other people were
saying about me. And I really was just telling God
how unfair I thought that the whole situation was. And
I wasn't making aid progress though, And I realize now
(33:57):
that I was trying to have an alter moment with
God without sacrificing anything to him. And it was a
few days later that I was talking to Stephen. And
as I was trying to get it out of what
I was so frustrated and angry about, I realized that
the maturity of my frustration wasn't actually in what happened,
(34:20):
like the event, but it was in my pride of
worrying about what other people were thinking about me, and
I was just making it about me. And I don't
want to acknowledge my pride in the situation. I just
wanted to be angry that it had happened. But it
wasn't until I began to surrender my pride that I
(34:41):
began to feel peace about the situation. It wasn't until
I was really able to be honest with God and say, God,
you know what, I'm making this about me, and help
me not make it about me. And when I was
praying about it, I began to see it from a
completely different perspective because I offered God the truth of
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how I was really feeling. Paul says, Therefore, brothers and sisters,
in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your
true and proper worship. That's the real way you worship God.
When you get honest with him, and he says, do
(35:25):
not conform to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will
be able to test and improve what God's will is.
Then you will be able to test and approve what
God's will is. You see, we want to fast forward
from verse one to verse two. God show me your will.
Should I move jobs? Should what college? Should I go to?
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Should I keep dating this guy? And God says, that's
not how it works. There needs to be a commitment here,
and that commitment is symbolized by my willingness to sacrifice
to God something that costs me, something that hurts sometimes.
And in this verse, this is so interesting. The word
(36:08):
sacrifice is actually translated killing, So if you were to
make a direct translation, it actually is saying make your
life a living killing. And Paul is saying to these people,
he's saying, we're not offering bulls and goats and sheep anymore.
That was actually easier. You bring it, you kill it,
(36:32):
it stays dead. But this sacrifice, it's a living killing.
That means that this thing is gonna crawl off the
altar every chance it gets. It would be nice if
we could just sacrifice our anger once and for all
and move forward. It would be nice if we could
just surrender our disappointments to God and move on, or
(36:53):
if we could let go of all of the weights
that we're carrying. It doesn't work like that. A living killing.
That means sometimes it's minute by minute, day by day.
You have to keep doing it. One scholar said, it
feels like a death, but on the other side of
(37:15):
it is life, and that's why it's a living sacrifice.
It's a sacrifice that leads to life. There's life when
you let go. There's life when you let go. You
want direction, you want guidance, you want peace about your decisions.
(37:36):
It begins with a sacrifice. We cannot see God's will
without doing things God's way. We don't get to skip
the part where we have to give God something that's
valuable to us. So we slow down, we build an altar,
(37:57):
we bring God into our situation, make a sacrifice, and
then we see our situation in a whole new way.
That's my last point. See, the more that you begin
to release your situation to God, the more that your
(38:18):
mind begins to be transformed. That's when you begin to
have a renewed vision of what God is actually trying
to do in your life. Not too long ago, I
was struggling with the same situation over and over and
(38:40):
over again. You ever been there, And I'm telling you,
I built many altars. I kept putting this situation on
the altar, and when I tell you, it kept climbing off.
It kept climbing off. And I was so disappointed because
I felt like God was not listening to me. I mean,
(39:03):
I had given him so many good ideas about how
to fix this situation. You could do this, you could
do that, God make them, do you know? I get
God lots of ideas, to the point where I got
so frustrated that I stopped talking to God about it,
(39:24):
and not in a good way. I was just like, well,
obviously God's not hearing me, and so I'm just I'm
just not even gonna pray about this anymore. But God
is so patient and he's so kind. And one day
I wasn't looking, I wasn't praying about it, but I
was reading my Bible and I came across this first
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and it grabbed me. And I went about my day,
but I kept thinking about it. A couple of days
went by, I was like, I gotta look that first
back up. So I went back and I read it again,
and I realized that it was the exact thing that
I needed in that situation. So I printed out the
(40:06):
verse and I put it up everywhere. I mean, it's
kind of obnoxious that I put it up inside of
the cabinet where our coffee mugs are, so I would
see it first thing in the morning. I put it
up on my mirror, I put it in my car.
I taped it to a plant.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Every time I worried about the situation, God reminded me
of that verse. Every time I wondered what I was
supposed to do, I remembered that verse. And I have
to tell you something shifted in my heart. But nothing
changed about the situation. The only thing that actually changed
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was my perspective and my attitude. And I'm telling you,
it felt like God had given me marching orders, like
he had given me the exact vision and direction that
I needed for that situation. And I began to have
peace because now I had a promise. I realize now
(41:10):
that I wasted so much of my prayer time trying
to show God what he needed to do God, you
see this, if you would fix this, if you would
change them, if you would make them understand and listen.
There's nothing wrong with asking God to change your situation.
Sometimes that's the only place where you can start right.
(41:32):
But what I found is that breakthrough happens when I
stop trying to show God what he needs to do,
and I let him show me a way through. I
feel like I need to say that again. Stop trying
to show God. Let him show you.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Now.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
I'm not going to share my verse with you, because
it's my verse. You got to find your own verse.
But I want to tell you something. The promises in
this book they are for you. This is not just
a book of stories. This book is life. This book
has power. And when this book says I will never
(42:19):
leave you nor forsake you, that means you. God is
with you. So if you feel lost or you feel lonely,
you put a promise on it. When you read that
Jesus said peace, I leave with you, that means you.
So when you feel anxious, you put a promise on it.
The Bible says that if the sun sets you free,
(42:39):
then you are free. Indeed, it's talking about you, So
put a promise over your addiction. You don't have to
wait for pastor Stephen to tell you about God's promises.
They are right here. We got free by If you
don't have a Bible, we got one for you. Pick
it up and read it, and put a promise over
(43:00):
your marriage, put a promise over your family. God's promises
are generational, and they are ours for the taking. Abraham
built an altar, and he called it the Lord will provide.
Jacob built an altar, and he called it Mighty House
of God. Moses built an altar, and he called it
(43:23):
the Lord is my Banner. Geton built an altar, and
he called it the Lord is my Peace. God wants to.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
Show you more than you want to see it. It
starts with a process, Paul says, off of your bodies
as a living sacrifice. Begin to transform and renew your
mind and see your situation in the new light. And
then then and only then will you be able to
test and approve what God's will is. Slow down, put
(43:52):
that thing back on the altar, and then put a
promise over your situation.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
That's where the past. It's right here. But you're going
so fast you don't even have time to open it
up and let God speak to you. Today is a
beautiful day at our church. It's a day when we
cheerfully bring an offering to God. And we've been telling
(44:22):
you for weeks to pray about it and prepare what
God would have you to give, because we want you
to give, because God has given so much to you.
And when we give it, we're saying thank you. We're
acknowledging that this is a place where you speak to
me God, and so I want to give so that
someone else can hear the messages that I'm hearing at
(44:44):
a new campus or online in a different city, or
maybe even a different country. And when we give, it
is a beautiful act of worship. But don't forget when
you give today that is sacrifice is often followed by
a promise. Don't forget to put a word on your
(45:06):
offering today. That's just as important. The word is just
as important as the gift, because as you head into
twenty twenty five, you're going to go in strong knowing
that God has gone before you, that he knows what's
ahead of you, and He's given you a promise to
cling to in the coming day so that when the
times get hard, you've got a word from God over
(45:30):
your life. Everyone should have received an envelope when you
came in. If you don't have one, an usher is
going to bring one to you online. There's a link
in the chat for you to participate, and in a moment,
we're going to bring our offerings. But I want us
to go slow today. I don't want us to just
start singing and come forward and put our offering in
(45:53):
the little thing. I want to make sure that you
get to have a moment with God right here where
you are. Whether you're watching in your home and you're
sitting in a seat at one of our campuses, you
can make the place where you're sitting an altar right now.
(46:14):
I just want you to take a minute. Has God
been grateful? Has God been good to you this year?
Are you grateful for that? What does He brought you through?
Maybe you need to surrender a disappointment to him. Maybe
you need to let go of a person that you
(46:35):
love and care about so much. I just want you
to take a minute to let God show you your
way forward. Take a minute to think about word your
promise for twenty twenty five that you're going to put
on the back of that envelope because when we come
forward and we give, even if you're not able to
(46:57):
participate in the offering today, we want you to bring
your word and we want you to place it in
the offering. And I want you to know we have
people who have signed up who are prepared today and
all week to pray over your word, to believe with
you what God is speaking over your life for this year.
(47:22):
So I just want to give you a moment. The
band's going to come and sing, and then your campus
pastor is going to come with instructions specifically on how
we're going to take the offering. But before they do
all of that, let God speak to you in this moment,
(47:43):
just pause. Who wants to show you? So let we
thank you for this word. We just steel it on
our hearts today. I love you. It's in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Amen. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information,
and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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