September 15, 2024 • 64 mins
An event is not your identity. In “Reverse The Ripple,” Pastor Steven Furtick helps us go back to the source of what we’re going through so we can begin to write a new story for our lives.
To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: http://www.elevationchurch.org/giving/
Scripture References:
Joshua 4, verses 15-24
Joshua 5, verse 1
Numbers 13, verses 31-33
1 Peter 2, verse 7
Ezekiel 11, verses 19-20
John 8, verses 3-11
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
(00:23):
We honor your presence. God. That's never an interruption to
our plans to give you praise. Anytime we can make
an altar and worship you our sacrifice, it brings us joy. Lord.
I thank you for a palpable sense of faith and
(00:44):
expectation rooted in the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today.
Feel it in my bones. I sense it in my
brothers and sisters who have gathered, and I speak it
over everyone who may not be able to feel it
right now that you are able to do immeasurably more
for every I can't. We have a great I Am,
(01:07):
and today we celebrate that all things are possible through You. Now, God,
we're not going to stop worshiping. We might stop singing,
but this service is just getting started. I thank you
that there is a powerful plowing word that has been
(01:28):
planted in my spirit for this occasion, and I pray
that today you would help.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Me to deliver it just how you would say it
through my mouth, through my vocal cords, but your words,
your thoughts, your heart in Jesus' name, Amen.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Hug seventeen Bulligion, Come a big hawk raised the Lord,
raised the Lord. Don't take your seat yet. After you
gave out all the hugs, you can stand, clap your
(02:04):
hands and give God glory for bringing you through another day,
another week. It feels kind of fired up today. It
feels like we're getting a little pre Elevation Night's annointing.
Chris Yall flows are ridiculous. Today we're getting ready to
(02:27):
head out to the West Coast and we're gonna tell
you some liberals out there about geez. I'm just kidding.
We love the West Coast. Well, if you live in
any of these cities, there are still some tickets available,
not many. You want to act fast. We start on
September to twenty fourth, and we'll be out through October
(02:47):
third and the following cities. Go to Elevation Nights dot
com Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, BC, Sacramento, California, Los Angeles, and Anaheim,
Boise Idaho, Salt Lake City, are you shouting for Boise?
That's never happened. Indeed, the Lord can do anything that's crazy.
(03:12):
I said, La no shout, Seattle, no shout. I said, Boise. Okay,
that's what it's gonna be like when we get to Boise. Hey,
remind me to drink a Celsius before we get to
Boise because they're fired up. And Salt Lake City, did
I say that already? In Denver, Colorado? Elevation Nights dot com.
(03:33):
And if you want to come to one, go and
get a ticket, and get a plane ticket and come
on out one day when the Lord really blesses me,
I'm gonna load y'all all up on a plane like
Oprah did one time and take you with us. Until then,
you just have to pray for us. And I also
want to celebrate because it's not a small thing that
(03:53):
over a thousand people were baptized in our church class school. Incredible. Man,
if you knew the starting point of this ministry, you
would know how much that means to me. That's amazing,
that's amazing. And I think one of the reasons that
(04:15):
the worship is so powerful today. I think the ladies
lest some residual, annoying thing from your life. One of
our worship leaders said, leading room in a leading excuse me,
leading worship in a room full of women is a
cheat code. They're just much more expressive, and that's crazy
(04:35):
to me. But it's absolutely amazing, Holly, God used you
in a great way. Thank you for the word, Thank
you for your vision, for your leadership, all the moments
that will continue to unfold because of the moment that
you may possible through your faith. We celebrate you, and
today I'm gonna do my best to get in the
slipstream of what God spoke and preach a word to
(04:57):
you today. I prayed that you would lean in to
receive it last week when I left you, I left
you in the muddy puddles of the Jordan River. Let's
go back there for a moment. From Joshua chapter four.
I'll be sharing with you today from Joshua chapter four,
verses fifteen through Joshua five, and only one verse from
(05:18):
Joshua five, verse one. Let's take a moment to remember
how much this meant to me when God showed it
to me, so I can appreciate to you from that
same place, only reason I bring my notes up here.
I know somebody said, why do you take all those
notes up there? We don't see you look at them,
(05:39):
And it's true. I get into it and I forget
to look at the notes. But at least seeing it
reminds me how excited I was writing it. And then
I can come at it and remember when I was
scribbling this, I was picturing us sharing in the word together.
So what an honor to share God's word with you today.
I'm so thankful for the opportunity. And wherever you are,
(05:59):
even if you're online today, the word is no less effective.
So get ready to receive it. And made this word
reach you right where you are. Joshua, Chapter four, verse fifteen,
say I'm ready. Then the Lord said to Joshua, wash
my hands. Then the Lord said to Joshua, okay, so
(06:24):
picture the scripture visually as well as verbally. Then the
Lord said to Joshua verse sixteen, command the priests, carrying
the ark of the Covenant Law to come up out
of the Jordan. So Joshua commanded the priests come up
(06:46):
out of the Jordan. And the priests came up out
of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of
the Lord. No sooner had they set their feet on
the dry ground, than the of the Jordan returned to
their place and ran at floodstage as before. On the
(07:06):
tenth day of the first month, the people went up
from the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua. Joshua said
to the priests, and then the people went up. So
watch I'm doing like this. Boom, boom, boom. The people
went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on
(07:27):
the eastern border of Jericho. On the eastern border of Jericho,
what do you know about Jericho? Walls do fall? Somebody
say it, walls do fall now, but before the walls
of Jericho can fall, and before the Battle of Jericho
can be won, because this will be the first fight
(07:48):
for the children of God to occupy the Promised Lam.
Before their first fight, Joshua is setting the frame verse twenty.
Verse twenty. Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones
they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to
the Israelites in the future, when your descendants asked their parents,
(08:13):
we've gone from the Lord said to Joshua. To Joshua
said to the priest to the priest did it for
the people. For the people are doing something that will
not even accomplish a purpose that may be seen in
their own lives, but in a generation that is yet
to come in the future. When your descendants asked their
parents what do these stones mean, tell them, Israel, cross
(08:36):
the Jordan on dry ground, for the Lord, your God
dried up the Jordan before you, until you had crossed over.
The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he
had done to the Red Sea, when he dried it
up before us until we had crossed over. He did this.
(09:01):
That's the best thing I've read in a long time.
Tell somebody he did this. So we were testifying last week,
we're talking about rescue your testimony. Rescue your testimony from
the clutches of depression. Rescue your testimony from the clutches
of despair, Rescue your testimony from the regrets of your past,
and testify to your neighbors. Say he did this. He
(09:25):
did this. I'm standing here because he did this. Come on,
let's have a testimony service real quick. How many No,
God did yes, let's practice. Let's see if you rescued
your testimony last week. I'm gonna ask you a question,
and you say, what you think? Who opened your prison doors?
(09:47):
God did? Then say it, say God did? Who dried
up your ocean floors? Think about that thing? Who saved
you and set you free, Who gave you victory right,
who gave you another day, who made you another way,
(10:07):
who gave you the breath of prays, who gave you
a brand new name?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Ah, somebody shot God did put.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It in the comments? Not did Now? He did this
so that all the peoples of the earth might know
that the hand of the Lord is powerful, and so
that you might always fear the Lord, your God. The
(10:38):
final verse I'm going to read, and then I'll tell
you what we're going to talk about today. But we're
already talking because God is speaking now. When all the
Canaanite emrich kings west of the Jordan and the kings
along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up
the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over,
(11:00):
their hearts melted in fear. It's no longer just the
people of God who know who God is. It's the
enemies to Ah. I see this, and they no longer
had the courage to face the Israelites today God wants
to do something very special in your life. He wants
(11:20):
to reverse the ripple. That's the word of the Lord
and Father. As we declare it today. We walk in it,
we stand in it, we decree it, and we believe that.
Most of all, we thank you for it, because only
you could do it in Jesus' name. Amen, you may
be seated. You may be seated reverse the ripple. You
(11:49):
will know what that means in about thirty two minutes.
I do my job because the Lord has some things
that he wants to turn around your life. Yeah, rescue
our testimony, and God is going to reverse the ripple.
I wish we could teach this on the lake. It
(12:12):
would be a good illustration. Right, how many of you
like the lake? How many you got a boat? You
could take me out on the lake. I'm gonna hitch
you up. You got how many of you? How many
you have a boat. So if we went out on
the lake, I could demonstrate the ripple effect. Right, you
know what it is. It's when one thing happens and
another thing happens, and another thing happens. And we use
(12:35):
it metaphorically, but it would be good if we could
be at the lake because we could. We could get
a rock, and then we could drop the rock and
we could watch the ripple, and then I could teach
the lesson. I could say, and just like this rock
hit the water, and we wouldn't even have to get
in the water because I know it's getting kind of cold.
We could just do it from the shore right there
(12:57):
in your boat. We could drop the rock, watch the
rip and we could talk about how things in our
life happen that cause a ripple. And sometimes it's not
even until you're living in the ripple that you realize
the rock was dropped. If we're at the lake, and
(13:18):
maybe you could have me a bottle of diet coke.
Don't text me about aspertain, I don't care. I've made
peace with Aspertame, and we would talk about the ripple
effects of decisions that you and I have both made,
words that we spoken. Man, I could probably teach a
whole leadership class just from a rock and a ripple.
(13:42):
Many times as a leader, I never saw myself as
being that important, and I don't think I am important.
I think God is important, but I think he uses
people in important ways. And I think that when you
speak for God your word's way more because many times
I said things to people in passing as a leader,
and for good I said them and they kept those
(14:04):
things with them for three years, good and bad, good
and bad. And one lady I met one time. I'm
not going to take a long time with this setup,
but I want us to get at the lake. Dropped
a rock, We see the ripple. A lady one time
told me she kept a voicemail that I sent her
when her husband died. She kept it for four years.
(14:25):
Never met her one time on the Before you get
too impressed with me, because I'm just ride around leaving
voice memos, praying for people all the time. My kids
have told me things I said that I said because
they were true, but the way I said it, it
(14:45):
stuck with them in a way that they weren't ready
to hear it Like that, And with all three of
my kids and with my wife, I can go back
to times where I spoke something not realizing the weight
of the rock that I dropped and the ripple that
it calls for the person that I spoke to. So
now I got to walk into situations and scenarios and
(15:07):
take responsibility for my ripple. That's a whole word, take
responsibility for your ripple. The things you just say passing,
Oh well, I'm just speaking my mind. Well, why don't
you just speak your mind inside, do a little internal
monologue and scream in your pillow. But make sure that
(15:28):
you respect you're calling enough to take responsibility for your ripple.
When the Lord said to Joshua, and Joshua said to
the priest, and the priest led the people, and the
people demonstrated God's stathfulness in a way that even impressed
their enemies. We are watching the ripple effect of a
(15:50):
revelation from God. The very fact that we are sitting
here today preaching about an incident that happened, an event
that occurred this long ago go proves my point the
power of a ripple, the ripple effect of your thoughts
leading to your actions, leading to your habits, leading to
your character becoming concrete, so that what you call destiny
(16:14):
later was actually a decision when the rock was dropped.
And yet, wouldn't it be nice if life were as
simple spiritually as it is physically, Because if we were
at the lake doing this lesson, we could look at
the rock and we could predict with a few inches,
(16:35):
you know how big the ripple would be. If we
had a few minutes, we could drop a little rock,
a big rock, a medium rock, and we could start saying,
you know, this one's gonna ripple. I'm just saying the
bigger the rock was, the bigger the ripple would be Physically. Spiritually,
it's a little different. You never can tell looking at
(16:55):
the rock how big the ripple is going to be.
Not in the Kingdom of God, so that Jesus walks
around saying things like, if you have the faith of
a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. What kind
of mustard seed moves a mountain? A supernatural one, one
(17:15):
that has been watered by the word of God, one
that has been cultivated by a heart of faith. What
kind of lunch has the power to provide for the
physical hunger of five thousand You would think such a
little lunch could maybe only feed a little boy. But
when God dits it, the ripple becomes something that you
(17:36):
would have never realized. Oh, I feel like preaching, because
a rock in the hands of a shepherd should not
bring down a nine foot giant. But you can't tell
the size of the ripple from the size of this
rock if it's in God's hands. So we came to
remind the devil today that my rock might be little,
(17:58):
but a little rock can make a big ripple if
God gets a hold of them. Yeah, let's switch this
thing around. Let's stop looking at the size of our resource,
the size of our strength, the size of our knowledge,
the scope of our understanding to determine what God can do.
(18:19):
Let's stop letting the waves of unbelief block us from
the reality of the ocean of God's provision. Yeah. Yeah,
let's reverse the ripple. And what I mean by that
when I say reverse the ripple, well, I mean a
few things. Let me break it down a little bit.
The first thing that I mean by reverse the ripple
(18:40):
is that instead of starting with what you see, start
with what God has said. Life changing, life changing right there,
just if you would start with what God said. And
many times, we like the Nation of Israel and Joshua
(19:02):
chapter four, come to places in our own lives where
we need God to do something and apologize if I'm
not preaching to you right now that if He doesn't
do it. So this is not like I need God
to help me wake up on time. You sent alarm
clock for that. But this is something different. And one
(19:24):
of the things that I respect about the Bible is
that it will repeat something over and over again because
we learn through repetition. And if you look at this
Joshua chapter four, there are several times that God tells Joshua,
take these stones out of the water, kind of like
they're building an altar. Okay, like Holly preached on reflect
(19:46):
about the altar. Go on her YouTube and watch that
message and wear your steel toed boots because she was
stepping on our toes. But she did it so sweetly.
She did it in ballet flats. It was unbelievable. And
the Lord is telling Joshua, like, before you get to
(20:08):
your first fight, I want you to approach it from
a place of thinking about your future. Now, this is marvelous.
Frame the fight that you're facing from a place of
future faith. And that is often very hard, right because
we're just in the moment and knowing in the moment.
Remember it's like that rock in that ripple, knowing in
(20:29):
the moment what the ripple is going to be. It's
not always predictable in the spirit, is it? Is it
you came to church? Because she was cute and asked
you to come. Then you messed around and got too
close to the boat, and Jesus hooked you and pulled
you in, and now you're one of us. Boy, God
(20:53):
is tricky with that ripple. God is tricky with that ripple.
You didn't even know. I was just gonna go. So
I just just going to get to shut up, And
now I'm bringing people. I don't know what happened. Tell
your neighbor. It's the ripples, the ripples. To ripple, it's
the ripple. It's the ripples. The ripple. God will drop something.
God will just put you somewhere. God will drop you somewhere.
You will think that you're there because it's a new job.
(21:15):
And then you meet Gene, and Gene is going through chemotherapy,
and you went through chemotherapy. So now you minister to
Gene out of what you went through, so that you
can comfort him with the comfort by which you have
been comforted. This is the ripple, the ripple, the ripple,
the ripple, the ripple. And by the way, what if
we did that more often? What if we started asking God,
(21:36):
what do you want to do? Not just for me
but through me? God who can I touch you touched me?
Who can I help you healed me? Who can I
be a blessing to you? Blessed me? When are you
gonna hand somebody a fifty dollars bill one time? In
set a waiting on one? When will you be the ripple?
(22:00):
This is not my message, so pace yourself. I'm just
setting up this idea of reverse the ripple, reverse the ripple.
And I have learned in my life that if I
do not consider please listen to me. If I do
not consider causes, I will spend my life chasing consequences.
(22:25):
Consider the cause, or you will spend the rest of
your life managing consequences. Consider the cause, or you can
spend the rest of your life looking for tips on
TikTok for how to be more peaceful. But after you
have done everything TikTok told you to do, I mean
(22:47):
you can do everything. You could take your walk barefoot
on the grass, walk backwards, barefoot on the grass, sipping
of protein smoothie with collagens in the smoothie. You can
do all of that. You can do red light, blue light,
black light, blue light, stroke light, you can do all
(23:09):
the lights on your face. You can do all of it.
You can meditate, you can pontificate, you can blow be eight,
you can hyperventilate because you are not getting peace until
you consider the source. You get all attempts you want,
(23:31):
but until you get the truth, you will not come
through this. Jordan, here's what I'm trying to say. You
can't fix the ripple till you find the rock. I'm
(23:51):
appreciate this in Boise too. Tell them get ready. You
can't fix the ripple till you find the rock. I
think a lot of religion is ripple management, behavior modification,
empty tradition. God, I promise I'll never do it again
(24:13):
until three point thirty, and it's three twenty five right now.
That's ripple management. That's white knuckling, not worship. Ripple management
cannot bring you to a place of restoration. It can
only bring you to a place of relief temporarily. So
(24:37):
what are the areas in your life right now where
you are trying to fix ripples but you don't even
know what rock was dropped that cost it to begin with.
This is like quoting Bible versus on top of trauma
that you won't deal with. This is like whitch in
(25:00):
friend groups. Every time they see what's really secret hidden
in you and call it out and confront it, It's
gonna get quieter and quiet. It's gonna be a reverse
ripple today. Usually we start small and get big. Were
going the other way today. We're reversing the ripple today
until we get down to what is the thing that
(25:22):
was dropped that caused you to do it? What was
dropped that caused me to do it? Why did I
lose my temper because they're annoying? Really because the people
at work were annoying, but you didn't go off on
them because you knew you couldn't get away with it.
(25:42):
You went off on them at home, not because they're annoying,
but because you know they'll forgive you. And the real
rock that made you do it was the fact that
you don't take responsibility for it. And until we get
real about this stuff, we will spend our entire lives
riding the waves of our ripples going I'm so anxious,
(26:06):
I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious. Well, cut your thumb off.
Jesus said it'd be better to lose your whole hand
then go to help. So I'd rather fix it. I'd
rather fix it wear the rock drop than live the
rest of my life frustrated by the ripples it You
(26:28):
say this is just an Old Testament story, are you
absolutely crazy out of your mind? Ridiculous? Do you not
understand that this is the entire threat of the New Testament.
It is law versus grace, It is us never really understanding.
And I hope to come back to this in a
moment if this sermon comes full circle. But speaking of
full circle, there is a place called Gilgal and Joshua
chapter four. If you've never heard of it, you can
(26:49):
be forgiven. But the word gilgal actually means circle. And
isn't it interesting in a passage that demonstrates the power
of the Lord spoke to Joshua, Joshua spoke to the priest,
The priest spoke to the people. The people did what
God told them, and it was a demonstration to the
nations that didn't even know God. Isn't it interesting that
circle after circle after circle after concentric circles, And let
(27:12):
us not forget about the circle of the generation that
isn't even old enough to ask the question yet that
is being affected by their faith or lack thereof, which
brings us back to the Red Sea, which was the
central motif of Israel's identity. Now Rugeman says that it
is the I think his exact wording is the primal narrative,
(27:33):
but I just I like the simplified things. So core
story that better. Primal narrative. I sound like you got
to pay to hear about something like that, and you
didn't pay anything to get in here today. So core
story and when God brought them through the Red Sea
was their core story. In fact, even when Joshua says,
(27:54):
go get some rocks, tell your neighbor, get some rocks
to tell your kids what God did, why would he
think like this. Surely you have more important things to do, namely,
when they get to Gilgal, they got to cut off
everybody's foreskin because none of these people have been circumcised yet.
And I'm not going to illustrate how this whole text
(28:15):
is circular. But this all has to happen at Gilgal.
But before you get to Guild, go listen to me good.
Before you get to Gilgal, before you go to Jericho,
before you even get to the place of cutting away,
that's going to happen. Before you go in, get some
rocks to tell your kids what God did. I like that.
(28:39):
Get some rocks to tell your kids what God did,
and you're going to tell them what God did, not
what you did, because all you did was walk. Y'all.
We take too much credit. Sometimes. I see everybody of
hustle and grind on Instagram, but I saw you also.
(28:59):
I saw you hustle and grind. But I also saw
you hide and grumble and groan and grieve. I saw
all of that too, And the real testimony of it
from my life is what God did. When they showed
that video, I want to thank our creative team for
the video they showed earlier in the service of the
ripple effect of this ministry. Thank you. That was excellent.
(29:22):
That was well done. It wasn't bragging on us, but
it was showing the people that all the way from
Valentine to Boise to Botswana. Anytime the sermon ain't going
good today, I just say Boise and all the way.
But I'm gonna show you something that's gonna blow your mind.
I got teary on the front row. I said for
to keep it together, save your emotion for when you
(29:44):
get up there. Do not leak this thing out on
the front Rule and I'm like, but God, this is
touching me right now, and he said, stuff it down
and share it with them. So here's what it is.
Because you said whoa and I said boise, And there
was somebody on the video that said that they were
from Botswana and we're here at Valentine. But it took
me back. It took me back to just yesterday a
(30:09):
story that I was telling my son on the second row,
because he asked me something about the early days of
this church, and he asked me something about the phase
when we were just moving here and we only had
our core team, and he asked me something about the
way it is now and the way it was then,
and going out to minister to people all over the world,
(30:31):
and the reach and the ripple of the ministry. He
didn't say ripple, but that's what we were talking about.
And I was sitting there talking to him and I said,
I'm sorry, I got to compose myself for a minute,
because this conversation takes me back to how before I
would come out to our team and tell them we're
going to reach the world. We're gonna touch the world.
(30:53):
God's gonna use us, God's gonna do something. It's going
to be amazing. It takes me back to how before
I would go and boldly speak to them. I would
sneak into the bathroom and I would lock myself in
the stall, and I would fight back my own reflex
to walk out, because how can I walk out and
(31:15):
tell them this? When I'm wondering did I mislead all
of them? Can we really do this? Because I stood
it a Jordan and I thought God spoke. But sometimes
you think it and don't feel it when it comes
time to do it. But I locked that stall and
(31:35):
I said, God, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna have
to be you. And when I tell my kids one
day from Valentine, what you did all the way to Boisi?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
What's your did all the way to bock Swater, When
I tell my children, what a thankful God you said?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Truer worse ever, visss Fucus. And my stones will tell
my story, and my stones will tell my story, and
my stones will tell my story, and my sleepless nights
will give.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Way to a new day, and my stones will tell
my story. And we'll shout it, validies, and we'll shout
in noisy, and we'll shout in my slaughter and will
shot till you get numb.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Break through. Yeah, we're gonna turn this thing around right now.
You keep talking how big these Amalekites are, how big
these Canaanites are. We need to reverse this ripple. It
(32:53):
doesn't start with the size of the Canaanites. It starts
with the size of the God that you serve. Well, Oh, preachy, creachy, preachy, freechie,
preachy preachie. I got a big God.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I got a good God. I keep telling God how
big it is.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I want to tell him how big.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Ah, if you saw my God, you'dn't understand my stout
shout now like you need a wall to fall.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Oh my mona, sound like boisey, sound like boisey.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, high five. Your neighbors say,
reverse it, reverse it, reverse it, reverse it. Yeah, because
when you rehearse it, you reverse it. You missed it.
You were high five, and I said, when you rehearse it,
(33:57):
you reverse it. When you tell him how you locked
yourself in the bathroom stall, you remember that there is
no space too tight, no mountains too high, no need
too great, no ravine too dry For God to show
up and do what God does. He did it at
the Red Sea, he did it at the Jordans. He's
(34:19):
doing it in you right now. It will be by
faith who did God set me on fire for today?
That you need to reverse the ripple because every time
you think about the court case you go into panic attacks.
Think about the judge and give it over to him
(34:39):
and you're gonna be all right, baby boy. Every time
you think about it, it sends a ripple. It sends
you into fear, It sends you into self loathing, It
sends you into hiding. It sends you back to drugs,
it sends you back to sex. You shouldn't be having
with people who are the ripple of a decision that
you made that you never would have made had you
(35:00):
been in your right place, in your right mind. Well,
we got to find the rock or we can't fix
the ripple. And see why I think Joshua was so intentional,
everybody say intentional in this moment. And why God is
so intentional with you and why He is revealing things
even now for you, is because for forty years the
(35:25):
story was told. Wat's just we went through the Red Sea.
We clap when we talk about that. They cried because
after they got through the Red Sea, they stopped. And
I like to show you why. Well, sit down, let
me show you why. When numbers chapter thirteen gets the
(35:49):
verse thirty one, it's kind of a battle of opinions,
kind of like you got going on in the world
right now. Everybody's shouting about everything. A bunch of noise,
a whole lot of ripple, not a lot of revelation. Yeah,
And when Caleb stood up, he was like, shut up,
(36:11):
we can do it because they're about to go into
the Promised Lamp. That's the saddest thing to me. When
Holly was preaching, they built the altar, and God gave
him the ten Commandments, and then they went in the
wilderness forty years why ripple watch number thirteen go to
thirty one. But the men who had gone up with
Caleb only ones who said we can do it, as
(36:32):
Joshua and Caleb to ten others said this, we can't
attack those people. That's why I had you just singing
I can't do it, but the Great I Am can. Earlier,
that's why we wrote that so you can acknowledge it.
We can't attack those people. They are stronger than we are.
Now stay there, back right there, stronger then we are,
(37:03):
and now watch what happens. Verse thirty two. They spread
among the Israelites a bad ripple, a bad report. Bad
reports have ripples, a bad report about the land they
had explored about what God wanted to give them, about
the size of the giants, And they said, the land
we explored devours those living in it. All the people
(37:26):
we saw there are of great size. We saw the
Nephilm there, the descendants of Anac come from the Nephilm.
We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, in our
own eyes, and we looked the same to them. But
why in the world would you start with your eyes
if you're receiving God's promise? I told you at the
(37:47):
beginning of my sermon, is what you see and what
God says. God said you can have it, and you
see that you can't. Which one is your rock? What
are you building on? Verse thirty one Again, Please, they
are stronger than we are. That's true. The disease is
stronger than your body right now. That is true. The
(38:10):
shame is real because the event really happened. That's true.
The guilt is real. Because you really would have done
it differently. That's true. All of that is true, but
it's not your starting place. And this is a principle
that I want you to receive from the word of
the Lord today. If you start with your strength, you
(38:31):
end in defeating. If you start with your strength, if
you start with your smarts, if you start with your anything,
you end in defeat because you run out reverse the ripple.
Start with God. Tell your neighbor I'm a name dropper. Now,
(38:55):
I don't mean that how you think I tell them.
I don't mean it how you think I mean it.
But I know the Great I am. So whatever I'm not,
he is. I don't start with who I am. I
drop the name of the Great I am. That's good
(39:16):
right there, That's good like syuh right there. Because when
you put the name of your God, the promise of
your God, on the thing that you're facing, it reverses,
not necessarily the situation, but it taps you into His strength.
I can do all things through I gotta teach you
(39:40):
all the Bible. Now, come on, I can do all
things through Christ, who strengthens me. So I am not
starting with my strength. Stop waking up in the morning,
and discerning what you can do today based on how
strong you feel when you wake up. You gotta reverse that. No, No,
the first thing I'm not doing when I wake up
(40:01):
in the morning is consulting my stress level. My stress
level will keep me under all these sheets. But at
some point, I've got to throw off the covers. I've
got to stand up on my feet. I've got to
declare that what God called me to do today will
be done today, and what he called me to do
tomorrow can wait till tomorrow. And what he never called
(40:23):
me to do, somebody else can do. Because I am
not responsible for their ripple. So you cannot fix the
ripple until you find the rock. And the problem with
God's people in this passage has really not changed very
(40:43):
much at all, has it. They have allowed their identity
to become filtered through an event, an event we didn't
go in to the will. We've stayed in the wilderness
because of an event. We did not have our confidence
(41:04):
because we came from Egypt where we were slaves. But
slavery was the event, not the identity. Help me, Holy Spirit,
somebody right now who's been divorced, Somebody right now who's
had an abortion, somebody right now who tried to take
your own life, somebody right now who has never been
(41:24):
able to hold down a job, somebody right now who
has never been able to be good with money. Those
are events, They are not identities. Identities come from within.
It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He
is your rock. And for everybody who has ever been rejected.
(41:46):
Let me jump a few centuries to first Peter two seven,
where Peter quotes the prophet saying, but to you who
believe this stone, we're talking about stones right this stone
being Christ, this stone is precious. But to those who
do not believe, watch this. The stone that the builders
(42:07):
rejected has become the corner stone. Stop living in the
ripple of their rejection. They are not your rock. I said,
They're not your rock. They're not your rock. They're not
your rock. To the point that human ingenuity is so
(42:29):
limited that they throw tried to throw Jesus away. They
rejected the stone that God built the whole thing on.
God is my rock. But first, something must happen at
(42:50):
this place where your feet are right now. Something must
happen at the place where you've stalled out. Something must
happen at the place where you laid down. Something must
happen at the place where you remain uncircum size. Something
must happen here. And then then amazing how almost everything
with God is opposite. Across brings life. What as across
(43:13):
across his gruesome, across his death, No across is glorious.
Rocks bring down giants. I'm gonna take you one more thing,
just to throw it in because I feel like it's
for somebody. I don't know what it's for. I don't
want to miss it. M Uh. How fast the ripple
happens doesn't always tell you how far it's going to go.
(43:36):
Some things in your life are going slow because God
is building something that's really really good. Put that in
for free. This ripple may start slow, but it may
spread wide. You don't know. You don't know. Somebody packed
that little boy's lunch that he fed to the crowd
(43:57):
that day. You might be a mom packing the lunch
that we're gonna be talking about in Boise and Valentine
and Botswana. That's the ripple. That's the ripple. That's the ripple.
That's the ripple. That's the that's the ripple, that's how
God does it. He takes something as simple as a stone,
and I love him because sometimes the smallest pebbles have
(44:18):
the greatest purpose. There was a widow in church one day.
She put two mites, two coins in the offer, and
Jesus said, that's the biggest ripple that's been put in
that temple that today. All the rich people they didn't
ripple at all. Jesus thought, I lott pebble. He said,
that's all she has right there. You see how the
smallest pebble can serve the biggest purpose. You see how
(44:40):
the smallest rock, if the right guy's got it just
enough rotations booming. We are preaching about him every Sunday.
There's not a Sunday that goes by that I don't
tell you David killed Goliath. Little pebble, big purpose. And
yet we want to look at a fort twenty because
(45:01):
this one is a little different. Where he said take
the twelve stones out. Everybody say out of the Jordan,
because normally a ripple happens when you throw a stone in,
(45:25):
but this ripple is in reverse. You're gonna tell your
children what I did. And you think a ripple only
happens when a stone is thrown in. But this ripple,
somebody shout, this ripple. Come on, After all I've been through,
(45:46):
after all I've seen God do, after all the reasons
I shouldn't be here, This ripple is not gonna happen
because of a stone you threw in. It's gonna happen
because of a stone that you take out. Now, now
shall it Because there are some stones, Yeah, yeah, there's
some ripples. There are some ripples that can only happen
(46:10):
through removal. Touch three. People say, get it out, get
it out, get it out, get it out, get it out,
get it out, get it out, get it out, get
it out, get it out, get it out, get it out.
All that bitterness, get it out, get it out, get
it out, get it out. All that regret, get it out,
get it out.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
All that bias, all that judtment, all that president is.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
All that is security. Get it out. Because this ripple,
the burst.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Shall be last, and the last shall be burst. They
that's so its we'll rad be joy this.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Ripple. Come on. Twelve high fives say, this ripple is
in reverse. Yeah. You keep waiting for God to put
something in, But God said, I will reveal it when
you remove it. Oh that was good to me. I'll
(47:14):
try it again. I'll try it again. God removes to reveal.
God wants to show you through this story. God wants
to show you through this moment. God wants to show
you through what you call a burden. God wants to
show you through what you can't carry. God wants to
show you through what you can't do. God is even
(47:34):
using your enemies to cause you to depend on him.
So this ripple is in reverse. Don't wait for something
else to come. Take that thing out that is keeping
you from believing what he spoke. If it's an addiction,
it's got to go. If it's pride, it's got to go.
(47:55):
If it's your thoughts of yourself, it's got to go.
If it's your need to be right to go. Every
stone must go. And this woman, this woman of God,
confirmed my message. She preached on altars. She talked about rocks.
I was already getting ready to preach. She talked about rocks,
and then she went home and sent a verse to
(48:16):
our Bible club. We've been we've been going through the
Book of Ezekiel. I wanted to say, stuck in the
weird part of the Book of Ezekiel. But that sounds sacrilegious.
But the reason y'all don't think it's weird is because
y'all don't read it. So anyway, judge me all you want.
You can't condemn me. But but she said, she said
it was. It was one thirty in the morning. She
had preached from reflect she had poured her heart out,
(48:38):
and she said, I gotta go do my key verse,
because we swap around and do the key verse. I said,
I'll do it for you today, Babe, I can do
this for you. I'm gonna chat gpt a little bit
and said over. But she said, I'm gonna go do it.
And she said, she said, I'm gonna do it, and
I'm gonna go do it. And she sent it to me,
and she sent Ezekiel eleven nineteen. And the Lord said,
now you know that I got the right message for
you about removing the rocks, because the Office said, I
(49:01):
will give them an undevii hour watch this, Holly, one
thirty in the morning, and I put a new spirit
in them. My will removed from them their heart of stone.
(49:23):
Now I can fix the ripple because I found the rock. Yeah,
it's been my hard heart and the nature of the
Lord is that he removes to reveal, because verse twenty says,
and then when he does that, when he gives to
this Jesus heart, this heart that is sensitive to the
(49:44):
ways of grace, This heart that knows that you need them,
This heart that knows that he did it, not you.
This heart that remembers that you are in the bathroom
stall long before you are in. Boy. See the heart
that remembers that the Lord did this, and that he's
bigger than our enemies. That heart, that heart of flesh,
that heart that is justified only by Jesus, made righteous
only through him, his blood, his word, his covenant, his water.
(50:06):
Verse twenty. Please, then they will follow my decrease. Watch
the ripple. When I remove it, then they will follow, beautiful,
and be careful to keep my loss. Now stay with
me for one more minute, because there is one more
story that has nothing to do with Jordan Rivers. But
(50:28):
it is in John's Gospel, and the Lord alerted it
to me as a confirmation and a word for those
who are struggling with shame, condemnation, and rejection and guilt.
And it has been ripping through your sanity. It's been
ripping through your relationships. It has been ripping through your
professional life. It has been ripping through every part of
your life. And what's going to happen if we don't
(50:49):
share this story right now is that you're going to
think that the point of my message is that you've
got to pick up a big heavy stone and carry
it and show God that you really mean it this time.
But that's religion ripples. We're dealing with rocks today. And
when Jesus walked the earth, he did something very very
(51:09):
interesting because he was the rock, right, he was the rock,
and he demonstrated something one day in an unlikely way
to win. John chapter eight, verse three, Please on the
Screens says they brought a woman who was caught in adultery.
Now I think that has a double meaning. I think
that she was caught means that they saw her doing it.
(51:30):
I also think that means that she didn't want to
do it. She was caught. Follow me, I think when
we get caught, usually we were caught. It's not that
we wanted to do it. I wonder what rocks were
dropped in her life to cause this ripple. But nobody
(51:52):
wanted to know that did that? Now? They just brought her,
charged her, made her stand before the group verse at
verse four, and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was
caught in the act of adultery. How right they were,
And in the law of Moses commanded us to stone
such women, to stone such women. I just told you,
an event is not an identity. She's not such woman.
(52:16):
She's not a such woman. Who in the world do
you think you are labeling people according to their worse mistake?
In lowis moment, I'm about to show you what Jesus
thinks about this, and for when you label yourself. So
we got a stoner, right, what do you say? Inn't
that crazy? How our text in Joshua had a question
what do these stones mean? And now you've got a
(52:38):
group of people, probably men. The Pharisees and the teachers
of the law were men, and they want to stone
the woman because they put her identity through the grid
of the event. So here's where we are, Here's where
you are. You've been there, you might be there right now?
What do you say? What do these stones mean? What
do you see? Let's see how the rock responds to
(52:59):
their rocks verse six. They were using this question as
a trap in order to have a basis for accusing
him a trap. They're trying to trip him up. But
he's the rock. He ain't go trip over what he is,
stumbling block or a cornerstone. It all depends on how
(53:23):
you see him in order to have a basis for
accusing him. But Jesus bent down, Uh huh. Zoom out
so they can see online what I'm doing, not that
I'm Jesus. I'm just trying to make the text come alive,
and started to write on the ground with his finger.
Maybe he's writing her a new story. Maybe he's writing
a new chapter. Maybe he's writing something that she's gonna do.
(53:44):
Maybe he's writing down all their sins. Because watch this.
Watch what happened when he did when he stooped verse
number seven. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened
up and said, let any one of you who is
without sin be the first to throw the stone at her.
Watch what God does when they go to throw their rocks.
Watch what he does. The next time guilt tries to
(54:07):
tell you that you can never recover, watch what God
does the next time you try to go back to
your past and imprison yourself over something everybody else has forgiven,
but you. Verse number eight says as they circled around her.
As they circled around her, he again stooped and wrote
on the ground. Next verse that this those who heard
(54:30):
begin to go away, one at a time. This is
comical the older ones first, because if he was writing
their sins in the dirt, the ones who had lived
the longest had the most ripples. So they took off
running because I got ripples. If we really started listening
(54:50):
what you've been through, you wouldn't be commenting on anybody
else's Instagram, would you arm them? So I'm talking about
the rock, not their rocks. The rock. He got down
in the ground, and he began to write, and they
all started leaving. Watch this until say it with me.
(55:11):
Only Jesus was left sit again. Only Jesus was left
one more time for repetition. Only Jesus was left, because
only Jesus was right. Until the only one right was
(55:33):
the only one left, the only one who had the
right to throw a stone. He didn't throw it, He
took it. You tell me about your sin, let me
tell you about his grace. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace.
(55:56):
Second pardon and cleanse within somebody self grace, grace, grace
that is greater than all of my sin. So my
sin sent a ripple, and his righteousness sin forgiveness. So
(56:17):
my sin sent a ripple, but his death sent a
different message to my shame. And the Bible says that
it was just Jesus and her, and he looked around
like he didn't know Verse ten, and asked her a question, woman,
where are they?
Speaker 4 (56:40):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (56:40):
They didn't throw their rocks. That's because I am your rock.
You let me defend you, You let me vindicate you,
You let me justify you. You hear me. You don't
even have to prove it to them. Stop posting to
prove it, and pray about it, and get down on
your knees with Jesus and let him restore you reputation.
(57:01):
You walk different because while you're trying to fix the ripple,
he's trying to get you to drop the rocks. Yeah.
And I love what he gave her as a gift
in verse eleven, And I give it to you as
I close today, God, this message is heavy in my heart.
There must be somebody with a heavy heart of stone
(57:22):
today that the Lord wants to break and he looked
all around, and all the rocks were gone but one.
All the rocks were gone but one. And then he
told her, now that we got rid of their rocks,
(57:46):
let's get rid of yours neither. I don't even know
who was scorn. I don't even know who was skilled.
They don't even be in the room. But he said,
you can go now and leave your life of sin.
(58:06):
You keep trying to fix the sin, that's the ripple.
But when he removes the stone, Yes, when he takes
that that hard place away. In fact, right now, I
want us to stand to our feet and just lift
our hands to the Lord. Just do it. Quit being
so stubborn about surrendering to God. Quit letting that heart
(58:30):
of stone tell you what to do and when to
do it. Because there are some things that can happen
in a moment, in the presence of God, that can
ripple back to your home. Do you know that if
you just get this word from God and feel an emotion, great,
If I can give you one hour to escape the
hell that you have to go through, I'll show up
and do it. But what if we could send a ripple.
(58:53):
What if in this moment you drop some rocks. Today.
I know that we keep waiting for something else to come,
another blessing, another opportunity. But the Lord gave me a
different message today. He said, we're reversing the ripple. We
are not starting with what is coming in. We are
starting with what is coming out. So I call you
(59:15):
out today, say out out of fear, out of bondage,
out of shame, out of it, out of it, out
of it, come out, come out, come out, come out,
come out, come out, come out, part of stone, come out.
(59:36):
Until the only one left. He's the only one right.
Listen to me. What God says about you is right.
Everything else is wrong. What you call yourself is wrong.
What you thought your life was supposed to be is wrong.
Who you thought was supposed to still be in your
life right now it was wrong. He's right. And this
(59:58):
rock just hear saying God in my spirit, Chris, can
you sing it that high? Oh God, my God, I
need you, Oh God, my God, I need you now now,
Oh God, God. I reckon. This is why I heard it,
this line right here, to call on it. I'll standing
(01:00:25):
on you. So hang on right there, stay right there,
stay right there. We're gonna go back into the bridge
in a minute. But we're gonna hit verse twenty four
one more time. You tell them what God did? You
tell them what the central event of your life was
not a failure. It was a cross your course story,
(01:00:53):
your primal narrative. Your rock is a stone that was
rolled away, and now this is the reverse ripple. The
stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
(01:01:13):
You can build your life on him. He removes to reveal.
He reveals to restore, and the word restore must literally
mean restory, a new story. When the stone goes, the
new story comes. So I'll give you this and I'll
(01:01:39):
get out of your way. That he said what I
did at the Red Sea, you weren't ready for yet.
And you've stayed stuck in that regret for so long,
and it has rippled the bad report, rippled through forty
years of wilderness living. But now I want you to
take a stone with you, because you are going into
a season where I am rolling away your regrets. I
(01:02:02):
am rolling away your reproach. Hallelujah, I am cutting away
your flesh. Who opened your prison doors? God did, who
dried up your ocean floors? God did, who raced you
up from the dead. God did who justified, redeemed you,
(01:02:25):
called you, created you, and breathed the very breath of
life into you. So if he did it, then you
heard your children. Then you hear your children. Now you
are je.
Speaker 5 (01:02:54):
Don't hold it back, let it flow, Let it flow,
let it flow. No flu unlock right now, no flu.
Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
You say, this is a holy moment. Now he said.
Speaker 6 (01:03:19):
You come on, let's take it up higher. Let's take
it up higher. And the Lord says, it's your Jordan.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Here, it's your Jordan. Here, it's your Jordan here. Yes,
it is You heard it right, It's Jordan here, it's
your Jordanaire gonna say you slop slow. Thank you for
(01:04:12):
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 a screenshot and
(01:04:34):
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you,
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
(00:23):
We honor your presence. God. That's never an interruption to
our plans to give you praise. Anytime we can make
an altar and worship you our sacrifice, it brings us joy. Lord.
I thank you for a palpable sense of faith and
(00:44):
expectation rooted in the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today.
Feel it in my bones. I sense it in my
brothers and sisters who have gathered, and I speak it
over everyone who may not be able to feel it
right now that you are able to do immeasurably more
for every I can't. We have a great I Am,
(01:07):
and today we celebrate that all things are possible through You. Now, God,
we're not going to stop worshiping. We might stop singing,
but this service is just getting started. I thank you
that there is a powerful plowing word that has been
(01:28):
planted in my spirit for this occasion, and I pray
that today you would help.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Me to deliver it just how you would say it
through my mouth, through my vocal cords, but your words,
your thoughts, your heart in Jesus' name, Amen.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Hug seventeen Bulligion, Come a big hawk raised the Lord,
raised the Lord. Don't take your seat yet. After you
gave out all the hugs, you can stand, clap your
(02:04):
hands and give God glory for bringing you through another day,
another week. It feels kind of fired up today. It
feels like we're getting a little pre Elevation Night's annointing.
Chris Yall flows are ridiculous. Today we're getting ready to
(02:27):
head out to the West Coast and we're gonna tell
you some liberals out there about geez. I'm just kidding.
We love the West Coast. Well, if you live in
any of these cities, there are still some tickets available,
not many. You want to act fast. We start on
September to twenty fourth, and we'll be out through October
(02:47):
third and the following cities. Go to Elevation Nights dot
com Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, BC, Sacramento, California, Los Angeles, and Anaheim,
Boise Idaho, Salt Lake City, are you shouting for Boise?
That's never happened. Indeed, the Lord can do anything that's crazy.
(03:12):
I said, La no shout, Seattle, no shout. I said, Boise. Okay,
that's what it's gonna be like when we get to Boise. Hey,
remind me to drink a Celsius before we get to
Boise because they're fired up. And Salt Lake City, did
I say that already? In Denver, Colorado? Elevation Nights dot com.
(03:33):
And if you want to come to one, go and
get a ticket, and get a plane ticket and come
on out one day when the Lord really blesses me,
I'm gonna load y'all all up on a plane like
Oprah did one time and take you with us. Until then,
you just have to pray for us. And I also
want to celebrate because it's not a small thing that
(03:53):
over a thousand people were baptized in our church class school. Incredible. Man,
if you knew the starting point of this ministry, you
would know how much that means to me. That's amazing,
that's amazing. And I think one of the reasons that
(04:15):
the worship is so powerful today. I think the ladies
lest some residual, annoying thing from your life. One of
our worship leaders said, leading room in a leading excuse me,
leading worship in a room full of women is a
cheat code. They're just much more expressive, and that's crazy
(04:35):
to me. But it's absolutely amazing, Holly, God used you
in a great way. Thank you for the word, Thank
you for your vision, for your leadership, all the moments
that will continue to unfold because of the moment that
you may possible through your faith. We celebrate you, and
today I'm gonna do my best to get in the
slipstream of what God spoke and preach a word to
(04:57):
you today. I prayed that you would lean in to
receive it last week when I left you, I left
you in the muddy puddles of the Jordan River. Let's
go back there for a moment. From Joshua chapter four.
I'll be sharing with you today from Joshua chapter four,
verses fifteen through Joshua five, and only one verse from
(05:18):
Joshua five, verse one. Let's take a moment to remember
how much this meant to me when God showed it
to me, so I can appreciate to you from that
same place, only reason I bring my notes up here.
I know somebody said, why do you take all those
notes up there? We don't see you look at them,
(05:39):
And it's true. I get into it and I forget
to look at the notes. But at least seeing it
reminds me how excited I was writing it. And then
I can come at it and remember when I was
scribbling this, I was picturing us sharing in the word together.
So what an honor to share God's word with you today.
I'm so thankful for the opportunity. And wherever you are,
(05:59):
even if you're online today, the word is no less effective.
So get ready to receive it. And made this word
reach you right where you are. Joshua, Chapter four, verse fifteen,
say I'm ready. Then the Lord said to Joshua, wash
my hands. Then the Lord said to Joshua, okay, so
(06:24):
picture the scripture visually as well as verbally. Then the
Lord said to Joshua verse sixteen, command the priests, carrying
the ark of the Covenant Law to come up out
of the Jordan. So Joshua commanded the priests come up
(06:46):
out of the Jordan. And the priests came up out
of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of
the Lord. No sooner had they set their feet on
the dry ground, than the of the Jordan returned to
their place and ran at floodstage as before. On the
(07:06):
tenth day of the first month, the people went up
from the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua. Joshua said
to the priests, and then the people went up. So
watch I'm doing like this. Boom, boom, boom. The people
went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on
(07:27):
the eastern border of Jericho. On the eastern border of Jericho,
what do you know about Jericho? Walls do fall? Somebody
say it, walls do fall now, but before the walls
of Jericho can fall, and before the Battle of Jericho
can be won, because this will be the first fight
(07:48):
for the children of God to occupy the Promised Lam.
Before their first fight, Joshua is setting the frame verse twenty.
Verse twenty. Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones
they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to
the Israelites in the future, when your descendants asked their parents,
(08:13):
we've gone from the Lord said to Joshua. To Joshua
said to the priest to the priest did it for
the people. For the people are doing something that will
not even accomplish a purpose that may be seen in
their own lives, but in a generation that is yet
to come in the future. When your descendants asked their
parents what do these stones mean, tell them, Israel, cross
(08:36):
the Jordan on dry ground, for the Lord, your God
dried up the Jordan before you, until you had crossed over.
The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he
had done to the Red Sea, when he dried it
up before us until we had crossed over. He did this.
(09:01):
That's the best thing I've read in a long time.
Tell somebody he did this. So we were testifying last week,
we're talking about rescue your testimony. Rescue your testimony from
the clutches of depression. Rescue your testimony from the clutches
of despair, Rescue your testimony from the regrets of your past,
and testify to your neighbors. Say he did this. He
(09:25):
did this. I'm standing here because he did this. Come on,
let's have a testimony service real quick. How many No,
God did yes, let's practice. Let's see if you rescued
your testimony last week. I'm gonna ask you a question,
and you say, what you think? Who opened your prison doors?
(09:47):
God did? Then say it, say God did? Who dried
up your ocean floors? Think about that thing? Who saved
you and set you free, Who gave you victory right,
who gave you another day, who made you another way,
(10:07):
who gave you the breath of prays, who gave you
a brand new name?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Ah, somebody shot God did put.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It in the comments? Not did Now? He did this
so that all the peoples of the earth might know
that the hand of the Lord is powerful, and so
that you might always fear the Lord, your God. The
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final verse I'm going to read, and then I'll tell
you what we're going to talk about today. But we're
already talking because God is speaking now. When all the
Canaanite emrich kings west of the Jordan and the kings
along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up
the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over,
(11:00):
their hearts melted in fear. It's no longer just the
people of God who know who God is. It's the
enemies to Ah. I see this, and they no longer
had the courage to face the Israelites today God wants
to do something very special in your life. He wants
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to reverse the ripple. That's the word of the Lord
and Father. As we declare it today. We walk in it,
we stand in it, we decree it, and we believe that.
Most of all, we thank you for it, because only
you could do it in Jesus' name. Amen, you may
be seated. You may be seated reverse the ripple. You
(11:49):
will know what that means in about thirty two minutes.
I do my job because the Lord has some things
that he wants to turn around your life. Yeah, rescue
our testimony, and God is going to reverse the ripple.
I wish we could teach this on the lake. It
(12:12):
would be a good illustration. Right, how many of you
like the lake? How many you got a boat? You
could take me out on the lake. I'm gonna hitch
you up. You got how many of you? How many
you have a boat. So if we went out on
the lake, I could demonstrate the ripple effect. Right, you
know what it is. It's when one thing happens and
another thing happens, and another thing happens. And we use
(12:35):
it metaphorically, but it would be good if we could
be at the lake because we could. We could get
a rock, and then we could drop the rock and
we could watch the ripple, and then I could teach
the lesson. I could say, and just like this rock
hit the water, and we wouldn't even have to get
in the water because I know it's getting kind of cold.
We could just do it from the shore right there
(12:57):
in your boat. We could drop the rock, watch the
rip and we could talk about how things in our
life happen that cause a ripple. And sometimes it's not
even until you're living in the ripple that you realize
the rock was dropped. If we're at the lake, and
(13:18):
maybe you could have me a bottle of diet coke.
Don't text me about aspertain, I don't care. I've made
peace with Aspertame, and we would talk about the ripple
effects of decisions that you and I have both made,
words that we spoken. Man, I could probably teach a
whole leadership class just from a rock and a ripple.
(13:42):
Many times as a leader, I never saw myself as
being that important, and I don't think I am important.
I think God is important, but I think he uses
people in important ways. And I think that when you
speak for God your word's way more because many times
I said things to people in passing as a leader,
and for good I said them and they kept those
(14:04):
things with them for three years, good and bad, good
and bad. And one lady I met one time. I'm
not going to take a long time with this setup,
but I want us to get at the lake. Dropped
a rock, We see the ripple. A lady one time
told me she kept a voicemail that I sent her
when her husband died. She kept it for four years.
(14:25):
Never met her one time on the Before you get
too impressed with me, because I'm just ride around leaving
voice memos, praying for people all the time. My kids
have told me things I said that I said because
they were true, but the way I said it, it
(14:45):
stuck with them in a way that they weren't ready
to hear it Like that, And with all three of
my kids and with my wife, I can go back
to times where I spoke something not realizing the weight
of the rock that I dropped and the ripple that
it calls for the person that I spoke to. So
now I got to walk into situations and scenarios and
(15:07):
take responsibility for my ripple. That's a whole word, take
responsibility for your ripple. The things you just say passing,
Oh well, I'm just speaking my mind. Well, why don't
you just speak your mind inside, do a little internal
monologue and scream in your pillow. But make sure that
(15:28):
you respect you're calling enough to take responsibility for your ripple.
When the Lord said to Joshua, and Joshua said to
the priest, and the priest led the people, and the
people demonstrated God's stathfulness in a way that even impressed
their enemies. We are watching the ripple effect of a
(15:50):
revelation from God. The very fact that we are sitting
here today preaching about an incident that happened, an event
that occurred this long ago go proves my point the
power of a ripple, the ripple effect of your thoughts
leading to your actions, leading to your habits, leading to
your character becoming concrete, so that what you call destiny
(16:14):
later was actually a decision when the rock was dropped.
And yet, wouldn't it be nice if life were as
simple spiritually as it is physically, Because if we were
at the lake doing this lesson, we could look at
the rock and we could predict with a few inches,
(16:35):
you know how big the ripple would be. If we
had a few minutes, we could drop a little rock,
a big rock, a medium rock, and we could start saying,
you know, this one's gonna ripple. I'm just saying the
bigger the rock was, the bigger the ripple would be Physically. Spiritually,
it's a little different. You never can tell looking at
(16:55):
the rock how big the ripple is going to be.
Not in the Kingdom of God, so that Jesus walks
around saying things like, if you have the faith of
a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. What kind
of mustard seed moves a mountain? A supernatural one, one
(17:15):
that has been watered by the word of God, one
that has been cultivated by a heart of faith. What
kind of lunch has the power to provide for the
physical hunger of five thousand You would think such a
little lunch could maybe only feed a little boy. But
when God dits it, the ripple becomes something that you
(17:36):
would have never realized. Oh, I feel like preaching, because
a rock in the hands of a shepherd should not
bring down a nine foot giant. But you can't tell
the size of the ripple from the size of this
rock if it's in God's hands. So we came to
remind the devil today that my rock might be little,
(17:58):
but a little rock can make a big ripple if
God gets a hold of them. Yeah, let's switch this
thing around. Let's stop looking at the size of our resource,
the size of our strength, the size of our knowledge,
the scope of our understanding to determine what God can do.
(18:19):
Let's stop letting the waves of unbelief block us from
the reality of the ocean of God's provision. Yeah. Yeah,
let's reverse the ripple. And what I mean by that
when I say reverse the ripple, well, I mean a
few things. Let me break it down a little bit.
The first thing that I mean by reverse the ripple
(18:40):
is that instead of starting with what you see, start
with what God has said. Life changing, life changing right there,
just if you would start with what God said. And
many times, we like the Nation of Israel and Joshua
(19:02):
chapter four, come to places in our own lives where
we need God to do something and apologize if I'm
not preaching to you right now that if He doesn't
do it. So this is not like I need God
to help me wake up on time. You sent alarm
clock for that. But this is something different. And one
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of the things that I respect about the Bible is
that it will repeat something over and over again because
we learn through repetition. And if you look at this
Joshua chapter four, there are several times that God tells Joshua,
take these stones out of the water, kind of like
they're building an altar. Okay, like Holly preached on reflect
(19:46):
about the altar. Go on her YouTube and watch that
message and wear your steel toed boots because she was
stepping on our toes. But she did it so sweetly.
She did it in ballet flats. It was unbelievable. And
the Lord is telling Joshua, like, before you get to
(20:08):
your first fight, I want you to approach it from
a place of thinking about your future. Now, this is marvelous.
Frame the fight that you're facing from a place of
future faith. And that is often very hard, right because
we're just in the moment and knowing in the moment.
Remember it's like that rock in that ripple, knowing in
(20:29):
the moment what the ripple is going to be. It's
not always predictable in the spirit, is it? Is it
you came to church? Because she was cute and asked
you to come. Then you messed around and got too
close to the boat, and Jesus hooked you and pulled
you in, and now you're one of us. Boy, God
(20:53):
is tricky with that ripple. God is tricky with that ripple.
You didn't even know. I was just gonna go. So
I just just going to get to shut up, And
now I'm bringing people. I don't know what happened. Tell
your neighbor. It's the ripples, the ripples. To ripple, it's
the ripple. It's the ripples. The ripple. God will drop something.
God will just put you somewhere. God will drop you somewhere.
You will think that you're there because it's a new job.
(21:15):
And then you meet Gene, and Gene is going through chemotherapy,
and you went through chemotherapy. So now you minister to
Gene out of what you went through, so that you
can comfort him with the comfort by which you have
been comforted. This is the ripple, the ripple, the ripple,
the ripple, the ripple. And by the way, what if
we did that more often? What if we started asking God,
(21:36):
what do you want to do? Not just for me
but through me? God who can I touch you touched me?
Who can I help you healed me? Who can I
be a blessing to you? Blessed me? When are you
gonna hand somebody a fifty dollars bill one time? In
set a waiting on one? When will you be the ripple?
(22:00):
This is not my message, so pace yourself. I'm just
setting up this idea of reverse the ripple, reverse the ripple.
And I have learned in my life that if I
do not consider please listen to me. If I do
not consider causes, I will spend my life chasing consequences.
(22:25):
Consider the cause, or you will spend the rest of
your life managing consequences. Consider the cause, or you can
spend the rest of your life looking for tips on
TikTok for how to be more peaceful. But after you
have done everything TikTok told you to do, I mean
(22:47):
you can do everything. You could take your walk barefoot
on the grass, walk backwards, barefoot on the grass, sipping
of protein smoothie with collagens in the smoothie. You can
do all of that. You can do red light, blue light,
black light, blue light, stroke light, you can do all
(23:09):
the lights on your face. You can do all of it.
You can meditate, you can pontificate, you can blow be eight,
you can hyperventilate because you are not getting peace until
you consider the source. You get all attempts you want,
(23:31):
but until you get the truth, you will not come
through this. Jordan, here's what I'm trying to say. You
can't fix the ripple till you find the rock. I'm
(23:51):
appreciate this in Boise too. Tell them get ready. You
can't fix the ripple till you find the rock. I
think a lot of religion is ripple management, behavior modification,
empty tradition. God, I promise I'll never do it again
(24:13):
until three point thirty, and it's three twenty five right now.
That's ripple management. That's white knuckling, not worship. Ripple management
cannot bring you to a place of restoration. It can
only bring you to a place of relief temporarily. So
(24:37):
what are the areas in your life right now where
you are trying to fix ripples but you don't even
know what rock was dropped that cost it to begin with.
This is like quoting Bible versus on top of trauma
that you won't deal with. This is like whitch in
(25:00):
friend groups. Every time they see what's really secret hidden
in you and call it out and confront it, It's
gonna get quieter and quiet. It's gonna be a reverse
ripple today. Usually we start small and get big. Were
going the other way today. We're reversing the ripple today
until we get down to what is the thing that
(25:22):
was dropped that caused you to do it? What was
dropped that caused me to do it? Why did I
lose my temper because they're annoying? Really because the people
at work were annoying, but you didn't go off on
them because you knew you couldn't get away with it.
(25:42):
You went off on them at home, not because they're annoying,
but because you know they'll forgive you. And the real
rock that made you do it was the fact that
you don't take responsibility for it. And until we get
real about this stuff, we will spend our entire lives
riding the waves of our ripples going I'm so anxious,
(26:06):
I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious. Well, cut your thumb off.
Jesus said it'd be better to lose your whole hand
then go to help. So I'd rather fix it. I'd
rather fix it wear the rock drop than live the
rest of my life frustrated by the ripples it You
(26:28):
say this is just an Old Testament story, are you
absolutely crazy out of your mind? Ridiculous? Do you not
understand that this is the entire threat of the New Testament.
It is law versus grace, It is us never really understanding.
And I hope to come back to this in a
moment if this sermon comes full circle. But speaking of
full circle, there is a place called Gilgal and Joshua
chapter four. If you've never heard of it, you can
(26:49):
be forgiven. But the word gilgal actually means circle. And
isn't it interesting in a passage that demonstrates the power
of the Lord spoke to Joshua, Joshua spoke to the priest,
The priest spoke to the people. The people did what
God told them, and it was a demonstration to the
nations that didn't even know God. Isn't it interesting that
circle after circle after circle after concentric circles, And let
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us not forget about the circle of the generation that
isn't even old enough to ask the question yet that
is being affected by their faith or lack thereof, which
brings us back to the Red Sea, which was the
central motif of Israel's identity. Now Rugeman says that it
is the I think his exact wording is the primal narrative,
(27:33):
but I just I like the simplified things. So core
story that better. Primal narrative. I sound like you got
to pay to hear about something like that, and you
didn't pay anything to get in here today. So core
story and when God brought them through the Red Sea
was their core story. In fact, even when Joshua says,
(27:54):
go get some rocks, tell your neighbor, get some rocks
to tell your kids what God did, why would he
think like this. Surely you have more important things to do, namely,
when they get to Gilgal, they got to cut off
everybody's foreskin because none of these people have been circumcised yet.
And I'm not going to illustrate how this whole text
(28:15):
is circular. But this all has to happen at Gilgal.
But before you get to Guild, go listen to me good.
Before you get to Gilgal, before you go to Jericho,
before you even get to the place of cutting away,
that's going to happen. Before you go in, get some
rocks to tell your kids what God did. I like that.
(28:39):
Get some rocks to tell your kids what God did,
and you're going to tell them what God did, not
what you did, because all you did was walk. Y'all.
We take too much credit. Sometimes. I see everybody of
hustle and grind on Instagram, but I saw you also.
(28:59):
I saw you hustle and grind. But I also saw
you hide and grumble and groan and grieve. I saw
all of that too, And the real testimony of it
from my life is what God did. When they showed
that video, I want to thank our creative team for
the video they showed earlier in the service of the
ripple effect of this ministry. Thank you. That was excellent.
(29:22):
That was well done. It wasn't bragging on us, but
it was showing the people that all the way from
Valentine to Boise to Botswana. Anytime the sermon ain't going
good today, I just say Boise and all the way.
But I'm gonna show you something that's gonna blow your mind.
I got teary on the front row. I said for
to keep it together, save your emotion for when you
(29:44):
get up there. Do not leak this thing out on
the front Rule and I'm like, but God, this is
touching me right now, and he said, stuff it down
and share it with them. So here's what it is.
Because you said whoa and I said boise, And there
was somebody on the video that said that they were
from Botswana and we're here at Valentine. But it took
me back. It took me back to just yesterday a
(30:09):
story that I was telling my son on the second row,
because he asked me something about the early days of
this church, and he asked me something about the phase
when we were just moving here and we only had
our core team, and he asked me something about the
way it is now and the way it was then,
and going out to minister to people all over the world,
(30:31):
and the reach and the ripple of the ministry. He
didn't say ripple, but that's what we were talking about.
And I was sitting there talking to him and I said,
I'm sorry, I got to compose myself for a minute,
because this conversation takes me back to how before I
would come out to our team and tell them we're
going to reach the world. We're gonna touch the world.
(30:53):
God's gonna use us, God's gonna do something. It's going
to be amazing. It takes me back to how before
I would go and boldly speak to them. I would
sneak into the bathroom and I would lock myself in
the stall, and I would fight back my own reflex
to walk out, because how can I walk out and
(31:15):
tell them this? When I'm wondering did I mislead all
of them? Can we really do this? Because I stood
it a Jordan and I thought God spoke. But sometimes
you think it and don't feel it when it comes
time to do it. But I locked that stall and
(31:35):
I said, God, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna have
to be you. And when I tell my kids one
day from Valentine, what you did all the way to Boisi?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
What's your did all the way to bock Swater, When
I tell my children, what a thankful God you said?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Truer worse ever, visss Fucus. And my stones will tell
my story, and my stones will tell my story, and
my stones will tell my story, and my sleepless nights
will give.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Way to a new day, and my stones will tell
my story. And we'll shout it, validies, and we'll shout
in noisy, and we'll shout in my slaughter and will
shot till you get numb.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Break through. Yeah, we're gonna turn this thing around right now.
You keep talking how big these Amalekites are, how big
these Canaanites are. We need to reverse this ripple. It
(32:53):
doesn't start with the size of the Canaanites. It starts
with the size of the God that you serve. Well, Oh, preachy, creachy, preachy, freechie,
preachy preachie. I got a big God.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I got a good God. I keep telling God how
big it is.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I want to tell him how big.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Ah, if you saw my God, you'dn't understand my stout
shout now like you need a wall to fall.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Oh my mona, sound like boisey, sound like boisey.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, high five. Your neighbors say,
reverse it, reverse it, reverse it, reverse it. Yeah, because
when you rehearse it, you reverse it. You missed it.
You were high five, and I said, when you rehearse it,
(33:57):
you reverse it. When you tell him how you locked
yourself in the bathroom stall, you remember that there is
no space too tight, no mountains too high, no need
too great, no ravine too dry For God to show
up and do what God does. He did it at
the Red Sea, he did it at the Jordans. He's
(34:19):
doing it in you right now. It will be by
faith who did God set me on fire for today?
That you need to reverse the ripple because every time
you think about the court case you go into panic attacks.
Think about the judge and give it over to him
(34:39):
and you're gonna be all right, baby boy. Every time
you think about it, it sends a ripple. It sends
you into fear, It sends you into self loathing, It
sends you into hiding. It sends you back to drugs,
it sends you back to sex. You shouldn't be having
with people who are the ripple of a decision that
you made that you never would have made had you
(35:00):
been in your right place, in your right mind. Well,
we got to find the rock or we can't fix
the ripple. And see why I think Joshua was so intentional,
everybody say intentional in this moment. And why God is
so intentional with you and why He is revealing things
even now for you, is because for forty years the
(35:25):
story was told. Wat's just we went through the Red Sea.
We clap when we talk about that. They cried because
after they got through the Red Sea, they stopped. And
I like to show you why. Well, sit down, let
me show you why. When numbers chapter thirteen gets the
(35:49):
verse thirty one, it's kind of a battle of opinions,
kind of like you got going on in the world
right now. Everybody's shouting about everything. A bunch of noise,
a whole lot of ripple, not a lot of revelation. Yeah,
And when Caleb stood up, he was like, shut up,
(36:11):
we can do it because they're about to go into
the Promised Lamp. That's the saddest thing to me. When
Holly was preaching, they built the altar, and God gave
him the ten Commandments, and then they went in the
wilderness forty years why ripple watch number thirteen go to
thirty one. But the men who had gone up with
Caleb only ones who said we can do it, as
(36:32):
Joshua and Caleb to ten others said this, we can't
attack those people. That's why I had you just singing
I can't do it, but the Great I Am can. Earlier,
that's why we wrote that so you can acknowledge it.
We can't attack those people. They are stronger than we are.
Now stay there, back right there, stronger then we are,
(37:03):
and now watch what happens. Verse thirty two. They spread
among the Israelites a bad ripple, a bad report. Bad
reports have ripples, a bad report about the land they
had explored about what God wanted to give them, about
the size of the giants, And they said, the land
we explored devours those living in it. All the people
(37:26):
we saw there are of great size. We saw the
Nephilm there, the descendants of Anac come from the Nephilm.
We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, in our
own eyes, and we looked the same to them. But
why in the world would you start with your eyes
if you're receiving God's promise? I told you at the
(37:47):
beginning of my sermon, is what you see and what
God says. God said you can have it, and you
see that you can't. Which one is your rock? What
are you building on? Verse thirty one Again, Please, they
are stronger than we are. That's true. The disease is
stronger than your body right now. That is true. The
(38:10):
shame is real because the event really happened. That's true.
The guilt is real. Because you really would have done
it differently. That's true. All of that is true, but
it's not your starting place. And this is a principle
that I want you to receive from the word of
the Lord today. If you start with your strength, you
(38:31):
end in defeating. If you start with your strength, if
you start with your smarts, if you start with your anything,
you end in defeat because you run out reverse the ripple.
Start with God. Tell your neighbor I'm a name dropper. Now,
(38:55):
I don't mean that how you think I tell them.
I don't mean it how you think I mean it.
But I know the Great I am. So whatever I'm not,
he is. I don't start with who I am. I
drop the name of the Great I am. That's good
(39:16):
right there, That's good like syuh right there. Because when
you put the name of your God, the promise of
your God, on the thing that you're facing, it reverses,
not necessarily the situation, but it taps you into His strength.
I can do all things through I gotta teach you
(39:40):
all the Bible. Now, come on, I can do all
things through Christ, who strengthens me. So I am not
starting with my strength. Stop waking up in the morning,
and discerning what you can do today based on how
strong you feel when you wake up. You gotta reverse that. No, No,
the first thing I'm not doing when I wake up
(40:01):
in the morning is consulting my stress level. My stress
level will keep me under all these sheets. But at
some point, I've got to throw off the covers. I've
got to stand up on my feet. I've got to
declare that what God called me to do today will
be done today, and what he called me to do
tomorrow can wait till tomorrow. And what he never called
(40:23):
me to do, somebody else can do. Because I am
not responsible for their ripple. So you cannot fix the
ripple until you find the rock. And the problem with
God's people in this passage has really not changed very
(40:43):
much at all, has it. They have allowed their identity
to become filtered through an event, an event we didn't
go in to the will. We've stayed in the wilderness
because of an event. We did not have our confidence
(41:04):
because we came from Egypt where we were slaves. But
slavery was the event, not the identity. Help me, Holy Spirit,
somebody right now who's been divorced, Somebody right now who's
had an abortion, somebody right now who tried to take
your own life, somebody right now who has never been
(41:24):
able to hold down a job, somebody right now who
has never been able to be good with money. Those
are events, They are not identities. Identities come from within.
It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He
is your rock. And for everybody who has ever been rejected.
(41:46):
Let me jump a few centuries to first Peter two seven,
where Peter quotes the prophet saying, but to you who
believe this stone, we're talking about stones right this stone
being Christ, this stone is precious. But to those who
do not believe, watch this. The stone that the builders
(42:07):
rejected has become the corner stone. Stop living in the
ripple of their rejection. They are not your rock. I said,
They're not your rock. They're not your rock. They're not
your rock. To the point that human ingenuity is so
(42:29):
limited that they throw tried to throw Jesus away. They
rejected the stone that God built the whole thing on.
God is my rock. But first, something must happen at
(42:50):
this place where your feet are right now. Something must
happen at the place where you've stalled out. Something must
happen at the place where you laid down. Something must
happen at the place where you remain uncircum size. Something
must happen here. And then then amazing how almost everything
with God is opposite. Across brings life. What as across
(43:13):
across his gruesome, across his death, No across is glorious.
Rocks bring down giants. I'm gonna take you one more thing,
just to throw it in because I feel like it's
for somebody. I don't know what it's for. I don't
want to miss it. M Uh. How fast the ripple
happens doesn't always tell you how far it's going to go.
(43:36):
Some things in your life are going slow because God
is building something that's really really good. Put that in
for free. This ripple may start slow, but it may
spread wide. You don't know. You don't know. Somebody packed
that little boy's lunch that he fed to the crowd
(43:57):
that day. You might be a mom packing the lunch
that we're gonna be talking about in Boise and Valentine
and Botswana. That's the ripple. That's the ripple. That's the ripple.
That's the ripple. That's the that's the ripple, that's how
God does it. He takes something as simple as a stone,
and I love him because sometimes the smallest pebbles have
(44:18):
the greatest purpose. There was a widow in church one day.
She put two mites, two coins in the offer, and
Jesus said, that's the biggest ripple that's been put in
that temple that today. All the rich people they didn't
ripple at all. Jesus thought, I lott pebble. He said,
that's all she has right there. You see how the
smallest pebble can serve the biggest purpose. You see how
(44:40):
the smallest rock, if the right guy's got it just
enough rotations booming. We are preaching about him every Sunday.
There's not a Sunday that goes by that I don't
tell you David killed Goliath. Little pebble, big purpose. And
yet we want to look at a fort twenty because
(45:01):
this one is a little different. Where he said take
the twelve stones out. Everybody say out of the Jordan,
because normally a ripple happens when you throw a stone in,
(45:25):
but this ripple is in reverse. You're gonna tell your
children what I did. And you think a ripple only
happens when a stone is thrown in. But this ripple,
somebody shout, this ripple. Come on, After all I've been through,
(45:46):
after all I've seen God do, after all the reasons
I shouldn't be here, This ripple is not gonna happen
because of a stone you threw in. It's gonna happen
because of a stone that you take out. Now, now
shall it Because there are some stones, Yeah, yeah, there's
some ripples. There are some ripples that can only happen
(46:10):
through removal. Touch three. People say, get it out, get
it out, get it out, get it out, get it out,
get it out, get it out, get it out, get
it out, get it out, get it out, get it out.
All that bitterness, get it out, get it out, get
it out, get it out. All that regret, get it out,
get it out.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
All that bias, all that judtment, all that president is.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
All that is security. Get it out. Because this ripple,
the burst.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Shall be last, and the last shall be burst. They
that's so its we'll rad be joy this.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Ripple. Come on. Twelve high fives say, this ripple is
in reverse. Yeah. You keep waiting for God to put
something in, But God said, I will reveal it when
you remove it. Oh that was good to me. I'll
(47:14):
try it again. I'll try it again. God removes to reveal.
God wants to show you through this story. God wants
to show you through this moment. God wants to show
you through what you call a burden. God wants to
show you through what you can't carry. God wants to
show you through what you can't do. God is even
(47:34):
using your enemies to cause you to depend on him.
So this ripple is in reverse. Don't wait for something
else to come. Take that thing out that is keeping
you from believing what he spoke. If it's an addiction,
it's got to go. If it's pride, it's got to go.
(47:55):
If it's your thoughts of yourself, it's got to go.
If it's your need to be right to go. Every
stone must go. And this woman, this woman of God,
confirmed my message. She preached on altars. She talked about rocks.
I was already getting ready to preach. She talked about rocks,
and then she went home and sent a verse to
(48:16):
our Bible club. We've been we've been going through the
Book of Ezekiel. I wanted to say, stuck in the
weird part of the Book of Ezekiel. But that sounds sacrilegious.
But the reason y'all don't think it's weird is because
y'all don't read it. So anyway, judge me all you want.
You can't condemn me. But but she said, she said
it was. It was one thirty in the morning. She
had preached from reflect she had poured her heart out,
(48:38):
and she said, I gotta go do my key verse,
because we swap around and do the key verse. I said,
I'll do it for you today, Babe, I can do
this for you. I'm gonna chat gpt a little bit
and said over. But she said, I'm gonna go do it.
And she said, she said, I'm gonna do it, and
I'm gonna go do it. And she sent it to me,
and she sent Ezekiel eleven nineteen. And the Lord said,
now you know that I got the right message for
you about removing the rocks, because the Office said, I
(49:01):
will give them an undevii hour watch this, Holly, one
thirty in the morning, and I put a new spirit
in them. My will removed from them their heart of stone.
(49:23):
Now I can fix the ripple because I found the rock. Yeah,
it's been my hard heart and the nature of the
Lord is that he removes to reveal, because verse twenty says,
and then when he does that, when he gives to
this Jesus heart, this heart that is sensitive to the
(49:44):
ways of grace, This heart that knows that you need them,
This heart that knows that he did it, not you.
This heart that remembers that you are in the bathroom
stall long before you are in. Boy. See the heart
that remembers that the Lord did this, and that he's
bigger than our enemies. That heart, that heart of flesh,
that heart that is justified only by Jesus, made righteous
only through him, his blood, his word, his covenant, his water.
(50:06):
Verse twenty. Please, then they will follow my decrease. Watch
the ripple. When I remove it, then they will follow, beautiful,
and be careful to keep my loss. Now stay with
me for one more minute, because there is one more
story that has nothing to do with Jordan Rivers. But
(50:28):
it is in John's Gospel, and the Lord alerted it
to me as a confirmation and a word for those
who are struggling with shame, condemnation, and rejection and guilt.
And it has been ripping through your sanity. It's been
ripping through your relationships. It has been ripping through your
professional life. It has been ripping through every part of
your life. And what's going to happen if we don't
(50:49):
share this story right now is that you're going to
think that the point of my message is that you've
got to pick up a big heavy stone and carry
it and show God that you really mean it this time.
But that's religion ripples. We're dealing with rocks today. And
when Jesus walked the earth, he did something very very
(51:09):
interesting because he was the rock, right, he was the rock,
and he demonstrated something one day in an unlikely way
to win. John chapter eight, verse three, Please on the
Screens says they brought a woman who was caught in adultery.
Now I think that has a double meaning. I think
that she was caught means that they saw her doing it.
(51:30):
I also think that means that she didn't want to
do it. She was caught. Follow me, I think when
we get caught, usually we were caught. It's not that
we wanted to do it. I wonder what rocks were
dropped in her life to cause this ripple. But nobody
(51:52):
wanted to know that did that? Now? They just brought her,
charged her, made her stand before the group verse at
verse four, and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was
caught in the act of adultery. How right they were,
And in the law of Moses commanded us to stone
such women, to stone such women. I just told you,
an event is not an identity. She's not such woman.
(52:16):
She's not a such woman. Who in the world do
you think you are labeling people according to their worse mistake?
In lowis moment, I'm about to show you what Jesus
thinks about this, and for when you label yourself. So
we got a stoner, right, what do you say? Inn't
that crazy? How our text in Joshua had a question
what do these stones mean? And now you've got a
(52:38):
group of people, probably men. The Pharisees and the teachers
of the law were men, and they want to stone
the woman because they put her identity through the grid
of the event. So here's where we are, Here's where
you are. You've been there, you might be there right now?
What do you say? What do these stones mean? What
do you see? Let's see how the rock responds to
(52:59):
their rocks verse six. They were using this question as
a trap in order to have a basis for accusing
him a trap. They're trying to trip him up. But
he's the rock. He ain't go trip over what he is,
stumbling block or a cornerstone. It all depends on how
(53:23):
you see him in order to have a basis for
accusing him. But Jesus bent down, Uh huh. Zoom out
so they can see online what I'm doing, not that
I'm Jesus. I'm just trying to make the text come alive,
and started to write on the ground with his finger.
Maybe he's writing her a new story. Maybe he's writing
a new chapter. Maybe he's writing something that she's gonna do.
(53:44):
Maybe he's writing down all their sins. Because watch this.
Watch what happened when he did when he stooped verse
number seven. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened
up and said, let any one of you who is
without sin be the first to throw the stone at her.
Watch what God does when they go to throw their rocks.
Watch what he does. The next time guilt tries to
(54:07):
tell you that you can never recover, watch what God
does the next time you try to go back to
your past and imprison yourself over something everybody else has forgiven,
but you. Verse number eight says as they circled around her.
As they circled around her, he again stooped and wrote
on the ground. Next verse that this those who heard
(54:30):
begin to go away, one at a time. This is
comical the older ones first, because if he was writing
their sins in the dirt, the ones who had lived
the longest had the most ripples. So they took off
running because I got ripples. If we really started listening
(54:50):
what you've been through, you wouldn't be commenting on anybody
else's Instagram, would you arm them? So I'm talking about
the rock, not their rocks. The rock. He got down
in the ground, and he began to write, and they
all started leaving. Watch this until say it with me.
(55:11):
Only Jesus was left sit again. Only Jesus was left
one more time for repetition. Only Jesus was left, because
only Jesus was right. Until the only one right was
(55:33):
the only one left, the only one who had the
right to throw a stone. He didn't throw it, He
took it. You tell me about your sin, let me
tell you about his grace. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace.
(55:56):
Second pardon and cleanse within somebody self grace, grace, grace
that is greater than all of my sin. So my
sin sent a ripple, and his righteousness sin forgiveness. So
(56:17):
my sin sent a ripple, but his death sent a
different message to my shame. And the Bible says that
it was just Jesus and her, and he looked around
like he didn't know Verse ten, and asked her a question, woman,
where are they?
Speaker 4 (56:40):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (56:40):
They didn't throw their rocks. That's because I am your rock.
You let me defend you, You let me vindicate you,
You let me justify you. You hear me. You don't
even have to prove it to them. Stop posting to
prove it, and pray about it, and get down on
your knees with Jesus and let him restore you reputation.
(57:01):
You walk different because while you're trying to fix the ripple,
he's trying to get you to drop the rocks. Yeah.
And I love what he gave her as a gift
in verse eleven, And I give it to you as
I close today, God, this message is heavy in my heart.
There must be somebody with a heavy heart of stone
(57:22):
today that the Lord wants to break and he looked
all around, and all the rocks were gone but one.
All the rocks were gone but one. And then he
told her, now that we got rid of their rocks,
(57:46):
let's get rid of yours neither. I don't even know
who was scorn. I don't even know who was skilled.
They don't even be in the room. But he said,
you can go now and leave your life of sin.
(58:06):
You keep trying to fix the sin, that's the ripple.
But when he removes the stone, Yes, when he takes
that that hard place away. In fact, right now, I
want us to stand to our feet and just lift
our hands to the Lord. Just do it. Quit being
so stubborn about surrendering to God. Quit letting that heart
(58:30):
of stone tell you what to do and when to
do it. Because there are some things that can happen
in a moment, in the presence of God, that can
ripple back to your home. Do you know that if
you just get this word from God and feel an emotion, great,
If I can give you one hour to escape the
hell that you have to go through, I'll show up
and do it. But what if we could send a ripple.
(58:53):
What if in this moment you drop some rocks. Today.
I know that we keep waiting for something else to come,
another blessing, another opportunity. But the Lord gave me a
different message today. He said, we're reversing the ripple. We
are not starting with what is coming in. We are
starting with what is coming out. So I call you
(59:15):
out today, say out out of fear, out of bondage,
out of shame, out of it, out of it, out
of it, come out, come out, come out, come out,
come out, come out, come out, part of stone, come out.
(59:36):
Until the only one left. He's the only one right.
Listen to me. What God says about you is right.
Everything else is wrong. What you call yourself is wrong.
What you thought your life was supposed to be is wrong.
Who you thought was supposed to still be in your
life right now it was wrong. He's right. And this
(59:58):
rock just hear saying God in my spirit, Chris, can
you sing it that high? Oh God, my God, I
need you, Oh God, my God, I need you now now,
Oh God, God. I reckon. This is why I heard it,
this line right here, to call on it. I'll standing
(01:00:25):
on you. So hang on right there, stay right there,
stay right there. We're gonna go back into the bridge
in a minute. But we're gonna hit verse twenty four
one more time. You tell them what God did? You
tell them what the central event of your life was
not a failure. It was a cross your course story,
(01:00:53):
your primal narrative. Your rock is a stone that was
rolled away, and now this is the reverse ripple. The
stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
(01:01:13):
You can build your life on him. He removes to reveal.
He reveals to restore, and the word restore must literally
mean restory, a new story. When the stone goes, the
new story comes. So I'll give you this and I'll
(01:01:39):
get out of your way. That he said what I
did at the Red Sea, you weren't ready for yet.
And you've stayed stuck in that regret for so long,
and it has rippled the bad report, rippled through forty
years of wilderness living. But now I want you to
take a stone with you, because you are going into
a season where I am rolling away your regrets. I
(01:02:02):
am rolling away your reproach. Hallelujah, I am cutting away
your flesh. Who opened your prison doors? God did, who
dried up your ocean floors? God did, who raced you
up from the dead. God did who justified, redeemed you,
(01:02:25):
called you, created you, and breathed the very breath of
life into you. So if he did it, then you
heard your children. Then you hear your children. Now you
are je.
Speaker 5 (01:02:54):
Don't hold it back, let it flow, Let it flow,
let it flow. No flu unlock right now, no flu.
Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
You say, this is a holy moment. Now he said.
Speaker 6 (01:03:19):
You come on, let's take it up higher. Let's take
it up higher. And the Lord says, it's your Jordan.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Here, it's your Jordan. Here, it's your Jordan here. Yes,
it is You heard it right, It's Jordan here, it's
your Jordanaire gonna say you slop slow. Thank you for
(01:04:12):
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 a screenshot and
(01:04:34):
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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