Elevation with Steven Furtick - Blocked Calls (Chet Pete)

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

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This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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 fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. Well, hello, church. My name's Ted Pete. I'm the campus pastor at Elevation University City. And I have the honor of being able to preach today. Hey, University City, hey, UC. It's such an honor to be able to preach this weekend. But before we move forward, can we take a moment and thank God for our pastor,

Pastor Stephen? You can do better than that. You can do better than that. We all get to benefit from hearing him preach every weekend on this stage, but very few get to see how he pastors people personally, stage. And this week, this week, he encouraged me. He looked me in my eyes and said, Chet, I believe in you. I'm Chet. God has a call on your life. And I believe that God has given you a word that our church needs to hear. That's the type of pastor that we have. And started the

year off with Flip the Flood, who was here for Flip the Flood, rode right into Maybe God. It's been so powerful. So, you know, and throughout Maybe God, God was just delusely. with me. And as we kind of ended the series last week, I wanted to share a little bit about what God has been, that's kind of revealed to me throughout this series of how do we discern God's voice and recognize the will that he has for our lives. And we're going to be in this text, Mark 10, verses 46 through 52. If you have your Bible and want to pull it out, you can do that now. If not, the scriptures will be on the screen. Mark chapter 10, verses 46. through 52.

Story about a blind man named Bartimaeus. At verse 46, it says, then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples together with a large crowd were leaving the city. A blind man,

Bartameas, which means son of Temaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And he was begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more. Son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus stopped and said, call him. So they called to the blind man. Cheer up on your feet. He's calling you. Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked him. blind men said, rabbi, I want to see. Go, Jesus said, your faith has healed you. And immediately,

he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. The scriptures that I really want to focus on for our time together are 48 and 49. It says many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more. Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stopped. What could be in your shout that can make Jesus stop? What could be on your lips that would make the Messiah stop in his tracks? He stopped and said, call him. So they called to the blind man. Cheer up on your feet.

He's calling you. The subject of our conversation today is called blocked calls. Blocked calls, blocked calls. Now, before you take your seat, can you look at you? your neighbor and find out if they're a Duke fan or a Tar Hill fan. Can you find out? Find out real quick. Find out real quick. Now, I understand, I understand that the Tar Hill's won last night. This morning, I'm more concerned about a different devil that needs to be up underneath our hill. So can you go ahead and give them a hug and put your hands together as we get in to God's

word today. Give a couple hugs right now. And then you can be seated. You can be seated. You can be seated. I understand you lost an hour of sleep last night. But it didn't seem like you lost your spirit. It seems like you came in ready, ready to praise God and ready to hear from him. But as I was reading this text, the thing that kind of caught my attention was this fact that Bartimaeus is crying out to Jesus. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And he doesn't hear Christ respond. And it made me realize that a lot of times in my life, I'm praying, in praying, and I'm calling out to God.

And I don't hear him call back to me. It could be so frustrating. Ask myself the question, has Jesus blocked my call? Like, has he blocked me? Is he just sitting up there looking at his phone? like, ugh, that's Susie today. She's always sad. I don't got time for that.

Why is Anthony so angry? I don't got time for it. I know what that feels like just to be calling out to God over and over and over again and not hearing anything. We feel like something's blocking us from hearing it. It makes me think about, you know, on my way home, I drive 45 on my way to the house in Charlotte, drive 45. And I get off on exit 23 right here.

And there's this one spot when I get off on the exit where every time if I'm on the phone, the call will drop. I could be talking the whole time, the whole time. And I get to this one spot and the call drops. I was talking to them before I got to that spot. And so what I realize is that maybe God is talking. Maybe God is talking. Maybe there's nothing wrong with the service, but something's blocking the signal.

What is blocking the signal in this season? You know, because I know what it feels like. It's like, does God have a track phone or something? I just, it seems like it's not getting through. You know, or maybe this would make you understand it. Me and my wife, we have identical twin boys. Carson and Carter, they are seven years old. And we just got them an Xbox one for Christmas this past year.

And they don't play Fortnite. I haven't did it. I've been trying to figure out. What's the appropriate age for your kids to play Fortnite? You know, is it 10, it's 11? I heard somebody say never, never, never, never, never. But, you know, they love it. They play NBA 2K, and they're constantly playing this game.

And I've realized since they've had the game, I can be sitting in my room and I call out to them. Carson, Carter, and I hear nothing. Hey, boys, hey, hear nothing. Carson and Carter, hear nothing. I get up out my bed. ignoring me. What are they doing? And I walk in and they're so fixated on this game that they didn't even hear my voice. What I'm realizing in our lives, there's some things that we're so fixated

on and it's blocking us from hearing what God has to say. It's not that God isn't calling you, but there's some things that are blocking you from hearing his call. And so what I want to do today is talk about a few things, a few things in this text that I believe will help us understand what's blocking us from hearing God while I open up this water. Can we thank God for all of our campuses that are tuning in today? Can we thank God for eFAM people watching on a cell phone right now, getting the presence of God? But what is blocking you? What is blocking you from hearing God? I believe there's a lot that we can learn in this text. The first thing that I want you to write down that may be blocking you is what I hear.

What I hear. And now, you see, hearing is so important to Bartimaeus because he couldn't see. And so it's so vital to him that he hears well and he hears his surroundings. And it starts off saying that he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was coming through. And that's when he responded and started to shout. But then at verse 48, there's another thing that he heard. It says, many rebuked him and told him, to be quiet. It just made me think there. There's some people. There's some people. There's some people. There's some people. Some negative people. Some condescending people. There's some pessimistic people. Some people that when I

talk to, they rip the spirit all the way out of me. There's some people. There's some people that just, you know, I have to do everything in my power to stay sane, dealing with them. There's some people. You have to watch what you hear. You have to watch what you hear. You have to watch what you hear. Because there's some people around you that could be blocking you from hearing what God has to say. And it just made me think. It just made me think, I'm going to help you guys out today. I am going to help you guys out with a little iPhone tutorial. Is that okay? A little iPhone tutorial today. Let me get this popped up on the screen for you really quick. You'll see my phone mirror. There it goes. There it goes. And there's my family. Stop on at them boys. Look at my beautiful wife up top right there. Thank you, Jesus. You've been so good to me. Hallelujah. My God, bless your name.

Let me help you out. Let me help you out. Let me help you out. Let me help you out. I'm going to go into my contacts. And you know what? I'm going to click on Jared Olson. Now, if you don't know Jared Olson, That's because he does his job so well. Jared Olson is our Valentine campus producer. Can we take a moment and thank God for Jared? Thank God for Jared. He's the one that leads the team that makes sure all the lights and all of this stuff works. I have no idea how my phone's on the screen, but it's on there.

That's Jared that makes it happen. So I wouldn't normally never, ever, ever, ever do this to Jared because he's amazing. He's amazing. He's amazing leader, amazing friend. But for the sake of this illustration, there's this little button down there here at the bottom it says block this caller

now when you click on it it says you will not receive phone calls messages face time from people on the block list there are some people that you need to find this button because when you block them you're opening up

a space so that you can hear what God has to say some people are blocking you from hearing what God's has to say in this season Everybody can't have access in this season because they're keeping you from accessing what God has for you. There's some people that has to go.

Now, some of you use this, you know where this is and you use it very well. You might be petty. You might be petty. You might be petty. But there's some of you. I just save you a lot of headaches. I just save you a lot of headaches

because you have the ability. You have the ability to block their call. You know what you should do tonight? When you go home, you should go sit on your bed. and you should go through your phone and have a good old-fashioned block party. What would it look like? If you took your time and went through your contacts and said that there's some people that's had access in one season

that don't need it in this season because they're blocking me from hearing what God has to say. There's some people that I cannot let speak into my life because they're holding me back for what my God has for me. There's some people in this season. There's some people. Like maybe JJ, maybe I should go ahead and block your Valentine campus pastor. Maybe I should block him right now.

Block this caller because maybe right now in this season, I normally wouldn't do it, but for the sake of the illustration, block JJ, bye-bye. Or maybe I should go all the way to Asheville, North Carolina, and let's just start blocking some campus pastors. You know, maybe this morning we would take some time to block them. Where's Brennan? Where is Brennan Gaddis at? There she goes. I'm sorry, maybe in this season, what would it look like if in this season

you block some people? Now, this should be a joyous occasion. Now, when I said block party, some of you started to think about red cups and some of you started to think about some different things. Well, what I, and LB is calling me right now. Elby, why are you calling me in the middle of my sermon? You know what? Some people I can't block. I can't block LB, but some people I can ignore. Because right now I love LB. Elby means a lot to me. But what's important right now is for me to take a moment and tell you what God has laid on my heart for you. And some people in this season, I have to ignore. Because some of you might have been thinking, I'm ready to block my husband right now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I'm not, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that because there's some people that you live with. There's some people that you work with.

And it's not that easy just to block them and cancel them out your life. But what Bartimaeus does in this text is when they rebuked him and told them to be quiet, he shouted all the more. He shouted. He ignored them so that he could focus on calling out to his father doing what his father said. What would it look like in this season if you paid attention to what you hear? Because they're blocking you from hearing what God has to say. You know, there's this repellent you can blithe for your sneakers.

There's a repellent, you know what I mean, that repels things. Why would I be so focused and buy things that can repel things off my sneakers that can keep them clean? And I won't repel people away from my spirit. I won't repel people away from my heart. There's some things in this season. There's some people, some people that have to get blocked. Because they're keeping you from hearing what God has to say. It's easier.

it's easier to ignore others, but you know what I found is very, it's very harder. It's much, much, much harder is to block the thoughts in your head. And so the next point are, you know, it's, it's my thoughts. It's my thoughts. What you think, what I think, what I think, what I think. It's so harder to do that. It's so, so much harder to do that. And as I read this text, there's some things. There's some things that it tells us about Bartimaeus. It says, when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We find the right verse. Bring me up. 46, 46, I apologize. What I think, what I think.

It says, when they came to Jericho, as Jesus and the disciples were together, a large crowd, we're leaving the city. Now, it's going to tell us a couple things about Bartameas. The first thing that it says is that Bartamaas was blind. And then it says Bartamaas, which means son of Tamas, and then it says that he was sitting by the roadside begging. So it tells us a couple things about Bartameas. It says that he's blind, and then it says that he's begging.

And we tend to just call him blind man Bartameas. What makes me realize is that we tend to identify people by their condition. We tend to identify people by their actions. And what I realize is that Bartamas has been sitting here. He's been sitting by the roadside begging for a long time. And I wonder, and I wonder, I wonder, what were the thoughts going through his head all of those years? Just sitting there. He's blind and can't see.

So he has this voice in his head. And it's saying, you're blind and you're a beggar. You're blind and you're a beggar. And that's all you'll ever be. Just go ahead and hold the cup out and yell for some change. You're blind and you're a beggar. And that's all you'll ever be. You're an addict.

You're a failure. You're a divorcee. You're a dropout. And that's all you'll ever be. That's what that voice sounds like. And that voice, that voice is loud. That voice is loud. It shouts.

That voice is piercing. And those thoughts in your head that you go over and over and over again and repeat, you know what my voice was telling me. That voice right here before I came on stage is nobody wanted to hear anything you have to say. They wish Pastor Stephen was here anyway. You're not qualified to preach the Word of God. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? It's a waste of time.

You should just sit back down. That's what that voice is screaming, yelling at me before I step on this stage. And I want to take a moment to celebrate my wife, Whitney. We just celebrated 11 years of marriage this year. And she has this voice as well. And I asked her if I could share this. The voice in my wife's head, that voice, it's a monster. It's a monster.

And it's so loud. She's so mean and she's so hateful. And it screams at my wife telling her that she's not beautiful, telling her that she's a horrible wife, telling her that she's a horrible mother, telling her that she will never be good enough, this voice is yelling, loud, telling her this over and over and over again. And I've seen her. I've seen her fight that voice because that voice has tried to take my wife out. If anybody talk to my wife the way that her voice talks to her,

I'd be in jail right now. I'd be in jail. I would be locked up. And so I've seen her. If it wasn't for some of our friends and family, if it wasn't for our e-group, if you're not in an e-group and you don't have people around you, I don't know if we would have been able to push through this thing because it's trying to take her out. But I want to tell you one little thing that she does that has been monumental. And it might seem small. It might seem really, really small, but it's made a significant difference. And what she did is she gave it a name. She gave the voice a name. Now, when I tell you what this name is, if this is your name, I didn't know you when we came up with it. I didn't. I didn't. So I'll talk about it. I didn't. So I'll

I apologize. But if you ever seen the movie, Matilda, there's this woman named Agatha. And Agatha is ugly, and she's mean. But what I realize is that when Agatha shows up, when she shows up on the scene and starts to tell her things that doesn't line up with what God says, I tell Agatha to go back to the pit of hell where she came from. She has no place here. What I want you to know is that you cannot defeat an unnamed enemy. And so what you have to do is put a name on that thing. You have to call it something. You know when you get phone calls and it says unknown caller? And you're talking to people and you don't have a clue who they are. How can you silence them and how can you tell them things to shut up and go back to where they came from if you don't know who they are? I tell Agatha to get up under my feet.

I tell Agatha what God says. So maybe what you need to do is name that enemy because that voice is terrorizing your home. He's terrorizing your life. You know why we call them terrorists? When we're in a war, we call him terrorists. It's because we can't identify him. But once we identify him, we're able to do something about it. We're able to go and we're able to attack it.

And so in this text, let me show you one interesting thing that kind of caught my attention because it tells you more about Bartamas, but we never talk about it. It says in verse 46, it says more than just that he was blind. Because when you see, it says, a blind man, Bartamaeus, which means son of Tamaeus. That tells me that Bartamaeus was a son. That tells me that Bartamaus is a son. So when that thought comes up, you got to remember. You're a son and a daughter of a father in heaven.

And Satan does not want you to remember your lineage. He does not want you to remember where you come from. Why don't we call him Bartimaeus, son of Tamais? Why don't we call him, son? You gotta look in the mirror. I'm a child of God. I was fearfully and wonderfully made. My father in heaven, he loves me.

I don't care what Agatha says you can go back to the place you came from. But it's these thoughts. It's these thoughts. It's these thoughts in your head that can block us from hearing what God has to say. the last thing that I want to talk about that could be blocking you is what I see is what I see and hearing that you may be like Bartameis didn't see anything he was blind but what Bartameis lacked in eyesight he made up for an insight there was something in this text that he saw that nobody around him saw in the way that you see someone would determine how you respond to

them. And so just to give you example, you know, me, I told you, my wife is an amazing mother, amazing wife, but me and her both have vastly different parenting styles. We approach raising her kids a little bit differently. And I feel like most parents fall into one of these two categories. One category, which my wife falls in, I like to call the I'm gone us. the I'm gonna's the I'm gonna whoop your butt the I'm gonna take the Xbox the I'm gonna you know I'm gonna is there anybody that will identify yourself as I'm gonna now the other group the other group which I fall in is the I have and I will

I have beat your butt and I will do it again I have taken the Xbox and I will. Do I have any? I have in our wills that knows. What would it look like if you looked at God is, I have blessed you and I will bless you again. I have healed you and I would heal you again. What if you walked in and you looked at God? I've seen you do it before and I believe you'll do it again. What if you looked at him? He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. What if you looked at him that way? What would it happen? how you see God determines how you hear God. And I believe in this season, it's the way that you see God that's blocking you from hearing what he has to say.

And so how did Bartameas see God? How did he see him? And it's very interesting in verse 47. It says when Bartameas heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout Jesus' son of David. He heard Jesus of Nazareth. shouted Jesus Son of David. Why would he shout something different than what he heard? You see, Jesus of Nazareth speaks to this prophet, this priest, this holy man, but it doesn't speak to Jesus, son of David. Now Jesus, son of David speaks to the Messiah, speak to the prophecy that

there would be a king that would come out of the house of David that would reign forever. I'm talking about the one that would deliver us from all of our sins. The power and authority that's in Jesus, son of David is who? Bortemaiah saw, and nobody else saw it. Everybody else was running around seeing him as common. But Bada mea said, that's son of David, that's the Messiah, this is my opportunity. How you see God determines how you hear him. How you walked in today, some of you walked in and your perspective of God was that he was mean, that he was hateful, that he didn't love you.

How you see God, you walked in today with a lot. a different perspective. And you hear I say, Father, and you look at him in the context of the father that you didn't have or the father that you had that was mean and hateful, and that's how you see him. What would it look like if you flip your perspective? You would lean in in church. You'd be here early. You'd be ready because you're expecting because you know when you walk in, something can change. If I see him as a healer, I can get a healing today if he's in the presence. I don't know how you see him, but I see him as a deliverer. I see him as a restore.

I see him as a provider. I see him as Jehovah. I see him as Jara. I see my God as somebody that could change my life, that could change my situation. Ask your neighbor, how do you see God today? How do you see God determines how you hear him? I wonder what's blocking you this morning. What's blocking you this morning?

from hearing what God has to say. What's blocking you? Is it the influences in your life? Is it what you hear? Is it what you hear? And there's some of you. There's some of you. There's some of you. You're in school. You're studying. You're trying to do everything you can to graduate. And you're letting the influences around you talk you out of it.

They're trying to call you talking about let's go to a party. Let's go hang out. And you're like, I'm trying to do something. What I hear is very important. That may be blocking you today. You're in here today. You're trying to restore your marriage. You're trying to work on your marriage.

And you're letting people around you talk bad about your spouse. Well, I'm trying to do everything I can for God to restore my marriage. What you hear, what you hear, what you hear. And then what you think, there's these thoughts. Some of you've been in chains because of the thoughts in your mind. The word says take every thought captive. There's some things in this season that we have to take a hold of. You've got to get some people around you.

You've got to name that thing. And in some of you, it's the perspective. It's how you see God. It's how you see Him. But here's the thing that really, really caught my attention. If you don't take anything else away from this sermon, this piece right here, I started to think about the setting. You see, there was a crowd of people.

There was a lot of people around. And remember earlier in the sermon, I said, what could be on your shout that could make Jesus stop? How could Jesus identify Bortemus in the middle of a crowd like this? How in the world could he hear him? And it made me realize that in this season, some things could be blocking me from hearing God's voice, but nothing can block God from hearing yours.

nothing can block God from hearing your voice. When you call out to him, he hears you. I don't care what's around. He stopped in his tracks, looked around and saw his son. It said, I see you in the middle of a crowd. Call out to me. Some of you stop calling because you hadn't heard anything back. He hears you.

Nothing you've done. I don't care what you did last night. God hears you. Call out to him. Call out to him. call out to him. And I want to take a moment. I want to take a moment to pray for you today.

Because I believe that we could have a moment of ministry. There's some things that have been blocking you. And today we need to remove those blocks so that we can hear what God has to say. Everybody stand on your feet. Stand on your feet. I want to take a moment and pause. Just to create a moment for God to minister to you. He's here.

He's here. Everyone stretch your hands towards heaven. God, we're here. and your servants are listening. We remove all distractions, God. We remove all distractions, all blocks right now in this moment. Speak to your people. Bartame is called out to you.

Right now, begin to open up your mouth and call out to Jesus. Tell him you need them. Tell him you love him. He hears you. Tell him what you need. Tell him what you need. Tell him what you need. He's listening right now.

Nothing can block him from hearing your voice. He loves to hear your voice. Jeremiah 333 says, call unto me and I will answer you. Not I might answer you. Not a maybe I will answer you. So God, your people need you. You're listening.

Speak God. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. It's because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit elevationchurch.org slash podcast for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe, you can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot, and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.

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