Elevation with Steven Furtick - Built Different

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

Make room for what God is building in your life. In “Built Different,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church teaches us that God often builds His kingdom in ways we don’t expect.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. So right now in the chat, just say, thank God I'm here, right? Just look at somebody and say, thank God you're here. Oh, I've been waiting to see someone like you all week. someone positive, uplifting, encouraging, well-built, tall, sturdy. I trust that you smell good. I trust that you're blessed. The best rhythm section in Charlotte, North Carolina with Vinny and Shea.

It's great to have Joel with us. Let's thank God for Joel. We started dancing the other night. We didn't even mean to. We've got this amazing collaboration with Elevation Worship in Maverick City. Come in your way. Somebody say, when? Soon.

Soon. And, Joel, we'll have to have you come back and share the song that you carried. It's about miracles, and your life is a miracle. And I can't wait for you to hear that song and all the other songs. It's great to have you. Tiffany, tell me about the leather. I'm a rocker now. She's a rocker now.

John Sal, she's a rocker now. Jenna, do you believe that? Okay. Upon this rock, I will build my church. How many thank God for it? Oh, it's good to see. How did you get off work? Good to see you.

I miss you so much. Hey, by the way, let us know in the chat who you are and where you're joining us from. It's a worldwide ministry, and we thank God for you. But we will know you're here if you don't tell us. So tell me right now, I'm here. And my name is, and my favorite movie is, and my favorite food is, and my favorite Bible verse is. And tell me everything you want to tell me about yourself. Okay, where is Cindy from Chewis? Hey, Cindy. Good to see you. I told you I would find you.

I told you. Now, put your name too so we can know you're here. All right? Cindy told me she was coming. And she came? We work at Chewis. Nicest hostess I've ever seen. And we're all a hostess for the Holy Ghost today. Y'all be seen it. This is getting ridiculous. This is some very meat. Mideocre stand-up. We better get to the Bible verse. First Peter, chapter 2. Let's really take our time with this passage so we can taste it today.

This is a delicious, delicious scripture. I want us to chew our food. First Peter, chapter 2, I'll read it, then I'll break it down. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and sin. Slander of every kind. Basically, he's saying delete all your social media accounts, is how I read that. Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. If you can't say amen, say, ouch.

I'll give you 30 seconds to delete some things before we move on in this scripture. He said, therefore rid yourselves. And that's what we've been talking about, the first part of 2021. All the years run together right now. But the Lord was saying that we need to have room to receive, right? So how can I receive the love of God if my heart is full of malice? How can I receive the truth if my heart is full of deceit? How can I receive the real me, the revelation of the real me, if I'm living in hypocrisy

so determined to look better than I really am? Hypocracy isn't struggling with something as pretending like you don't. Envy, slander. Now, if you can do all of that, if you can do it. get rid of all of that with all of your social media accounts on your phone. You're just a better person than me, but most of us have to make some decisions about what we're going to allow to have access to us. So maybe write this down.

The first step to getting ready is getting rid. Get rid of these things. And none of the things that he talks about are direct behaviors. their attitudes. So you've got a whole list of what to do. Some of you logged on today, Lord, give me a word, show me what to do. He just did. You've got plenty to do. You can turn me off now and just get busy, getting rid of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. I don't know what the Lord wants me to do. First Peter, 2.1, just told you. When you get those five, then come back and then ask me about the book of Daniel and the book of revelations.

So that's verse one. We've got nine more. All right. Get rid to get ready. It's like clearing out a space that you know God is going to fill with something better. Keep going for it. Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. Let's go slow through this. As you come to him, verse four, the living stone.

Who is him? Not a trick question. It's totally Jesus. As you come to him, who is him? Right, right, right. The Living Stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God, and precious to Him. You also, like Living Stones, are being built into a spiritual house. a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I love it.

For in Scripture, you love when Scripture quotes Scripture. In Scripture, it says, See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. Now, to you who believe this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people.

a royal priesthood, a holy nation. God's special possession. Not the beaters, the shoes on the top shelf he doesn't just wear every day. That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. That's enough.

Let's stop. Verse 5, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I want to use for a topic or a title, built different. What you're getting here in 1st Peter is sort of a synopsis of a salvation experience. It kind of reminds me of some of the time-lapse videos that I see on YouTube, where they'll show a man. I saw this series of videos, and somebody told me they weren't real. I don't know if they're real. Where he was like building a swimming pool with a stick.

Have you seen these? I thought about playing one, but I thought it might be copyright protected or something like that. Google might come shut the church down if I showed it or get demonetized or something like that, unordained. I don't know what happens if you play somebody else's YouTube video. But they had all kinds. I kind of went in a time-lapse, wormhole, preparing for this message.

I was watching people build Legos. I remember several years ago I wanted to do an illustration how God is doing things in our life that our purpose appears in pieces. So I brought up a box of Legos, and I really milked the illustration. I had the box, and I pulled it out, and I spilled all the pieces everywhere, and I said, oh, no, it's broken. And my point was, it doesn't look like it looks on the box. until it's fully built.

And kind of how we have this vision for our life, our family, our relationships. And we want to take it back to God because it doesn't look like what was on the box. But it has to be built. It has to be built. That's the whole point of the Legos. You're paying. So there was this nine-year-old on YouTube, and I may show him. If we can get the copyright cleared before we put this message on YouTube, look into it.

He built this Lego whole Star Wars Lego thing. I don't know what it was. But it was so big, but it only took me about 10 minutes to watch and build it. It was crazy. And I noticed he changed outfits like six times in the video, so that makes me think it went on over several days. And I was watching that thinking about how when somebody tells you their testimony about their relationship with God or when they tell you their testimony of how they got set free, from something in their life, it's usually a time-lapse testimony, which is what Peter's doing here, right? He says it so simply, and the way he says it, it sounds so sudden. And I want to point that out

to you again. He's like, get rid of all the bad things in your life and grow up in your salvation. That's the first two verses. But he uses the image of a baby to let me know. that God's kingdom and the way that it is built will be different than the way the time-lapse video works on YouTube. And so when you hear somebody say, you know, oh, I gave my life to Christ and it was wonderful, and I used to live in the darkness, but now I live in the light. I used to be bound by sin, and I was served only the false gods of Babylon and myself. They still go see those gods sometimes, but they don't tell you about that in their testimony, right? What they're doing is they're fast-forwarding past all the stumbles, right? Oh, well, all of our kids just grew up to serve the Lord, and we just love the Lord.

We taught them to pray when they were early, and we used to pray the blessing from number six over, the erroneous blessing. And they leave out so much. It's so fast. You can barely watch the three years that their kid was on drugs. You barely saw the three years that they slept in separate beds. We've been happily married 32 years, but you didn't know there were eight other years. That's called a time-lapse testimony. It's not untrue.

You're hearing it so quick. And the hard part becomes when we compare our real-life process to somebody else's time-lapse testimony. Billed different. It's something that I heard my kids say kind of ironically. I make fun of their hair or something like that. I remember one of them was saying to somebody, you never cry. And the guy said, I guess I'm just built different, man. I was like, that's cool.

That's something y'all say. This is why I do all the time. I'm trying to crack the code of how to reach the youth, you know, sermon research. And I even said it the other day, where's Buck? Is he back there somewhere? Buck. Y'all know Buck? Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck.

He sent us a workout the other day, me and Elijah, and told us to put only, here's how the workout goes, superset, superset, super set, super set, where you don't have any rest between. Then he said, after doing four super sets and not resting. to only rest two minutes between sets. So I told Elijah what Buck wanted us to do, and I told him what we were going to do. And I said, because Buck's built different. Some would call him a psychopath, and some would call him an athlete. Here's a fine line.

It just built different. And if I try to do what Buck does, it's going to end in vomit, injury. He said, manslaughter. I'm not that bad. I wouldn't kill him. I wouldn't do that. That's what you would do. Chad, she's built different.

Watch out for that one. Now, I was studying the scripture, and I was reading how Peter said, and as you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans, chosen by God, precious them. You also, like living stones, are being built, this is verse 5, please, into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Time-lapse testimony. Like, it's just all one thing, like it's just all one moment, like I have decided to follow

Jesus, says it all. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. Yeah, I feel you. But why did Jesus use the illustration of a mustard seed? to describe how his kingdom grows in our life. If we expect salvation, like when I gave my life to Christ, my mom had been planting seeds for years, right? She'd been planting, and so for me, I experienced that suddenly, but she had been sewing

that from the time she was singing to me as a baby. So when I would share my testimony, I'd be like, on such and such date, when I was 16 years That's how old I was when I kind of made my own decision to follow Christ. And it was real, but for me to just skip to that and say, when I was 16, I went down forward at this Baptist Church, First Baptist Church Monks Corner, gave my life to Christ. That's how I told my testimony for years, but that was the time lapse. That was just when what she was sowing into me finally caught up with what God was doing all along.

That really blesses me as a parent now to train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they won't depart from it. So everybody wants to skip telling you about the stuff that doesn't make them look so spiritual. That really bothers me. That little crackle in the microphone, that isn't planned, so somebody needs to fix it, come fix it. Y'all are like, he's doing an illustration.

No, I'm not. It's a malfunction. Now, let's back up all the way and talk about how God built a nation. How God, when he decided to build a nation, he found a man with a wife who had a barren womb. We should have known from the very beginning that this nation is going to be built different, right? Because you don't build a nation through a woman's barren womb.

Right? That's not how you do it. But God was sending us a signal from the very beginning that this nation will be built different. It will be built in the face of impossible odds through even what seems to be a physical impossibility. So if that's you today and you have an impossible situation, that should be a great encouragement to you. Right? Because God doesn't need to have the finished product in hand to fulfill his promise to you. I'm just trying to say that the way God works, he builds different than how people build. Is there any way to get this fixed or just keep going with the handheld?

Okay, I'm going to take this off. Somebody put in the chat while I'm stalling a little bit. I'm built different. I'm built different. I'm built different. So when Jesus chooses his disciples, right? You'll remember Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who wrote the gospels? Well, there's James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

There's Peter. Peter. We should have known from the moment that Jesus picked Peter. That whatever team Jesus is building. I mean, Peter is so far off the scouting report for all the professional Christians. And he's not even in rabbi school. He's a fisherman. So if you're going to the fishing bus,

to pick your team to change the world, you must not be building according to the values and the systems of this world. Holly preached about Gideon last week. Did you hear it? How Gideon had too many men to fight the battle. She didn't get to that part. This is a sequel. How he got down to 300 men to attack the Midian ice. She just mentioned that part. But you know what's crazy about that? That is, if you're building, an army and you go from thousands to hundreds, that's called building backwards. Has God been building backwards in your life over the past year so that sometimes he is stripping and subtracting more than he is adding and multiplying?

I mean, really the whole clue is built into the text that I read you. Before you can be ready for what God is building, you've got to get you. get rid to make room. But what drew me to it more than anything, and I'd love to get your attention on this verse, please, is 1 Peter 2.4, he says that this living stone, Jesus, who we worship, who is perfect, was rejected by humans, but chosen by God. I don't know if you've ever heard me say this before, but it seems to be true whether you're talking about Moses or Peter, or Mary who's a virgin, or whether you're talking about, you know, pick your Bible character, right?

The overlook, the unlikely, the little boy with the lunch that wasn't even included in the crowd count, that God selects what man rejects. In this passage, we're given a picture of Jesus. He's what God put on the box to show you what your life can look like. And he's so kind and he's so powerful and he's so perfect. He's like big enough to do miracles, and then he's also attentive enough that when a child wants to come up and sit on his lap, he makes time. He is, you might say, the new blueprint for humanity.

God's second Adam, the way to do it right. And he's using Jesus as an illustration to say that when God sent perfect, he's a second Adam. When God sent perfection into the world, people didn't recognize it. Let me give you a theology lesson on why people did not recognize perfection when it came, because people are dumb, because people look at all the wrong stuff, all the time. So we will find a celebrity to emulate and not even take into account that that celebrity is miserable. And we will model our life after somebody who is secretly miserable.

Meanwhile, God puts people in our life that are actually good, you know, examples, role models in our life that are actually good. And we call them old heads and we don't like them because they don't wear the stuff that looks attractive. But it's okay because here's a message, Jesus was rejected. Jesus was rejected. Can you believe that? The eternal Word of God.

pure, spotless, without blemish, Lamb of God. Jesus, the Alpha, the Omega, and everything in between. Jesus was rejected. Put that in the chat. Jesus was rejected. He's talking about Jesus. He said the foundation on Christ's the solid rock I stand. The thing that everything was built on. The word that is eternal that was spoken from the portals of eternity into the labor pangs of time. That Jesus was rejected. He came to his own and his own received him not. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Jesus was rejected. What made you think you would never be? He was despised. Why do we always think we're going to be so well-liked? Hmm? Jesus was rejected. I don't think we get that message

very much anymore. We get Jesus was resurrected, but before he was resurrected, the only reason that he needed to be was that he was rejected by the people he came to save. And that's a very painful thing, y'all. There's not a person under the sound of my voice who has an experienced, Maybe you don't call it being rejected, maybe it just feels like being ignored. The popular term now is unseen. I need to feel seen. And it's like you change your hair color and all that stuff and nobody even cares about it much.

You bought those shoes on a credit card. You can't afford them. You're paying them off till you're raising your grandchildren. Nobody even cares about that. So I'm trying to be seen. But really, if I come to the theological truth that's in the text, it's nothing new, Jesus was rejected. So I was 16 when I gave my life to Christ.

The language that we used was I accepted Jesus. I remember that's what the preacher said. If you would like to accept Christ as your, I think he said, your personal Lord and Savior, you were saying, make a decision, put your faith in Christ, put your trust in Him. When I did that, I meant it and I would say I've never looked back. I've looked back plenty, but I've tried to keep moving forward or at least get back up when I fall down, right? So, you know, the time lapse testimony is I gave my life to Christ when I'm 16 and here I am today preaching the word of God. Shout out Nairobi.

Shout out Botswana. Shout out Benberg, South Carolina. Keep saying things that start with a bee until you shout out Valentine. Fine. All right. But accepting Jesus was easy. What's not to accept? I mean, he's going to pay for my sins, not my bill at Chewy's.

My sins, my wrongs. He's going to take away my shame. He's going to stand in the place where I deserve to stand. He's going to die for me. He's going to put his resurrection power in me. He's going to pray for me to the Father when I don't have the words to say. I'll take it. This is a good deal.

I'm accepting Jesus. That happened when I was 16. This week I turned 41 years old. That's about the right amount of applause. Somewhere between pity and celebration. That's how I feel. That means it's been 25 years since I accepted Jesus. That's a quarter of the century since I accepted Jesus.

When I accepted Jesus, I bet it took me 25 seconds to walk down the aisle. Boom, boom, boom. I prayed this prayer. I accepted Jesus. 25 seconds. But what's taking me 25 years is accepting Stephen. That hasn't been as easy. He's not perfect.

He's not always forgiving. He doesn't have all wisdom. He doesn't have a lot of things. He's five foot eight and a half. People say things when they meet him like, You look taller on the screen. That's appropriate. Accepting Jesus took a moment.

Accepting me is taking a lifetime. And the longer I live with Stephen, the sicker of him I get. Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before. There is a hymn that went like that. I changed the melody a little bit. Every day with Stephen, I discover a new depth of the depravity. You know, there's good stuff too. I'm not up here just self-flagellating.

Like, I'm so horrible. A lot of y'all suck worse than I do. But the point I'm saying is, I mean, I'm a good man. I love my family. That's not the point I'm trying to make here, and I do good things sometimes. But the point I'm trying to make is to accept Jesus and not accept. Stephen is to miss the gift of salvation where it matters the most. Because Peter doesn't just say he's holy.

He said that the same hymn that was holy is making you holy. Y'all shouldn't have handed me this mic. I preach harder when I hold the mic. I don't know what's wrong. He didn't just say that Jesus was a stone. He said, look at verse 5, verse 5, verse Peter 2.5. He said, you also. So I read this scripture a million times.

I thought, yeah, Jesus was rejected. Jesus was crucified. Jesus came, and the Jewish people didn't receive him, so the gospel I had to go to the Gentiles. Jesus was hung up, and they took Barabbas instead of Jesus on the cross. Yeah, they rejected Jesus. And I thought, well, this is a scripture about how the wisdom of men is always faulty, and the wisdom of God is only wisdom can be trusted, and that's all right there. I missed the hinge, verse 5.

You also. So like he's the stone. that I build on, I'm the stone that he builds on. Yes, you. Yes, you. Yes, you. Who better to hear this from than Peter? Freaking Peter at problems.

Peter was cussing while Jesus was going to the cross. But the promise was to Peter. Jesus said that flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father is in heaven. Watch this. And I say to you that you are Peter and on this rock. Now his faith would still be shaken. He would still, at times in his life, be belligerent, obnoxious. Am I talking about Peter?

Am I talking about Stephen? Am I talking about you? I'm talking about what God builds on, barren wounds. virgin girls, people who have no business being built on. The reason you don't know that is because you've only heard time lapse truth. It happened in like 10 minutes, and then when it's been 10 years for you, am I preaching okay? You don't realize that the same one who is sitting here saying in 1st Peter 2 is the same Peter. Peter, the same Peter that's saying, you are chosen. When Jesus first said, I want to use your boat,

he said, go away from me, Lord, I'm a sinful man. I never caught that before. How far Peter has come to be able to go from saying, not me, you can't use me, to now God is using the same one who tried to push Jesus away. The stone that the builders rejected. It's the one who's the one who preached on the day of Pentecost, the one with the loud mouth, the one who lied about his affiliation with God, the one who couldn't seem. You know, Peter was always the one who was jumping up at the wrong times and shrinking back at the wrongness. And God said, I'm going to build on that.

My kingdom will not be built on prestige and personas and images. My kingdom will not be built on perfect people. No, this kingdom will be built different. See, I'm going to find somebody who's real rock solid, who knows they need grace, and I'll build on that. So now throw both their hands up and say, thank you, Lord, for choosing me, thank you, Lord for saving me, thank you Lord for seeing me. I was so thankful that Jane was up here when I came to preach. You wrote me a letter 10 years ago that I never forgot. I memorized it like it was Bible verses.

The book of Second Jane. Jane Williams. We were celebrating some milestone for the ministry, I don't know, four years or something like that. And she said, I thank God for you. She said, respectfully, I want to tell you something. She said, what God is doing, in you and through you is going to look different than any of the heroes that you have. And she listed them. She knew who my heroes were because I'm unashamedly, you know, I look up to

people in big ways, and she named my heroes. And she said, respectfully, I just want to encourage you to just be open to what the Holy Spirit wants to do through you. I never forgot that letter. Because when we started going away and writing songs together, none of my other pastor friends were writing music and I would quote, you know, 3 Jane 2.14, it's going to be different. It's going to be different. Put that in the chat. It's going to be different. It's going to be different. It's going to be different. It's going to be different. It's going to be different. It's going to be different. It's going to be different. You're trying to build what's on somebody else's box with your pieces. You're trying to squat buck's weight. Bucks built different. He's an alien. He's a freak. He is not a man. He is a machine. You get the point?

He's built different. And the more, look, he said, get rid of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy. Your life is going to be built different. Your season is going to look different. Your timing is going to be different. Everything about it. How God uses you. You know the principle.

What God selects man rejects, what man rejects God selects. I don't remember which order I said it in, but it's true. the way you put it? That's true of you. Your life is true of David, who wasn't even in line to be looked at as a future king, but was still out in the field. Study it. God said, I have rejected Saul, who the people chose, and I chose David, who the people didn't even know was there. The same way that was true of Jesus, the suffering servant. They wanted a king, not a carpenter, and he was both. We should have known that this kingdom was going to look different When we crowned a carpenter as our Savior, that means there's going to be cutting, sanding.

That means that the raw materials don't look like the finished product, but you've got to stay entirely confident in the carpenter's process. Your belief is your blueprint. And all the behaviors that we're trying to change to rebuild our life, if we don't first deal with the belief that caused the behavior, it will be short-term in nature. the change will not stick. It will be a time-lapse transformation, but real transformation takes. It took Peter, if I have my dates correct, roughly 25 years to go from saying, Jesus, you are the chosen one, to being able to say to the Gentiles that he wrote this to, you are the chosen one. You also, but people skip that stuff when they tell you. I'll admit I do it. I have a word, I've heard from the Lord, I'm excited to preach.

When I woke up this morning, my stomach was so tore up. I don't tell you that part. You don't need to know all that. See, it was even too much information right there, and I didn't even say the full sentence. You can't handle this. You don't need to tell everybody everything, but my point of it is don't judge your transformation by somebody else's time lapse. It's just like I said, a million years ago, you know, you're comparing, you're behind the scenes to everybody else's highlight real. Well, this is a matter.

He said, you are being built. So when I walked in and heard Holly telling her friends about when we got to take a COVID test, this is a few weeks ago, and I heard her tell the story. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You didn't tell them the part where when the men stuck the Q-tip in your nose. Can I please tell them? She is looking at me so evil. I might not get a kiss for a month. I don't know if this is worth it.

I mean, when that man put that cut tip up her nose, this woman who was so tough who has delivered three human beings, precious babies into the world. This woman, who I have seen weather storms and controversies and criticisms of the church that were giving our life to build, this woman screamed in agony like she was thrust into the flames of an eternal hell, like she had just survived a head-on collision with a UFO. She screams at the top of her lungs, and the man says, I'm not kidding. Ma'am, I'm not even in the nose yet. It was touching the ridge of her nose. Yes, it's true. Yes, it's true. You didn't tell them that part.

You didn't tell her that part. I got the mic this week. And all she told them, there were all these people around. She said, I got a COVID test. I said, that's all you're going to tell them. And that's all we do. I made it by the grace of God. You barely made it.

You still aren't sure you made it to make me take my sweater off the breach Everything we showed you for the 15-year anniversary was a time-lapse testimony You don't get to see the deleted scenes, but I know them deep down and that's what gives me confidence for the grace of God To know that he will begin it will be faithful to I'm looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. And what's so weird about us is that knowing all this, that God is building us as stones, and that means we need each other because it's not a singular stone. We will isolate ourselves and think we have to be good at everything.

No, no, this kingdom's going to be built different. The kingdoms of this world are built on self-reliance and independence. The kingdom of God is built on a coming together of imperfect people. Yeah, built different. This kingdom is built different. It's enhanced by the imperfections. It enables grace. It enables us to fit with one another, that we're not perfect.

It's an amazing thing. It's an absolutely amazing thing that I can accept Jesus and not accept me. And yet the scripture says that the process of maturity is offering to God a spiritual sacrifice, that's my life, acceptable through Jesus. through Jesus. So the real challenge of my faith will not be accepting Jesus. It will be accepting his process with me. And if that's sanding and if that's cutting, and if that means that I've been looking at the wrong box and that God wants to build something completely different in my life than what I had in mind, that I'm good with it. Now, I don't have any clock. I don't know how long I've been preaching, but can I show you one more thing? Somebody say, build you.

different. That's a statement of clarity, right? It helps you to know, hey, man, it's all right if my life doesn't look like your life or if my gift doesn't look like your gift or if my timeline doesn't look like your timeline. Who gave you your blueprint to begin with? Your beliefs are your blueprint. And for most of us, we never really checked out what model we're building according to. And what happens in a marriage is that you, you see, essentially repeat the same blueprint that was demonstrated in front of you without ever stopping to analyze. Is there a new blueprint that God wants to give our family?

Nobody was supposed to have a church this diverse in Charlotte, North Carolina. But God had a blueprint that we were building according to before we knew what the blueprint was. So I love the picture. I think I'll make this the last thing that I share with you today. When Moses is building the tabernacle, where God's presence would dwell in the wilderness, remember it was mobile. The tabernacle you had to be able to follow, kind of like life is right now.

You've got to plant everything in pencil right now, with a big, fat eraser, just to know that everything's moving, right? to know that the blueprint might not be what we think it is. There was a verse that always got my attention. I would use it to talk to leaders. And the verses after God has given Moses these very specific instructions about, here's how you build the curtains for the tabernacle. Here's how you build.

He goes into great detail about the lampstands and the table of presents where the showbread was. And he gives great instructions about where the covenant was to be kept. All of these things in the holy of holies, the most holy place. And then there's a verse where it's like God is reminding Moses, because he showed him all this on Mount Sinai, where he gave him the law, he gave him the instructions, he gave him the vision, he gave him the blueprint. He says, after telling him all of where the furniture should go in the tabernacle, he tells him in Exodus 2540, please, see that you make them according to the pattern. shown you on the mountain. See to it that when you come down from this place where I'm giving you a revelation of what's real, and you have to go down into everyday life where people are, you have to go down into everyday life where problems are, you have to go down into everyday

life where confusion is, you have to go down to everyday life where things aren't so direct connection. See to it. that the pattern you build according to is not the pattern that you see in the world, but the pattern that you see in my presence. And I think it's so hard for us because God gives us these great glimpses of the kind of person that we can be becoming. You see it through somebody else. You hear it in a moment.

You glimpse it. You get a glimpse of it. And then you've got to carry that glimpse all the way down into the district. of your real life. I mean, let's be honest. Now, because many are having church in home, you don't even get to just have church by yourself anymore. Even as I'm preaching this, there is a distraction.

While I am giving you the details that God gave me to give to you for what he's building your life and designing your life according to, there's stuff running around all over your house. Some of you even have AirPods then because you're embarrassed to be listening to a sermon in front of your roommates because they know how you really live and you don't want them to make fun of you. So now you've got to take the faith that God birth while I was preaching in your ear and live it out loud in the face of people who might not respect or expect or accept you at all. But don't worry about it because God selects what people reject.

Don't you turn around and do the opposite. Don't reject what makes you special. Don't downplay what makes you destined. Don't you take what God gave you on the mountain and the true you and build with an old blueprint? And I read that and thought, that's it right there. You got to take what God shows you on the mountain and build it in the valley. You've got to take what you know to be true when you feel joy and apply it when you feel depressed. You've got to take the blueprint of what God showed you as supposed to look like and just build and hammer.

You've got to build an arc when you've never seen. rain. You've got to build in the valley what God showed you on the mountain and not take a vote of a committee of cynics who are going to tell you it can't be done. He told Moses, make sure that you put all the furniture where it goes in the tabernacle according to what I showed you on the mountain. And you know what's crazy, Chris? Moses had a pattern that was shown to him on Mount Sinai, but that's not the mountain that we get our pattern from. That's the mountain where God gave the law to his people. The kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate is built different.

It's not built on Mount Sinai with rumbling thunder, flashing lightning and wrath. It was built on a hill far away, stood an old rugged cross. See, the mountain that I want to pattern my life after is not Sinai. Where the law lives, the mountain that I want to pattern my life after is called Calvary, where grace is greater than all my sin and shame. So what I think God is saying more than anything else is to make sure that you are building by grace. Building by grace. So that when your faith runs out, Peter, and you run short,

And when your faith runs out and your answers aren't there, and when your faith runs out, and your explanations fall short, that you have a greater grace working in your life. See, God is not going to build the rest of your life based on what you deserve. No, no, no. It is built on a much truer foundation than that. This foundation cannot be shaken. If the rain blows, if the winds blow, if the streams rise, if it begins rise, If it beats against your house, it will have its foundation on the rock, and it will stand firm. And that's what you've been learning in this season of your life.

You've faced some rejection. Some doors have been shut. Some things have gone wrong. Some things have toppled. Some truths have been tested. Ah, but it's not about the furniture. It's about the foundation. God can move it all around.

But how great a foundation, how firm a foundation is Jesus. Lord, if you know you've got the right foundation, give God a shout of praise right now. Hallelujah! So, Lord, I released this word in the spirit you gave it to me. You said to tell these people that if a thousand fall at their right or their left, it will not come nigh them because they're built different. You told me to tell them that though the world may be dismayed and discouraged, not so with them, because we're built different.

You told me to tell them that in a divided time place, politically that your church still stands together united under the only name that matters because we're built different. And upon this rock, you have built your church. And upon this rock, you are building our lives. And upon this rock of revelation, you are building an understanding that can never be shaken. And we praise you for it. In Jesus' name, come on, lift up a high praise if you receive it.

You believe it that the stone the builders rejected, that the stone the builders rejected is the chief cornerstone. So, Lord, here we are. We're not shifting sand. Our lives are built on you. The solid rock, the one who never walks away, the one who never gives out. I pray for people today who have been flapping back and forth. And maybe they've been more concerned with the furniture than the foundation. Maybe they've been more concerned with certain little items and things in their life and this going right and that going right. But none of that mattered when the storm came. Only what mattered was what is it built on.

Lord, we want to build what we behold in your presence. Today you showed us some things. feel it while I was preaching. You were showing us some things. All we ever see is what's wrong with us. Today you showed us what's right with you. And if I can accept Jesus and Jesus except Stephen, I got to accept me too. We joined with Peter's pronouncement today. He said it to people thousands of years ago, but he was saying it for us too. You are a chosen people. Once you weren't, now you are. Lift your hands like you're receiving on the mountain.

God, give me a new blueprint. This week, I've been looking at some of the wrong models. Give me a new blueprint for how to spend my day, for how to spend my week. Give me a new blueprint. For how to handle temptation and pressure and stress. Give me a new blueprint. For how to treat other people when they're unfair to me. Give me a new blueprint for what significance really is because I need it.

Listen to me. I know who's four, I got to say it. What is built on determines what it can be destroyed by. So anything that isn't built on Jesus, who is eternal, can be destroyed by something that is temporal. Our chosen people. Peter was chosen while he was cussing. He was chosen while he was preaching. Upon this rock, the living stone, rejected by men.

Accepted by God. Receive it. Just receive it. Say, I receive it. I receive it. If you receive the word, make sure you not only receive the word, but apply it and share it. You know, you could take a moment right now. If you watch the whole sermon and it blessed you, share it. Share it with somebody right now. God can use you as a witness and make sure you're subscribed. I want to thank all of you who pray for me and Holly and our team here. And those of you who give and so into the kingdom of God. When we say that you're a chosen people. God has chosen us to make a difference in this time. So let us choose to do the things that God has called us to do,

to do the work he's called us to do to build his kingdom. I'm so grateful for what he's doing, give him all the glory. I'll see you next time. Pray for us. We're praying for you. We love you. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.