Elevation with Steven Furtick - Come Through Drippin

Episode Date: January 1, 2019

It's not what you went through. It's why you went through it. To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: http://ele.vc/TI55jRSee 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. Welcome to the praise party. I said, welcome to the praise party. All over the world, we'd like to welcome you into our home. This is our family. I pray that whatever campus you're watching on, the presence of God is permeating that atmosphere like it's permeating this one. There is a sense of hope, eagerness, and really a purity of faith that is in this room tonight.

It's the kind of atmosphere that makes it easy for God to move because he doesn't have to try to get our attention. He already has it. And so now that we're here and now that we made it, let's really seize this opportunity to go into the Word of God. and to see what he would speak to us on this occasion. I might as well let you know up front, because I believe in being honest and direct, that I am absolutely ready and prepared for you tonight. I heard that you were coming, and I cooked something. I feel like that I know exactly what God wants me to say,

what He wants us to do, and what He has said that He will do for us if we will do what He's going to tell us to do that he already told me that I'm going to tell you. tell you over the next few moments. To me, this is a very precious night. I started having the praise party in 2013, right around the time that Holly and I got so old that we were having trouble staying up and watching the ball drop.

I said, this is pitiful. What we need to do is start our year with some other people that are having trouble staying awake. And maybe if we all caffeinate together and come up. together and seek God together, we can start the year with a disposition of belief and an expectation of greater things. I want to say thank you to the church family that I pastor. I know there are many guests here and our eFAM around the world, but I wanted everybody

to hear this what I'm about to say. I am really, really becoming more and more aware of what a privilege it is and a sacred trust it is that you would allow me as a leader and Holly as a leader and our family to have this part in your life to be able to minister to you in those moments of your life where you don't know if you can go on or where you're seeking direction from above to be able to stand in this spot week in and week out for another year and declare the word of the Lord is nothing to take for granted and I want to thank you for allowing me to be on the journey with you. That's a real privilege.

Wherever you are in the world, I know our church feels this way. It is an honor to minister God's word to you. It's really a great privilege and a joy. And so stand up, just in case, love you too, just in case you're starting to nod off. Stand up. And I want to read you this scripture,

and it is a familiar scripture, and it is an epic scenario. It's found in Exodus chapter 14. You like that one? I feel so good up here right now. Anything could happen tonight. I mean, I don't know if it was the 13 cups of coffee or the Holy Ghost. I think they work in tandem.

But I just feel good because normally on a weekend I have to behave and there's a lot of constraints. I just feel like tonight should be our night. You know what I mean? Like usually we have to kind of just tone it down in case there's guests. and visitors and all that. But I don't want to do that tonight. I don't want to do that tonight.

No, no. I didn't put on my best jean jacket just to come in here. But this scripture in Exodus 14 is of course all about transition and victory. This is appropriate for tonight. But let me read it to you. Verse 26, Exodus 14. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen. the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea, not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right. Look to your right. And on their left, look to your left. Okay, why are you going to turn in two different directions? It's a universal kind of thing.

But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground. But the Israelites, this is how you can tell I belong to God because I went through the sea on dry ground. Do me a favor, since this is a party, everybody participate. And look at your neighbor on your right or your left, you choose. I'm going to leave that much up to you. But now let me tell you what to tell them. You're going to give them my title.

Tell them this. Say, I don't know what you went through in 2018. But you made it. And tell them, hold on, no, that's not it. That's not it. We're not done. Tell them, since you came through, you might as well come through drip it. Please be seated.

you 2018 didn't go like you plan for it to go. Messed up your workout plan and your knees started hurting. You were paying off some stuff and then your transmission and plan for that, which is why, of course, I don't come up here and do the predictable preaching maneuver where I challenge you to make New Year's resolutions. because resolutions are cheap. Resilience is priceless. I want to lay a foundation for what I want to say from the text from a study that was done. The article was printed in the New Yorker several years ago, and I saved it because I thought it would be helpful for us to look at it at some point in the future, and that point is now. And the writer of the article, George Banana. Banana. If you're watching George, I try.

Was talking about how the central element of resilience is perception and that there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a traumatic event. The reason he came to this conclusion was because he interviewed. children, over 600 of them, who had gone through the worst possible situations imaginable and found out that many of the children who went through the worst situations came out with the greatest emotional stability and sense of connectivity. And so from that, he concluded, listen, that events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic. And he wasn't necessarily negating the post-traumatic stress of growing up in a broken home or going to war and then coming back to a situation that is so foreign to the experience of the battle that you fought that you cannot find your own equilibrium.

But what he was saying is much deeper than that. He said that to call something a traumatic event belies the fact. And so he coined a term PTE, not P-T-S-D, which is a very real thing, no doubt. But his term was potentially traumatic event, which he argues is a more accurate way to look at the things that we go. through in our lives, the theory is straightforward. Every frightening event, or you might insert painful event, no matter how negative it might seem from the sidelines, has the potential to be traumatic or not to the person experiencing it.

I don't know if you agree with that or if it was a little bit boring and you didn't pay much attention, but wake up now. He's making a distinction between what we went through. and what we do with what we went through. I couldn't think of a more appropriate group of people to come and share this evening with us than the Israelites in this, the birth of their nation as such, and their escape from Egypt, where they had been slaves for over 400 years. As God told Abram that his people would be in Genesis chapter 15 many years earlier. But now as they are coming out of that season of their life, they are carrying with them much of the trauma from what they experienced in Egypt. And they're escaping this place that had become so painful for them because of the unrealistic and inhumane pressure that they were under as slaves or service.

servants in Egypt under a taskmaster who did not know Joseph and did not remember or regard the people of God as special. The trauma of what they had been through in that 400 years would be impossible to cover in 40 minutes tonight. And I hope you'll give me a little grace as I kind of brush past some things that probably for them would be much more, much more traumatic than my summary would lead you to believe, but you understand that they were so oppressed in this period of being in Egypt, not only were they forced to do a job that they weren't paid for, but they were forced to do it with not enough materials. By the way, have you ever felt that way like trying to raise kids and get through life and do what you need to do in the world? And I'm not comparing us to them, but many of the things that they went through, while not similar situationally, might have a similar psychological effect in that what they went through had left them traumatized in a sense.

And tonight, I have to believe that the reason you came here, whether you thought you came here for this reason or not, is that there are some traumas, even if they're micro traumas, that God wanted to deal with some tears in the tissue. of the muscle fiber that God wanted to deal with specifically and surgically in the way that only his spirit can and he brought you here tonight, maybe under the pretense of just having nothing else to do, or maybe there was a girl who asked you to come and maybe you're more excited about after church than during church, but you're stuck with me for a few minutes. I'm going to talk to you for a few minutes while I can with this microphone and talk to you about some of the things that you went through. And also, I would add to you to you. that that you probably came to celebrate a little bit.

I mean, it's not like everybody here tonight had the worst year of their life. I can never understand that why we're so, why we're so hasty to want to leave this year. One of the ways I can tell when my life is out of alignment is when I'm in a hurry for no good reason. Like, it's one thing to be in a hurry and there's a reason that I'm in a hurry and I can point to the next thing on my schedule that I'm trying to get to. But when I'm in too much of a hurry and there's nowhere that I'm going, it's a sign that something is wrong in my life. It's a sign that something is not working right. And so now we find the Israelites not serving Pharaoh and building the different construction projects that he has ordered to be built, but they are escaping Egypt, which is interesting in itself. because originally they escaped to Egypt because there was a famine at home.

But over a period of many years and a transition of leadership, what they escaped to, they became enslaved by. Sometimes this happens in all of our lives is that we're so tired of being alone that we escape to a relationship. relationship that in the end produces a worse loneliness than being alone ever could. Sometimes we cry tears because we escape to something that we ultimately become enslaved by. Sometimes the thing that we run to is more dangerous than the thing that we're running from. It wasn't their fault.

Sometimes we make decisions to run to certain things, but really they had to go to Egypt, only to fulfill the prophecy which extended into the New Testament, which we know at Christmas time that out of Egypt I have called my son, which ultimately projects into the very life of Jesus Christ himself. It's an arc of a narrative that God was creating for deliverance for his people before they were ever born, but now they're in transition. And transition is dramatic. Even the good kind.

Even when God blesses you in the way that you asked him to. A lot of times you find out that what you ask God for weighed more than you were prepared to carry. Have you ever had your prayer request turn into your praise report and then turn back into your prayer request? And so transition is traumatic. Whether I'm devolving into a dire circumstance or whether God is elevating me and developing me into something greater, transition is always traumatic and so perhaps tonight you're not bringing your traumas to church maybe you're bringing some trophies to church hey I had a pretty good year you know some things happened for me this year that I never thought could happen and some things happened for me this

year that that I really had looked forward to for a long time but I had some things happened for me this year like I had a breakthrough in an area that that I'd been running up against the same thing over and over again. I had a breakthrough. Somebody that I was praying for, they got better this year. Something that I had been struggling with for a long time. I don't struggle with it as much anymore. I mean, it's still there, but it's not overwhelming me. It's not overcoming me. It hadn't been as dark this year. I've experienced some of the goodness of the Lord that at once I only forecast it. This year, it came into my life, and it rained over my life, and I'm here tonight not only to bring before the Lord my traumas, but my trophies.

Because I want to acknowledge before my blessings turn into pride that I want to turn back to praise God for every victory that he gave me this year. And make no mistake about it. Every mountain that I stood on this year, I did not get there alone. Not at all. I'm not smart enough. I'm not sharp enough. I'm not connected enough. And so whatever state of transition we find ourselves in, in a given moment of our life,

it can be traumatic. Yet the men said that the experience is not inherent in the event, rather it is your perception of the event and how much resilience you have. The children of Israel were nothing if not resilient. were resilient, even when they didn't have a lot of resources, they were resilient. Even when they were complaining, they were resilient. Even when they had a bad attitude, they were resilient. In fact, the Bible says something kind of weird.

It says that the more that Pharaoh oppressed them, the more they multiplied. And I don't know if I'm looking at anybody tonight that just turns. stuff into this year that transformed and converted stuff this year that happened in your life that might have caused other people to quit. But look at you in church after all that. Come on nudge somebody next to you. Say, after all that. Look at me.

After all that, I'm still cute. After all that. I'm not petty or bitter. After all that, don't get me wrong. I have a reason to be, and I could be in a sour state of mind tonight, but I decided to do it differently this year. I decided to bring all my trauma and all my trophies into the presence of God. Come on, hit somebody say I came through.

Now, one difference between us and the Israelites is that they came through something physical that you could see. Did you see it in the text? It's really beautiful how the text paints the picture, and it's not only the event that it describes, but it's the entire trajectory of deliverance that is depicted in the whole book of Exodus, which is one of the major themes of the Bible from beginning to end. For many years, I thought salvation was just what we were saved from. But the big picture of God's purpose for your life and my life is what we're saved too.

And so on this journey to freedom, not just from sin, but freedom to, they're going, this is the crazy thing about God. When he brings you out of something, he does not let you choose your escape route. Because I should probably talk about this. Because there is a Bible verse that says, God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. that with the temptation, he will provide the way of escape. But it promises he will provide the way of escape. It does not promise that he will let you pick the way of escape. It is not a multiple choice.

It is not a choose-your-own-adventure escape route. So God's way of escape is not up for debate. When God calls you out, he leads you sometimes in strange ways. which is why they must have been so disappointed when Moses took them on those backcountry roads to camp out right in front of the Red Sea. Because it would have been shorter, even the Bible says it would have been shorter. It wasn't just their opinion. The Bible says it would have been shorter if they would have gone through Philistine country,

but they weren't ready for war yet. A lot of times when God brings you from point A to point B, he takes you on a zigzag because he knows, and I don't mean to hurt your feelings, how fragile your faith is, even if you don't. And so he brings them out on a way of escape that to them must have seemed long. But they could deal with it. They didn't complain about that. What must have seemed really weird to them was when they heard the wheels of the chariots, the horsepower of the engines of Pharaoh's 600 chosen chariots coming up behind them

when they thought they had left Egypt and they were done with that. Now we're at the text in verse 26 where the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand. I'm so excited to share this with you. God showed me something this week that was so cool. Because the first time Moses stretched out his hand, which had a staff in it, the sea parted so that the Israelites could go through so that they could walk through what they shouldn't have been able to walk through. Now, there are some things that God did in your life this year with a strong east wind that if he didn't do those things, you wouldn't have been able to go through.

Within yourself, come on, admit it. Within your own strength, with your DNA, and with your dad and your mom and their jeans still kicking around in a cage fight inside of you, you would not have gone through it. You would have stopped in the middle of it and you would have drowned. But one thing about God is he is only known

by the evidence of what he does. he is not experienced directly. The Bible says that the reason they went through is because a wind blew from the east and made the waters stand at attention so that the people could go through. Now, you can't see wind. You can only see the effects of the wind. You ask me how I know God is real. I can't point to his nose or his ears.

I've never heard his audible voice. But there are just some things in my life that don't make. sense unless there was a wind blowing. There are just some things. How about you? There are just some things that I went through that I know me and I would not have had the grace to go through it if there hadn't been something working with me. Now let's get into the text.

This is a good part. Tell somebody, say, come through. So Moses is stretching out his staff so the people can, trying to do it. get you tonight. I'm trying to get you tonight to come through. I think it would be a shame for you to be stuck in an inferior version of yourself clutching onto a beta blessing when there is an update available in this house tonight by the Spirit of God. So I'm trying to get you to come through. But by the time verse 26 hits, they've already done that. They're already on the other side. I mean, you already, you already made it through 2018. You don't have to come to a

church for that. The odds are good. You wouldn't have died over these three hours that you're going to be in church. You were good. That's not why you came. That is not why you came. And sometimes we get so focused on whatever we went through, and it makes sense because it's traumatic. I get it. Well, I really don't. I shouldn't say that. That's not fair for me to say, because I don't know what you went through. So how dare me stand up here and say, I know what you... I don't know.

I know what I went through this year. And it wasn't all stuff that you could see like this water that was on either side of the Israelites. To me, it would be easier if everybody could watch you go through what you went through so they could have some pity on you and be extra nice to you, give you extra sprinkle.

goes on your cupcakes because after all, if I went through what you went through, I'd be in a bad mood, too. Wouldn't be cool. If everybody could see what you went through and they could experience, you know, it'd be nice. But every storm that we survived this year wasn't something that other people could see. It's one thing when you walk through something physical, like certain things you go through, people see you going through it. It's like, man, I heard your husband has cancer. We got you. We'll pray for you. We're going to get through this together. You're going to come through this. We're going to do it.

When you lose your job, you know, people hear about that. Maybe you don't even want them to, but they hear about it. And then it's kind of embarrassing on one hand because everybody's coming up to you. We're praying for you. If you need anything, let us know. I know you're going through right now. And although that's a little humiliating on one hand, it's helpful on the other because then you get to be the beneficiary of other people's empathy and maybe even their material

support. What's a little different is when the thing that you went through isn't something that you can point to and directly name. Because sometimes I find myself going through things that aren't like the Red Sea. It's not something I can exactly describe to you. Did you ever go through something? And while you were going through it, you didn't even know what it was. Just a phone, just a thing, just some stuff. Just I'm going through.

I even tell some people from time to time that pray for me. I'm like, I'm just going through. I can't say what. I don't even know. It's like the Bible describes the arrow by day or the terror at night. And sometimes the thing about what you go through in the night is you can't exactly see it to name it or to know what it is. And in the passage that I'm preaching from tonight, they were going through what they went through was able to be seen visibly. But maybe what you went through this year wasn't.

Maybe it was a divorce. Maybe it was just a loveless home, but you're so good at faking other people out that they're all praying they could have a marriage like yours. Meanwhile, yours is falling apart. Some of the things that you go through, what happened to the praise party? Some of the things you go through aren't so simple. Now, although this is dramatic, one advantage that they had is they went through it together. By this time, the Israelites are millions strong. And to go through something with others who are going through the same thing that you're going through is one thing.

When the stock market sucks, it sucks for all of us. We get to go through that together. When the government is out of control, we all go through that together. But there's something about the things that you go through that nobody is going through with you that makes it difficult for you to know, is there something wrong with me? Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the only one who wants to quit? Am I the only one who wonders God, or do you really even there?

Or is this thing I've been believing my whole life just a fairy tale that my parents told me like Santa Claus? Some of the things that we went through this year were invisible. Some of the things we went through this year were emotional states. And there wasn't even always something to cause it. It would be nice if there was. It would be better if I did lose my job. I'd have a reason to be pissed off. Come back next week and I won't say pissed off.

It's just late and I'm unfiltered and unhinged and unplugged. But watch me. The miracle is in what they went through. The proof that you belong to God is not that you didn't go through, but that what you went through didn't kill you. I'm going to need you to shout right here on this point, whether you feel it or not on every location. Come on tell somebody I went through.

I went through. I figured if I stand here in front of this Red Sea, I'm going to die at the hands of the same Egyptians that have been terrorizing me, but I'm not going to stand here and die. If I'm going to die, I want to drown. I'm going through. I'm going through. If I'm going to die, I'm going through. Now, I love the Word of God.

I love the fact that they went through. But the point of tonight is not what you went through. It's not what you went through as much as what you went through as a lot. important and as much as what you went through is indicative of some of the things that you might need to deal with. I'm not saying that it's not important what you went through. I'm saying that that's not what God told me to talk to you about tonight on this auspicious occasion at Elevation Church Praise Party, 2018-19, as we are 31 minutes away from

a new year Eastern Standard Time, United States of America. God said, don't you spend this whole sermon talking about what they went through? He said right in the middle of the sermon, I want you to shift it from what they went through to why they went through. And now we need to go back to the text because remember, there's water on their right side, water on their left side. For their enemies, it was a trap, but for them it was a path. And now they're on the other side.

And so it seems strange that God would tell them to do anything other than run. But he tells Moses to do something that God wants you to do tonight. And he says, I want you to take the instrument in your hand that is a symbol of your past, that is a symbol of the mistakes that you made when you killed the Egyptian Moses and ran and hid him in the sand and then hid yourself. The staff that is the symbol of your potential, the same one that you used to turn the Nile River to blood in those ten plagues. of Egypt. I want you to take that same instrument. And before you leave Egypt, stretch it back over what you just went through. And when you do, you will understand the purpose of what you went through. God brought you here tonight. If I can be so boldest to say that, I believe

this applies to everyone in the room who will have the faith to receive it. because he wants to use what you went through. That's the good news. Got to tell you the whole thing. God wants to use what you went through, and so does the devil. And the question in this moment is, will you allow God to use what you went through? Watch this. And when he had finished leading an entire nation all night long in the dark with water that

could collapse on them at any moment, don't you think they moved fast through this tunnel of supernatural, miraculous potential death that at any moment could sweep them away and they make it to the other side and God says, stop. Before you take another step, I need you to destroy. stretch your hand back over what you just went through. The water that you just went through was not sent to destroy you. Can I tell you something? Everything that made you afraid this year was not the devil.

Everything that made you cry this year was not the devil. Everything that broke your heart this year was not the devil. Everything that you lost this year was not the devil. that didn't go according to plan this year was not the devil. Some of the stuff that was sent against you was not sent to destroy you. At the time it felt like it would. At the time you felt like you would never be happy again. At the time you felt like you would just drive away and never come back. At the time you felt like you would never find that love, that passion, that feeling again. At the time it felt like it would kill you. But the thing that you went through

was not meant to destroy you. And when you stretch your hand over what you went through, what you went through is going to deliver you from what you just came out of. Let me see if I got this right. What I went through could have killed me, but it didn't. Hit somebody say, but it didn't. It didn't. I could have laid down and died in what I went through.

Say, but I didn't. Tell them I could have lost my mind. But I don't know, maybe you did. But here's the point of the message. Here's the point of the message. Whatever you went through that did not destroy you, God is now going to use to deliver you. Come to this side to see if you believe the word of God. It's in the B-I-B-L-E.

He said what you just went through if you will stop at this moment at this juncture in this time in this season and stretch your hand over what you went through It's not meant to kill you. It's meant to kill your enemies It was never gonna kill you no weapon formed against you Went through there were some things that God had to kill so they wouldn't Kill me! That's why I had to deal with some things in me, enemy. God had to drown some of my enemy. And I see, look at verse 30.

I didn't give you that, did I? I forgot to give you verse 30. I'm so sorry. It said when they look back that the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. What do you want to look at this year? What you went through? Or what God did in you?

Through what you went through. God deliver me? You know he's not going to do that. In a cute, comfortable, convenient place. Some stuff that you went through this year. Now, if you don't process it correctly, if you just am in a hurry to get out of 2018? Don't be surprised when you hear the chariot wheels in 2019.

We'll be right back here in 365 days, shouting over nothing all over again. And the Lord gave me this word. It's more like an image from the text. It said that Moses, the way I saw it in my mind was that the water had done something supernatural all night long so the Israelites could get through. God kept stuff away from you this year so you could get through. But when the time came for them to leave, God said, stop. You got 22 minutes left in the year. And before you're in such a hurry to get out, turn around and stretch, what's the verse?

Verse 28? Stretch your staff. And the water flowed back. and covered the cherries. The water flowed back. So it had been like this, and then it went like that, and then the enemies went like that,

and the people of God went like that. So God said to tell you, it's time for you to flip the flow. Touch the person on either side of you and see if they can get it, say, flip the flow. It's been going this way, it's been going this way. All year long, it's been going this way,

but tonight we can't. to flip the flow. And everything that was against me this year, now Romans 828 says, oh, I got a New Testament verse two, that all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord. Is that you? Do you still love him? If you're still your friend, do you still trust him after what you went through? If that's you, then all were together. High five, 18 people say flip the flow. Flip the flow. Flip the flow. Instead of concentrating on all the moments that it didn't go your way this year, flip the flow. What went right, what did work out, who did stay, who did give you

a hug? How did he meet your knees? How did he come through? Did he come through for you? Flip the flow. Stop focusing so much on what you did or didn't get. Maybe it isn't about what God wanted to do for you this year as much as it is about what he wants to do through you in the future. Because I sense a little bit of confusion. I'm going to be honest with you. It's like, all right. All right. All right. Pastor.

Pastor Steve, this is inspirational. Don't get me wrong. Amire your enthusiasm. But you said come through dripping. And the text said, Verse 29. The text sat, I'm staying this voice on. The text said, and they came through on dry ground.

See, it's right there in the... And that's all the people who don't know the definition of drip, except in the technical sense. And I didn't either. I didn't either. No, I was clueless. I didn't know either until Graham came in my closet. One day this summer, he was going through my drawers where I keep my watches. He got a couple watches in there.

Got a few chains in there. And that boy had gone in my drawer, my jewelry drawers, and put every chain in my jewelry drawer, 11 years old, every chain around his neck all at the same time. And when I said, you know, where are you doing? My drawers He said Dad, what if I went to school The first day of school this year

Dripping And I'm so clueless now I'm really not as cool As some of y'all want to give me credit for you Just project your own coolness onto me I am not cool I'm a little Bible preacher from Monks Corner South Carolina To which I said, is it going to be raining?

Probably better dry off You probably not better go to school dripping He said no dad dripping like drip drip like Cardi B like offset like flexing like dripping I said oh you mean dripping drip drip drip drip he played me the song ice real quick that's nice can I have it can I have it yeah thank you appreciate thank you that's nice can I have it that's nice can I have it Appreciate it. I'll buy you another one. God's going to honor your faith. Can I have it? Everything you got. Can I have it? Can I have it? Not the wedding one. That's sketchy on every level.

You have it? Because I still didn't tell you what Drippin has to do with the children of Israel. And I understand that it's a little confusing because typically when this passage is preached, all that we ever really talk about is what they went through. 430 years of oppression. And after that, the plagues that they endured and the time at midnight when the angel came through and struck down the first born of Egypt. But if they had the blood on the doorpost at midnight when the angel came by, if they had the blood on the doorposts, when the angel came by at midnight, if they had the blood on the doorposts when the angel came by at midnight, if they distinguished themselves. At midnight, the angel passed by them. And when Pharaoh finally let the people go, there is one thing that I have seldom heard mentioned in messages that I always found I.

And to really understand how the people of God not only went through the Red Sea, but how they came out of Egypt, you need to see something in Exodus chapter 3. When God first spoke to Moses that I think is so important for us to understand tonight before we leave 2018 Before we leave the pain of it the trauma of it the successes of it the victories of it There's one thing that I think we need to do tonight Before we leave Whatever Egypt whatever suffering psychological or physical whatever

What ever bondage whatever has forced itself on us in this year in whatever way. Before we leave it, let's not be too quick to leave and just expect that because the calendar changes our lives will. And it's really interesting what God said to Moses. He said, go to Pharaoh and tell him, let my people go and tell him that you're taking all the livestock to sacrifice to me in the wilderness and tell him that you're going for a three-day journey to sacrifice to the Lord your God. And he's not going to let you do it, but you've got to be

resilient. He's not going to let you go easily because you're valuable. Freedom isn't going to come with a good feeling. Freedom is going to come by force and focus and frequency. By force and focus and frequency. By force and focus and frequency. Deliverance isn't going to be a magic trick in your life or my life, no more than it was for the nation of Israel, there will be a discipline of sustainable deliverance in each of our lives, because God will give us the way of escape, but he will not let us choose the way of escape down the road of ease that we might select in our most comfortable moments. And yet God said, I want to show you the reason for what you went through.

Not only did the water come to cover the enemies of the Israel. Not only I love God for what he does, he uses what I went through to set me free from where I came from. He knows if he doesn't kill certain things in my life. I will operate by the same template from my childhood. I'll operate in the same patterns. I'll stay locked in the same prisons if he doesn't kill it. So he brings me through deep waters to drown my enemies. But watch this. He said, before you go, I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people so that when you leave, I wonder is this true in 2018. So that when you leave, so that before we count down to midnight all over the world, so that when you leave, and you put this one in the books, so that when you leave, I prophesied this. over you. You will not leave empty handed. So watch what I want you to do. Every woman, God told Moses, every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters so that when you

cross out of Egypt on dry ground, you come through dripping. I feel God on this sermon. I said, I feel God on this sermon. I don't just want you to come out. I want you to come dripping. And so you will plunder the Egyptians. By the way, y'all, we called this a praise party, But it's not. It's a praise plunder. We got to make sure before we leave 2018 We did everything that God has for us in the form of a blessing in the form of a lesson And so you will plunder the Egyptians So when you come through you make sure you don't come through like you went in God that's why I wanted us here tonight

Because why would we want to come through? all of this and come out empty-handed. I didn't go through 2018 just to wave goodbye to it. I didn't work this hard in Egypt and suffer this much in Egypt and push through the things I pushed through not to receive the benefit of it. No, I came here on this night, on midnight of the last night, On the last stop. Because I want to come through. Saturated. The presence of God.

Saturated with the glory of God. Overflowing with the glory of God. Come on, I don't want to leave this year empty. I don't want to come into this praise party. Yeah, I've been through some things. Yeah, there were some things that tried to take me out. And there are some things that I still got to deal with. But I didn't come to church to come through Dragon.

I'm coming through dripping. And watch this. It doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed. It doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed. You can be disappointed and still come through dripping. You can be like Samuel, the prophet who prayed for Saul, and coached Saul, and mentored Saul. And there came a time where God rejected Saul, which the people had chosen.

And Samuel was so hurt about it that he wasn't even sure if he wanted to go on when he saw how little his investment had yielded. But God told Samuel something that it was in my heart to say to you before we hit midnight. He said, I need you to stop mourning over what I have rejected. that I have already made a plan to replace in your life. And so here's your instruction. Here's your instruction. Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. And when you get to Jesse's house,

he's going to line up all of his sons that he thinks should be the next in line to be a possible king. But don't look at it like people look at it. Don't look to see who's the tallest or who's the strongest. I need you to stop judging your life by what you can see and take that oil and take that joy and take that strength that you've got left and take those lessons that you learned this year And when I tell you it's the one I want you to empty that cruise of oil on his head now David wasn't even in the room when they started lining up suns He was overlooked but by the time God spoke he went back to the sheepfield dripping Why is not what people do to you

you. It's not what people see in you. It's not what people have said about you. If the oil of God is on your life, dripping. I'm dripping. I'm dripping. My feet are dry, but I'm dripping on the inside. God brought me through, but I've got a power that is not of this world. So tonight we flip the flow. We flip the flow. Stand up to your feet. We're going to flip this. We're going to flip this. We're not going to Going into 2018 or 2019 or whatever comes next, it all runs together. We're not going in dry. We could have done that at home. We didn't need a praise party for that.

A praise plunder for that. We came to get everything that God wanted us to have and leave everything that he didn't. So we do not go away in terms. handle. This is not a gimmick. I don't preach for gimmicks. The Lord showed me that Moses was not the only one who stretched over something that had threatened to kill the people. And he took me to John Chapter 19, where the Bible records that when Jesus stretched his arms and they drove nails into his wrists and into his feet, and the soldier took a six-foot spear with an iron tip and plunged it into his side as he hung on the cross.

The Bible says that from his side began to flow the blood and the water. When blood flows from someone, usually it is a sign of the loss of life. But Jesus flipped the flow. And when his blood, I feel the spirit of God so strong on me right now. receive this wherever you are whatever you've been through God said I'm about to flip everything that you have been through and it is going to now be to your advantage come on every rejection was setting you free from the need for people I wanted you to depend on me every failure was setting you free from the need to keep up an image I want

you to depend on me Come on, let's flip it. Let's flip it. Let's flip it from what we went through to why we went through. I need a new definition of drip. For too long, I thought that it was what I wore, or it was what I earned, or it was what I had. But I found out that's not what it means. I'm talking about a different kind of drip.

I'm talking about when the Spirit of God is in abundant supply in your life to anoint you for every assignment that God has prepared for you to do in advance this year. You're not coming in dry. You're coming in dripping. I got what it takes. I am exactly who I need to be. High five. Somebody say, I'm dripping.

I'm dripping. The presence of God is so strong on me. The purpose of God has prevailed for me. God has anointed me for this season, for this city, for these children, for this time, For this moment, for my generation, for my battles, for my challenges. I'm not just coming out. I'm coming through with the South. This is how we come into 2019.

This is how we plunder the enemy. This is how we plunder the enemy. He thought he drained you. He didn't drain you. No, he didn't drain you. All he did was put you in a position where he could drown behind. you. I'm telling you, you're not going in dry. Come on, let's declare the faithfulness of God over a new year. If you enjoyed the podcast today, if you did, there are just a couple things I'd love for you to do.

Number one, subscribe to our show. That way, the most recent episode will always be in your feed, waiting for you, ready when you are. And secondly, if this ministry has impacted you, and you'd like to help us continue to reach others, you can click the link in the description, and you can give now. And I'll see you. see you next time on the Elevation Podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.