Elevation with Steven Furtick - Do The New You

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Your daily decisions can define your destiny. In “Do The New You,” Pastor Steven reminds us that God has given us the decision to remain the same or grow into who He has created us to be. To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: http://www.elevationchurch.org/giving/  If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: http://ele.vc/tIepfr Scripture References: Ephesians 4, verses 14-24 Jeremiah 1, verses 4-9See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Get your tickets today. Let me know if you're going to be there. You're ready for the word? Sit down. I'm teaching today from Ephesians, chapter 4, 14 through 24. I really will only talk about one verse, but you've got to hear all of them. Or else it'll sound like some kind of Pinterest thing or like some little cute little quote. I'm not trying to do that today.

I want to teach a little bit. I am excited. When you come to church, you know, you get here. I know you leave the house and have to fight and all that. I'm already here for five hours. So the main thing I have to do when I start my sermons is tell myself, Ferdic, slow down. Let the people wake up.

So that's why I had Zeke sing a little bit so I could slow down. and just get ready to preach to you what I have been studying for the last several months. Ephesians chapter four, this new series is called Do the New You. Ephesians Chapter 4, Do the New You. Oh, we're going to talk about that a whole lot in the month of January. Ephesians chapter 4 I'm happy to see you I'm happy you're here look at you getting in a good church rhythm at the beginning of the year you have perfect church attendance so far this year tell the devil that put a gold star in the devil's face and tell him I showed up for church Ephesians chapter 4 verse 14 the apostle paul says then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the

cunning and craftiness of people. You got to watch out for people. Wouldn't life be wonderful if it wasn't for the people that get in the way? You could do everything God spoke to you if it wasn't for people. It's really easy for me to obey God in church and then I have to get out there and run what he showed me in the playbook. So Paul says here, that we need to get to a point that we are grown past the opinions of people in their deceitful scheming, whether it's a marketer or a newscast or a political group or any of that, whether it's something you've been taught in church that's wrong. Paul says, I want you to grow past that into this. Watch verse 15. Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect

the mature body of him who is the head that is Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding. and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality,

so as to indulge in every kind of impurity. And they are full of greed. Boy, Pastor Stephen, you picked a cheerful scripture for the New Year's sermon. Listen to this. It's about to turn. That, however, is not the way of life you learn. when you heard about Christ, and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, and to be made new in the attitude of your minds,

and to put on, last verse, the new self created to be made new. Be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Clap your hands for the Word of God. When people give you advice that isn't helpful, what do you do? Smile at them. Yeah, I pray about that. A dude was telling me the other day I need to preach a series on Bitcoin. I said, I pray about that.

Thank you for the input. And then I went on about my business. But when somebody you respect, then it's different even if you don't like what they say. When my dad was diagnosed with ALS, about 10 years ago, he was diagnosed about 12 years ago, and he went to heaven about 10 years ago. We went through a horrible period as a family, and some of it I can laugh about now, but man, we would get on the phone and try to talk to each other, and we couldn't even speak. It would turn into a shouting match.

And then I'd get up and preach Sunday and then get in a shouting match on the phone with my dad Tuesday and feel like a hypocrite about it. But I couldn't figure out a way past it. I try to do all this and that and the other. But the point of the story is this pastor calls me and somebody that I really loved and respected and said, I heard about what you're going through with your dad, and I've been praying about it. Now, he only talked to my dad about it. He didn't talk to me about it. So he heard what he heard from who he heard it from.

He said, I heard what happened with your dad. And I just called to ask you one question, Stephen. What would Jesus do? And you know what I thought? Jesus would heal him. And I'm not Jesus. I might lay hands on him before it's all said and done. So you could take your little WWJD wisdom.

I had the bracelet to when I was 16. But it's not that I don't know what I want in this relationship. I want reconciliation. I want to be by my dad's side. I want us to be able to take care of them. I mean, that's the reason why we moved them to Charlotte is I wanted to be a part of that in any way I could. But it wasn't really knowing what to do. It was doing what I knew in the face of something in real time that was complicated.

In the passage I just read you, I don't know how much the Apostle Paul sounds like that pastor that called me to you, because he's telling you things to do that on the surface sounds so simple. And the way he starts it is so Paul. Paul's like in verse 17, he's like, so I tell you this, give me verse 17, and insist on it, in the Lord. Well, now what can I say back to you? Right? So I tell you this. Okay, tell me. And I insist on it. Okay. In the Lord. Just say it. He says that the way that you have been living, that has been limiting you is not a product of the person that God has called you to be. It is a product of the patterns of the world that you have copied unconsciously until now.

But Paul says, I give you in this moment of your life to the Ephesian Church, and I believe he says it to Elevation Church as well at the beginning of a new year, a command, not a suggestion, on the authority of God's word, not the advice of somebody that you follow. This is not TikTok truth. This is not a tip. This is not 19 ways to get it. This is something that God says from his own heart to you through the apostle, echoing through the eons. And right now this word stands in front of you.

There comes a point in your life when doing you. isn't working and there becomes a challenge to become what you've really been all along that has been buried. I believe this year is my year and your year to see some things manifest in our lives that we don't even have the faith to pray for anymore because it's been one way so long. I believe this is your year in your life to see character development as a level like you thought was only possible for other people before. You're going to become the kind of person that you've admired this year. You're going to become someone that you can trust in this year.

You're going to become someone who keeps commitments that they make in secret in public under pressure this year. How do I know it's possible? Because God would not command it if he would not resource it. If God told me to do it, he'll show me how. I feel good now. I got my preach back now. I've been a couple weeks just sitting here by myself and hanging out with the family and I've been thinking about this thing that people say, do you? It usually is a phrase that gives us permission to be different, even if what we're doing, like this, like this, like, oh, you're going to wear that? Well, do you? You like those? Do you? You like those? Do you? It means I wouldn't. Hey man, do you?

You want to buy it? Buy it. Yeah, man, do you? Or it could be kind of like, man, don't listen to them. Do you? You have to do that what they're doing over there. Do you? And I wonder, like, is that advice helpful?

And when, this is what we're going to consider for the next four weeks? So I'm giving you fair warning should you decide to skip. We are going to evaluate the point at which, check this, we use authenticity as an excuse for immaturity. Nobody in here wore a diaper to church unless they were carry and unless it's covered. I hope. Yet at one time, that's what you ran around the house in. Should you do you?

Nobody in here that I'm aware of over the age of 18 is going to eat their meal only with their hands today unless it's a sandwich and a bag of chips. But at one time you did, should you do you? Nobody in here today over the age of 21 is going to go home today unless there's a physical ailment and I understand that and there's exceptions to everything I say. Nobody is going to go in their lunch today and expect to be spoon fed something that's mashed up. But at one time, you needed that. Should you? Because that's what I hear a lot now. It's like, do you, we almost have elevated authenticity to the level of ultimate authority in our lives.

To give ourselves permission, not to make progress. in areas of our life. I just went through several physical examples that were awkward on purpose, that at one time you wore a diaper, at one time you couldn't chew your food, but yet people still come to church and they say, I want to be fed when I come to church. And that's fine because Jesus did tell Peter feed my sheep, but guess what? You have to chew. I insist on it in the Lord.

It's so funny how many people don't get strong from sermons they hear because you get fed. I left that church because I wasn't getting fed. Maybe. Or maybe you didn't chew it. Maybe you didn't do it. The Bible says that he who comes to me and hears my words and doesn't put them into practice. It's like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Wait a minute.

He heard the word. Shouldn't he be stronger from the word that he heard? Not if he didn't do it. One country preacher said, The word of God is like a can of paint. The value is in the application. So I hear Paul all in Ephesians 1 through 3 in Holly and Britt, and the team did a study that you're going to get January 22nd for the E-groups where they go into Ephesians.

And I didn't even tell her that the Lord gave me a sermon from Ephesians because I wanted to surprise her. So surprise. Here I am all the way in Ephesians chapter 4, where in 1 through 3, Paul is telling them what God did through the God. gospel and then he makes a turn in chapter four where he starts talking about now that God did that you do this because you can some of the things that he says in this passage were interesting to me look at verse 14 he says that when we grow up through the unity in our faith by committing ourselves to God's community in his process that we will no longer be there it is infants

we will no longer expect to be fed without doing any chewing of our own. We will no longer be immature. But when I saw this connection, it kind of surprised me. He said that when you are stuck in spiritual infancy, check this out, you are tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching. And by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful. So isn't that true? Haven't you found that to be true? That immaturity always manifests as instability. Hadn't you notice that? Like in your own life, when there is an area in your life where God is trying to grow you or life is trying to grow you or challenges are trying to move you and you refuse to move past what God is trying to teach you to do, it will always result in instability. Now notice that he talks about the waves and the wind, which are both external metaphors for the things that happen to us in our life.

But what he says in the passage is not that our spiritual maturity guarantees the elimination of wind and waves. He says that your spiritual growth and maturity will guarantee that because God is your strength, your source, and your source, and your spiritual growth. firm foundation that you will have a stable place in any storm. When I prophesy over your life that God is going to do great things this year, I am not prophesying the absence of any external challenge, for that is above and beyond my pay grade. What I am prophesying in the name of Jesus is that there is a seed of the Word of God inside of you trying to come up out of the soil that will enable you to to see life everywhere you look this year and you will not be moved anymore by all of the

happenings of life like you were in the past. So I want to ask a question for you to consider. How has your instability in life been caused by an area of immaturity in your life? What waves are you blaming for the way you? you are right now when the real problem is within. What wind are you cursing? Because you avoided dealing with the storms inside. And this is how the Lord led me to start the year, to tell you that you get to choose this year, whether to grow into what God has called you or continue. to be stuck in the rut of what was, because of what you saw, because of what you've been through,

and because of what you've known. One reason I don't believe in the saying, do you as a general piece of advice, is because it assumes that you know you and you don't. Why are y'all making me break this down so much? Find one of these church people that's in here today, lifting their hands, praising God. Follow them to their kids' sporting event and see if they are the same that they were on Sunday. Because, see, I met some of y'all in other locations than church, and I was surprised what I saw. You were lifting your hands, your whole hands in here, and then you were lifting individual fingers when I was.

I saw you at your kids basketball game, so I can't figure out. So if I tell you, do you, I don't know which one is going to show up for the audition, for the role, and maybe clear the room. That's bad advice. One time a preacher told me, hey, man, come preach for us. And I said, okay. And he said, and just be you. I said, oh, no, that's the last thing you want to tell me.

I need to get with God. If I show up me without God, your church will personalities. I'm affected by things. I'm affected by moves. Oh, the me in the morning. Let me talk a little bit about this topic. How to defy your default setting. I'm just setting you all up this week.

I hope you're going to stick with me for January. Because a lot of us accept our default setting in a situation as our destiny. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought isn't great as I faithfulness of God my father. One man said, I don't wake up in the morning and say, good morning, Lord. I wake up and say, good Lord, it's morning. That's me. That's morning me. Not only is my breath bad in the morning, my beliefs are bad too.

Y'all brush your teeth. I have to brush my beliefs in the morning. I have to. I promise you, I have to. If I don't do that in the morning, it's going to be a meltdown by, 10 a.m. Maybe two. In the best case scenario. But what I'm learning not only from my life, but from this passage as I study it, is that the awareness of how I start doesn't have to become indicative of where I end. And watch this, I cannot use authenticity as permission to sin.

So I can't just wake up and think a certain way and act a certain way if I belong to God and just call it being real. He didn't say be real. He said be righteous. Oh, no. Well, I'm just saying what I feel. Who told you to do that? I'm just speaking my mind.

What a horrible book to be speaking from. The book of your mind? The book of your brain, which has been what the scripture says, corrupted by deceitful desires? That's the problem. Do you? Which me? The me that wants to be happy right now at all cost? Or the me that will thank me in 10 years for the decisions I made right now? Which one? Do you? Which one? The one that's going to kick my butt if I keep acting like this for the next five years? The me that I don't want to see reproduced in my kids? one? Just do that? Yeah, just do you. Just do me. Just like my dad did him and he did him. No, I believe

that there is a power in Christ for you to decide. Saul wake up in the morning, I got to get some of God's word. I can't start responding to text first thing in the morning. I can't touch the screen and start telling people what I think and what I feel first thing in the morning. I got to get to Deuteronomy chapter 7 and see what God says. Then maybe I can say something. I got a little gratitude journal. I got to write some things down I'm thankful for in the morning. So I'll just start thinking about what I need today. Because I'll start the whole day in the deficit.

All day down, running around, and think like I don't have enough strength, I don't have enough energy unless I start somewhere else. No, just do you. I'm not doing that anymore. I did me. It almost killed me. I did me. But I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live.

I did me. That's too small of an apartment. too small of an apartment for me to live in. That apartment has roaches. That apartment doesn't have any electricity. That thing is corrupted, corroded, and deceived by sin. So I came with the New Year series to tell you, not me, but in the Lord, that you are being called this year to do the new you.

And you are not supposed to like new. when you first start doing it. And you don't have to like it at first to do it. I went up, Buck, and counted, 2,100-something workouts I did since we built the pound. That's the little workout room at my house. 2,100-something workouts. When we met, I was so inconsistent in working out, I was like, you know, man, I'm just really not one of these guys that comes in and works out consistent. I do it when I can get around to it.

I told him that. I was doing me. I told him how I would and wouldn't exercise. But you know what? They got in there and helped me and kept me accountable. And then I counted it's been eight years now, eight years that I've done my workouts like five times a week. And y'all don't even care. No, you're like, why are you bragging?

If you work out, work out. Don't come up here bragging about it. Preach the word, man. I don't need to hear all this. I'm telling you, I saw myself as a certain kind of person for all my life. And even the other day I was telling somebody, I'm not one of these people who just likes to work out. I thought, yes, you are. I did the math.

If I've been doing that for like eight years and you're not supposed to really start working out until you're how old Matt, 14 probably is about the earliest you want to lift weights, that is a good like 30% of my life. that I've been doing it. So I am a person who likes to work out. Imagine that. My default wasn't to do that, but my default is not my destiny. My decisions are to put off the old way of seeing yourself and put on what he calls the attitude of Christ. What does that mean to put on the new self? I can't see it like a jacket. I can't I can't see it like a hat. I can't see it like a raincoat.

I can't see it like new balances. I can't see it like it's in my wardrobe. It lives within me, but I have the decision to make every day of my life. Which one I will choose? Every day, every hour, every moment I am deciding, and you are deciding which you are you will you do this year. Do you? The one that was made new in the attitude of your mind. Put on the new self. Now we're going to do some study in the text here. In verse 24, he says that the new self was created to be like God. And then in verse 23, he says,

that the old self is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Let's really look at both of those verses. This is the nexus of Christian praxis. In order to see ourselves, as God sees us, is not a matter of abstract, ethereal, and philosophical debate. It's a matter of practice. So watch this. He said that the old self is being corrupted.

Verse 23, please. Give me that. is being corrupted, everybody say corrupted, by the deceitful desires, what you think you want, what you want right now, what the world tells you you should want, what people spend millions of dollars on ad campaigns to get you to think if you had it you would be happy. All of the images that you see of the life that you imagined that would actually make you happy that is really empty at the bottom of it if it doesn't have God in the middle of it. Right? So he says that that self is being corrupted. Everybody say corrupted.

And to put on, verse 24, the new self, which was created. Everybody say created. Oh, I like that. They both start with the same letter. I can preach this. One is being corrupted and one was created. So when you have an outburst of anger or for when you have an outburst of anger or for when you, you reach for the pills because that's the only way you know how to escape your pain. Or for when you manipulate situations, or for when you spend till 3.30 a.m. looking at porn and then you can't connect in real life. Or for when you find yourself holding on to grudges and trying to pay people back. Or for when you do those things which are very common in the world, and you say, that's just how

I am. And then Paul says in Ephesians 4.24, that at the heart of the New Testament, that at the The heart of the New Testament is the fact that you were created to be like God. And then verse 23, that you are being, excuse me, verse 22, that the old self, the former way of life is being corrupted. That means my daily decision is corrupted me or created me. You got it? Now, why this blesses me so much is that it lets me know that at my core, I'm a child of God.

That at my core, I'm a new creation in Christ. If you cut me open, Christ would be there. If you ripped open this frame, if you ripped open this body, if you ripped open this physical appearance that you see, at the core of that would be Christ because I was created 24. I was created, a new self, recreated. Give me 24, please. Y'all stay with me. These are my verses right here.

Stay with me. Verse 24, verse 24. Created to do what? Be like God. True righteousness. Not self-righteousness. Not the appearance of righteousness. Created to be like God.

Not to be God. That's a whole different thing. That's what some of us have been trying to do. that keeps us so stressed out. We keep trying to be God over our lives. We keep trying to decide what can I do, what should I do? And then when it doesn't work, and then when we're weary, we come running. But God said, you weren't created to be God. You were created to be conformed to the image of God who made you. You were created to be new. But you are being corrupted. By the patterns of the world and when your mind has been corrupted long enough with patterns of thinking and patterns of speaking which

Ephesians 4 addresses very clearly You begin to identify with the issues you struggle with more than the image of the God that you were made in So now when you act up and sin and miss it you think that's just me Now you are using self-awareness as a permission of slip to stay stuck in sin. And Paul, Paul gets right up in the middle of it and he's like, I got one question, what would Jesus do? And I'm like, Paul, I am not Jesus. Jesus is the pure spotless Lamb of God, Alpha and Omega, the first in the laugh. I'm not even a letter in the alphabet. He's the first one, the last one, the Omnacron, he's all of it. I can't do it without

Jesus. And he's like, exactly. So that's where I want you to go to get your truth. The truth that is in Jesus. I am sending it back to the pit of hell, this phrase that got popular in our culture a few years ago. Live your truth. To hell with your truth. Your truth. It said the truth is in Jesus. He is the way, the truth in the life.

You can't come to the Father without him. You can't be right with God without him. You can't be cleansed without him. You can't make it without him. It is his breath in your lungs. It is his hand on your life. It is his grace up one. And Jesus, I am in the son of God.

I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. So I'm doing me. But it's not the me you see. It's the me that's kicking on the inside. It's the me that's coming up alive. It's the me that... Yeah, the new you.

The one that apologizes when you're wrong. That one. Not the one that takes three weeks to come around and see it either. The one that says in the middle of my sentence, oh, I'm sorry. I don't talk like this. I'm sorry, y'all. That's not me.

That's not the me I want to be. That's not what God's calling me into in 2023. It's a new me. 20203. Yeah, it rhymes. It's good. I'm going to preach it. I'm flowing in it.

This is your year to break away with everything you told yourself. What's true. Plus, there is. a new you and guess what the new you is the one that God knows imagine yourself free

God knows that you imagine yourself whole God knows that you imagine yourself able to wait and be patient and not respond to every feeling that passes through your central nervous system God knows that you

When I see myself how God sees me and come into alignment with the word that he spoke over me, it's new to me, but not to God. It's new to me, but not to him. One time he was calling this prophet named Jeremiah, and the prophet Jeremiah was full of excuses, just like you, just like me. I met this fellow last year on Elevation Knights named Brendan Breschard. He does a great group for growth online. Look him up.

And he was saying these three things that we say to ourselves all the time. And I identified with every single one of them. You ready? This is the excuse that you use to do you at the lower level. One, you say, I don't know how. Two, I don't have it. Three, I'm not like them. Let's break it down.

Number one, I don't know how. How many of you had a challenge in 2022 and you excused yourself from embracing it that God was calling you higher, but you didn't go because you didn't know how. Raise your hand. My hand was the first one up and the rest of y'all are hypocrites. Because you either didn't listen or you just want to lie about it. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how.

Second one, I don't have that. Raise your hand if you made that last year. I'll have that. Yeah. You could say that about money, time, energy, health, education. What else? Y'all probably got something that I hadn't thought of. Y'all are way more dysfunctional than me.

Give me some material here. No, I promise you that's not true. That's very sarcasm. What is it? What is it? All right, so I don't know how to What? I don't know how to To resist it?

Oh, be consistent. I like to resist it better. Because that's what I think, right? Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world? I don't know how to fight this. When you've been given into something and you can just nod like you don't know what I'm talking about, when you've been given into something since you were ten, it's really hard for you to really buy you.

hard for you to really believe that you can overcome that. And listen, you don't have to admit that that struck a chord what I just said. Just do you. Pretend like you don't struggle with that. You're such an angel and I respect you and admire you. I don't know how to resist. I don't know how to be consistent. Well, for me, when I started my workouts, I put a, this is so corny, I put a chart on my wall where I could put stars every time I worked out. Because I thought that would reinforce the behavior. like I was seven years old down there. I'm a grown man with a beard putting stars on a chart, and I still do it. And I filled that sucker up this year. I ran out of blue stars and had to

start using the gold ones this year. That's how good I did it because I'm changing. I'm changing. I'm changing. Oh, I'm not one of these workout people. Well, maybe I am. Maybe I can be one. Maybe I can get a chart. Maybe I am consistent. I'm consistent in this area. Why can't I be consistent in that area. I'm growing up in every respect. I control my tongue in this situation. Why can't I control it in that situation? I made a good decision Monday. Why can't I do it again Tuesday? Why can't I do it again Wednesday? Looks like you know how to be consistent. You're here at church on the first Sunday of the year. That's how on consistency. That wasn't true. You know how to be consistent. You know how to do it. It is not knowing what to do. It is doing what you knew

that you didn't do last time. Not fussing at you. I'm just saying, I don't know how to be consistent in some areas of my life either. I struggle with it. But by showing up, God's strength is released. I don't know how. I don't have it. I don't have that intellectual ability.

I can't do that like that. Don't you think I felt like that trying to teach each of my kids about sports? I don't know how to teach you how to do this. I got to like the basic level in all the sports that I played and nothing beyond that. So if you get good, I'm done. All right? Well, I don't know how. But I know how to support you.

I know how to show up. I know how to demonstrate in my area of competency, what you need to demonstrate, the discipline you need to demonstrate in your area of competency and giftedness and calling. So I do know how. And if I don't know how and I need to do it, I'll learn. I'll look it up on YouTube. I can look up anything. I'll ask a friend. I've got a lot of smart friends.

And then the biggest one of all, the biggest lie of all, I'm not like them. Man, they have a good marriage because their parents had a good marriage. I can't do that. My parents, my dad wasn't around. I'm not like those people who grew up there. They know how to deal with money because they grew up around money. I don't know how to deal with money. They know how to pray because they grew up in church. I don't know all these Bible stories.

Some of you were here for the first Sunday of this year, and the whole time you've been here, you've been feeling like, I don't fit in. I don't know these words. I don't know these songs. Why are people standing up and sitting down and standing up and sitting down and standing up and sitting down? And how long does this sermon last anyway? I like these church people. We are all corrupted.

Go with them in the parking lot. You might catch them cussing before they even get off the church property. If I preach long enough and let the traffic get backed up, don't let anybody intimidate you make you insecure because you just got to grow in. to what God gave you. We're all struggling. We'll talk about it sometime. One time I'll tell you all my stuff and you can tell me all yours and then we'll cry and get all over it.

And then we will say, okay, that's where we're starting. That's not where we're staying. So God wanted Jeremiah to go preach. The Bible says in Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 4, that the word of the Lord, came to me. The word of the Lord existed before the world existed. In the beginning was the word. You know the book of Genesis says, in the beginning God? The book of John says, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. So when Jeremiah says the word of the Lord came to me, It wasn't just advice that he got. It wasn't just an instruction that he got. It wasn't just something he thought he would try for his New Year's goal. It was God himself showing up and saying, Jeremiah, I've given you an assignment. There are invaders coming from the North, and I want you to preach to my people and warn them and instruct them and do it through your tears. And there's going to be crying involved. And there's going to be challenges involved. And there's going to be self-doubt involved. But he's going to be

He said, before you were born, before I formed you in the womb, I, before this world got a hold of you, before depression set in and put you in the bed. Before you got in this state, this emergency situation that you don't know how you're going to get out of. before you were molested, before you were abused, before you were left, before any of that happened to you, before the mistake, before the failure, before the dumb idea, before the addiction gripped you, put it back up, God said, I knew you. He knew you. He knew you'd be in trouble. He knew you'd be 36 and single. you'd be struggling, he knew you'd be sad, he knew you'd be melancholy, he knew you'd need a job eventually, he knew they'd walk away. You, you didn't know it. God for you. The crap happened, God said, I had intimate knowledge of your intellect. I see your integrity even when it falters.

I see the man you're going to be if you don't leave and walk away. I see if you submit to the process how strong you're going to be. I see the testimony you're going to be. I see the testimony you're going to be telling your kids 10 years from now talking about here's what God did in our home. Here's what I almost did. But God brought me back in 2023 and he brought me to church to tell me, do it, to knew you. I created you before you were corrupted. So I want you to take off what happened to you. Take off the way you've been thinking about it.

Take off the story you've been telling yourself. Take off that guilt, take off that shame, put it all at the foot of the cross and cast it all on the back of the Christ who paid the price for your sins to be forgiven. It's under the blood now. We're going forward now. We're not talking about that for the rest of your life. We're turning it into something miraculous. It's time to bring it out the oven, baby. It's ready to rise. That's why I brought you to elevation. I'm bringing you up. Do it till it's second nature. Do it till it's how you think. Do it till it. naturally comes out of your mouth. Do it until it's not so hard anymore. Do it awkward. Do it clumsy. Do it over. Do it over. Sorry, I messed that up. Let me try again. New you. The one God knew. The one that people don't always see. You're a good person. You got a better heart than you've got habits.

And what you've been calling your personality is just your patterns. If we change your patterns, God is about to release potential in your life this year that you didn't even think was possible. This is what the Lord said. Before you were born, play softly, help me close. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. You think you know you, you don't know you. God knows you. You know what you've experienced.

You don't know you. How many of you don't know the person you're sitting next to? Raise your hand. Every hand better go up. You don't know what they would do? They don't know what they would do in a situation they haven't been through yet. You don't know what they could be. You've only ever seen them in the shackles of their past.

You don't know them. God knows them. That's the one I want to do this year. And it's going to be hard for me because I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty opinionated about myself. Now, this is how I am. I don't do that. Somebody asked me for a meeting the other day, and it was important,

and they said, I can only meet at 6.15 a.m. I said, I'm not a morning, but I never read in the book of Ephesians about the morning people and the night people. I only read about the old self and the new cell. And I cut myself off mid-sentence. I said, I'm not a more... I see you at 6.15. Because it's important to me.

I got up 45 minutes. early, did a lot of coffee. And I did it. Imagine that. You could just do that. You could just do that. It would be amazing. It would shock you. Now, the thing I've got to get you to see is we're going to have to really work on this and work through this because your first instinct is going to be always to hold tight to what feels the most familiar. So if that's anger, if that's complaining, if that's blaming, if that's diminishing yourself, if that's criticizing others, if that's how you always bond, then that's what you're going to naturally think you should do. But what feels the most natural isn't the truest thing about you. What God has put within you and spoken over you, the truth

that is in Jesus. That's. And then when you find yourself outside of that, you go, oh, that's not me. That's not how I want to respond. Oh, I'm just a late person. No, you're not. You're a person who doesn't know how to calculate how long a task will actually take and tries to get too much done before you leave.

You are actually a very efficient person who just hasn't learned to be realistic in their efficiency. Give God a praise all of the formerly late people. That's all that is. So I'm going to break it down, but watch what Jeremiah said when the Lord said, I've called you, I've chosen you, I created you to do it, I got a job for you. Now watch Jeremiah's response. This is what we must move past. In verse 6, he says, alas, sovereign, Lord, I do not know how. He did all three of the things in one sentence.

I don't know how I don't have the experience and I'm not like these people who have wisdom and can speak and that's what's been going through your mind all of last year that kept you stuck so his answer was in his excuse if he had stopped talking verse six alas sovereign

Lord that word means he's in charge not you. That word means he knows what's in you. You don't. That word means that his assignment is always accompanied by his enablement.

Sovereign Lord. His plan, his purpose. Sovereign Lord. And then the Lord told Jeremiah Verse 7, don't say I'm too young. You must go

to everyone I send you and say whatever I command you. Verse 8, do not be afraid of them. This is the word of the Lord receive it, for I am with you. That's what you need to know at the beginning of this year. The truest thing about you is that God is with you. I am with you. And look at this. After he gave him the promise, he gave him the provision. This is so beautiful. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for showing me this. I am with you. I will rescue you. declares the Lord verse 9 then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said I have put my words in your mouth now speak it now decree it now do it now go for it now begin it is going to give it to you as you go

he's going to show you how to do this I know you don't know how I know you don't have it he touches your mouth After he gives you the command, it is in obedience that potential is realized. Right now all over this room, there are new beginnings trying to crack through the cement of layers and layers of corruption. What we want to do right now is set the atmosphere in our hearts and our homes for whatever God wants to do this year. I want you to join hands or make contact on the shoulder of the person on either side of you.

I want you to span the aisles. I don't want anybody untouched on either. side unless you're at the end of the row. I want everybody joining up, everybody joining up at every location. Now look at me. Every location. Elevation Matthews, Elevation, Uptown, Blakney, Riverwalk, University City, Gaston, Toronto, Concord, Lake Norman, Raleigh, Roanoke, Melbourne, Winston, Salem, Asheville, Morrisville, Columbia, Greenville, Durham, Orlando. Watch us. Bine all over the world. Can I tell you something real quick?

I want to close my sermon this way. I was going to open it this way, but for some reason the Lord wouldn't let me, and it must be because of now. I hope you like their hand, because you're going to be holding it for about two more minutes. Palms aren't too sweaty. Look at me. Look at me. Yesterday I went to watch Graham Russell at Porter Ridge High School. That was our first second campus of Elevation Church.

So we were meeting at Providence High School. It got full. A man came to meet with me named John Butler. John Butler was a Baptist minister, so I always called up. him John the Baptist and he thought that was funny. But he comes to me and says he was attending the church at the time. He was also employed by the Baptist Convention. He said the church is full. That's amazing. And he said, but you need to keep growing. He said, you can't just contain it. And if you tell people invite their friends, but there's nowhere for their friends to sit,

that's a problem. So you need to open another campus. I said, cool. He said, I've got $300,000 in the Baptist Convention account that I will give you to start the campus. I said, I said, great, I got a friend named Travis. I'll call him and tell him that you're looking for a church planter. He said, no, you. I said, but I can't do, you know, I'm preaching at one, I can't preach at the other. He goes, I'm talking about you on video preaching. I looked at him and said, that's not me. Elevation Matthews, elevation uptown, elevation Blatney, elevation Riverwalk, Elevation University City, elevation Gaston, elevation Toronto, elevation Concord, elevation Lake Norman, Raleigh, Melbourne,

Melbourne, Winston, Salem, Elevation Asheville, Elevation Morrisville, Columbia, Greenville, Durham, Orlando, Ballantyne, EFAM, Argentina, Seattle, Arizona. I didn't know we could reach this many people. Me and said, Pastor, you can do this two ways. If you try to follow God and get ahead of him, he'll shut the door. If God says follow me and you won't, he'll pick somebody else. Do you want to do it? Do you want to break the curse in your family line?

Do you want to be in a position five years from now where you can help somebody else through the same dang thing that's been tormenting you? Let's do it then. Every week, God gives me strength. I'll be up here helping you. Drag your tired butt in here in slippers if you have to and I'll preach to you. Log on when you're not here. Father, in the name of Jesus.

I release the potential of your children in Jesus' name to become everything they were called to be until we grow up, until we grow out of our guilt, till we grow out of our grief, till we grow past it, and become vessels of honor fit for the master's use. I thank you that addictions will be broken under the power of your word this year. I thank you that poverty will be eliminated from the cycle of families this year by your word. I thank you that lost children who aren't living for Jesus are coming home quoting scripture this Christmas in Jesus' name. I thank you no win, no way will be possible to unstable and destabilize your children. I thank you our churches growing into new communities, your kingdom expanding.

Recession, you can do what you got to do, but Jehovah Chira is looking over his children. in God, we trust in the... Well, if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You can also help us reach others by investing today at elevationchurch.org

slash give, and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.