Elevation with Steven Furtick - Faithful With A Few

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

It’s what you do with the few. In “Faithful With A Few,” we’re reminded that our praise paves the way for God’s provision. If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: http://ele.vc/tIepfr To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: http://www.elevationchurch.org/giving/ Scripture References: 1 Chronicles 16, verses 7-24 Judges 7, verse 2See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hello, EFAM. Especially our West Coast family. We have an announcement for you. Elevation Knights, 2022, West Coast. Are you ready for this? October 25th through November 3rd.

We're coming your way. You're so excited. You can get your tickets right now at elevationnights.com. It's going to be me, Holly. Elevation Worship. It's going to be amazing. Unbelievable these nights. You don't want to miss.

So if you're in Glendale, Arizona, Las Vegas, Sacramento, California, Eugene, Oregon, Seattle, Oakland, California, San Diego, and L.A. Or anywhere near those areas. We want to see you, Elevationnights.com. Don't miss it. Elevationnights.com. Get your tickets. Elevationnights.com. Let's see you there.

Let's go to the message. Y'all, I feel so excited to preach this word, but I feel settled about it. I don't feel spastic like that. I feel just settled about it. So cool, so beautiful what the Lord selected for us to study today, and I'm excited about it. Since they're baptized in half of the county, I've got to go a little quicker today. So y'all listen good, would you? If y'all will listen better, I can finish sooner. When I go too long, it's at least half your fault.

The Holy Spirit selected a text today. It's really like a song. And I'm drawn to it not only because I love music, but because there's a truth in it that I want to point out to you. It's found in First Chronicles. Don't have a panic attack trying to find it in your Bible. That's not one of the books you normally look. If I say Genesis, you're good, Revelation. I think that's toward the back.

But First Chronicles, in the Hebrew Bible, it was kind of considered the whole Old Testament. And it recapitulates some of the things that you'll read in First and Seventh. 2nd Samuel, but it goes further. It starts with Adam and then by the time it ends, we're in the exile. In the middle of all that, we read a lot about David. We read a lot about King David. And there's one thing I want to read. I need to read verses 7 through at least 20, maybe 24, just to give you the flow of it. So let's read this together in 1st Chronicle 16. There is a message in this for me. Say it out loud. There is a message in this for me. There is message in this for me. Maybe not for the person next to you, but say for me. I want you

to personalize this today. I want you to personalize this word today. The scripture says, that day David first appointed Asaph and his associates to give praise to the Lord in this manner. Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name, make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him Sing praise to him, tell of all his wonderful acts, glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength. Seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, the judgments he pronounced, you, his servants, the descendants of Israel,

his chosen ones, the children of Jacob. He is the Lord. Our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever. The promise he made. I love that. I might come back and nibble on that a little later. Y'all hold on to that. The promise he made for a thousand generations, the covenant he made, with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Ibrahim. To I was the covenant he made. To Ibrahim. The oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to I was. Israel as an everlasting covenant. Now that was the neighborhood. Let's pull up to the door now. These verses are the door. To you, I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.

Shout over what God gave you. Nah, y'all aren't grateful. Shout over what God gave. To you, I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit when they were but few in number of few indeed and strangers in it. They wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no one to oppress them for their sake. He rebuke kings. Do not touch my anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm. Sing to the Lord all the earth, proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds.

Among all peoples. Go back to verse 19. When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it. I don't know what we'll call this message when we put it online, but for now let's call it faithful with a few. Faithful with a few. You may be seated. Faithful with a few. You may be seated. faithful with a few. We stepped into a celebration when we opened First Chronicle 16. Did you notice they were glorifying God? They had instruments set up in verses 1 through 6. I didn't read you that part.

Symbols and harps and liars, stringed instruments. All these sounds celebrating something that must have looked really strange if you didn't know the whole story. All of this commotion, all of this glorifying and all of this praise, about something that you may have heard of, but I may not know much about called the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant. Not Noah's Ark, that's a boat. Not a story arc like in a movie where a character development is A-R-C. But the Ark of the Covenant was a piece of furniture made of acacia wood, only four feet long, two and a half feet wide, two and a half feet high. I wish I could do it in meters for our international audience, but see, we're here in the United States of America, and we will not convert to the metric system until Jesus comes back and makes us do it.

And all this celebration over what appeared to be just a piece of furniture, of course, we understand. that it's a symbolic representation of the presence of God. Because in that acacia wood, which was overlaid with gold, with a cherubim on the top of it, with the four holes so they could carry it by poles wherever they went, was the manna that God gave his people, the law that he gave his people, and Aaron's rod, which represented the priesthood. In that arc of the covenant was represented God's provision, God's protection and God's precepts.

Three things in that arc. Yet it symbolized one thing, which is this. God was with us. They carried it wherever they went. In their mind, it was the actual housing place of the presence of God. But really, we understand that God is everywhere. We know that because of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. And when Emmanuel, God with us, left the earth, he gave us the counselor, the Holy Spirit,

not just to be with us, but to be in us. We don't live in the old covenant, but we can learn from it. We don't live in it, but we can learn from it. The presence of God is inside of you. It's inside of me. So when the Bible says that God was with his people and he did all these things for him, how much more will he do for you if the Spirit? of his son lives inside of you. This is our confidence in Christ, not in ourselves. It's really not

a celebration about furniture. It's a celebration about faithfulness. Faithfulness. Not their faithfulness, because that would have been a sorry celebration indeed, but God's faithfulness. Big difference. difference what you praise God for. Do you praise him for the furniture or for his faithfulness? Because if you praise him for the furniture, the things that you can see, it can be taken away. If you praise him for the furniture, if he moves it to the other side of the room, you might get mad. When things change in your life, your praise goes down. But you have to learn what David did here, and I think is such a good lesson for us.

He made them praise God He made them praise God Reminded me when I was in college I was a worship leader before I was a pastor I preached and led worship All at the beginning of the church I did all of it And I'm really glad that we have so many gifted people who can do it now But in a pinch I could still get it done if I had to

Okay, I promise you okay, I don't know all the songs anymore But I remember a few of them and I could get this done If everybody on the worship team went and ate Mexican food and it was a bad digestive situation, it's kind of gross, right? But I'm not saying it would be as good, but I would get it done. I could get it done. I could get it done. Because I was doing that in college.

When people ask Holly, when did you first know that you wanted to marry Stephen? Sometimes she'll mention in reference, she won't say the first time she saw me. She talked about the first time she saw me. She thought I was crazy. I was wearing a big Superman T-shirt, a double X-XL Superman T-T-G. sure, running around thinking I was Superman or something like that, playing in a punk rock band. But then in our college, I became the worship leader for a ministry, North Greenville University. Not a big school, not a big school, but I believe God put me there if for no other reason

than to win her. And how I want her, through my leadership, through my leadership. my leadership. I found out spiritual leadership is sexy to a spiritual woman. So not that I was staking it. But y'all, I made a praise team and I put her on my praise team. I didn't audition her for her vocal ability. That really wasn't why she got the job, but it was okay to me if she thought that. And she could sing pretty good. But we had a good time. Because when I first told her about it, the worship team was just two people. I don't know if y'all were around in the 90s in churches, everybody was beaten on a jimbe. Big drum like this and everybody was beaten on a jimbae.

Everybody was beaten on jimbaes in the 1990s. And so it was just a jimbae and an acoustic guitar. And I told her when I take it over next year, it's going to be huge. I'm going to have a choir. It's going to be probably a hundred people in the choir by the time I'm done with it. And I'm going to have a band and it's going to be real drums, not percussion. I'm going to have a kit, a drum kit. I'm going to have a bass guitar. I'm going to have maybe two keyboards, maybe one with a synth and one with a piano. Sound getting wild and crazy believing God for big things now unto him who was able to do immeasurably more have big vision you know what I'm saying and I did that because God

helped me do it because he called me and because he helped me and because he was with me there were a hundred kids in that choir by the time it was over and the school wasn't that big, but God did it. But God did it. I preached two weeks ago about but God. And I'm telling you, when I told her that, I didn't know how, I didn't know who, I didn't know, I had no idea how I would accomplish it, but I spoke it by faith and I worked toward it, and God did it. And so I heard her telling the kids the other day, I never doubted something that your dad told me he was going to do after that. Because when he said it, I thought he was crazy. And then guess what? It came to pass. And we've seen God do that just over and over again now. In our

ministry, in this church, some of you have been here for a lot of it. Some of you have been here for all of it. You have seen God do that over and over and over again. So when the baptisms were happening, why were some people sleeping through it and some people were weeping through it? Why? Why on that screen was somebody crying about somebody getting in water? How many of y'all got in water before you came to church today? Or at least in the last 24 hours?

Your neighbor hopes so. Watching online, it doesn't really matter, but if you're in the building, please have the consideration with some water and some soap and some shampoo. And yet none of that really made you cry. Did it? Did you cry in the shower? I mean, maybe you did, but that's not the common thing, is it? Singing the shower, but cry in the shower. But why are they crying and hit me? I was watching the baptisms. I thought, we got to be careful where we dump that water. We ought to have a special, you know, they have these big containers for radioactive stuff. Not the dirt off the people. I'm not talking about physical. I'm talking about

All the shame that Jesus washes away. All the bad choices that he steps into. All the things that you did that you couldn't get over, but his blood forgave them. There's a lot in that water. There's a lot in that water. Somebody put it in the chat. There's a lot in that water. When Jesus saved me, he saved me from a lot.

And I don't even mean that I was on drugs and in prison. I mean, even from the people who lived so good. good. You weren't so good. You weren't so good. You were not so good. I know you weren't so good. How do I know that you're not so good? Because Jesus did not die for pretty good people or really bad people. He died for really dead people who needed to be made alive in his name. So when we celebrate, we're not celebrating, I got a race. Because tomorrow I might get a drop. When we celebrate in God's presence, we're not celebrating because I got a lot of sleep. Because tomorrow we might be tired. Y'all, the dog woke holly up at 3.30 in the morning this morning. I just had to tell you that. So when she was praising God today, she wasn't doing it on my sleep because she had to have a dog. And she's got a dog now. Yeah, she's got a dog now. When I preach to you, I'm not preaching these things because I always feel them.

I'm preaching what I believe by faith. If I could teach you one thing, it would be to celebrate by faith, to praise by faith, to worship by faith, to decree by faith, to rejoice by faith, to walk by faith, to talk by faith, to live, by faith, to give, by faith, to structure by faith, to establish by faith, to stand after you have done all, to stand by faith on the faithfulness of God. This is not about furniture. He's celebrating the faithfulness of God, and he made them praise God. Because sometimes you've got to make yourself. You don't believe me? David made Asaph praise God, and he wrote the song and he said, praise him like this. I want you praising him just any way you can. Talk about his glory, his name, his strength, his face. Don't start

talking about how good you did. Oh, oh, oh, they just got the ark back to Jerusalem. And he didn't want them celebrating their strength when they did it. They did a good job. But that's not what they glorified is the good job that they did. And I'm not saying don't pat yourself on the back or get yourself a cupcake or a crumble cookie or whatever you do. Do it. But don't forget to praise God. Can I say it this way?

for the few. For the few. Every day is not going to be an amazing day. Every day is not going to be a special event. Every day is not field day. Every day is not field day. But every day needs to be faith day. Kind of corny, but I'm trying to help you remember it when you get out of here.

Because they got the ark back. Now, the Ark of the Covenant. had been in Shiloh for a long time. The Philistines, the enemies of God, they got the Ark of the Covenant. And then God started cursing everything because they weren't supposed to have it. It is always a curse to carry what God did not call you to. Remember that the next time you start comparing yourself, I wish I had theirs, or I wish I did that, or I wish I did this. It is a curse to carry what God did not call you to. God spoke to the Jewish people. He said to Abraham, remember, I will bless you and you will be a blessing. Remember, they were meant to carry the blessing, not to contain it.

God said, I'm going to bless all the earth through you, through you. So what you're carrying is not meant for you to contain. And that's why David said, you need to praise God for what just happened. They go get the ark. They try to bring it back on a cart because that makes sense, because it's heavy. And while they're busy making sense, not doing what God told them to do, which was carry it on your shoulders. And the Levites, the priests, were supposed to be the only ones who could carry it and nobody could touch it. And you couldn't just walk around looking at it because it was too special for that.

So when they tried to put on a cart what God called them to carry, something terrible happened. The oxen stumbled. And when the oxen stumbled, a man named Usa reached out trying to help God. Have you ever tried to help God? Have you ever manipulated somebody trying to help God? Have you ever held onto something you were supposed to take your hands off of because you were trying to help God? And when he went to help God, he died.

And David was angry. He was mad because I need the presence of God back because he's just been anointed king of the whole kingdom. Saul is dead. He's not fighting Saul anymore. The kingdom is united for now. There'd been a civil war when he was rising to the kingship, but now he's settling into Jerusalem. Yet he doesn't want to be there in the seat of his power without the Ark of the Covenant, which represents God's power. I don't want it without you, God. I can't do it without you, God. It's impossible for me to do it without you, God. About every time I try to prepare a message, I come to a point where I say,

I can't do it! And the Lord usually says, finally, would you like me to do it through you? God is just waiting for you to get to the point where you take your hands off of some stuff. I'm not being irresponsible. This does not apply to your steering wheel unless you drive a Tesla. Keep your hands on that. But at the same time, we've got to understand that the glory goes to God. It has to. It's too heavy for you. Must have seemed strange to see all this celebrating. David's wife, her name was McCall.

She was so appalled that David was dancing because he was happy when they finally got the arc back because they did it God's way. Because they did it God's way. Not the logical way. God's way, not the way that made sense, but the way that takes faith. Two different ways. The way that makes sense and the way that takes faith. One is called self-sufficiency, and it's a sin. The other one, the faith way, it is when you understand that for you to carry what God has given you to carry in this life.

life. You will have to do it his way, even when his way seems strange. Even when it makes no sense. You know what David did that must have seemed strange? Every time they got the ark six steps, he stopped and sacrificed a bull. Every six steps. Now, what you think about this? This is the representation of the presence of God, and we already had it start to fall one time. And now you're making us stop every six steps, which every time we stop, it increases the chances that we'll have another stumble. But David said, I have faith that if we do it like this and we take only six steps and then stop and praise God and offer to him the sacrifice of praise, he will give us

the strength, the wisdom, the protection, the direction. God will sustain us if we stop and celebrate every six steps. Because if we wait until we get to Jerusalem to do it, we might not make it. If I wait till I get there to thank God, I may not make it. Because there is a long way. No, when I get to heaven, I'm going to fall in his feet. You better fall at his feet before this Friday, because the devil will be in heaven. be in heaven and you won't have to fight him there, but you've got to fight him now.

And if you don't stop, you might stumble. So let's do it. Six steps, praise him. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Oh, wait, that's six days. This is Sunday. Let's praise him right now. Let's praise him.

You do six steps this week. He was with you. Six steps this week. He was with you on the job this week. gave you your daily bread this week manned from heaven and a run and a scat and i praise him every six they get the ark they get the ark the presence of god and they get six steps and they said stop you know how far we have to go we just took a few they said no but he was faithful for those few He was faithful in those few.

He was faithful with a few. I was meeting with a pastor one time, and chunks and buck were with me. You know chunks and buck? Sound like a WWF tag team from 1993. Sound like they fought the Legion of Doom, don't they? But they didn't. They're just church staff members, that's all. And the man was going on and on about everything he had done.

And he is a great man. So it was a long list. The In-N-Out burger was getting cold, and we don't have those in North Carolina, and I wanted to eat mine. Anyway, the man says this, he says, he says this. Am I lying? He says, how do we do this? He's talking about world peace or something like that. He said, how do we do this?

Well, there are 19 ways. I thought 19. There's a fly buzzing around the burger by this point, because we can't eat, because he's He's still talking. He's already been going two hours. He said, there are 19 ways. I won't list them all. He said, but let me name a few.

And an hour later, he was on number 19. And he stopped. And he said, I think I should stop now. It looks like I put your guys to sleep. My back was turned to them. These two jokers were sleeping on the other end of the table with their heads on their Not like nodding off. Like I am a second grader in class playing heads up, seven up, drooling all over the table.

I can't list all the ways, but let me name a few. So sometimes I'm just going to give you a little pro tip here for praising God. You have to just list a few. Just list a few. List a few. You know what? I don't know everything God is calling me to, but I do know not. know a few things. God has called me to love and honor my wife. God has called me to be there

for my kids. And sometimes that's all I know about being a dad is be there. It is the science of showing up that produces in my mind the experiment of good kids. And it is an experiment. Fatherhood is not a formula. A few. A few. You know, anytime you want to, you can make yourself praise God. You don't think you can. You associate praise with a feeling.

I didn't see anything in First Chronicles 16 about feelings. I heard about God's sovereignty. I heard about God's shepherding. I heard about God's glory. I heard about His strength. Heard about his face, nothing about feelings. And that's why it's not dependent on feelings. So in any bad mood, you can pivot to praise.

Pivot to praise. David knew how to do this. That's what David knew how to do. That's why the Bible called him a man after God's own heart. Not because he was perfect. You think that means he was perfect. Then what's Vathsheba all about? Why did he sleep with a woman while he was supposed to be at war if he was a man after God's own heart?

It is not about his perfection. It was about his praise. He gave God glory in all of those things. Because if you don't learn how to pivot to praise in situations, two things will happen. When times are good, you'll run into pride if you don't pivot to praise. And then when times are bad, if you don't pivot to praise, you'll be in a prison of your circumstance. Pride or prison if you don't learn to pivot. David made them, praise God.

He said, Asaph, get me 12 men. Station and appoint them, and this is what I want them to say. I want them to start talking about the glory of God and the great things that he's done. And I want us to get our attention off of how we stumbled. And I want us to get our attention even of how we succeeded. And I want us to start singing about and thinking about all the things that God did, all the ways that God made, Even the strange ways that God made and the praise only seems strange if you don't understand the process that they went through to get it there The praise only seems strange if you don't understand the process that you went through to get there

It only seems strange because you didn't see the struggle that led to the praise It only seems strange from the outside when you have been without the ark and when you've tried to do it without God and when you've ended up on your own bathroom floor I remember when my dad came to me when I was a teenager and he gave his life to Christ and he said you don't know how I was standing in the shower and cry every morning wondering how am I going to fake it another day because I'm so low. But this poor man cried to the Lord and he heard me from heaven and he reached out and he saved me. You don't know. Stop trying to make sense to people who don't even know your story. Trying to conform Christians. Not supposed to make sense to people who don't know God.

We don't even worship God most of us. We say Jesus is Lord, but we live like logic is Lord. Because every time we get in a situation, the first thing we consult is our circumstance. The first thing we consult is our energy. The first thing we consult is our feelings. The first thing we consult is our mood. The first thing that we consult is something somebody told us on some Godforsaken News Channel.

I rebuke the spirit of fear that's running your life today. Does you keep running to the wrong place? I rebuke it. I tell it to dry up. But for that to happen, you've got to do it like David.

David said, y'all got to praise God. So when I would lead the choir back in college, I used to get real. My hero at the time was Kirk Franklin. And most of the people at the college were white. That was interesting. And I have always believed, I don't mind telling you to praise God. You don't have to tell me to praise God? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I don't need you to scream at me. Yes, you do. Sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. This man came over to the praise

service one night. I used to get down off the stage, y'all. I was wild. I was trying to turn the Baptist school into a Pentecostal worship service. I didn't know what to do, so I had to make them. I'd get down on stage. I'd start walking over chairs and stuff. And this one guy that was there that was, he had been at the school forever. He was an administrator and a student. And I could tell, he came one night, I could tell he didn't like it. And I went to him next day and I said, I don't think you liked it. He said, I don't like it at all. I said, what didn't you like? Did the speaker say something? He said, I didn't like you. I don't like you. I said, well, was it something I said? He said, about

everything you said and what you did. Because I don't need the time I was 19 with some old Navy turtlenecks. He said, I don't need some 19-year-old with a turtleneck coming down. He was real country too. I don't need some 19-year-old with a turtleneck coming down there off the stage and telling me to praise the Lord, telling me y'all don't want to praise him. I do want to praise him. That's why I can.

I don't need you to make me. No, but I think you do sometimes. I think you do sometimes. In fact, I think one better than that, you need to awaken your inner David like he did in Psalm 103. So when we're not here to do it, because we're going to lead you to worship God. I'm not going to just get up here and preach like this.

You'll turn in your Bible. I'm going to clap your hands. I'm going to remind you to do some stuff. stuff that you know. I'm not one of these lifeguards that smokes weed and lays there and doesn't watch. If I see you drowning in doubt, I'm going to pull you out. Because that's my job, dude. And by the way, I don't even preach for everybody just a few. If I can find five people in the room who don't care and are not a shame and who know who's secret is, can you say, bless the Lord, oh my soul. Because David did that.

He didn't just make them praise God. He made himself, praise God. Why are you so much better telling everybody else what to do than you are telling you what to do? I never saw a service go from so high to so low in one sentence. But look at it. Look at the scripture. He said, glory to God, praise God. He gets Shimamurataya and Jahel and Matta Thaya and Allah.

and all these guys, right? But it's not so many. When he went to get the ark, he took 30,000 with him. David didn't always have 30,000. David didn't always have 30,000. At one point, after God had anointed him to be king, he had 600. And the Bible describes him, men who were in crippling debt, crippling dead.

That's the only reason they came to David, what they needed from him. That's who he had. Ruffians, they were. Yeah, that's who he had. God has gathered to David, all these armies, and he takes them all down to get the ark. 30,000. And they can't do it because they don't do it God's way. Because sometimes you start thinking that you need more of something. More. You get smarter than God, don't you? Hagar, that was Abraham's wife. She thought if she helped God out having a baby, it would help. Because look, can we admit it was a strange way for God to start a nation to pick a woman with a

barren wound? If you're going to need a nation, you need a son. So you find somebody with the sun, and you start there. No, God's going to do it in a strange way. So it can be his strength. God has a strange way. The next time you sing Waymaker, make sure you understand. that the way that he makes will seem strange as he's making it. You'll look back and say, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness, that's who you are. Only thing you'll be thinking while you're going through it is, this is weird. This is weird. How many y'all have been there the last couple weeks in your life just going? This is weird. This is crazy. This is under, yeah, this is crazy. This is heavy. This is dark. Well, when David gets to the other side of this journey with the ark, he does something

really fantastic, really beautiful. He said, God remembers his covenant and the promise he made. Now, a lot of times we are trying to hold God to our preferences, not his promises. So that's where the disappointment is. A lot of times what we are trying to get God to do in our life, he never said he would do it. Do you need an example of that? Take your stress away. He didn't say I'll take your stress.

He said, I'll give you strength. In order for God to take your stress away, he's got to take your breath away. Nice way of saying he's got to kill you. How many y'all want God to take your stress away? Don't raise it. I don't want you to die like us right here in front of me. God is good. God is good.

But the ways that he shows his goodness seems strange. It seems strange what you're going through right now, doesn't it? Certainly seems strange to me. The Lord told me, ready for this? The Lord told me in 2013. Was that when I did Surround, 2013? 2014. Round about there.

He said, you're going to reach 100,000 people every week when you preach. That didn't happen until COVID hit. and the building's closed. I am not saying God sent COVID so I could hit a number that I made up in my mind. Don't hear it like that. Don't hear it like that. But the first day we ever reached that number of people live in service, not through podcasts and later stuff, the first day we reached that number of people in service, there were five people in the room. And I thought, this is strange.

This is strange. Because when you're standing there in it, it just looked like we went backwards. And to your senses is strange. And to your feelings is strange. And to your rational mind is strange. And to those watching you carry the ark is strange. Why don't you put it on a cart? Why don't you do it the easy way?

Why don't you just sell out to this? Why don't you just give up on that? Some people in your life think you're strange for coming to this church. I know you don't want to hurt my feelings, so you're just kind of... What are you talking about? It's completely normal. Holly said something funny the other day. I haven't planned to share this, so we'll take it out later if it doesn't come out right.

One time they did a parody article of us, they said we put a water slide on our stage for baptisms. Well, I didn't see it. I just had people texting me, what's up with the water slide? Now, that's a weird text to get if you don't know the contact. It's up with the water slide. Are you in my backyard? What's going on? I don't have a slide?

You mean in the church? You think I have a water slide in the church? And people were saying that. She said something the other day because we were referring. on God's faithfulness to our ministry. She said, now that I look back on it, I kind of like that this church is crazy enough that when they said we would put a water slide in the church for people to get baptized. It was believable.

Don't y'all love Holly Ferdick? Because I'm sitting there wanting to sue somebody. You can't say that about me. She took the insult as a compliment. that they thought we were just that crazy that if God said put a water slide, or if God said feed a crowd with five loaves and two fish, no, I'm not announcing a water slide. Don't get the illustration twisted.

It's just an illustration. I'm just saying that it's a weird way to make a nation to pick a barren womb. It's a weird way to deliver a nation with a staff over a sea. It's a weird way to feed a crowd with the little boy's lunch. It's a weird way to attend a funeral four days late and then tell the man to get up. It's a weird way to stop a storm to sleep through it and wait till the last watch of the night. But sometimes weird works. Sometimes when I start praising God for the few I have, he adds unto me.

I love it. I love him. I love it. I love it. I love it. I was so weird when I was in college. I was so weird. I used to go to the bathroom between classes sometimes so I could get my Bible reading in

because I wasn't disciplined enough to wake up early. I'll say if I'd get five minutes in the bathroom, nobody will bother me in this bathroom. Nobody will bother me in this bathroom. And if I had had a phone, I probably wouldn't have done it. I would have scrolled something. But I would take just a few. I think the end of the end. The enemy wants you to think that you don't have enough of stuff.

David not only said that it was God who gave you Canaan. That's the promised land. We're not talking about land. We're talking about the lives God has given us. The lives. You are living in what God has given you. That's the difference between me and the person who says, I'm a self-made man. I don't claim that.

Everything I have got is the result of something God gave me. Everything. So I don't want to apologize for it, but I don't want to be proud about it, because God gave it to me. You are living in something that was given. And if you don't believe that, you will be prideful. And if you don't believe that long enough, you'll be powerless. Because you'll lean on your own understanding. Because you will say Jesus is Lord, but you will live like logic is Lord.

And you'll always be counting. We only have five. We only have two. This won't go so far. is too few. It's too few. I've been studying the Bible for over half my life seriously to teach it, not just to learn it. And I've been studying the Bible over half my life, not just to preach it, but to live it. One thing I found out in the Bible is that, generally speaking, you can find some exceptions, but as a general principle, listen to this. God never looks at your life

and says, I can't do it because you have too few of anything. God never looks at people. He never, I can't find in the Bible very many times there are a few, a few. But this is one of those cases where the exception proves the rule. That mostly the Bible is about a 75-year-old man named Abraham, who became a great nation. When you're 75, you only have a few years less. I could go on and on with this, y'all, when you're making a plan to save the world and you start at 30 and you're going to the cross? Why didn't Jesus die at age 75?

Why do he do everything that he was sent to do in three years? Even better. Why didn't he run a big campaign so he could get a big number of disciples so he could have a lot of followers if he's leaving, why did he spend so much time with 12 men and one of them was Judas? Why did he do it in three years with 12 men and changed the world? Maybe he wanted to set the model so you could see what he can do through a few. Because he knew, listen, he knew that you would be in this situation in life and you'd be saying, I don't have enough. I don't know enough.

I don't have enough time. I don't have enough talent. I don't have a big enough team. I don't, that song, I got a really big team. I didn't make that song. I have a really small team. In fact, some of you are here today being like, I have nobody. That's not true.

But the enemy always seeks to diminish what you've been given. That's a strategy over and over. And how many times will he do it? As many times as you'll believe it. So take what you have given and diminish it and shrink it and shrink it until you can't focus on it, until all you see in your life is what others carry. Until all you see in your life is the things you don't have until you forget the few that you do. I want to preach to you today about the few that you do have. If that's finances, I'm talking about the few dollars you have.

If that's years that you have with your kids left in the house, I want to speak about the few that you do have. If that's friends that you have who really love you, really believe in you, I want to talk about the few that you do have. If that's the things that you're good at versus the things that you're not, I want to talk about the few that you do have. That's why God used David. knew what to do with a few. Do you? Are you always waiting for something else? More, more, more. God give me more wisdom. And sometimes God says, the problem is not that you have too few. You got too much. You got too much. God give me more wisdom, more wisdom, more wisdom. God said the problem isn't the absence of wisdom. The problem is that you have too many opinions. Sometimes you have too much

information. God, I just need to know more than I can do it. No, you don't need to know more. I had somebody leave at church one time. They said, I knew all that today before I came. Some of y'all were here like, I knew all about the Ark of the Covenant. You didn't even get to the good part, about the tabernacle that they made for it. That was awesome. You can talk about Obed Edom, when you were getting over to Obed Eden. We were getting away to bring back down.

You didn't talk about that. That was good. I knew all that. You knew it already. But do you do it already? It's what you do with the few. I learned this over and over and over and over and over. over again, that sometimes I had more faith with a few than I have with more. What's that about?

As few went to many, faith went from big to little. What's that about? Because I start dependent on the cart. I think I need more. So, I'm just challenging you this week to take what David said to your own heart when he said that God gave it to them. Look at verse 19 again. I gave them so many scriptures today. Yo, my fear in preaching is running out of stuff. So you should see all the scriptures we don't get to. It would give you heart palpitations to know what all they're looking through back there. Because the last thing I want to get up here is 15 minutes in and go, and well, I guess

so. So I'm always thinking that I don't have enough to say. my biggest mistake in preaching is I try to say too much. I do too much. It's the Ark of the Covenant. It's the Book of Revelation. And it's the Temple of Dagon. And you're like, whoa, I just had my first cup of coffee. See, it could be just as bad to do too much. Here's David, from a shepherd to a king. And what does he go back to? Verse 19. He said, God spoke it when they were but, what's the word? Few, but few. And then he emphasizes it. Watch this. Few indeed. Just in case you think he's overstating it. He's like, nah, it was nothing but Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the patriarchs.

And God did all this out of that. Don't get it twisted to think that I'm so great as a king. David said, no, no, no. He did it. when they were but few, so he could prove that he was faithful, and he couldn't prove that he was faithful if he didn't do it through a few. If he did it through a lot, you would consult the lot of your logic and the lot of your resources. So God has you in a season right now where he is stripping away some things and subtracting some things, and some people are leaving, and some things are disappearing, and some

Certainties are evaporating and some things you depended on all your life are no longer able to hold you up So God can show you what he can do Do with you. It is almost like Gideon in the Old Testament Where he had 32,000 warriors and the Lord said I can't use you yet to deliver my people Look at judges 7 2. Why? Because you're not strong enough. Why? Why? because you're not smart enough? Why? Because you're not experienced enough. No, no, no. He said, you have too many. So why are you praying about too few when God is talking about too many? God said, take them down to the water. I'll thin them out. I'll send home. Who needs to be sent

home? And you'll deliver the people with 300 men. I'm not good at math, but that's backwards. I went from 32,000 to 300, and it feels bad to go backwards. And you've been going backwards, and you've been feeling bad about it. But praise the Lord, because praise paves away for the provision of God to be revealed in your life through the few. Through the few, say it, through the few, through the few. I don't have that much. You don't need that much. You don't need what you think you need.

I promise you you don't need what you think you need to do what God has called you to do. Because if you needed what you think you need to do what God has called you to do, and he's the one who called you to do it, he would have given you what you think you need to do what he's called you to do it. He doesn't promise stuff that he doesn't provide for. Oh, if I was more even-tempered. No, no, no, you need a little bit of that, mm, all right? We're going to subdue it and submit it and we're going to train it to the Holy Spirit,

but you need some of that. You're going to get some self-control, but you need some of that. Oh, if I could do this, if I could do that, if I could be more like this. I went to, when I first went to Shelby, I went to a music director. This guy was a legend. He was the best musician that at that point in my life I had ever met. He played in studios. He played on people's albums.

And here I was asking him to come be my keyboard player at a church of just a few hundred people. Just a few hundred. Everybody around me told him he won't do it. He doesn't need to be on some church band. He won't play on a church stage. I said, well, let me just go talk to him. And I said, I know that you probably won't do it. By the way, you'll never get a date if you come up with this kind of confidence.

I know you probably don't want to do it. But before I finish, you say, yeah, I'll do it. I said, I can only pay you this much. And it was just a few. I was going to pay him for a week what he could get in an hour. He said, I'd do it. I've been praying about that. I said, oh, okay.

So I started doing it. Every week I'd go over to his house, and it was such a trip, y'all, because I would teach him the songs. Now, let me explain to you. I don't have much musical training, just the chords I learned on my guitar when I was a boy. And that's it. Now, I know those four chords really well, but I learned to play guitar off Green Day. Huh? Not Bach. Hooty and the Blowfish. That's how I learned to play guitar. But I know what I know. So I'd go over to his house. He had a little studio in his house, and I would sit down with him. His name was Richard.

Still is Richard. But I sit down with Richard, and I take the little chord charts over. I say, let's go over these songs for the week. Not because he needed to learn them. We were getting it all charted out, and he would chart it for me and everything. I would always apologize to him. I always felt. bad because he's such a great musician. I mean, he knows jazz, he knows rock, he knows country. He can play anything by ear or by sight. And here I am with a G and a C and a D and an A, and that's the whole song. I say, I'm so sorry, Richard. I know this is so simple. This is so stupid. Me sitting here a great musician like you. I don't even know all the chords that you know. And one day he stopped me. He says, Stephen, stop thinking. Everybody I impersonate has a country accent, right? Stephen. He said, you don't need to know more chords. You know the right four. And then he started, he gave me a tutorial. He started playing songs with the four chords that I used

over and over again. And he showed me at least 20 songs that used those four chords only. And every time he would do it, it would drive the message home a little bit more. You only need four. You only need four. Then he'd play it again. It was just a one, five, six, four. That's the notation, the Nashville number system, right? It's the one, the five, the six, and the four. And he showed me with those four chords, you can write the number one hit.

It's not how many chords you know. It's how you use the ones you know. Hey, hey, I'm not preaching to everybody today. Just a few Just a few That had been going around saying, God, I don't know enough I don't have enough I have been trained enough

I'm not good enough I'm not sleeping enough That must be a parent of a newborn or a dog God I'll have enough And Richard showed me You only need four courts You only need four I'll prove it

God got ready to turn on the lights of the solar system. He said, four words. Let there be light. Four words, and the lights came on. Four words, and the world was illuminated. Four words. And the darkness had to back up. You only need four. You only need four. You only need four. Play a DLJ. You only need four. You could do more with four. You could be four. faithful with a few. He taught me four chords can do so much. So follow me. I'm going to do it on the spot, and then I'm going to close. But I'm going to show you before I close what you can do with four. If everybody on the worship team went out and got Salmanilla, just keep making up horrible stuff to happen to the worship team, all right? And I knew four chords. What could I do?

I could say, tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word, forecourse, just to rest upon his promise, just to know, thus saith the Lord. Four course. Jesus, Jesus. How I trust him. How I've proved him or Jesus, Jesus. Jesus. Precious Jesus. This is what we need more of.

Oh, for grace to trust him more. You don't need more stuff. You need more faith. Four course. Four course. One name. My Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine.

For thee, all the follies of sin, I resign. My gracious redeemer, my Savior are thou. If ever I love my Jesus now. See, four quarts. And we could go, what a friend. We haven't changed keys. Four quarts. You don't need more courts.

You need more faith. You don't need more time. You need more focus. You might not even need more money. You might just even need better priorities. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and grieves to bear. What a privilege to carry to God in prayer.

Here's the problem. Listen. Oh, oh, you got no word if the chords go. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. And oh, what needless pain. Needless pain we bear And here's why we've been stressed out All because we do

I know a few I know a few courts I know a few truths I know a few things I know what to do with a few I know what to do with a few He was faithful with a few God will give you what you need

Here I am to worship Here I am to bow down Here I am to say that you're my God. You're all together lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me. I need a few of you to stand and sing it. Here I am to worship. Here I am. A few of you really have been carrying a lot.

Lift your hands up and give it to God. Here I am to... Chords new songs say, And I exodus. Let's lift Jesus high in this place today. Come on, he's worthy of praise. 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.

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