Elevation with Steven Furtick - I Woke Up Like This (Levi Lusko)

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

God’s favor isn’t limited by our failures.  In “I Woke Up Like This,” we hear a word from Pastor Levi Lusko, the lead pastor of Fresh Life Church. In his message, Pastor Levi shows us how God’s favor often flows through the connections you make and the steps of faith you’re willing to take.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. Let's welcome our eFAM all over. That sounds better, right? That's better. That's much better. I wanted to tell you a few things before we get into the Word of God today. And that is, if you have any room left for the Word of God, after Thanksgiving, you may be saying, well, Pastor Stephen, I'm very stuffed.

I don't know if I can receive the bread of life today. But I do this every year after Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving in the U.S. It was Thanksgiving in the U.S. I speak the miracle of supernatural carb cancellation over your waistline. I speak it. think it's going to work, but I speak it anyway. I do it every year. I've yet to get one testimony that that worked, but I keep doing it every year. Praise the Lord. If you receive that, put your

raised hands emoji in the chat. There you go. Yeah. Put a scale emoji in the chat. Oh, check this out. Before I tell you this, really good news, Holly had these shirts made where it says, Put it in the chat. I guess this probably looks weird if I'm just walking around town wearing a hoodie that says put it in the chat. But I thought it was cool for our purposes. So somebody right now put it in the chat what you're grateful for. Maybe a person or a thing or maybe you feel peace in your heart and you can't even explain why. Just put it in the chat what you're thankful for today.

Come on, let's fill the chat with Thanksgiving. Let's fill the comments with gratitude. I'm so thankful for you. I'm thankful for the way that our church family has stepped up and trusted God this year. It's been amazing to see. I'll share just a little bit of that with you. This year when the global pandemic became real to us, we started to wonder what will happen to ministry.

And on one hand, you have faith, but you also have fear because there's this aspect in which we've never lived through this before. I'm happy to report to you as we come toward the end of 2020 that by the favor of God, somebody shout favor, put favor in the chat. That we've given this year over $9 million to our outreach efforts. I think the Lord deserves a great praise for him. That's nothing but the favor of God and the faith of God's people. So I'll list a few things.

I can't say them all, but that includes over 600,000 meals, over 30,000 volunteers serving over 58,000 hours with over 300 organizations. Over $500,000 to disaster relief efforts, $150,000 of flood supplies, over a million dollars in support when COVID hit, 250,000 pounds of food. Pop-up field hospitals in Central Park, New York. We gave 500,000 tablets to inmates this year through God behind bars so they could get the Word of God where they are. And I'm pretty proud of you for that. Thank God. And just all kinds of things.

Over $100,000 to church plants. Over $100,000 to our partnership with YMCA's across the country. You are an amazing church. You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And of course you probably know by now, if you're part of our ministry, that we end every year with appreciation and anticipation. And so we're getting ready for that time of thousands of us around the world, not just those who are near Charlotte or one of our locations, but around the world are preparing

to give to our 2020 favor offering for the year in, for our expansion and our expansion and outreach. I want to thank those of you who are already tithing and showing God that you know that he's where your help comes from. And so many of you do that regularly. Thank you. So many will begin to do that this time of year to trust God in a new way. Many are giving an above and beyond gift, and you can find all of that out on elevationchurch.org. But the good news is whether you ever give or not, we're going to be here for you. We're going to be here. We're going to be here so you can be lifted up. If you never give a dime, if you never even pray for me, if you don't even like me, I'm going to be here preaching if you ever need me, and you can't get

rid of me. Zoom in real tight on my face. I'm going to be here. Come on, clap your hands, give God praise. Somebody shout favor. And when you think about favor, you think about Levi Losko. And Pastor Levi Lustco is here to preach today. I want to tell you, brother, there's not many people I admire more than you, maybe only Holly. And then there's you. Jesus, Holly, Levi. You've been coming around here a long time. You've been blessing our church for years.

You've written books to bless us. You built an amazing church, and Ginny was telling me just this weekend something pretty amazing about you. I'll tell you about later. It's pretty cool. She was bragging on you, because she was here for Reflect, and you didn't come. And it was just me and all the women. And it was weird, and I missed you.

So I thought, well, you can come preach and share with us. You're so significant in the body of Christ. And one of the greatest friends that I've had. We love you, Jenny and Levi so much. We love the Lustco's. Will you welcome to Elevation Church? Come on, Epham. Put it in the chat.

Welcome. Thank you for your pastor. Come on. Let's thank God for Pastor Stephen and Holly Ferdick, Elijah and Grant. This moment is one that I've been looking forward to for a long time. I didn't know it was coming. I didn't know I'd have the chance to tell you, but I knew I would need to when I got the chance. And that is to let you know how grateful I am for how this ministry and your pastors and you have led through the pandemic. You guys have led the body of Christ so strong, so well. Two weeks ago, your pastor stood in this pulpit and gave a brilliant message about not wasting the rain. Were you thankful for that word? And in that message, he said towards the end that God wants all of us to steward our storms. And I think that's a profound insight.

And I think it is a perfect way to describe how you have helped lead the body of Christ and the world through a most challenging and difficult time. Through the sermons, through the pivots, through the kicking of stools. I mean, it all worked. It all worked. Come on, someone put it in the chat. It all worked. It all worked. It all worked. But out of it all, I just wanted to, like, encapsulate how grateful I am for the way that you guys have stewarded this storm.

With the two songs that, in my opinion, out of all the songs, out of all, like all the songs, like all of them, just all the songs. the way that God used this ministry and this man and this team to give us a lullaby when we needed a hug from God the most. That's what the blessing to me represents. It was and has been for so many of us in a fear-filled time, in a time of worry and terror and panic, God's way of giving a hug to his bride, God's way of putting his arms around his children and telling us it's going to be okay. have fallen asleep with my three-year-old son so many times, countless times with that in the air and being able to speak blessing over him and his children's children, children's children, because of that song. And it was the song heard around the world. Every language, every tribe,

every tongue, every language got to find out that God is for us in a time when it felt like he wasn't. So thank you. And thank you and Cody and Carrie. And so you guys wrote the lullaby. But then you guys, we can't stay sleeping forever so you all went ahead and wrote the wake-up call rattle. That was God saying it's time to wake up. We can't stay sleeping forever. We got to wake up. We got a world to touch. We got people to heal. We got nice. And we're just getting started. Because 2020 has been your time to shine. And I believe that as you continue to lead the way in the world, that many churches around the country and world are following your example, drafting on your slipstream. So I came here to preach. I got a brand new message. I cooked it up fresh for y'all because when something

means a lot to you, you give towards it. And so I've been working hard on this word, but more than anything, I just came to say thank you. So thank you for what you've meant to us in our lives, in our trials, in our wanderings, and in this pandemic. Come on. You can be seated. Please. Please. You can be seated. Please grab your seat. Thank you, worship team. Love you, Chris. I haven't even given him a hug yet, but I'm going to do it from closer than six feet. I'm going to get in his bubble. That's weird. Why would you say that? I also just send greetings to every single one of you at all the 37 billion watch parties across the country and world and everybody watching this. Still in your delirious meat sweats from Thanksgiving. Finding out your jeans don't fit anymore.

It's all the things, right? I want you to turn your Bible to three different places as we continue in this season called favor 20, 20, 20, believing God's favor, spilling into 2021, sending it ahead into 2023. I want you to turn to Genesis 28, Luke 5, and John 21. It's quite a few places, but you got quite a few fingers. So you can just hold on to them. That's Genesis 28, Luke 5, and John 21. We will, by the end of this message, get to two significant biblical boat stories.

There's a lot of boat stories we could pick in the Bible. There's boats everywhere. There's the largest boat, Noah. There's the smallest boat. Moses, little baby in a tiny basket. That's the littlest boat. There's boats all over. Jesus' ministry.

So many times did Jesus get in a boat or be on the Sea of Galilee that it's been nicknamed the fifth gospel. The fifth gospel. Because you can't just get his gospel story from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You've got to get near this body of water to get his soul story. I mean, 18 out of 33 miracles. Jesus performed took place on this lake. We went there a little bit last week. We're going to go back there in just a minute. We're going to return to the scene of the crime. Luke chapter 5, the room where it happened. But of all the boat stories in the Bible that we're going to get to, I think the one we're going to get to by the end of this sermon is one that's going to touch your heart.

But before we do, we've got a lot of work to do, so we're not going to waste a minute. The title of my message is I woke up like this. I woke up like this. I woke up like this. I need you to say it out loud before we go any further. Could you just say, I woke up like this? We usually say that statement to sort of express like a little bit of false humility. Like someone's like, oh, you look great. It's like, oh, just woke up. I didn't even try. Didn't even try. It's like, yeah, Beyonce, you had 25 people working hard on you so you could just wake up like this, right? It's like a false humility thing, but then there are times when we're embarrassed and all we can do. is, the reality is, church online, a lot of you really did, you really did just wake up like that.

You really did. And what if next Sunday, what if you got showered and got dressed and got ready for God's Word? Even though you were doing church online, what if you still were with your notes out and your Bible out and you had already eaten, already worked out, you came ready to receive a word from God? There's a thought. I woke up like this. I got to go to Israel one time. When I ever tell the stories of Israel, I always say the first time I went to Israel. And Jenny's always like, how many times have you been? I'm like, just once, but it sounds cooler when you say the first time I went to Israel, as though there were like 23 repeat visits, right?

But the first time I went to Israel, I was so excited to the next morning, go see where Joppa took place, where Peter got this vision, where Jonah ran away from God. I was going to go to Joppa tomorrow. It was one of the great boat stories in the Bible, right? And we were staying at this hotel in Tel Aviv and a little bit about me. When I was a kid, I used to sleepwalk like crazy. Where are my sleepwalking friends at? Just crazy things done in the night.

Thank God, it is chilled out for me. Unfortunately, now I just wake up at three. Panicked. So I don't know if it's better or worse than sleepwalking. But when I was a kid, my mom would find me all around the house. She'd have to redirect me back to bed. I feel so bad for her. One time she tells this story.

She always tells the story. She found me standing over the kitty litter. I said, Levi, what are you doing? I said, I'm going to the bathroom. She's like, not in here. you're not. She had to guide me back. One time in high school, I got up, got dressed, got showered in that order. Fully dressed. I woke up, and I didn't know why I was taking the shower, right? And sleepwalking. I drove out of a jungle hut once on a mission trip in Belize,

out of a jungle hut window landed in the bushes in my sleep because I thought a big boulder like Indiana Jones was rolling into the hut. Pray for me, y'all. It has been a journey. But this particular trip, what happened was I left the hotel room and I woke up after sleepwalking and I was at the Coke machine, ice machine area, and I was so confused, didn't know where I was, I was jet lagged, didn't know why I was in Israel, didn't know why I was looking for a Coke here, didn't have any shekels on me to purchase a Coke, and I was in my underwear. And I was an intern at this church and I had come with a trip. My job was to carry a tripod up and down every mountain, every hill because the pastor was going to preach this series of

messages on video from the Holy Land. My job was just to carry a tripod around. I was happy just to be in Israel. You know what I'm saying? Give me a tripod. You need me to carry? There's a couple over there. I'll carry one around. Whatever I can do to help get God's word out. It's always been my spirit and perspective. And so now God has me in front of the camera. I'm just as happy as I was behind the camera carrying the tripod up Masada. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't really matter. Like, however I can be a part of the equation. So I was just happy to be there. Right. And so as this now was like setting in, like I'm locked out. I have no way to get back in my room.

I have no play here. There's nothing I can do. I realize I'm going to have to go down on the front desk and get a new key card. And so I just decided if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it with confidence. And it was a nice hotel, man. And so I get in the elevator. I'm just like trying to like think I can. I think I can.

The door's open. There's like the Mater D at the concierge desk. It's two in the morning, and they're just all like, what is it going on here? And I just come strolling out in my giraffe boxers, you know, and too much information, I'm sure. And I just walk up and I say, I seem to have been locked out of room 1202, going to need a new key card, please. They looked at each other. You know, and of course, the next question is, do you have any ID? Can you prove this is your room?

I think they just decided it was not worth the fight. So the man just made a key to 1202 and hand up it down. Someone say in the chat one more time, I woke up like this. All right. So here's where we are going to find ourselves. in Genesis chapter 28. Here's verse 10. It's a story of someone similarly embarrassed. I was embarrassed on that night in the city of Tel Aviv. This man was embarrassed. This man had come to the end of himself. This man, he had no plan. Verse 10, now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward

Heran. So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night because the sun headset. And he took one of the stones at that place and he put it at his head and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed. And behold, a ladder was set up on the earth and its top reach to heaven. And there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give to you and your descendants. Also, your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth. You shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And in you and in your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and I will keep you,

wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you. How many of y'all are getting encouraged, just hearing this read over you. I will not leave you, not until I have done what I have spoken to you. Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. He was afraid. He said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Then Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that had been at his head, and he set it up as a pillar, and he poured oil out on top of it, and he called the name of the place, Bethel, the name of that city had previously been Luz, and Jacob made a vow saying, if God will be with me and keep me in this way that I am going

and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I may come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God's house. And all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you. I woke up like this. Jacob, as we come into Genesis 28, has ruined his life. He has made some bad decisions that have led to him feeling like he is at rock bottom. He has nothing. He's in the middle of nowhere. Still almost 400 miles to go to get to his uncle Laban, who he hopes will take him in. He's burned every bridge. He's used up every favor. He will never see his mom again alive. His brother, who he should be closest to in the whole world, wants nothing to do with him. You see, Jacob jumped to the wrong conclusion. Unlike John the Baptist, right?

Who knew that Jesus, even in the womb, he knew that Jesus was to feed us to lead us. Right? I mean, even back there, John the Baptist knew. John the Baptist jumped to the right conclusion. Jacob now had jumped to the conclusion. My life's over. I've got nothing. I am nothing.

Even truly God must want nothing to do with me. I was handed such a great opportunity as the descendant. of Abraham and I squandered it. You see, he was a foot catcher, a heel catcher, manipulating outcomes, manipulating circumstances, always taking advantage of everyone, only thinking about himself. When you live that way eventually, no one in your life is going to want anything to do with you. When you're always focused on yourself, that was Jacob, heel catcher. Jacob, now, his mom just said, the best I can do is just give you, here some provisions. I put in a back, like, you better get out of here. Your bro's going to kill you. Because you had,

you play dress up to get your father's blessings. You pretended to be someone that you weren't so you could walk in what was never, was always what God was going to give to you in the first place. And so here he is, he's in a place. This says he was in a certain place. It wasn't even a place with a name. It had no name because it was nowhere. And there, the foot catcher met the foot washer. and everything changed. His name would change. His possessions would change. He was by himself.

His family would change. By the time we get to the end of Jacob's story, just imagine him, he's a man on the run, he has nothing, he has no one, he doesn't have a penny to his name, he's not even in a place with a name. By the end of his story, verse 43 of Genesis 30 tells us,

the man became exceedingly prosperous, had large flocks, female and male servants, camels and donkeys, as his father had prophesied upon him saying, you will become one day a large company. He didn't become, that actually didn't come to pass. He became two. Jacob, Israel, became two companies. Verse 10, he speaks looking back on his life, how different is his spirit, how different is his tone. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth, which you, God have shown your servant. For I crossed over this, Jordan, with my staff, and now I've become two companies. He's referring back to this day. I came over. All I had was a staff. Didn't have a sleeping bag. I slept with a rock as a pillow. I have nothing.

He's looking over all of his flocks, divided into two camps, and he's marveling at the goodness and grace of God. And he's saying, I've become two companies. I've got 12 sons, Ruben, Isikarne, Naftel the Gad, Simian, Benjamin, Ash, Levi, Dan, Joseph, Judah, Zebulon, I'm going to be used to bring the Messiah into the world. I'm going to be used to establish a glorious kingdom that God might save people all over the world, to the north, to the east, to the south, to the west. And even in this moment, we are today walking in the fulfillment of that prophecy. As Elevation Church broadcast this gospel of hope and this message of love and peace, as the worship songs alter the atmosphere for people who are struggling to not take their lives

in the midst of one of the most hopeless times, divided times, pain-filled times in human history, Here is Jesus, building his church and not even the gates of hell can prevail against it. This is that. And Jacob got to be a link in the chain of what God was connecting. So you could interview Jacob, two captain of two companies, father of 12 sons, lots of wives also. Different sermon, not recommended. But you might say, Jacob, what did you do?

you might become who you were. Not who you were, but who you are. Jacob, what did you, what did you do? Did you, did you buy a product on the internet that you took you through a 12-week course? Surely there was, there was something that involved supplements. I bet you essential oils were involved. Like, what did you do, how did you do? How did you change? And he would just look at you with a smile and twinkling his eye and go, I woke up like this. I didn't do anything. It wasn't what I did. It was who I met. It was an encounter. I woke up like this.

I'm not responsible for the change in my situation or circle. I woke up like this. All I know is I was blind. Now I see. I was dead. Now I'm alive. I was hopeless. Now I hope.

I was a narcissist. Now I was a foot catcher trying to pull other people back to pull myself ahead. But I met the foot washer. I had a revelation. I met Jesus. The heavens. opened up. I didn't ask for it. I wasn't seeking him. It wasn't my decision. He pursued me. He sought me. He washed me. He changed me. He touched me. He blessed me. He healed me. I woke up like this.

How did you wake up? I made a little list. He woke up amazed. Amazed is how Jacob woke up. Profoundly amazed. He used the word awesome. Awesome, because he woke up and he got to see a vision of a ladder. Write that down. Put it in the chat. Amazed. I woke up amazed. He was terrified. Now he's amazed. I was horrified. Now I'm astonished, he said. Because I thought I was alone, but then I found out I wasn't. And the same place that didn't even get a name, a certain place, a scary place, a terrible place.

Guess what? It's the house of God now. Because the house of God is wherever you are, wherever Jesus is where you are. And it's the house of God. You're the house of God. We don't get to go to church. Oh, well, psych, we are the church. L-O-O. Wherever we are is where the church is. We gather together in the mighty, matchless name of Jesus. This is church. This is how the world gets changed. We are linked up in this moment. And so he's amazed. He's amazed because God essentially let him see how heaven works. The key is in the phrase, this is the gate of heaven, which you will recognize you students to the Bible from Genesis chapter 11.

when mankind tried to build a tower to heaven. And the phrase Babel is used. And Babel or Babylon comes up again and again and again, beginning of the Bible to the very end. And what does it always mean? Well, in the ancient language of the day, it meant gate of heaven. So what they were trying to do with that stairway, what they were trying to do with that ladder, if you will, was connect Earth to heaven.

That's been what man's always been trying to do. That's why people turn to heroin. That's why people turn to money. That's why people look to their career. What are we trying to? We're trying to get back to heaven. We're trying to fill what's empty. We're trying to restore what's lost.

So Babel was trying to get to God, to get to wholeness, to get to transcendence, to get to healing. We were trying to get our way up. And that's how it was traditionally thought, and that's how people still mistakenly think it works today. That if you're going to get to heaven, you've got to build a tower up high enough. And then eventually, if you can get enough Benjamin stacked upon Benjamin's, if you can get enough Instagram followers stacked upon Instagram. So if you could sleep with this person or that person, Eventually, you can get a tower. That's the gate of heaven. That's how Jacob would have thought.

But then in his dream, he's lying there, and all of a sudden he sees a tower that descends from heaven to earth. And this ladder, it's like in those houses where you pull the rope and the attic ladder comes tumbling down, that's what he saw in his dream. He saw God initiate a ladder not from earth up, but from heaven down. He saw a ladder coming down. He saw a ladder coming down from heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending. And his exclamation, this is the gate of heaven, was him saying, oh, that's how heaven works. It's what in John 1, we realized when Nathaniel, when Jesus saw him under the fig tree, and he said, Nathaniel, I saw you under the fig tree. Nathaniel was like horrified.

Oh, no. No, we don't know what Nathaniel was doing under the fig tree. The Bible never tells us. These are to our imagination that caused him to go, you are a rabbi. Holy crap. How does he know what I did under the fig tree? We don't know who he was with on the fig tree, but you said Nathaniel. And then Jesus said, you think it's amazing.

I saw you under the fig tree. Guess what? You're going to see angels ascending and descending upon the son of man. Jesus is the ladder sent down from heaven to earth. Jesus is what is meant to restore your connection to God. You can't earn your way to heaven. It comes not based on you, placed on you, because Jesus descended. The bridge came down.

The ladder came down. He said, I woke up like this. All of a sudden, aware, I don't got to earn my standing before God. He was given to me based on the mercy. and love of his son Jesus Christ, who came into this world, the safe sinners of whom Jacob said, I am cheap. I'm amazed, and I woke up like this. Because this is what heaven is all about. It's about God saving people, not by their good works. I'm excited. I could preach a lot more about that, but I've got to move on. I've got four points today. You've got to collect them all to win a prize.

The second point is included. Jacob was not just told, here's what I'm going to do. Like God was filling out his grand rescue mission, there was participation built in. There was participation baked in. That's how you don't waste the rain. You apply the word the moment God soes the word. You instantly take action. God said, here's how heaven works. Here's my master plan. He said, and bro, I got plans for you. I want to use you. You got gifts. You got something to contribute. You get to play a part. Church, we get to be a part of God's plan to change the world. That's why he gave you skills. That's why he gave you talents. That's why God has given you something to contribute to this grand master plan. The third thing is that he instantly wanted to become invested.

Because he was amazed and he found out he got to be included, the immediate thing was for him to say, well, I want to get invested. I'm immediately wanting to get invested. I want to get skin in this game. Now, here's the problem. He was broke. He was a joke. He only had a staff. He didn't even have anything to contribute. But that didn't stop him from contributing what he could. Because he looks around and he's like, well, this is where I slept right here last night. And what did I use for a pillow? A rock. And he's like, hmm, God's going to use me to build a church. God's going to use me to build the house of God. So other people could connect to the north to the east, to the south, to the west. I got nothing. But this rock, well, guess what? This rock is where the temple saw.

starts, bang, right there. He has this God moment where he says, that's the first stone of many that's going to come. I'm not going to let what I can't do stop me from doing what I can do. I lay the first rock right here and right now. And then he's like, oh, I got a little bit of olive oil. All right. I'm pouring one out for the homies right here. He's smashing a bottle of champagne against a church not even built, but he sees what's to come. He saw the work of God spreading out across the whole world. world. He was told, your seed, Jesus, is going to lead to descendants from the whole world being blessed. It's being fulfilled today right now as we preach these words. But he started it with that one rock. And then he said, and from here on out, God, I don't have any money. I don't have anything to offer you.

But if you ever trust so much as a dollar to this man, I'm going to give the first and the best tenth to you every single time. And that made Jacob safe to bless. How did he get to lead two companies? How did he get to lead stock? How did he get so influential in the stock market? The livestock market. He had made a vow that made him safe to bless. You see, here's the thing you need to know about money.

It gets tricky with the money stuff. When we talk about money, generosity is the only thing that can release the stranglehold that money will always hold on your soul. The love of money, the desire to be rich, it has crept in and will peop. pierce your soul through with many sorrows. Not one of us is immune to the temptation, to the seduction, to the hypnotizing power of the deceitfulness of riches, which will choke and strangle away your desire to live a life for God. The only thing that can unshackle the power of wealth to drain you of your spiritual power is constantly putting a stake through the

idol's heart with something called giving. It again and again and again you get paid, bang, immediately. First and the best back to God. First and the best back to God. What are you doing? You're stabbing the idolatry of greed in the heart with a stake. You are pounding again and again and again the thing that can sneak in and cause the love of many to grow cold. The thing that can sneak in and cause many people to live for this world and to live for their kingdom. See, money will sneak in and get you building the Tower of Babel all over again. Money will sneak in and get you building your own kingdom once again. And the thing that every single time you get paid, you take a test, and the test is who do

you honor the most? That's what we find Jacob doing. I'm vowing that all you give me, first and the tenth, the best goes back to you. I was reminded of George Washington Carver this week. What an incredible man. George Washington Carver, a man and a man of God. He was. Come on, let's hear it for George Washington Carver. I think we got a photo of him here. this incredible man. They say that he saved the economy of the South. And that's because he knew that with all the cotton fields that were all over the place, what an incredible life he lived, born a slave, kidnapped, father died, all these things,

but became a scientist. And he realized that the problem with all the cotton fields wasn't what they were growing. It's what the fields were missing. And he realized that the things were depleting. the soil. And so by introducing peanuts into the fields, peanuts have a unique ability to replenish nitrogen supplies, which is the only thing that over time keeps the cotton from killing the ground and making it unproductive. And so it wasn't a problem about what was growing. It was a problem about what was missing. For some of you, the problem in your life isn't what you're doing. Your work, the problem

is what's missing. You've got to plant some generosity in the field. It could replenish the nitrogen and keep what you're doing, what you're growing, producing. So then, then, then they have this big new problem. We all these peanuts. What do we do all these peanuts? And he's like, I got an idea. He found 325 different uses for the peanut. 325 different things you could do with a peanut.

That should be the mascot of elevation creative team, the peanut. You should have to sit around and look at a peanut and go, what could you do with a peanut, right? There's always more that you could do. with what you have in front of you, right? And so it comes up with all these different ways to use the peanuts. So now they have all this crop, and the thing that saved their crop from going bad

was now also becoming a new crop 325 times over. I'm telling you, when you put generosity into your life in the mix, it not only keeps what you have from ruining you, it'll also give you more things to do that you didn't know how to do before. I'm telling you 90% of your resources with God's breath on your life is better than 100% and you're all on your own. Every time. every day of the week. You'll think of 325 new things to do with the Spirit of God moving on your life so

powerfully. What I'm really trying to say is that there's a protection in purpose. Because every time you're sewing into God's work, it's keeping you on a mission. It's keeping you focus on what God's called you to do. And that purpose protects you. Or as we learned last week, what I'm trying to say is, let God use your boat. Let God use your boat. Now you've got to make your way back to Luke chapter 5 because we got unfinished business in this text. In Luke chapter 5, what we find is that basically, if we jump in at verse 1, so it was, the multitude pressed all about him to hear the word of God, that he, Jesus stood by the lake of the Ganeserate, the galley. He saw two boats, someone say two boats, standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone from them and they were washing

their nets. He got into one of the boats, which was Simons, and asked him to put out a little from the land. He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Simon answered him, Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing. Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners. Who do you have to call, by the way, when you got a problem in your life? Do you got any partners to signal to? He thought he was going to drown, and he had someone who he could summon for help.

That's why you need to be in an e-group. You need to have people in your life that you can signal, that you can call, that you can text. You can't just consume this message like it's the crown on Netflix. You've got to watch this message and then participate and get involved and get planted and get into these reflect events and groups and all these things that are going to keep people in your life who you can signal when there's a problem. And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,

depart from me, pushing him away, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord. For he and all who are with him were what? You could say amazed. What's the difference? You caught no fish before. You're catching no fish. And now on the other side of it, a different person. He said, I woke up like this.

I woke up like this. I fished all night, caught nothing on my own. But now it's morning. Now the day has broken. Now Jesus is in my boat. Now, what I was trying to do alone and I couldn't do, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I woke up like this. At the catch of fish, which they had taken.

I believe that God wants you to use your boat to wake other people up. In Ephesians chapter 5, we're given a little important detail that sleep in the New Testament is a picture of death. And it can mean a lot of different kinds of death. It can mean physical death, but it also can mean spiritual death. Paul says in Ephesians 5, therefore he says, awake ye who sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. I believe that God wants you to see that your part to play in this, a significant call of God on your life, is to grow your business, is to produce wealth, is to scale your company, is to start that business, and to do so protected by the

the purpose of whatever God does through this boat business, whatever God does through this corporation, whatever God does on the NASDAQ, it's for a purpose. It's to bankroll this pulpit. It's to get wealth into the hands of those who need it through the elevation outreach initiatives. I'm going to scale my company. I believe the call of God on many of you is to produce more wealth, is the need for bigger barns, is the need for more employees. And it is to do so with the vision, with the explicit intention of whatever you entrust to me, I'm going to return. back to you, God. I'm going to use it to build your house. I'm going to use it to get you on the boat in front of the people. The people were pressing, wanting to hear. They were hungry and stirred.

I'm anxious, troubled with many things. They needed to hear the Word of God preached from the specific, and it was so cool. It's like YouTube. The way he got on the boat and pushed out, it created acoustics as they were on the hillside. This is old school amplification techniques. Jesus was using the most cutting edge delivery vehicle of media he could find, and it amplified the reach to those who couldn't have heard him otherwise. He's doing it today. He's doing it right now. He's doing it through multi-site. He's doing it through church online. He's doing it through Facebook. He's getting the word to more people. So what I need you to do is not only feel okay about going to work, I want you to feel like you are on a mission as you go to work, because God has called you to thrive,

God has called you to excel, and as he blesses your life, you're doing so protected from the idolatry of greed with a purpose of, I'm planted in the house, I'm here to make the reach get ladder. I need this boat to get bigger. I need the nets to get wider. Why? So that more people can come to know the saving goodness of the God who reaches down with a ladder from heaven and says, come on up. Come on up. Come on up. And I think that we find a stirring example in these two fishermen. And yet I'm more impressed by the other fishermen on the Sea of Galley that day. You see, because we know that two of them walked away. Two of them walked away and left the fish and left the business. They left the enterprise, and they went to follow Jesus and become professional pastors and professional preachers. But Josephus, the historian, tells us that there were 230. commercial fishing enterprises on the Sea of Galilee operating at that time. And surely many of them

got impacted. And many of them got saved. And many of them said, I'm ready to leave my net. I'm ready to follow you to the ends of the earth. Where's my sword? Let's go. I'm in the Lord's army right now. Let's do this thing. And Jesus said to them what he said to the demoniac of Godera. When he said, can I follow you? He said, no, go back to your home. I can use you, but I want to use you at home. I can use you, but I want to use you in your city. You, listen, are going to do the things. You do the that requires even more faith than going, and that is staying. I want you to go back to work tomorrow, protected with purpose, creating wealth for the kingdom, receiving blessing that you might be a blessing. God is going to use many of you, like the 228 fishing vessels that

didn't go into full-time ministry, in full-time ministry, at your bank, at your Pilates Studio, at your job selling insurance, at your job. And I want you every day to hold your head high knowing I'm a servant of the king. I got a mission. I got a cause. The church needs resources. I need to bankroll this pulpit and make sure this ministry is never lacking in funds to send out more millions of dollars. Y'all gave away more resource this year than most churches will have in their budgets in a decade. But God has raised you up for such a time as this. Now, that shouldn't make you want to do less. It should make you eager to see God do more. Because is there not a cause?

Is there not a need? Are there not hungry people? Are there not people who need to have hope? I love World War II. And all the time I prepared this message and read about the boats and was listening to pastor last week, I couldn't get this bow out of my mind. And I kept thinking about this boat. And I'll show you a photo of it.

This is the boat I kept thinking of here. It's called a Higgins boat. And it's a boat that many of you have seen, because if you've ever watched Saving Private Ryan or any of the World War II movies, you've seen this boat. Now, if you take that boat away for a moment, there are names, we'll come back to that in a second. When you think about World War II,

there are names that come to mind. And you think about Normandy and D-Day, it was the event that turned the tide of World War II. And the reason we live in a country that is not under the command of Imperial Japan or have a Nazi flag flying high is in large part because of what happened at D-Day. June 6th, 1944, 76 years ago, this incredible amphibious assault of the five beaches of Normandy in France, 150,000 soldiers alone came aboard, came up on the shore at these beaches in central France, not to speak of all the paratroopers and all the things that happened.

It was a reversal of Dunkirk, because Dunkirk was a massive evacuation of France, but you don't win wars by evacuation? You don't win wars by retreating. You've got to take some ground. You can't leave the ground. So they were finally back. All these soldiers that left France were now back on French soil. And so here's this amazing day.

And you think about who is responsible. And when you think about World War II and the European theater specifically, and you think about who was it that was responsible for this victory, you think, of course, about Roosevelt. And you think about Churchill, and you think about Patton, and you think about even Montgomery, this British general. But Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, was interviewed by Stephen Ambrose in Gettysburg. So any conversation that happens in Gettysburg, it's already like, okay, you had me. I'm already there. And he was asked, who do you attribute most

the victory to? And I want to put on screen the exact quote that he had to say that day, he said that he, Peter Higgins, is the man who won the war for us. Talking about Peter Higgins, because he knew that Ambrose was from New Orleans. He said, do you, have you ever met Higgins? He goes, no, he died before. He died a while back. I never met him. He said, well, I want you to know.

Look at that quote one more time. This is from the mouth of President Dwight the Eisenhower. He is the man who won the war for us. And you're like, well, who is Higgins? Because here's a photo of Andrew Jackson Higgins. This is what he looked like. This is his tie flapping on the side. What a legend this guy is, right?

He is a person you've never heard about, but he was the one who invented the boat that I showed you a moment ago. He was a boat builder. He was a businessman. He had just 100 employees, but he had this incredible invention, a flat bottom boat with a protected propeller that could be beached easily

and go into just as shallow of water as one foot, and it was an amazing boat. He built it for Louisiana oil workers and trappers, and he sold a ton of them to run runners and bootleggers. And then he sold them to the people that chase the run runners and the bootleggers. And he's kind of, here, you need this to get away from him. And you need this to catch him. He was just, he was just that way.

An amazing leader, in his factories in New Orleans, he was the first person to hire black people and white people and men and women and pay them all the same. He was the first person. He was the first person that broke through those walls and integrated his operations. and I don't preach him into heaven and make him seem like a saint. He drank a whole bottle of whiskey every single day and cursed worse than an Irish sailor. It's the thing about Higgins.

But Eisenhower said Higgins is the man who won the war for us. You want to know why? Because check this out. Here's a step-back view of Normandy, a step-back picture of Normandy, when we had to get 150,000 troops all the way to the shore. 150,000 men. The average age was 20, by the way, and they're on, let's hear it for our military. Let's thank God for everyone who serves.

Everyone, they had to get all these men from aircraft carriers and big old boats. How are you going to get the largest amphibious assault crew in human history from these massive ships in six-foot waves? Six feet waves are going. But you can't land the big boats on the beach. How are you going to get them? How are you going to get them from ship to shore? You need a ladder. You need a connection.

You need a bridge. The only way to get them from where they were to where they needed to be was someone had to roll down a ladder. And the Navy didn't have anything. They didn't have any ideas. But Higgins did. Show me that first photo again. He built a boat that could go easily from the big boats and go right up on the shore. And then look at this photo of the ramp.

The ramp would drop down. And then all these men, 36 men, could go rushing off to battle, rushing to take the hills. rushing many of them, 4,000 of them, to die on the bloody beaches of Omaha and Utah and soar, these men who laid their lives down. But the ramp would drop, and then they could run off. One of these boats he invented could hold 36 men, a whole platoon, or 12 men in a Jeep. And it would just rush up, and then the ramp would drop, and then they run off, and then they would be able to do this thing.

And he scaled his operations from 100 employees to over 25,000 employees, from one little factory to eight factories. Then he had to shut a whole street down. Look at this photograph of one of his factories. Absolutely amazing. The sign in the back says, the guy who relaxes is helping the axis. It's amazing. He also had photos of Hitler in every single bathroom that said, take it easy above Hitler's head. So as people were sitting down, Hitler's saying, take it easy. I don't need you to build more boats. So he wanted the men to have a sense of urgency. He wanted them to be a little bit riled up. Some people wonder, oh, why is pastor so excited? Why are the people standing? Oh, I don't know. Go ahead and sit back down, the devil says. Go ahead and sit back down. The devil says, take it easy. The devil says, take it easy. The devil says, you got all the time in the world to get around to that. The devil says, oh, don't be so excited. Just take it easy. The one who relaxes is helping the axis. I'm telling you, we got work to do.

Night is coming when no man can work. We got a gospel to preach. We got a God to serve. We got things to do. We got buildings to build. When all was said and done, there were 6,000 boats involved in D-Day. 6,000 votes. But 1,500. of them were built by Andrew Jackson Higgins. So don't tell me a businessman can't change the world. Don't you tell me an entrepreneur can't change the world. I'm telling you what you build, what you do, how you leave, can change the course of the supernatural war for the souls of men and women, boys and girls that we are in. Well, that's my sermon. I hope you liked it. I had more to say about that. I really wanted to talk just for a minute about.

something I found in Luke 5 in my Bible because I read out of the new King James and I know generally you guys speak out of the NIV up in here and I just got raised in the NKNJV I don't think it's better or anything but when I was reading in my translation I could I just got to show you real quick it's in verse 4 it's Jesus's command look at it on the screen launch out into the deep and let down your say it for a catch mini Greek manuscript not all but many There's differences in translation. Many manuscripts indicate that the command was plural. But I want to show you something you won't have seen if you only read it at NIV.

Look at the next verse. So Simon answered, Master, we've toured all night and caught nothing. Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the command was plural. The obedience was singular. Meaning Peter was going through the motions. Now, whether the manuscripts to say plural, plural or singular plural are correct, The emphasis of the teaching is that Peter didn't really think this was the thing to do because he, in his experience, had fished all night and cut nothing. So you told me to let down the nets.

But all right, you said so we'll let down a singular net. Is that not what's all over the scripture from beginning to end? Strike the arrows in the ground? Tap, tap, tap, tap. Gather some vessels to get some oil. Do not gather just a few. Make this valley full of ditches. The point is.

is it was incredible. When he let down a single net, he caught so many fish, his boat began to sink. So we got a lot of fish. But the question is, on December 13th, what do you want to see God flooding into this ministry and into your life? Do you want to just bring a net? Or do you want to let down all the nets? Do you want to gather all the vessels? Do you want to see this valley full of ditches? Do you want to see mercy and grace all over this world? The point is that The problem when God works in our world is never about his ability. It's always about our capacity. And he can't fill what you don't offer.

And the net that sat unused was the net that remained unfilled. All right. So that's the sermon, like I said. And if you're keeping track, we only got three of our four points. We got amazed. We got included. Peter and Jacob, they got invested. But the greatest thing and the most powerful,

thing came because they both walked in the power of the fact that they were forgiven. That's the fourth point. Forgiven. The boat that won the war. The boat that won the war, for Peter was not the first boat. It was the last boat. And that's why I had you turned to John 21. You see, because Peter's life was bookended with boats. The first day he really hung out with Jesus on a boat. and the final time before Jesus ascended, he also hung out with him on a boat. The boat that won the war that mattered the most for Peter was the boat that he was on in verse 7 of John 21.

When Jesus had just showed up again, after Peter denied him, after Peter said, I don't know you, I don't know you, I don't know you to a servant girl, and then wept bitterly because I was Jesus' guy, but he was standing in the strength of his resolve, of his commitment, he was standing in the strength of his decision.

And Jesus pursued him. And Jesus sought him. And Jesus showed up and said, one morning, have you caught any fish? Peter said, nah, man, thanks for bringing it up. He said, maybe, maybe throw your net on the starboard side. Okay, you know what? I caught nothing. I am nothing. I have no one. Who would ever want me? He threw his nets down. And so many fish, 153. He counted him later because every one of those miracles meant something to him. And when John said, this is verse 7, it's the Lord. Simon heard it was the Lord. He put on his outer garment, for he had removed it. And then he plunged into the sea. This is a man who's out of control, astonished, amazed, stupefied, because not only is he included and not only is he invested

and not only had he already been astonished, but now Jesus showing up, doing this miracle again, shows him that even after his darkest day, he was still forgiven. He was loved, he was wanted, he was cared for. The boat that won the war was the boat to help Peter win the war with himself. For now, the footholder had met the foot washer. And Peter was learning what Jacob learned what you need to know,

and that is you don't need to be dressed up in your Sunday best to be loved by your father. He loves you even though you just woke up like this. You just woke up a failure. Peter went to bed a failure. He went to bed with the smoke in his nose of defeat. And one morning, Jesus woke up to cook him breakfast. Jesus woke up to make him a meal so that he would always remember the smell of smoke with forgiveness and not with defeat. Coles were kindled in John 21, and Jesus served him breakfast that he had helped him catch a moment ago. He said, good night to failure, but God says, good morning, grace. And that is what God speaks over your life today. And why God wants you to win the war over the darkest version of who you've become. He already knows those things, but he loves you anyway. He doesn't want you to wear Esau's clothes to think you have to earn his blessing by being someone you're not. He loves you just as you are. And he has a plan to use every weird thing, every warp thing, every dark thing. He wants to change you, heal you, fix you, mend you, not make you someone that you're not, but he has a plan to use every weird thing, every weird thing, every warp thing. He wants to change you, heal you, fix you, mend you. Not make you someone that you're not. But he's you're not. But he's not. He has a man. He has use you exactly as you are, just a healed version, just a chosen version, just a restored version.

I had this blue paint on my boot. I don't know if you could see it. I was writing this sermon so fast as God was giving it to me that I was shaking the marker trying to write something on the glass when it hit me. This is kind of weird that it's not normally how I preach. God gave me a sermon about sleeping and a sermon about a boat. And I sat back to think, have I ever been in a situation where I was sleeping on a boat? Is there something about this? And I saw, sit there at the glass, and I was shaking the pen so hard trying to write down the question. And it's the question I wrote down right on this card. Why are you having me preach about a story involving sleep in a boat?

And as the paint dripped on my boot, it got all the floor too, so I was rushing to find something to clean the paint up on the floor. And then all of a sudden I felt like God spoke to me as I was cleaning the paint off the floor. He said, Levi, this is not a story about you involving sleep in a boat. The reason I have you preaching this sermon to this church on this day is because of a story that I was in involving sleep and a boat. And the only way to end this message is for us to remember in one of the greatest storms our world has ever faced, surely in our lifetime. Then in Mark 438, we're told that in a storm, on a boat, on a sea, Jesus, look at it, was asleep on a pillow. They woke him up freaking out. They woke him up frantic.

And he would minister to them so that by the end of the story, they were calm and peaceful. but they're like, how are you not freaking out like us? How are you not stressed out like us? How are you not worried about racial divide and worried about COVID and worried about our country and worried about the churches might lose their 501c3 status? Now the Democrats are in control and the Democrats are worried we'll double the Republicans.

And how are you not working out? And he would work out their peace. But their question to him is how are you not freaking out? And he says to them what he says to you, little child. I woke up like this. in control, in command. And I always will be. And if he could sleep in a storm, so can you. If he could rest in his storm, so can you. And here's my final question. What peace and rest will be yours as you walk into 21 with God's favor on your life? What will that feel like? How great

will that be? Here's all I know. We're going to see a victory. We're going to see a victory. We're going to see a victory because our praise and our gifts, our generosity, and our sacrifice are going ahead of us into this new year. Raise your hands up, jump up to your feet. Let me pray for you. Father, the image of your son sleeping on a pillow is meant to comfort us. Jacob's pillow was a rock. Your pillow was probably much softer for you're better at packing. And the contrast is so staggering. looking at Jacob's franticness, looking at Peter's franticness, then to see Jesus, to see you.

That's what we need. We need to see you resting. But now I pray for your people to do what Jacob did, to take the thing that symbolized his rest and comfort and to turn it into an altar. He turned a pillow into a pillar. May we your people take every blessing you've given to us and turn it back into a sacrifice to an offering. Thankful for what you're doing and proving it by giving it. out for you to do more. Bless your people, give them rest. May your favor be upon this house in the coming days. You've blessed us through this church. Now I speak a blessing over this church.

May you bless them and keep them. May you bless the verdicts and keep them. May you bless elevation, worship and keep them. May you bless every person in the E-Kids, every person who's a volunteer, every person, God, answering questions in the chat. Every person facilitating, may you bless and keep this ministry and continue to cause your face to shine upon them and give them your perfect peace. In Jesus' name, in Jesus' name. Say amen if you receive it. Thank you for joining us on the Elevation Church podcast. We trust that God has spoken to you through the message that Pastor Levi Lesko has just spoken. Thank you to all of you who support financially the work that God is doing through Elevation Church. This year, as the year-end season

approaches, we take some time and look back in all that God has done, but also forward in anticipation of all that he is going to do. The year end season for us at elevation is special, and this year, our pastor has labeled it the favor season. We're believing God's favor on our lives as we look forward to what he's going to do. Between now and December 13th, we have the opportunity to bring an offering, to go above and beyond to give toward how God is moving here at Elevation Church. If you already give thank you. If you'd like to join us and give, we'd invite you to go to Elevationchurch.org. There you'll see the favor offering. If you don't tithe, maybe you begin there by bringing the first 10% of what God has entrusted to you. If you do tithe, we'd invite you to

go above and beyond the tide and see what God can do when you open your hands and allow him to move through you. Thank you for being a part of Elevation Church. We trust that God will continue to move in your life. If you haven't subscribed to this podcast yet, we'd encourage you to do just that to stay up to date on all the new messages here at Elevation Church. Thank you again, and we believe God's blessing on your life. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.