Elevation with Steven Furtick - Instruments Of Victory

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

You’ve got what it takes to win. In “Instruments Of Victory,” we’re reminded that victory comes when we place our gifts and even our insecurities in God’s hands. 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: Judges 7, verses 1-15 Romans 6, verse 13See 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. Be sure to subscribe so we can get you these new sermons every week. I hope you're blessed today. Isn't that a good thing to just know that here today, we are in the rhythm of the Spirit of God.

You can feel it. If you have an ear, you can hear it. And so God is just doing miracle after miracle, open door after open door. It is an amazing time to be alive. We're leaving for tour here in a couple days. Elevation nights, 2023, spring tour. Somebody asked me the other day, are you ready? I said, man, I've been ready.

If you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. That's right. And somebody said, well, will you take Sunday off before you go out on tour and let somebody else preach? I said, no, I want to be a hundred miles an hour when I hit Austin, Texas. So I haven't even thought too much about the tour in the last few days because I've been thinking about this word I want to give to you. But we are due to show up, and we are going to roll. very strong with all of our worship teams and a word from God and an impartation of faith full of the Holy Spirit to the following cities starting April 18th through April 27th. We will be God willing and NBA and NHL permitting.

We will be in Austin, Texas, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kansas City, Missouri, Denver, Colorado, St. Louis, Missouri, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Y'all got any friends in Fort Wayne, Indiana you can send out to see me? And Toronto, Ontario. It'll be amazing. Elevationnights.com. But today, we bring you greetings, EFAM, all around the world from Charlotte, North Carolina. We've got a triple anointing all rolled up into one today.

day. We've got the worship of Almighty God. We've got the Word of Almighty God. And we've got God's people together. And when you get all that together, anything can happen. Clap those hands if you believe anything can happen in God's presence. Always awkward to clap holding the mic. Do it like that. You hit it too hard. One time I hit it too hard, the whole mic just went out. So now I go, one more sermon on Gideon, and I promise I'll leave Gideon alone. Y'all got one more Gideon sermon. Open your Bible to Judges Chapter 7 or pretend to open your Bible as you flip through your phone and get that last round of candy crush so you can pay attention to me.

I want your mind free and clear today because this message is just so rich. Good news. I'm going to read so much scripture. It's going to make up for all the ones you didn't read this one. I don't mean to judge you, but I know you've been busy, so I'm going to put them all in on this one. Judges chapter 7, verse 1. How about that? From the English standard version of the Bible. Then Jerubabel, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harad, and the camp of Midian was north of them by the hill of Moray in the valley. The Lord said to Gideon, somebody say out loud, speak to me, Lord.

Don't just talk to Gideon, just don't leave it back there in the past. Speak to me, Lord. I need to hear you too. The Lord said to Gideon. Now, you asked the Lord to speak. Listen what he said to Gideon. The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. That's their enemy, the Midianites. The Lord said, I'm going to give you the victory.

but the people with you are too many for me to do it, lest Israel boast over me saying my own hand has saved me. Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people saying, whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead. Then 22,000 of the people returned and 10,000 remains. That's backwards going into a battle, but we'll talk about that in a moment. Let's move on. Verse four. And the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.

And anyone of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, shall go with you. And anyone of whom I say this one shall not go with you, shall not go. Hey, it's a good idea to let God decide who belongs in your life in every season. Just a little seminar breakout session. That's not my sermon, but let God do that recruiting for you and the removal. He's a good, he'll balance it out for you in the end. All right. What verse am I on, Tim?

Five. Tim was the last one to answer, and he's the one who's the name I call? Youth pastors. Five. So he brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog lapse, you shall set by himself. Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink. So put him on two different sides.

God's sorting things out now, getting Gideon ready for the battle. He's got to fight. And the number of those who lapped putting their hands to their mouth like dogs was 300 men. But all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water, had their face down. It couldn't even look around see if anybody's coming. And so, you know, you got 9,700 of the 10,000 that are left on one side, 300 on the other side. And if I'm Gideon, I'm like, so I get the 9,700 right over here, right? And no, no, no.

The Lord said, with the 300 men, the number was 300 men that knelt down to drink like a dog. And the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men who lapped, I will save you. and give the Midianites into your hand and let all the others go every man to his home so the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets and he sent the rest of Israel every man to his tent but retained the 300 men and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley a few more verses that same night the lord said to him arise go down against the camp for I have given it into your hand. I have given it. Who else but God can speak in the past tense about a battle that hasn't even happened yet? Who else but God? Let me keep reading, y'all.

Stop distracting me. Behave. I have given it into your hand. But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Pura, your servant. You shall hear what you will. they say and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp and then he went down with pura his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp and the midianites and the amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley like locusts in abundance what a contrast gideon's got 300 dogs and they got so many enemies that it looks like locust a lot of them and their camels were without number as the sand that is on the sea shore in abundance. It's a lot of them. It's a lot of them. Somebody say it's a lot of them.

It's a lot of things I'm dealing with right now. It's a lot of people getting on my nerves right now. It's a lot of bills piling up right now. It's a lot of things I'm trying to sort out right now. Now watch this. When Gideon came, verse 13, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, behold, I dreamed a dream. And behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat. And his comrade answered, this is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. God has given into his hand, Midian, and all the camp. as soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped.

And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, arise for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand. Clap those hands and celebrate God's word. Clap those hands. Today I want to preach to you about a very specific subject that the Lord told me to mention. Today I want to talk about instruments of victory. Instruments of victory. And on your way down to your seat, just say, I've got what it takes to win. You may be seated.

I've got what it takes to win. High five the person next to you. Say, you've got what it takes to win this one. You've got what it takes to win. This one. When I say that, do you believe it? I've got what it takes to win. Gideon didn't for a long, long while.

It took him a while. It took him a while to reconcile what he had inside of him with what he saw all around him. It took him a while to reconcile what God said about. him with what he saw in himself. It took him a while to realize, if I could say it this way, what kind of instrument he was in God's eyes. What kind of instrument he was in God's eyes? See, in the book of judges, you have this constant cycle of God's people getting in trouble, and then God's stepping in and bringing them out of trouble.

And he did it through, if I can say it this way, some interesting instruments. Like one time, you ever heard of Samson? Got a haircut, lost his strength, ate is finished. No, that's another guy. All right, sorry, I get mixed up sometimes. But Samson, Samson one time, he, He took the jawbone of a donkey. And if it was a men's conference, we'd do the King James, the jawbone of an ass in the King

James version of the Bible, and beat back a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. And then he did a disc track to the Philistines about it. With the jawbone of a donkey, I have slain a thousand men. the jawbone of a donkey, I have made donkeys of them. Samson. Interesting guy. Interesting instrument for God to use. You know, because he wasn't very self-controlled or anything like that, but he was strong

and God used him. One lady in the book of judges, I won't go through all of them. It's fresh on my mind because we were reading through it a few weeks ago, but one woman in the book of judges, she wanted to kill an evil king. and he snuck in her tent. And she said, oh, poor baby, let me give you some milk. And she gave him some milk, and he got sleepy. And then while he was dozing off, she got a tent peg.

You ever read the Bible? Y'all don't read the good stuff. I got to show you where the good stuff is because you're over there. I rejoice in the Lord. She took a tent peg. Because sometimes you fight the devil. You got to fight the devil dirty. Sometimes you do.

Sometimes you do. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't have time for all of that transcendence and otherness and God. The thusness of thine presence is thine. She grabbed a tent peg. I don't think it was meant for this purpose, but she was multipurposing. And she took the tent pack, put it through his skull. Look her up in the Bible.

J-L, J-L, J-A-E-L. It means the one God chose. That's what, at least that's what the girl told me at the restaurant. I met a girl at a restaurant in Greensboro Friday. She said, Pastor Ferdick, I said, yes. She said, I watch your servants. I said, great, what's your name? She said, J.L.

I said, that's a great name. Do you know that story in the Bible? She said, oh, yeah. And so she was a server in the restaurant. So every time she came close to me with like an instrument of any sort, I was a little bit nervous, but she was sweet. Somebody say interesting instruments that God used to deliver his people. Can we agree? Jawbone of a donkey.

Tent peg through the skull of a king after a nice, warm glass of man. Mill. It's interesting the things God uses. But stranger than the objects that God uses are the characters that he raises up to use as his instruments. Look at somebody and say, you are an interesting instrument. Just tell them, tell them by faith, because I promise, you don't know the half of what you just said to them. You really have no idea how God put them together and you've been married to her for 18 years and you still don't know how to play that instrument just exactly right and keep it in tune. It takes a little while to figure out the instrument.

And for Gideon, it's even more difficult because he is seen as, I don't know what the coolest instrument is, maybe drums or something like that, maybe electric guitar. Gideon is the instrument that nobody wants. Gideon is like the recorder in his own mind. In his own mind. And Gideon, when God comes to him and calls him out of the wine press, he's down there, thresh and weed in a wine press, because the Bible says that the hand of the Midianites was against the Israelites.

And so when God comes to Gideon and he says, get up, go into strength that you have, I'm going to use you to bring my people out of the hands of the Midianites. Gideon really doesn't get it at first because it takes him a while to figure out what kind of instrument he can be. And here's why. He's been in the wrong hands for so long. long that he doesn't even realize who he is anymore. The whole nation, not just Gideon, has been in the hands of the Midianites. And let me show you what that looks like from the New Testament and bring it into our lives from Romans chapter 6, verse 13. Can we go over and see the Apostle Paul for a moment? Let's go see the Apostle Paul for a moment, because this verse will really bring

this message to a practical place for us where we can understand what Jesus has done for us and where we can understand what the Holy Spirit is inside of us so that we don't just shout that God has given us the battle, but that we actually get to go back into the battles that we face in our lives with something practical where we can take it and where we can triumph over the enemy that Jesus has already defeated. Somebody shout, I've got what it takes to win. All right. Romans chapter 6, verse 13, listen to this. Paul cautions you, do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,

but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death, to life. That's what he did for you. As those who have been brought from death to life, you are a living instrument. And so since you are a living instrument, put your life, watch this, in the hands of a living God. Put your life in the hands. Look at the second part of that verse. Your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. In other words, take it back.

You have been presenting yourself as an instrument to the enemy for long enough. You have been presenting your mind to the enemy long enough. You have been presenting your mouth to the enemy long enough. Just saying whatever comes out. Just saying what everybody else says. Just saying whatever thing you happen to think at that moment, not checking it if he's even true or if it's where you want to end up in your life and setting the direction by your tongue and steering your life with a rudder of your tongue and your words and your speech. You have let the devil have your instruments long enough.

Take it back. You may not understand the that. value of the instrument that is you yet. And in case you don't, let me set the record straight. The way that you were brought from death to life is that Jesus went from life to death back to life again. Somehow the Savior of the universe thought Alex was an instrument worth dying for. Somehow the Creator of the cosmos thought Charlie was worth bleeding for.

Somehow the maker of heaven and earth thought Heather was worth shedding his blood for. You are an interesting instrument. But let me tell you part two, you are an expensive instrument. Get this at a pawn shop. This is not a second-hand instrument. This is not a hand-me-down. This isn't the tuba that your brother never played. This is an expensive instrument.

The first guitar that I ever bought that cost a lot of money. You know what I'm going to say? Do you know what I'm going to say? My mom and my best friend from high school are both on the second row. I can't tell any lies about my childhood or exaggerate or embellish any facts about my life with these two fact checkers right here. But the first guitar that I ever bought, my mom bought me some. and then I wanted this one specific one.

It was a Paul Reed Smith. What if I had it in the back right now? Bring it out, Jared. Bring out my Paul Reed Smith. Jared Olson, everybody. Jared, you were shaking when you brought it out. You're a little nervous? Yeah, excited.

Me too. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited about this. Smith. Oh, I was excited about this. I worked all summer to buy this. Paul Reed Smith. And if Paul is watching, a sponsorship would be greatly appreciated for elevation worship. A lot of people watch these sermons.

Paul Reed Smith. Everybody say Paul Reed Smith. Any guitar players in the house? You sound like you just started six months ago the way he said one. You don't sound like you toured with Journey. Let me put it that way. I told him, bring it out in the case and everything. Just bring it out. Memories does this ring back. I saved all summer working for Petrest Cemetery and Cremation Service. That was my first job. I saved all summer every Saturday, me and Fox. Now Fox was a bass player. I should tell you this. When Paul says instruments of righteousness, he's talking about weapons. But I never fought in the army. So when I see instruments, I think Paul Reed Smith,

I think about this Paul Reed Smith guitar that me and Fox, now remember, me and him had a band together, but we didn't, well, okay, I should say this, and I'll tell you, I've been making up band since I was 12 years old in my mind. I would give a band a name, and then I would tell all my friends, they were in my band, even though they didn't play an instrument. I'd be like, Lee, you're my drummer. You're like, I don't have drums. It's fine, you're my drummer. We've got a band. And I would name the band, and I would make albums around those bands that didn't have any instruments or musicians. All that, I promise I'm going to get back to the Bible in a minute. It's just a setup. This guitar was about $1,400 when I bought it, which in today's my

Money is $7.3 million. Google it. And look, inflation is crazy. And watch us. I would go every Saturday with Fox. And Fox was my first friend who actually had an instrument. My friend Michelle said, hey, you should meet Fox. He's got a bass.

I said, he's got a bass. He plays bass? I play guitar. We start playing together. We put bands together. His brother started playing drums. Now I finally had friends with instruments. Y'all run around talking about friends with benefits.

What you need is some friends with instruments. Some friends who can help you grow and go where you need to go and have the gift of encouragement. You need some friends with instruments. If you can't play, don't play me in this season because I'm looking for somebody who's got something, who's going somewhere. I'm not looking for somebody who's going to turn back when the battle gets hard. I need some friends. That's what God said to Gideon, you got too many men who don't have any instruments. And in this season of your life, let me get rid of everything that isn't serving a purpose.

Sit down. This is my Paul Reeves Smith. Every Saturday I went, I looked at it, I drooled over it, I lusted over it, I prayed for it. I did the Hail Mary. I prayed in Pentecostal tongues until I finally got it. Until I finally got it. When Mike, who owned the store, would pick this up and play it, it sounded so good.

When I got it home, it didn't sound like Mike when Mike played it. Mike was a great guitar player. I think he's still there running that shop. Am I telling the truth? All summer I saved up for this instrument. It's expensive. Come here, Eric. This is my friend I was talking about.

Aren't you glad he ironed that shirt today before he came to church, Nicole? I didn't plan in this. Y'all matched you. Come on the stage, all the way on the stage, all away on the stage. stage. I texted him five minutes ago. I said, you're here today, right? He said, front center. I said, good, but I didn't tell him this. Play something. Come on now. This is a Paul Reed Smith. It should be beautiful. Yeah, see, we all knew this was going to happen. He's trying to play plush by Stone Temple Pilots, but he can't remember. He doesn't know.

Now, I'm going to show you something. I'm going to show you something. This will be so, stop playing. That's distracting. My best friend from high school He would drive me down there a lot of Saturdays to look at the guitar Because he had his license before I did We go down there to yield music and look at the thing All right, watch this Watch this

That guitar is expensive But in the wrong hands Sorry, its potential is limited E? Take that over to E Come here Y'all give it up for this E. Come on, it's E Edwards everybody

You know him from albums such as This is the Gospel. E. See what you can do with the instrument that that he had. Come here. Come here. Get in the shot. Do you think in his hands it will be the same as it was in your hands? Yeah, no, go sit down.

All I needed him for was to put it in the right hands. I'm done with you. You can go sit down. You can sleep. You can take notes. You can shout. You can practice plush on the air guitar. I don't care what you do. E. Show them what that instrument is. Why didn't this sound like that in his hands? What changed about the instrument? We didn't give it new strings. The only thing we did was put it in the right hands. And God says, you don't need more strings.

You don't need to be smarter than you are. Shocker, all you need is to put it in the right hands. I'm making this up on the spot. This whole thing. This is spontaneous. That you've seen the illustration. Let me make the application. Some of you started playing with sin in your life a long time ago.

It was fun at first. at first. But then it became a sort of cycle. The lust of the flesh, just doing what you feel like doing. The lust of the eyes, just basing everything off of your senses in life. The pride of life thinking it's all about just what I can accumulate and never what I can distribute. And you play with things, and eventually the things that you play with start playing you. And before long, you might find yourself like Gideon or the Israelites in a season where you are a stringed instrument in the hands of a skilled enemy. That's what the Midianites represented. They were a skillful enemy.

They knew how to play the Israelites so that the Israelites were pressed in and hard pressed and pressed down and depressed and depressed and anxious and fearful and shrinking and small so that by the time God finally said to Gideon, mighty warrior, Gideon didn't even believe when the angel said, I see you as mighty. I see you as strong. I see you as capable. I made you for purpose. I put an assignment on your life. And Gideon says, who me? Are you talking to me? Yeah, Gideon, you are an interesting instrument. You are an expensive instrument. You have been invested with the kind of divine resources that are very necessary for this exact assignment, Gideon. I feel God coming into somebody's wine press today. I feel God coming into somebody's weakness today. I feel God coming into somebody's dysfunction today, saying you are an expensive instrument, but you've been played by the devil.

But today we came to take back from the enemy what never should have been in his hands to begin with. Five-year neighbors say snatch it back. Snatch it back. Snatch what back? Your instruments. You got a Paul Reed Smith? No, but I got a sanctified mind. I got an imagination that was given to me by Almighty God.

Would you take something as amazing as your mind, an instrument? Much more than $1,400 worth in your mind. This irreplaceable, indispensable part of you called your soul, your mind, your will, your emotions. And you're just going to give all those gifts over to an enemy? Just going to give all those gifts over to an Instagram, I mean, an enemy, I mean a Midianite. And it's not just social media. The Lord spoke to me recently saying, I'm going to help you reclaim your imagination. I gave you an instrument called imagination to serve the purpose of faith.

But you use it too many times to go down roads of fear. So what the enemy has done is he got my instrument called imagination. Everybody in here who is really good at worrying could be really good. really good at prayer. If you get it in the right hands, if you get your instrument back, come on. If you stay in this cesspool of lust and say, oh, it's nothing but the dog in me, a man's got to have what a man's got to have, then you are going to entrust your mind and your heart to an enemy that does not have a good intention for you. But if you get that instrument back, it can become true intimacy so that the God who knows what he put inside of you can release everything that was meant

to be sent into the world that he called you to. You get your life in the right hands. So the first thing that God had to do for Gideon was he had to get him to let go of some things. In Gideon's specific case, I guess it was kind of like a post-2020 world where they had the great resignation. Everybody I know who owns a business right now is saying, man, it's hard for me to find. They don't say good people. They say people. I got used to the thing. It's good help is hard to find. Now they're like, horrible help is hard to find. I'll take some horrible help. God. There's hell.

Now listen, I'm not praying that God would downsize anybody's life. I'm not praying that. But I am saying it's not always the devil when your life is downsized. There will be moments that God, to get you ready for the space he's taking you into, will need to thin out some things that you will be. You were depending on that kept you from depending on him. This is Gideon. This is Gideon.

That the Lord said, and I noticed how the Lord gave him an instruction. He said, everyone who's trembling, send him home. So Gideon's like, everybody who's trembling, go home. And two-thirds took him up on it. And probably he's like, well, I mean, you could tremble a little bit. Little trembles all right. All right. If you're trembling, oh, God, did I do it wrong?

Ah, you did it right. Only problem is you didn't do it enough. So I remember when we met Gideon a couple weeks ago, he was threshing in a wine press. And now God is threshing, sifting. Not sifting for the purpose of subtraction, sifting for the purpose of strategy. Is that word for somebody here? Quit giving the devil credit for it. Quit giving the devil credit for it.

Oh, the devil took this and the devil took that and the devil took the other and the devil. Did he? Or is God getting room ready for your life? I know I'm ministering to one person right now, right now, right now, right now, right now, right now, right now, right now, right now, right now. There will always be someone who will take this message out of a context that I mean it in and just use this as an excuse to be horrible to people in relationships and say that you one of my 300. But those of us who are mature enough to know understand that this is not permission for us to be bad at relationships and blame it on faith. What it is for me is a promise

from God that what I've got in my hand in this season is what he meant to give me for where I'm going. And I've got what it takes to win. I've got what it takes to win. I've got what I want not necessarily I would really like to have 32,000 more if you ask me but God didn't ask you he's doing the math you got to put this in his hands now and say God I'm going to let go put up verse 7 judges 7 you'll hardly believe how clear it is he said let all the others Go. You see that? 9,700 on one side, 300 on the other, and the 300 are dogs. And God says, you're going to do this with those 300 dogs. I got that dog. I got that dog. I got that dog. The ones that were drinking like this, hand them out, I got that dog. And God says, that's what you want now. You want. You want the stuff in the sea. that you can actually depend on, not the stuff you've been pretending with.

Can I go a little further with this message? I'm going to have to put this part two on YouTube this week because there's too much. I've been putting these extra teachings on my YouTube channel from the basin. And you know what I'm going to do? While I'm on tour, I'm going to put the basin from the bus. I'm going to go on the bus and I'm going to put some sermons on there and I will finish this. But I can't not tell you this next part because it's really what led me to the message. Somebody say, I've got what it takes to win.

God leads him to the 300. They have already sent home over 30,000. And so the Lord says, let all the others go, every man to his home. Verse 8. So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets. That's an instrument. Unplug it real quick. I'll bring it back, I promise.

Now, a trumpet, I never played a trumpet, so I used the guitar because I thought it was more appropriate. But the trumpet is not like an electric guitar because it doesn't have to be plugged in. A trumpet is a different kind of instrument. A trumpet, how many of you played trumpet in the band at one point for six months because your mom made you or something like that? Or you love it and you're great at it. Okay, great. A trumpet is a, what kind of instrument?

A wind instrument. A trumpet is a wind instrument. So a trumpet needs two things. Somebody who knows where to put their hands, these musicians are getting excited because they know something about instruments. Somebody who knows where to put their hands and someone with breath control. So Gideon has been, let me get this back to you real quick. Gideon has been in the wrong hands for years, like some of you. Just letting his mind go to this place of misery, predictable misery, enslavement, entanglement, entanglement, entrapment, and everything that comes

along with the strategy of the enemy, that might be for you a state of addiction, that might be for you a state of low self-worth, where you have forgotten who you are. Some of you, if you talk to somebody else the way that you talk to yourself, they would punch you in the nose. And you use your self-talk to beat the crap out of yourself. And I came today with a message from Almighty God to let you know that you are a very expensive instrument. And watch this. He paid too much for you to stay in a dead place so that when Paul gets ready to say it, he says, you have been brought from death to life. Well, what does it take

to go from death to life? Breath. So what does God do when he gets ready to raise? somebody up to do something significant for a purpose that they didn't even see themselves for. God said, I brought you to church today. You didn't just go to church today. I brought you to church so that I could blow into you the wind of the Holy Spirit for this second season of your life because the best is still ahead. Feed the prophecy. Receive the prophecy. Receive the prophecy. See, receive the breath. It's a wind instrument. Somebody say it's a wind instrument.

The trumpet can sit there all day and it won't do anything if somebody doesn't breathe into it. You know why you hadn't had power? You know why you hadn't had joy? You know why you hadn't had peace? You haven't been letting him breathe into you. Oh, but if he breathes, ask the bones on the valley floor. What happens when God breathes? Pass the bones on the valley floor.

What happens when he breathes? Pass the bones on the valley floor. What happens when God breathe? God said. Live, live, live, live, live. There isn't over? An expensive instrument. An exquisite instrument.

In the hands of the master, there's no telling what might come out of you. Let everybody who wants to leave for lunch, leave for lunch. Everybody who wants this word make some noise. Open your mouth wide and let God fill it. Because I believe I've got something great to do with his name. I can't take it. I can't take it. I might have to pick this up in Austin, Texas.

I might have to pick this up in Minneapolis. I might have to pick this up and take it to Kansas City. We might have to get on the road because watch this, watch this, watch us, watch us, stop, stop, stop, stop. He said, everybody that's trembling, send them home. Everybody who's trembling, send them home. Everybody, you know what's crazy about that? Look at verse 9. Then after he sent all of them home and took their trumpets from him, he said, you go, leave your trumpet.

You go, leave your trumpet. You go, but leave your trumpet. You go, but leave your trumpet. And all the 300 are going, what are we going to do? with these trumpets. Can you get them to leave their sword? Because we need a sword, Gideon. I know you're new to this mighty warrior thing, but you might have wanted to read the mighty warrior handbook before you started rounding up supplies. But something in Gideon said, we're going to need some weird weapons for this battle. If we go about it in a worldly way,

we will be weakened. If we go about it in a worldly way, we will be weakened. If we go about it in a worldly way, we will be defeated, but the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. I feel strongholds coming down right now. Yes, Lord, I got some weird weapons, and I am a weird weapon. I'm a little bent, I'm a little crazy, I'm a little traumatized, I'm a little stuck, I'm a little short, I'm a little tall, I'm a little teapot, but watch what happens when you pour me out. I've got an anointing. Something on the inside.

See, I'm preaching from the inside right now, and I don't know who this is for, and I don't know who he's calling to, and I don't know why he woke me up in 2 a.m., but it's got me to tell somebody. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, come on now. Come on, come on. Let's have a Code Orange revival on a Sunday morning. Why not? Let's have a cold orange revival on a Sunday morning. Why not?

High five, somebody say, I got what it takes, and I know it now. I got confused for a little while. I let the devil play me, but I know it now. I thought my life was over, but I found out as long as I've got breath, As long as there is a breathing, there is a reason. So, I promise this is a close. This is the close. This is the close. This is the close.

High five somebody else and say, you've got what it takes to win. You've got what it takes to win. He's about to breathe in you. So, so, so, so, so. So the Bible said that same night, the Lord, verse 9, I'm in verse 9, the Lord said, Rise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. Everybody's so. But watch this.

If you are afraid to go down, verse 10. If you are afraid to go down, go down. Lord, I think we need a translator. Because your ways are not my ways and your thoughts are not my thoughts. And apparently we speak different languages. They have an army of locusts. I have an army of dogs. You told me to send them away because I had too many.

They have too many. This is you making all the reasons up in your brain why you can't do what God called you to do. This is you. I just want you to see that God is speaking to you, Greg, not just Gideon. This is you. So you get in your head. You get in your head and things die there because you give the instrument of your mind to the enemy. The Lord says, if you are afraid, wait a minute, he just sent all the men away.

way who were trembling, but he's trembling too. And God knows it. So God says, you can tremble, but you can't turn. It's okay for you to feel afraid. It's okay for you to feel those feelings of unworthiness, but you must not surrender to them. Before we have a great high priest who can sympathize with us, that he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without. sin it's okay to be tempted don't give into it it's okay to slip up get up it's okay that you go off apologize and taper it next time for God's sake you can tremble that's the feeling but you can't turn back that's the commitment if you want to see the victory you will see it

when W. H. E.N. When you have felt the fear, when you have felt the discouragement, and you press through it, and you breathe through it, and you loved through it, and you forgave through it, and he brought you through it,

because it's his hand that gives the victory. It's his hand. Say it's his hand. You think he's running out of mercy? It's his hand. You think he gave you somebody else's gift on accident or didn't give you? You got everything, every little thing. I'm telling you, I believe in God, a sovereign God, a wonderful, masterful God, who hand-built this instrument, made me weird where he made me weird. I'm about to get weirder. Warning to all of the people who live with me. I'm about to get weirder. I did something the other day. I did something Holly never saw me do. I backed into a parking space.

She said, a back-in kind of guy all of a sudden, huh? I said, yeah, you don't even know me yet. You haven't even met me yet. I'll back in, I'll back out. I'll do this thing. Now watch, watch, watch, watch. can you truly say that you have put your life in God's hands?

Or are you holding on to things that you think you need to know and trying to control things that are the sole dominion of the king of kings and Lord of Lords? Because I saw it in the message. I saw, God said, if you're afraid to go down to the camp, go down to the camp with pura. your servant, verse 11 is so anointed, and you shall hear what they say. Remember, God's been talking to Gideon for an entire chapter. You're a mighty warrior, go in the strength you have, I will use you, I will be with you, okay, I'll light a rock on fire, I'll make the goat that you brought out,

catch on fire, I'll help you build an altar, I help you smash altars, Gideon says, can I lay out a fleece and you make the fleece wet and the ground ground around it dry. This is all in Judges Chapter 6 and God's like, yeah, sure, I'll make the fleece wet and the ground around it dry to show you that if everything around you dries up, I'll still give you a spirit inside of you that'll make you ready for what I've called you to do. And then he does it and then Gideon is like, okay, how about the other way? Can you make the fleece dry and everything around it wet? And God said, yeah, because when you feel dry, I'm going to put enough encouragement around you in seasons of your life where you can get by on somebody else's faith, and after God does all that, Gideon is still trembling.

Until the Lord says, okay, verse 11, go there, face what you fear, say that loud, face what you fear. And you'll hear what they say, and afterward, the hands, your hands, shall be strengthened. After you hear not what God says, after you hear what the enemy says, I'm going to tell you something you've never had a preacher tell you before. Sometimes you need to listen to your enemy. They're going to come take our Baptist papers away after this sermon for sure. Pastor, I've heard you preach a lot of sermons, but you're always telling me not to do that. No, no, no. He said, go down and hear what the enemy is saying about you.

And when you hear what the enemy says, if you don't believe what God says about you, maybe you'll believe what the enemy says about you. Which raises a question. If you're worthless, why is the devil fighting you so hard? Think about that. The enemy is not infinite. God is infinite. He only has so much artillery. So if it's been coming against your mind lately, and it's been coming against your marriage lately, and it's been coming against your bloodline lately,

and it's been coming against your heart lately, what does your enemy believe about you that you don't believe about you? He must believe that you are a very valuable instrument. That's why you've been having shortness of breath, panic attacks, barely get through the day, because the devil knows if you keep breathing much longer, there is a breakthrough with your name on it. You are so close. And just about the time, look at God, look how sovereignty is, look how he put you here at this time for this message, look how he gave you this word for when you needed it. I've got what it takes to win.

How did Gideon know? Because the moment he got to the camp, give me verse 12. This is so good. We'll stop at verse 12. I promise I'm closing. Somebody shout, I've got, I've got what it takes to win. Now watch this. And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley.

They're in abundance. The enemy is in abundance, and Gideon's strengths are few, and I know you feel that way, but listen to the enemy. Verse 13, he says, dude, I had a dream last night. It was kind of weird. It was a, you're not going to believe me, but behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of media. And it came to the tent and it struck it, so it fell and turned it upside down. And the tent lay flat. Is that the whole dream?

You know, when people try to tell you their dreams, then you're like, I'm sure this was interesting when you were asleep, but this is really, can you speed this along? And then I was wearing glasses, but they weren't glasses. They were headphones, but then they were AirPods, and then the left one died. What do you think that means? I saw some bread. rolled through the camp and it smashed everything. Give me verse 14. Look what his friend says back. This is the weird part. Yeah, he hadn't heard the weird part yet. And the comrade answer, this is none other than the

sword of Gideon, the son of Joach, men of Israel. God has given into his hand, Midian all the camp. You got all that from a loaf of bread? Barley bread, no doubt. That's the cheap bread. That's the moldy bread. And something snapped in Gideon when he heard that. Look at verse 15. As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream in its interpretation, he worship. What do you do when you worship? You throw your hands up.

What did God say he had given Gideon the victory? Where did he tell him he put it in his hands? So he put those instruments of victory up in the air and realized that the hand of Midian is strong. But the hand of God is greater. And he returned to the camp. Who is this word for? This thing has been burning a hole in me. I can't even move right now.

I'm glued to the floor until I finish this. And Gideon went back down, not from what he heard from God, what he heard from his enemies. He realized if they are that intimidated by me, Then God must, if they're dreaming about me, if the devil is waking me up in the middle of the night, it must be a sword. And he said to his men, arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand. And I want to ask you something, barley bread loaf can be a weapon to destroy an army. that's as abundant as a swarm of locust. How fast does the barley have to be moving to knock down a whole camp?

So now you get it. It wasn't about the weapon. It was about it. That's why, child of God, you could hold your head high when you leave this church today. Because you can know, oh, I'm a weapon. the wind. When the angel said, mighty warrior Gideon said, who, me? When the enemy said, moldy bread, Gideon's like, oh, that's me. Sometimes what you need to believe is in how much you know. You don't need more information. You need more belief in God. An amazing thing for the enemy to see.

Something as common as you rolling at him. Get up momentum now. Deans said, Now that I've let go of my excuses, let's go. Let go to let's go. That looks like bread coming. Oh, no. I just saw whose hands were behind it. Oh, God. I know what happens when you put it in the master's hands.

Ask the 5,000. What happens when you get the bread? Yeah, but it was broken. You know what you didn't know? I didn't show you. Two weeks after I got this guitar, I dropped it. Two weeks after I got this guitar, I dropped it. And yet, just like God, that something is so broken in the right hands can still play something so beautiful. About what it takes. Those burdens, would you just lift your hands to them right now? Put it in the right hands. He put a trumpet, every man's right hand. A torch in the left hand. Lift your hands. You've got what it takes.

Something so beautiful. Everyone who has a broken praise, lift your voice to the Lord right now. Tell him, thank you for the bread. Thank you for the bread. Thank you for the bread. Thank you for a new beginning. Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Lord. Come on, open your mouth. That's your trumpet. Use your words, use your breath. Tell them I give you this situation, I give you this lawsuit, I give you this custody battle, I give you this bill, I give you this diagnosis. Come on, I need a worship team. Let's let the wind of God sweep through this place.

We've eaten the bread, we've received the word, but here comes the wind, here comes the wind. Beautiful sounds from broken instruments. A beautiful song from a broken vessel. Lift your hands, lift your hands, lift your hands. Let him have it, let him have it, let him have it. It doesn't matter where we go. Let the wind of love flow.

Let it sweep through your soul. With the podcast, and if you did, make sure to share it and subscribe so we can get you all of these new messages as soon as they're available. I also want to take a moment. and thank all of you who are a part of elevation. Whether you support us financially or serve with us or just share these messages, it's because of you that we're able to reach people all around the world. And if you want more information on how to be a part of elevation,

click the link in the description. Thanks again for listening. Make sure to leave a review, share the message, and subscribe. God bless you. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.