Elevation with Steven Furtick - The Frame Game

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Shift your perspective to see your struggles through the lens of faith. Through this sermon, you will begin to recognize that God's word is powerful enough to frame not just the world, but your personal challenges too.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. I want to share today from the same subject that I began last week about functional faith. About functional faith. Now, judging from your response to my announcement of Part 2 of the T, Perhaps you don't remember my sermon. Let's review. We were saying that faith doesn't always guarantee the outcome, but it establishes the outlook. All things are possible to him who believes.

And so we want to take some time today in a very famous passage of scripture. And I would ask, if you don't mind, just stand while I read the scripture. And then the seat is yours. Somebody tithed good money so you could have that seat. So I want you to use it. And we will give you that opportunity today. Just stand for one more moment, and I'm going to be reading this scripture from the King James version of the Bible. Because it's the one that I memorized it in, now I don't still have it memorized, but at one time I did.

You can believe that or not. It's absolutely true. But we're just going to read like a little sandwich real quick from Hebrews 11 and Hebrews 12. And some of you who are really churchy, you're going to be tempted that while I'm reading this scripture to start getting excited. Don't do it. Okay, just let me read my scripture. These nice people don't want to hear you shouting while I'm reading my scripture, okay? But Hebrews 111 says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for. What did I tell you? I told you to sit still. And the evidence of things not seen,

or by it the elders obtain a good report. By faith, we understand. What do we understand? That the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were made of things, are not made of things. Can I do that whole verse over? Through faith, we understand. That the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Now look at Hebrews 12, verse 1 and 2, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great A cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin, which does so easily beset us and let us run with patience. Tell somebody, we're getting fit, we're getting fit.

And look who our trainer is. Let us run with patience, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our functional faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down. Now, he didn't sit down because he was tired. He sat down because it was done. Touch somebody say, it's already done. It's already done.

I declare it by faith. It's already done. Sat down at the right hand of God. Now here's what we're going to do today. As a sermon title, I'm going to teach you how to do an exercise. It's also an experiment. I want to talk about the frame game. The frame game.

Touch somebody on your way to your seat, say we're going to have a great time today. You may be seated. Thank you, worship team. Hey, keep touring Mac, keep singing, stay strong. We believe in you. And now to go to this passage that I am so excited to preach, like way more excited to preach it than you are to hear it. Where I read you two little passages that are so well known.

If these passages were an exercise, they would be the push-ups of faith, because it's just a really well-known passage where it says, Now faith, substance, things, and nothing is seen, and fix our eyes on Jesus, author, and perfect of our faith. Those are well known. In the middle of those verses, there is a picture that the author of Hebrews provides to encourage perseverance for anyone who is fatigued in their faith. And to do it, he mentions people who now he calls a cloud of witnesses, and he's establishing what we might call a framework of faith. The interesting thing is that that list, I didn't read it to you, it is bookended by these two descriptions of faith.

Faith is the substance of things hope for, and that Jesus is the author and finisher of our and in between that he gives a picture and these two passages they serve as the frame and the picture here's the thing you've got to know sometimes the frame is even more important than the picture can I explain that a little bit sometimes the way you say something is even more important than what you say you can say something to your kids meant to develop them that will destroy them all because of the way that you framed it. You can put your kids in a competitive mindset with their siblings trying to get them to act right and then kind of create this dysfunction that they have the rest of their life.

Framework is important. Any married people? Any married people? Your phraseology in marriage is really important. I just want to give you this quick tip because sometimes, sometimes you know, sometimes you Sometimes it's not what you're saying to your husband, is how you're saying it that he can't hear it. It's quiet. It's real quiet.

I'm a little nervous to proceed with this illustration, but I'll do so nonetheless. Because I believe this has great practical application value to your life. If you really want to get your husband to change, catch him doing something right and compliment him. But you don't have to do that. You can keep critiquing him for what he's doing wrong and he'll keep doing it because men repeat what you feed them. So to understand how to effectively communicate with your mate, communicate with your mate, you have to learn the art of framing.

It's a framework as a parent, the way you frame a question to your children, especially if they're younger. Now my kids are all under the age of 11, so I'm not writing my parenting book yet for at least 20 years to see if any of this crap I tell you actually works in real life. But I think you sometimes as a parent are tempted when your kids are small to give them too many choices and too many options, about dinner, about clothes, just all kinds of options. And in my personal parenting philosophy, I don't ever give my children a fill in the blank question when I'm asking them to do something for me. I give them multiple choice.

So it's not, do you want to eat your broccoli? I don't ask my kids that. My kids, what I might say is, Would you rather eat your broccoli or never play video games or see the light of day again? So, now, see, you have a choice. I'm not telling you you have to eat your broccoli. I'm just informing you of the consequences of not eating the broccoli. It's called framing. And I learned it from a counselor. This counselor one time was preparing me to go into a high-intensity, high-stress situation.

And he said, you get all stressed out every time you go around these people. I said, I do. I said, they're stressful people. He said, but what if this time you made a game out of it? And I said, tell me more about this game, because I like to play games. I'm the kind of guy who will turn any conversation into a game. Ask Holly, I like to play Would You Rather? I like to play What If.

I can turn any conversation into a game, and I'm competitive by nature. So when he told me I can make it like a game that got my attention, he said, yeah, when you go into this situation, you know they're crazy. So go in like you're a sociologist. Like you are studying their species of crazy. And you have to bring back a field report. on the craziness of these people. So he gave me a technique.

I didn't know at the time that he was teaching me cognitive framing. How fancy is that? He was teaching me that I could take a situation or information, facts, I could take it and frame it a different way. Now, advertisers are doing this to you all the time. Politicians are doing this to you occasionally. It is the invisible frame by which they present the issue or the argument. And you don't even see that it's there. Which brings us to Hebrews 11, where it says that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.

When I say framed, if you're in the construction industry, you picture the raw material that builds a house and the dimensions of it. When you frame the house up, when you frame the house up, well, that's a good picture. Because the scripture says that when God was looking around for something strong enough to build the world with, there was no substitute for the raw material of his word. So God framed and built the world which is visible through the word which is invisible. Now we as his children get to imitate him in our life through this thing called faith. That is, we get to take the same stuff that God used to frame the world and frame our lives with it if we choose to.

That the same word of God that framed the ocean, can frame my situation on a Tuesday afternoon if I choose to use it. So I want to talk about it for a little while today because I want to build my life with something that is sturdy and solid. So I want to know, God, can I borrow some of this raw material? The rama, the word, the rama, you've heard this before. The word of God is powerful enough to shape and create my life. Now I get to frame my life using the same substance that God use to make my world. And so I got to get a sense of focus.

Would you write that word down? Focus. Some of you are playing on your phone, but you need to focus and write down the word. Focus. Multitasking self. You need to focus. Touch your neighbor. Say focus.

Tell them, focus on me. Focus on me. Now, I told you I'd do it. Now, here's the part about this thing called focus, okay? Focus is a skill that must be sharpened continually. And I get a lot of practice with it in preaching, because how well I think my sermon is going totally depends on which person I focus on while I'm preaching. Some of you make me suicidal. I mean, like, I, if I only had you to look at while I preached, I would blow my brains out on stage.

But I'm really good at this now. I'm a professional. So I don't really look at the crowd. I scan. And I'm looking for love. That's what I'm looking for. But I'm really good at it. I'm a professional because, like, we go out on video shoots, okay?

And sometimes we go on on video shoots to do for the church. There's all kind of crazy, chaotic stuff happening. And I have to focus. And ask Buck, I'm a master of it. I can lock it in. When the camera starts, I can have a million things going on, but I can focus. We went to Israel a few years ago to shoot an Easter presentation called Seven Mile Miracle. And we were going to different sites like Gagatha, which is now a bus depot, by the way.

If you ever go, you just need to know that. The place where they hung our Lord, there's buses there. So anyway, but you get used to that. And we went on the Amas Road and the Garden Tomb, which is beautiful. But when we went for the last shoot on the Villadoloroosa, the crew told me, don't even come in today. You can't do this. I said, I can do it. What's the problem? They said, it's real busy. So we shot this little video. Here's 20 seconds of it. We showed it a few years ago. But watch this. There's somebody participating in this experience that needs to know today. You've got a new 24.

His mercies are new with every rising of the sun, that his faithfulness is great, that he walked a path where he was forsaken so that you could walk a path where you would never be forsaken, that God in heaven remembers you. Now let us remember his death. Let us remember his salvation. He created like a holy moment, Viadoloroza, the way of suffering, the path that he trod. But I asked him to go back and pull the wide shot. That's the tight shot. Here's the wide shot. I want you to see what's going on at the Villadoloroza that while I was preaching that.

Show him the clip. Is there somebody participating in this experience that needs to know today? You've got a new 24. His mercies are new with every rising of the sun, that his faithfulness is great, that he walked a path where he was forsaken so that you could walk a path where you would never be forsaken, that God in hand. I see a lesser preacher would have been distracted by that Middle Eastern girl with a Hello Kitty backpack. Not me. Why? I'm focused.

Touch your neighbor say, I'm focused. You'd be surprised what you could do if you would get focused. Really, you would. And it doesn't mean that chaos stops in your life either. Oh, well, I would focus if it weren't for these kids, no? You need to control your frame. You can't control everything that happens out here. You can control who walks by.

But I can, give me camera one. This is what's called a tight shot. That means that this shot on camera one is only designed to show me. We can zoom in, zoom in a little bit. Zoom in until they can see the gray hairs on my beard. Okay, zoom in. Zoom in a little bit more. Focus.

Now, that's a tight shot. That's a terrifying shot. You should zoom out. Zoom out, quick, quick, quick, quick. I just wanted you to see that you choose your focus. See, they're directing those cameras in the back, and they are making the decision in the moment what needs the attention. It's interesting. Come here, JJ.

JJ can be on the stage. And if we're working with the wide shot, he's a distraction because what's he even doing here? What are you even doing here? But let's say I can't make him go away. You know, he's a Valentine campus pastor now. He wants to stand on the stage. But watch what I can do, camera one. I can focus.

I'm trying to say he might not leave the stage, but that doesn't mean I have to keep him in my frame. I'm preaching about anxiety. I'm preaching about depression. You might stand there, but my faith gives me a focus. Touch three people say focus. Focus, focus. Faith is powered by focus.

And so they're deciding back there, the camera operators, what to put in the frame. That's what is called, the frame. The worlds were framed by the Word of God. The reason they're watching me preach on a screen is because, somebody that you can't see is running a camera and framing it. You know, it is the invisible aspects of your life that often determine the results. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. It's a matter of focus.

And so you frame up your life, you do it every day. In Hebrews 11 and 12 give us a framework of faith, a focal point telling us to us to fix our eyes on Jesus. Now we need Peter to come and show us how to walk on water. Whoops! He slipped because he let the wind and the waves in his frame. We can't blame him because the wind and the waves were there. The wind and the waves were there while he was walking on the water.

But when you allow things in your frame that break your focus, your faith is weak. you will never build a solid faith with a weak focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Maybe it's just because my eight-year-old is playing baseball right now, and that's the thing I hear Coach Dave yell more than anything to these eight-year-old boys. Focus. Focus.

It's not real complicated when they're eight. Like, just have your glove on your hand when the ball comes. Okay. Focus. Somebody shout focus. Focus. Look at your neighbor. Tell them focus.

Some of you won't even receive this word at a deep enough level to build your faith for your life because you're not focused on what I'm saying, you're thinking about who you're meeting after church. But if you would focus on this word, the breakthrough that you need is in this word on preaching. All you've got to do is focus. Focus. Focus because the frame of your faith. Let's build this out, actually. We need focus, and then we need a frame of reference. a frame of reference.

So the writer of Hebrew said that God started the world with his word, and now that same word is the word by which if you receive it, you will receive a measure of faith, and then you frame your world according to the same word that God spoke the universe into existence with. He's given a frame of reference, all the way to Jesus who endured the shame of the cross through faith. It's a frame of reference for a suffering church, and he's giving them a frame of reference, reminding them of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. This is the picture that's inside the frame of Hebrews 11 and

12. He's given them a picture, and it's given them a frame of reference. Like when you and Rachel took Bo to the hospital last week, Bo, their little son is prone to injuries. More than most little boys, even, I would say. Wouldn't you say, it's just got a bruiser. And so he bangs his head against a pole on the playground during church, and they took him to get some. some stitches, and the emergency room wait was 11 hours for some stitches. Now, Laja, if that had been you, I would have put a shoelace in your eye and tied it up. We would not have waited 11 hours. But it was a deep gash, so they probably needed to wait.

I said, were you mad, Buck? I would have been furious. 11 hours for some stitches. He said, I was at first. But the more people that came into the ER that night that I realized I might have to wait a little while but some of them aren't leaving. He said, the longer I sat there, the less frustrated I was. And the more I started realizing that this might be how I'm spending my night in the hospital,

but some people have spent their last six months in the hospital. Nothing changed but the frame. Nothing changed but the frame. That's so often what we need is a frame of reference. Sometimes white people need to have a body. black friend. Sometimes black people need to have a white friend. Broke people need some rich friends. Rich people need some broke friends. And what we're doing, we're trading perspectives. Hey, take a look at life through my lens and we get wiser and we get smarter because it's a frame of reference.

So often your perspective is developed in reverse. Sometimes the way to get through what you're going through right now is to go to the wide lens. Wide lens. Camera two. Camera two, the wide shot is what gives me a frame of reference. This is the tight shot. It's an important shot. But sometimes what I need is a wide shot.

So that when I see Goliath on the battle lines, I have a frame of reference that takes me back to the lion and the bear in the sheep field. I need a frame of reference to realize that I was worried last month this time when the bills were due. God made a way. It's a frame of reference. This is why we're instructed in the Bible as often as we're instructed anything to remember. To remember.

Sometimes you've got to play the tape back. You know, because the enemy will get you so focused on this one frame, this one thing, you will lose your whole frame of reference. What are you doing, staying up late, worried about this one? No, you got to zoom out and change your frame of reference. That's why I came to church, by the way. I needed to be around some other believers. I needed to broaden my frame of reference.

I needed to remember that I'm not the only one serving God and I'm not the only one going through. And I need Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I need the whole cast of characters in Hebrews 11. I need Jesus to remind me that if he endured the cross, I can make it through this crisis. So we zoom out and we zoom in in life. And what they really got to do back on the camera to be successful to keep me in the frame. Touch somebody. Say, keep it in the frame.

Yeah, because you've got to keep joy in the frame. You've got to keep hope in the frame. Faith, there's a substance of things hope for. Faith is that invisible connection point by which I reach out and grab what I'm hoping for and bring it into this moment. So that requires anticipation. I'm building something here, by the way. I'm building something.

I'm framing something here. I'm framing something. You've got to, that's their whole job. There are camera operators who have been fired and they're volunteers because they don't anticipate. my movements. Now, you know, these guys are professionals. We got the A team on the cameras today, and they are instructed, look, Pastor Stephen doesn't stand still. And just because he preached it one way at 930, doesn't mean he's going to preach it that way at 1130. So you got to be ready. You got to switch quick. And God is like that, you know. You can't just, you can't just, you can't

You can't just set the camera. This is how some of you live your lives. And it's why you don't have any faith, by the way, and it's why you haven't seen God do anything in your life. Take your hands off the camera. Some of you all just set the frame and then say, well, where is God? But if you have faith, the substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen, Jesus, for the joy that was set.

He didn't get stuck in one spot, but for the joy. Watch this camera. See? I'm going to show you how good they are. I can come down here. I can come down here. I can turn around, hit this camera. Look how trained they are.

There's nowhere I can go in this auditorium. Because they know I am liable and likely to do just about anything. So if you sit at the front of the church, you better know that. the church, you better know that too. But they might have to follow me to the back. It's your job to anticipate where I might go. I feel the anointing of Wayne Gretzky on me. Remember when he said, I don't skate to where the puck is. I skate to where the puck's going to be. I don't set up camp where God was. I want to know where God is going to be next. So God lead me by faith. Does somebody say I'm moving by faith?

Catch me if you can. So that's their job. It is an anticipatory spirit. You know, the thing that faith and fear both share in common is they are empowered by anticipation. So you wake up in the morning and if you frame your day with the anticipation of depression and discouragement, some of you have framed your day with the anticipation of depression and discouragement, some of you have framed your day to suck before it ever get started. A tough week coming up.

I guess you do, because you framed it that way. I guess you do. I wouldn't want to be you this week either. Not the way you're talking, because the worlds were framed by what was spoken. So when you say it's going to be a tough week, you're speaking something that you're going to see, but it came out of your mouth. And so the psalmist had the right idea. He said, this is the day that the Lord has made.

What's he doing? He's framing his day. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Well, what are you glad about? I don't know yet, but I will be glad. You're going to freak people out when you start acting this way, by the way. It's going to freak people out. You are going to be at the same job you were at last week this week and people are going to be looking at you like, what happened to you? Do you get a promotion? No. I didn't get a new promotion. I got a new perspective. I got a new frame.

I got a new frame. I got a new frame. That's what happened. Some of you who have been talking to your girlfriends about your husband and complaining about him, when you get around those girlfriends this week and you're starting to brag about all the things he's doing right, they're going to look at you like, did you get a new husband? No. I didn't get a new husband, but I put him in a new frame.

I started looking for something that I'm doing. I could be glad. I will rejoice. Repeat after me. Touch your neighbors. Say, frame it up. What are you talking about? All right, when I sit down to do a video shoot, the first thing they have to do while I'm getting ready and putting on a little makeup.

Yeah, you got to put a little makeup when you do the video shoot. I know it's terrible. I know you used to respect me. I'm still a man, but they just put a little bit of powder, just a little bit of powder, and they say, hang on a second, pastor. We got to frame up the shot. I wonder what your week would be like if you framed it up before you went into it. Frame it up. I like the way they say it.

Frame it up. I think that's what worship is, by the way. It's framing it. When I lift my hands, you need to know what I'm doing. I'm framing it. I'm saying that come win, come away. I'm not afraid. I got Jesus in my boat and I got a faith that's broke.

Came to frame it up to the hills from which coming my help. I'm sorry, y'all. My help comes from the Lord. What am I doing? I'm framing it up. Can't look back, can't look down. So it's anticipation and watch this. This is good.

It's motivation. It's motivation. It's motivation. Hand me the picture. In my office, now I need to tell you something. I am an image-driven person, all right? So faith, some things, so forth, the evidence of things not seen. I have a great imagination.

So I pictured you being at this church before you came. And I preached until you were in that seat. I preached until what was not seen became the reality that I hope that I hope that I hope. But sometimes on Wednesday or Thursday, I won't feel it. You ever just don't feel it? I still love God. I still love you. I love His word.

It's precious to me. It's sweeter than the honey from the honeycomb if you want to know the truth about it. But, you know, I have to have pictures. So I have pictures all around the office. People getting baptized, people raising their hands to give their life to Christ. And then just different staff members, people that have been there along the journey. About a year ago, one of our photographers caught something. And whoever this is, I would love to know who you are.

I would send you a Chick-fil-A coupon. In my mind, I just kept going down until I felt comfortable with the offer. But they caught a moment in worship. And they captured this moment, and this is right on my desk where I preach my sermons. You see how Elijah is looking at me? That might be the only time during one of my sermons that he's ever been paying attention. But in this moment, and you see my wife, that one right there? See that?

In my mind, that picture is, it puts me in the right frame of mind to remember that somebody is looking up to me. Because look how they're looking at me. They are looking at me like I am their hero. Don't you agree? That's the interpretation that I have. I draw my own thought bubbles, you know what I'm saying? I can frame it how I want to frame it. So he's thinking, wow, I have big shoes to fill.

That's what he's thinking in my mind. And she's thinking, God, how? What have I done to deserve this special? of spirituality. Tell somebody frame it up. So sometimes I look at it and I think, you know, I got people counting on me this week. And the way he's looking at me, it motivates me to dig down deeper. Now, if this motivates me, consider Jesus.

The Bible says, for the joy set before him, what is that? That's you. It means that while he was on the cross. cross while he was dying. The motivation that he had to endure, is this what the author of Hebrews is teaching, that it was the glory of his father and the salvation of his creation that kept him there. So sometimes you need what we call an establishing shot. Hit the back of the room camera.

An establishing shot. That's what reminds me in life that sometimes I can get so focused on one moment that I can compromise everything that's related to my destiny in one moment of pressure. So I've got to establish it again and realize that what I'm doing by faith isn't just for me. This is a generational faith. I want something to hand to my kids that's worth holding on to. Sometimes your frame is too small.

That shot is designed to give a context of the whole room for the perspective. This is the one that we put on television so people can go, oh, people actually show up to hear this guy preach. I should maybe listen to motivation. And you need all of these shots in your life. You need all of these frames of reference. You need all of these perspectives. Sometimes when you have all this stuff swirling around you, you need camera one.

That's the focus shot. That's the tight shot. I'm going to deal with what I'm dealing with today and tomorrow is sufficient enough. The grace of God will cover tomorrow. Today is sufficient for its own trouble. I'm going to focus on what I've got to do right now. Now faith is the substance of things hope for. So I need that.

And then sometimes I need that lion and I need that bear. I need that camera two shot. Give me camera two. Because sometimes I need to know that the God who was faithful in my past, It's no less competent in this present struggle. I need to remember that the lion went down and the bear went down. While we're talking about David, can we establish the fact that David was looking at the same giant as his big brothers, but he had a different frame?

It wasn't two different, Goliaths. It was the same giant, but it was a new frame. I'm changing my frame today. That's it. I made my decision. I framed up my life long enough by limitation and lack. Today I'm making a decision that if the Word of God was good enough to frame the world with, it's good enough to frame my struggle to.

Touch seven people tell them, change your frame. Change your frame. Come on, you got to do it. You got to do it this week. Do it, do it, do it real quick, do it real quick. Get your hands and put them like this. And this is what I want you to do to that stack of bills that you've been wondering about. Refram it.

Touch somebody say, reframe it. All right? This is what I want you to do to the annoying people in your life. This is what faith will enable you to do. You're going to reframe them. Oh, you are no longer an annoying person. You are a part of my spiritual development program designed to bring me patience. I just refrained you and you didn't even know it.

Joshua and Caleb had faith because they had a different frame. What is your frame? My frame is this. If God is for me, who can be against me? That's his word, right? Well, that's my brain. I'm going into every situation knowing that he's for me. And whatever comes against me, he's got it.

I got a new frame. And so there are some things, give me that. There are some things that if you're going to touch somebody, say, change your frame, change your frame, change your frame. There are some things that are in your life right now that need to be eliminated from your frame. See, that's the fifth thing I wanted you to get. I wanted you to realize that as you frame your life, as you reframe your situation, it's going to take focus.

It's going to take perspective to have a new frame of reference, to realize that there are other people who've gone through worse and made it, that there's more to this life that you're living than the season that you're in. It's going to take anticipation to know that I've got to be ready for change and I've got to be ready for challenge, but my life is framed by the Word of God, so I'm not worried about it because I'm more than a conqueror through him who loves. me because he made this day I will rejoice and I've got a spirit of motivation for the joy set before me.

I'm going to endure like Jesus, but the writer of Hebrew says that there are some things called weight and sin that have to be removed from the frame. See, this was an important part of the worship until I got up to preach. But now that it's preaching time, this thing is in my way. So it's not a bad thing, but it doesn't belong in this shot. So you've got to learn how that sometimes in your life there are some things. I mean, how annoying would it be if Mac would have left his stupid mic stand out like a rock star? This ain't Chicago.

Come get your mic stand and get it out of my frame. somebody say, get your doubt out of my frame. Get your fear out of my frame. Sometimes you've got to look at situations in your life and say, not right now. I don't have time to carry this weight. My faith is a substance of something I'm hoping for. I'm headed in an upward direction. Get out of my frame. I'm sorry to get aggressive about it, but would you push five people and tell them get out of my frame? Out of my frame. Look at, see, this is going to be so freeing for you because you didn't know that you were the director of this shot. You didn't even know. But faith is a frame. Faith is a frame. I would love for you to go by Target.

Dollar General, whatever your taste. Get a frame, just a picture frame, and leave it empty and put it on your desk this week. If you don't have a desk, put it on your coffee table. If you don't have a coffee table, put it on your windowsill. If you don't have a windows, put it on the floor. My point is, I don't want you to hear this message. I want you to work this message to see your life through the frame of faith. Every once in a while, I will talk to somebody in our church who has received news that they

have a very short time to live. Almost without fail, talking to that person encourages me more than it encouraged them. There are very few exceptions because they're sad, they're nervous, they're worried. All of that's there. But it's like when you talk to them, they're framed. has changed. And so they actually, it's the strangest thing, I can't really explain it, but some things you can only understand by faith.

It's like the disease wasn't a good thing that came into their life, but it gave them a new frame to see their life through, and they're not irritable about some of the things that they were irritable about anymore, and they're not worried about some of the things they were worried about anymore. And they don't even give attention to some of the things they gave it. attention to anymore. And I started the phone call to pray for them, and I end up asking them to pray for me, because they have a better frame. Because here I am worried about this daily stuff. And here they have a frame that lets them know that tomorrow isn't promised.

I mean, have you ever seen somebody who was about to die and then they really started living? and it took the possibility that they might die to really start living. It took the possibility that they might not get to make it to walk their child down the aisle to start being a good father. Don't let your life get so out of focus that it takes a tragedy to change your frame. Don't let it be that it takes a funeral to make you appreciate your friends. Don't let it be that God has to take something away to make you appreciate how good it was while you had it. My advice to you is to change your frame.

And I think the writer of Hebrews would agree. He would say that when you fix your eyes on Jesus, even if you haven't fixed the situation, if you fix the frame, fix a frame, bring into visibility what really matters. My God, we are so consumed with the wind and the waves that we are missing the one who is able to walk on water. And what I'd like to pray for you today is that your frame leaving this place for whatever you're facing in your life would be a faith frame. I want to pray that you would become a framer in your everyday life. This means that you will see potential in people that other people don't see potential in. This means that you're going to stop spending all your time trying to frame everybody else's life and start framing your own.

I just said a lot and I didn't get a good response on it, so I'm going to stay on it. Some of us are so busy trying to frame somebody else's future, what they should do and what you would do. God didn't call you to frame anybody else's life. He called you. And if you'll ever get busy with the big picture of your life, you won't have time to adjust my frame. So I want you to stand in the presence of God. And I want you to do something that has been symbolic in the church for thousands of years, but put down your purse. The person next to you is completely trustworthy.

Put down your pen. There's nothing more to write down. Lift your hands. Yeah. Lift them up. Let go of all of the things that have been in the frame, all of the shame, the past you can't change. All of the names. of the people that didn't come on let's get in a faith frame of mind what things are you

hoping for what are the things that you can't see right now that you believe and I pray that the eyes of your heart might be open I pray that the perspective of your faith might be in light and I pray that your imagination might be awakened to see the good things that God has prepared for you lift your hands high the Spirit of the Lord is in this place and I pray today for liberty and freedom in your life. I pray today that in the presence of the Lord you would find the fullness of joy and in his right hand pleasures forevermore. I pray that whatever you've been looking at through the lens of fear would look different today when you leave because of what the Word of God has reframed in your life. I pray today that the

eternal word of God would reframe your situation and yes even reframe the way you see yourself. God we thank you today in Jesus' name that you are reframing and recreating and renewing all things to look like your word. We declare and confess your word over our situation. We declare and confess your word over our insecurity. We ask that the same word that frame the world would frame our lives this week. And we declare we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. If you believe that, put a praise on it and clap your hands in the presence of God.

Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevation Church. or slash podcast for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe, you can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot, and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.

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