Elevation with Steven Furtick - The Limp Won’t Make You Late

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Lean on Him to lead you. In “The Limp Won’t Make You Late,” Pastor Steven reveals that God has you exactly where He needs you — and if you’ll lean on Him, He’ll give you what you need to get through. 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: Genesis 32, verses 24-31 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3-10 Genesis 33, verse 4 Hebrews 11, verses 20-21See 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. I want to welcome all of our locations. This campus, our Valentine campus, is called our broadcast location.

Let's welcome all of our eFAM all around the world right now who are joining us. Hey, everybody. Today, the Lord gave me a word. He can give it to me today, gave it to me Monday. I've been sitting with it all week, so I can't wait to get to it. So I'm not going to do any announcements. I'm just going to get right to it because I'm excited. We're going to revisit Genesis chapter 32, the scripture that I shared last week.

We're going to jump in at verse 24, some things that the Lord has been dealing with me about and some things I believe he wants to assure you about. This will be a word of assurance for somebody today. Genesis chapter 32, verse 24. The Bible says, so Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. The man said, let me go for it is daybreak.

But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless. you bless me. And I talked last week about the blessing of letting go. That sometimes it's not our strength, but our surrender that determines our ability to move forward in life. And specifically what Jacob was letting go of in this passage wasn't the man. It was letting go of a previous version of himself. Because watch this. The man asked him, what's your name? Jacob, he answered. Now, he had pretended to be his brother Esau, and we'll talk about that in a moment. But now he's saying his own name. And when he said his own name, verse 28, the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.

Jacob said, please tell me your name. But he replied, why do you ask my name? Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place, Tenel, saying, it is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared. First, I want to read key verse for today. Verse 31, Genesis chapter 32. The sun rose above him as he passed Pinielle and he was limping because of his hip. The sun rose above him as he passed Pinielle and he was limping because of his hip. Turn to your neighbor and say, I've got good news.

Tell him the limp won't make you late. And in that good news, let's pray. Father, I commend your people to you now, and I ask you to flow through me. Holy Spirit with clarity, supernatural accuracy, and indelible power. Make an imprint on the lives of your people, a mark that can't be erased in Jesus' name. Amen. Touch your neighbor on your way to your seat and tell them, I'm not late. Praise God. I think the reason that I'm perennially drawn to this text is because it illustrates one of my favorite things to teach people from the Bible. And that's the concept of progressive revelation. And when I say progressive revelation, it's not just so I can use big words. It's so that you don't get confused at certain points in your life where you learn something that calls.

causes you to have to unlearn everything you thought you knew up until that point. Progressive revelation is the idea that as God is going in the scriptures, we see more and more of who he really is. And so you don't get all of God just by reading the book of Genesis. You don't get all of God just by reading Genesis Exodus, the Viticus Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, or those first five books of the Bible. You don't get all of God by reading all the way to the book of Malachi and finishing the Old Testament, or Matthew, Martin, Luke, and John, or all of the epistles, the letters that Paul wrote to the church or James, or even the book of Revelation, you don't get all of God.

Even when you finish, if you go all the way to the book of maps in the back, you still will not have mastered God. This scripture is interesting, isn't it, because Jacob asked this angel for his name, and he's like, no, not yet. I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to make sure you know your name, but God's name wasn't revealed until Moses came along. So that would be many years later.

It would be many centuries later. That's what I mean by progressive revelation. Now, it's not like God got his name when Moses came along, but there are things that we know as we go. And so when I tell you today that you're not, late in life that may be difficult for you to believe. Because of what you thought you knew that you needed to do by now, who you thought you needed to be at this stage in your life. And the thing about God's activity is that his revelation is on a schedule, but this schedule

is usually not seen by us. His revelation is on schedule, and it's a schedule that you can't see. So write that down as a point today. Revelation is scheduled. Revelation is scheduled. Judging by the percentage of people who wrote that down, when I said write it down, we either need some more elevation pins to hand out at the door, or y'all needed an extra two hours of sleep.

I'm not sure which one it was. It's hard for me to believe that I'm pastoring this church going into our 18th year. Yeah. Why it's so crazy is when I visioned myself starting a church, I was 16, but I thought I'd start the church when I was in my 40s. So now here I am in my 40s, and I've been pastoring the church for 18 years, and that's just crazy to me. And God set the schedule for when he wanted me to do this. And then Holly, she's very, some, Holly has an interesting concept of time. Usually she's the one behind schedule in certain areas of life. She's doing a lot better with it.

There was one time where she was the one who was early and I was running late. Usually in our marriage, it's, you know, that I'm waiting in the car and she's running a little late. Very stereotypical male thing to say in the day. sermon intro, but it was true in our marriage, especially for the first few years. But in one of our first conversations about this church, she said, you know, I believe it's time for us to go start this church. We were in our 20s. We had only been married a couple of years. And she said, I think it's time. I said, it's not time. We're going to do it later. I'm going to go do something else for 20 years and learn everything I need to know, and then we'll start the church.

And so she pointed me to the resources that God had given us. And she let me see that in that moment, although we didn't feel like we had the experience that we needed, and I didn't feel like that I had the knowledge that I needed, that God's calling is more important than human knowledge. So she was the person who said to me, I believe it's time for us to go do this, and the stupidity of youth aided by faith in God led us to start a church in our 20s. Praise the Lord. Now, the thing about that is at the time that she made. mention of that to me, and I talk about progressive revelation. There are a lot of mistakes

that I believe I made because I started the church so early that I probably would not have made if I had been more mature. When I started the church at age 27, there were some things I didn't know yet about human nature, and to be honest, some things I didn't know about myself, my own deficits, my own psychological garbage that I probably hadn't dealt with. properly. There were a lot of things that I still had to go through to really know who I was. Remember, in the text that I read you, Jacob not only doesn't know who God is fully, but he doesn't know who he is fully yet either. And he was 90 years old when this happened. So tell somebody next to you, there's hope for you yet. And one day I was just going through a list.

This was recent. I was going through a list of all of the dumb things that I did in the foundational stages of our church that I regret now because looking back, I say, that was so dumb that I set it up that way. If I hadn't set it up like this, we wouldn't be dealing with that. Now I see that this was a bad idea. I thought it was good. But now this thing that was so good, thought it was so good when we started. And this thing that I said, and now is just, ah, and I'm just beating myself up. That's my spiritual gift, just to beat the crap out of myself. And so I'm doing all this jujitsu on myself, making myself feel bad. And again, with wisdom, she steps in and says something that's so simple but so why. She's like, why are you punishing yourself for decisions that you made with revelation that you didn't have at the time? Why are you punishing yourself over yesterday's mistake with today's revelation? The truth of the matter is that at every stage along the way of leading this church, I've tried to do what I thought was right in that season with the resources that I had.

And I can respect that. Because even if I came to see later, then I could have done it better, I did. What was right at the time. I led in the light that I had. With the light that I had, with the knowledge that I had, with the wisdom that I had, meager though she were, I led this church the best I could in the light that I had. I want to call your attention to two parts of Genesis chapter 32,

verse 31. One says the sun rose above Jacob as he passed, Pennial, and the other says he was limping. Now, for the rest of this message, I want to talk about those two physical elements, but I want to use them symbolically for spiritual purposes for what you're going through in your life. It says, the sun rose, that's number one, and he limped. So there's two characters at play. play in this text. There's the light and the limp. The light and the limp. And what I want to make the case to you about in your life, Jacob's life, my life today, is that the light didn't stop the limp, but the limp couldn't stop the light. They're like preaching that today. So here he is, Jacob, 90-plus years old, getting ready to go deal with his brother Esau,

who he cheated out of a blessing 20 years earlier. Jacob has spent 20 years in sort of a layover situation at his uncle's house. His uncle is named Laban. As it often happens in life, what happened to him during the layover was even more important than what happened when he got to the destination. It was at Laban's house that he met his wife, Leah. It was also at Laban's house that he met his second wife, Rachel. Turned to your neighbor, say you only get one.

This is the Old Testament, progressive revelation. And so, in it true? Sometimes the stuff that happens while you're trying to get where you're going becomes the stuff that's the most important. And that while you're on the way to where you're going, you stumble over what you were actually supposed to do all along. I mean, that is absolutely true. my life. And yet we don't see by all the light that there is, only the light that we have.

Right now, somebody is living in the light, but only a little bit of light. All night long, Jacob has wrestled with a man. He's not sure who the man is at first. He's not even really sure who the man is when the match is over, but he has a little bit of a better picture, a little bit of a clearer picture. And he's wrestling, grappling, and many ways, losing in this battle against this opponent that he can't see. He is living in the light that he has. And as daybreak comes and he lets the man go and he lets go of his former self to receive his new identity, the light rises over him, he walks past denial, he says, this is the

place where I saw God, the sun is rising and he's limping at the same time. To me, that is very powerful to describe what it is like to walk with God. I remembered this funny story, and Graham probably doesn't remember it, but one of his early birthdays I was out preaching in Oklahoma. I wanted to be home for his birthday. Somebody let us borrow. You know what story I'm about to tell? Somebody let us borrow their little plane, so we were going to fly back that night so I could

preach at night and then fly back. You remember this? We got on the plane. The plane was very small, so it couldn't get really above the weather. So we had to circle around all these storms, but I wanted to be back by his birthday. He was probably at four or five at the time. And we got on that plane, and the pilot said, well, we're going to be able to get you home, but it's just a matter of when, because we're going to have to stop a bunch of times to

refuel this plane, because the plane is very little and it can't hold much fuel. And we're going to have to fly around the weather, so we don't know. We took a three-hour trip from Oklahoma City to Charlotte, North Carolina, and 12 hours later, at 7 a.m., I walked in the front door, and Graham was just one. waking up on his birthday. And he said, how'd you get here so quick? Because he thought I left that morning. He thought I left that morning. He had no idea that I had been flying all night to get there what he called quick. People ask me sometimes, how did Elevation Church grow so quick? Sometimes people look at your life and they can't understand how you are where you are.

And they look at you and they think it just came natural. But what they don't see is, I fought all night. I fought all night to get here. I fought all night and half the morning. I fought all night and half the morning, and that's before my husband even woke up. That was my second fight. And the kids were the third. Getting them to get dressed was the third.

I thought all night to get here. There is a sense in which Jacob in this passage, serves as a model for all of us who have been going through things that others don't see, showing up looking like we plan to get there all along. But they don't really know what you went through to get there, do they? They don't really know what you went through to show up at the job every day last week, do they? And you would never tell them that, because to tell them what you went through to get there would make you feel a little vulnerable and insecure because you don't think you're supposed to fight,

because nobody else shows you their fight. You only see the fragments of their life that shine through a screenlight, and so through the light of the screen, you can't really see the struggles that other people deal with. So now here you are in your life feeling like, oh, I feel like I'm a little behind. Oh, I feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be. Who says you're not where you're supposed to be? Well, I'm not where they are. Well, how do you know where they are, really?

Because you don't know what they dealt with last night. You don't know what they were doing last night. You don't know what's going through their mind right now. So why would I compare myself with somebody I can't see through? And I think it's worse than ever for our kids. Because now I've got to compare myself to the whole world at all times. When I first started learning how to play guitar, I just had to be better than my friends in Monk's Corner, who also played guitar. There were three.

Now I've got to look at a four-year-old in Japan who can play stairway to heaven left-handed on one string. I sought. And just about when you think you're doing pretty good, here comes somebody. Y'all, there is a man in our neighborhood. I testify, God, as my witness. I am not lying that when we walk by his house yesterday, yesterday, he was putting up his Christmas lights. Pray for all the dysfunctional people who are clapping for that. Like, that's normal.

That's a demon? That's a childhood trauma. That needs therapy. Because it's November 5th or 6th or something like that. It just got cold three hours ago. And you're blasting simply having a wonderful... He had music playing in his yard. All the kids were out there.

Nobody was fighting. I was like, what's wrong with me? I don't even know where we keep our Christmas lights. Holly's in charge of that. I'm not a man. I'm not a good man. When my kids started playing sports, I thought, well, maybe I'll coach their team.

They start playing baseball. I found out real quick. The standards for coaching Little League Baseball have changed since I played Little League Baseball. Used to be, you know, show up, don't be drunk, don't yell at the ump. My dad coached my team, and he didn't ever play baseball, didn't know about baseball. He went to the library and checked out a book. I saw you see him reading the book, How to Coach Little League Baseball. Times have changed.

He bought a rule book. He memorized the rule book. He's out there teaching us to play baseball. He was, well, the team was worse than he was. Anyway, the whole season all he let us do was bunt because we were that bad. So I'm out there thinking my boy is like, well, maybe I could coach the team. Maybe I could go to the library, go over to the car catalog, get a little book and learn how to coach them. Maybe that'd be a good memory for the kids.

Man, I don't remember if they were seven or five or nine. I don't remember exactly. It's all blurry. But they start talking to me pretty much before the boys were in middle school. You got them on a travel team yet? I'm like a who, what? I'm doing good to get them out there for every practice. Note, if you don't have them on a travel team, this is what the man pulled me aside and explained. If you don't have them on a travel team by age 10, they'll fall behind. They won't even be able to make the middle school team. I said, wow. Looks like you're not making the middle school team. They learn to wrestle or something.

And it's nothing bad about travel teams or elite teams or AAU or any of that. That's all wonderful. Except when your whole life begins to kind of feel like that where I feel like I'm behind. And I don't even know how I got behind. But it seems like everybody. knows something, has something, sees something, and can do something that I can't do. What I realize about Jacob's life as the sun was rising and he was limping is that he was born feeling behind. In the literal birth order of Jacob and Esau, they were twins,

separated by only a few seconds, Jacob was only going to get one third of the inheritance because that's the way it worked in those days. And so when he was born, he came out grabbing his brother's heel. That's what the name Jacob means. It means heel grabber. There was something in him, even in the womb, that was wrestling against his brother. Something that felt like, I'm behind and I can't be behind. For all of his clutching and grasping at his brother's heel, he still came out second. Now at age 90, he's very blessed because he's stolen a blessing and a birthright from his blind father, Isaac. But yet there's a wrestling match that happens on his way to reconcile with Esau.

It's been 20 years since he's seen him. And as he's getting ready to go and face Esau and make it right with Esau, he hopes because Issa could kill him. An angel appears and wrestles him to the point where his hip is wrenched and he leaves the presence. of the angel, to face his brother, and the only evidence that he has that he's met with God is his limb. We think the evidence that we've been with God is that our situation gets better. We then take all of the evidence that other people present to us of how good their life is, and compared to them putting up their Christmas lights in April. Compared to them, whose kids are always on a field somewhere getting better and better and hitting coaches and batting

cages and we can barely afford to buy the bat to begin with. So how would we pay for the the pitching, the coaching lessons, the private coaching lessons if we could? Compared to them, I came to announce to you today that nothing in your life is originated divinely by your comparison to people. Only by your commitment to purpose. The starting place for contentment is commitment to purpose. Why is that important? Because the alternative to commitment to purpose is comparison to people. If I'm comparing myself to people, I'm always grabbing heels. If I'm comparing myself to people, I'm always feeling either better than or less than. But neither of those will bring you close to God. If I'm comparing

myself to people, I'll always feel like I was born behind. And here's why. Because everybody in here has a limp, but some limps are more easily hidden than others. Some limbs show up later in life. Some limps show up privately. Some limps show up in intimate relationships. Some limps show up in an inability to hold down a job. Some limps have catastrophic results.

Some limps have insidious effects that no one can see. Some limps you carry alone, but everybody came in here limping. Yeah, you came, but you're limping. You've been limping this week. It's been a long week because you've been limping. Limping. I'm limping. I'm here, but I'm limping.

I love God, but I'm limping. I'm bringing this back from last week because something needs to break in our lives to where we stop showing up on Sunday and not getting what we really need from God because we don't want anybody to see where we really limp or where you stop coming to church every time you have to limp in because you feel too guilty. That's how shame operates. The time when you need to drag your behind to this church the most is the time where you've done the dumbest stuff in your life and you say, God, I need a course correction. God, I need you to top me off. I need you to fill me. I feel empty.

I feel crazy. I don't feel like myself. Limp in here and see if the Lord won't lift you up. The Bible says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. And in due time, he'll lift you up. So watch this. Somebody say the light is coming. It's a new day dawning on Jacob.

The sun is coming up over Jacob. The night is over. The wrestling is over. The struggle is over. He has let go of his old self. He has received a new name. He has been touched and transformed by God. He is carrying destiny. He is on his way to his purpose. But he's limping because the light doesn't stop the limp. Just because you know doesn't mean you can do it. Just because God shows you who he's calling you to be doesn't mean you yet have the courage to do it. Everything that I've become in my life, everything I've accomplished in my life that was worthwhile for God. I confess to you, I limped into it. What are you limping into today? The light is coming and Jacob is limping.

And those are not mutually exclusive. I don't know if this is too deep if I'm preaching it, maybe if it's at the wrong time to the wrong people or something like that. I thought this was the right message because sometimes we get confused that we think when the light comes, the limping stops. We think that when we see Jesus, meet Jesus, receive Jesus, grow in Jesus, that that means that we're automatically going to accelerate and reach the place where he's called us to be evidence of this meeting. with Jesus was a limp that never left Jacob's life. So I suggest to you that some of the times of the greatest light will also be the times of the greatest limp. And the Bible says that Jacob limped

all the way to the place where he met his brother. Aside him, you can get there limping. Where God has taken you, where he's calling you, what he's drawing out of you, what he's using you to do, what he's moving you into, how he's maturing you, how he's growing you, it might not be pretty. That's all right. Nobody's is. All the pretty people just have really hidden limbs. Just really hidden limbs. And some of the people with the biggest strut are compensating for something that they're dragging behind them. Now imagine your Jacob, and maybe this is how you feel in your life. he's coming up on something that is the most important meeting he's ever had. If this goes bad, Esau kills him.

The stakes are high. How many would say that's high stakes? And it's not like it's even going to be a close call because Esau is a skilled hunter. Jacob is a skilled cook. By the way, that's part of the reason that Jacob felt very insecure in his life because he never had his father's love. His father loved Esau. So one of the reasons he pretended to be his brother was to get the the love of a father who expected him to be something that he could never become because it wasn't

according to his purpose. Jacob isn't just limping at age 90. He's been limping all of his life because of the love that he didn't get from the only one who could really confer a blessing on him. He's limping. See, there is a reason. If in your life you're not who you're supposed to be yet, there's a reason for that. There's an explanation for it. Yeah, I would love to be a better wife. But it's hard for me because I didn't see that model. I've been limping. I would love to be a more patient person, but I grew up in a family where people exploded with their temper. And I am trying to unlearn that template so that I can change it and turn it around so my kids don't live with my limp. And I wish I was further along. And I wish I had saved more money. But nobody taught me how to do this

thing. So I went into debt trying to compensate for the love that I didn't get. I went into debt trying to compensate for the approval that I didn't get. I've been limping my whole life. I've been struggling my whole life. And the truth of it is, some of the people that are critical of you would celebrate you if they could understand how hard it was for you to get to this point with your limp. And don't let them intimidate you when they show you their dance. Because everybody limps somewhere. Everybody limps somewhere.

Not farther along than you. They're just called to a different place than you. So they have a different pace from you. So when you get there on Thanksgiving and they say, I thought you'd be married by now. Say, I thought you would have learned how to pray and let God lead me by now and stop trying to manipulate my life. I'm not late. Moving this thing along, the man I'm going to marry is still earning his millions. Yeah.

This is a layover. I'm going to get some blessings, some maturity, some strength, some lessons, some truth. I'm going to get some things while I'm in Laban's house. that when I get where God is taking me, I got everything I need. Humble. Yourself, tell your neighbor your limp won't make you late. Because what I love about Jacob is he's been up all night. He's tired.

He's scared. He's afraid. He's in turmoil. He's got an ulcer. He's about to fight his brother. He doesn't know what's going to happen next. He's uncertain. He's anxious.

Pastor, I thought you were talking about Jacob. It sounds like you're talking about me. We're talking about all of us. We're talking about all of us. But the sun's coming up. The sun's coming up. The sun's coming up. It's a new day in Jacob's life.

And so watch what he does. Verse 31. My favorite verse this week. I'll have a different favorite verse next week. I change favorite verses. Like most people change shoes. I change favorite verses every chance I get. Genesis 32, verse 31.

It says, and the sun rose. The light came. and he was limping. Now, not only do I have to face Esau, but I got to do it limping. And that means I can't even run. Has God got you in a place right now where you can't run from it? Did he do that intentionally? Is he trying to show you who you really are?

Who he really is? Have you been caught in the constant comparison trap where it is a cycle that makes you sick, a nauseating noticing of what everybody else has that you don't have. Wait up! I'm limping. I'm trying to catch you, but I can't. You know, not only did Jacob feel this way, your great apostle Paul felt this way. He was writing to the Corinthian church, and they were doubting his credentials as an apostle. They said he didn't speak as well as Apollos. So I wrote him a letter. When he got to about chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, that's a long letter. He started telling him how he really felt about it. He said, verse 3, for what I received,

I passed on to you as of first importance. Now, that underscores the first part of my message. I started this message by telling you that we are all leading in the light that we have. That's what Paul is saying. He's saying, in the light that I have, I passed it on to you. Now, Paul had more light than Jacob, because he lived in the aftermath of the resurrection. Not only the birth and death of Jesus Christ, but the resurrection. So he said, I received this revelation, and I passed it on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and on the third, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Seaphis,

that's Peter, and then to the 12. Now watch how long the list is that Paul gives, and I'll show you why I'm reading this. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some of them have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James. Then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born. Last of all, if you ask for people to quote a scripture from the New Testament, the first ones that come to our mind are written by this guy, Paul.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I have learned the secret of being content. I am crucified with Christ. All of these wonderful things that he passed on to us, the Apostle Paul. And yet he said, I was the last one that he appeared to. In a literal chronological sense, he meant it, that after Jesus had been taken up and they all got to see him in bodily form, he had to knock Paul down on the Damascus road, blind his eyes and change his name from Saul to Paul, and bring him to a place of conversion.

But he also meant it a little differently. Look at the verse again. Verse 8, it says, as to one abnormal. formerly born. Many believe that Paul was speaking here of the fact that the Corinthians called him names. He was very small. That's literally what his name means. Paul means small. So there is much speculation among scholars that Paul was called the small one, the little one. There's even language in this text that makes us think that maybe Paul was calling himself. some kind of freak. I'm a freak. I came last. He showed up to all the other apostles in physical

form, but to me I was the last one. And yet, Paul says, even though I got a late start, even though I don't deserve it, even though I might be smaller than, less than, and have seen less than. Look at verse nine, for I am the least of the apostles, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. Do you see how he's still limping over the life that he lived before he met Christ? He never got over that. He was present at the stoning of Stephen and he never forgot it. That guilt never went away from Paul. That shame never fully left him. He is still dealing with it. And the church that he's trying to lead is throwing it back in his face. And he says, I'm not going to argue with you about that. I'm not going to

pretend that I don't limp. I'm not going to try to pretend like I was the first in line. I'm not here because I was the first in line. I'm here by faith through grace and the grace of God that reached for me, that reached and pulled me from the back of the line. I came to preach to somebody who's been limping. I've been behind lately. I don't know what I need to know. I didn't get what I wanted to have. But watch what Paul said. Give me the next verse.

I'm the least. I don't deserve it. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. I'm not racing to become something that I'm not called to be. I am what I am. Somebody say I am what I am. and where I am is where the great I am wanted me to be. So I'm limping, but I'm not late.

So I'm not up to your standard, but I'm not living for your approval. Because I'm not created by your hand. Because my days aren't ordained in your book. High five, somebody say, I'm right on time. I'm right on time. Because watch this. The light is coming. The light is coming.

The light is coming. The light is coming. The light is coming. I've been depressed, but the light is coming. I've been down, having trouble figuring it out. But the light is coming. I've been unsure, down on myself, routing it in insecurity. But the light is coming.

The light is coming. The light is coming. The joy is coming. A new day is dawning. I'm waking up to what I always was. I am what I am. By the grace of God. And the grace that brought me safe thus far will lead me home.

If I got to get there lipping. If I got to get there a little behind, if I got to get there Tuesday, if I got to put it back to Wednesday, if I got to make up for it at the end of 2023, I shall do it. And the Lord said it's no coincidence that I'm preaching this on daylight savings time Sunday. Because something happened this morning when you woke up, you had an extra hour. You didn't know you have. God said, I'm going to give you time. I'm going to restore the years. You're going to have time to do it.

Whoever is for is hidden deep right now. And I don't want this shout to get in the way of you receiving this ministry. Because it is a terrible thing to watch everybody else go ahead of you and feel like you're limping. To watch everybody else be happy and feel like there's some demon in you that won't let you enjoy life. to watch everybody else move up in their career and to feel like you keep moving backwards, stay in plateaued. Every time you get a little momentum, you get a little setback. You're limping.

But the grace of God came to Paul. The grace of God came to Jacob. The light of God is dawning in your life to let you know. You're not late. In order for you to be late, there would have had to be something that God did not account for that happened in your life. And if something happened in your life that God didn't account for, then he's not God. So the fact that God started it means that he knows where it's supposed to be right now. It means that when God called you, he accounted for traffic.

I'm so tired of watching people beat themselves up over comparison that has nothing to do with their calling. asking little four-year-olds, what college are you applying to? We've gone absolutely crazy in this culture. And I want to say to you that the spirit that gets on you that has you subjecting yourself to a standard that has nothing to do with the spirit of God, it has to let you go right now in the name of Jesus. Put your Christmas lights up in February for all I care. I'm not late. I abide in Christ.

And since I abide in him, that means that everything in its season that's supposed to come forth is coming up. Somebody shout, it's coming up. Say, I abide in Christ and everything in my life is coming up. Say it again, I abide in Christ and everything in my life is coming up. Lovely in abundance at just the right time. I dare you to give God a praise for that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The light's coming, man. I know it's been a dark night. You've been wrestling alone. You've been feeling behind your whole life, but the light is coming. I said, Lord, what do you want me to tell them about this message that they could never forget? He said to tell them, limp into it.

Limp into it. Because one thing I love about Jacob, he might have been limping, but he didn't lay down. down. And that's how you accomplish it. And that's how you make it. And that's how you grow. You know who God is. Of today's limp, is that it becomes tomorrow's lean. Follow me real quick. Y'all got like three minutes for me to finish this message? It'd be weird if I preached a message called You're not late and you told me to hurry up and finish my message. It'd be kind of ironic. Because I was I was reading about the end of Jacob's life. He had minister, L.J., that'll be good.

He lived 50 more years after this wrestling match. So guess what? Esau didn't kill him. He had to limp to Esau. In Genesis 33, verse 4, the Bible says that he made his way toward Esau. Remember, he's limping. And as Esau's coming toward him, the Bible says, verse 4, Genesis 33, verse 4, I got It says that Esau ran to me, Jacob.

And the beauty of that is that Jacob couldn't run to it, so it ran to him. Did you hear what I just said to you? Because you've been thinking, well, if I would have had this opportunity sooner, I could have done it, but I can't now. Because look where I am now. No, no, no. You limped to it, and God will make it run to you. In fact, when the writer of Hebrews many sins, centuries later. Remember, it's progressive revelation. We don't even know at this point

in the story that Jacob and Esau are going to go. You don't even know at this point in the story that this is the nation of Israel that Jacob is carrying with them. We don't know any of that yet, and you don't know any of that yet, but it's all on God's schedule of Revelation. So that at the end of Jacob's life, this is what the author of Hebrews said about in verse 20, that by faith, Hebrews 11, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, and learning things to come. Now watch this, and this is how I want you to leave today. Verse 21, by faith, Jacob, when he was dying, 50 years after he wrestled with God, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped leaning on the top of his staff. So what it means to me,

is that my limping today will teach me to lean tomorrow. The greatest blessing of Jacob's life happened not as he was running, grabbing, but as he was leaning. So the Lord said, limp into it, but make sure that what you're leaning on can hold you as you do. Because for what you're going through, you can't lean on the addiction. It won't hold you. For what you're going through right now, you can't lean on your own understanding. It can't direct you. For what you're going through right now, you certainly cannot lean on what other people

are saying that you should do because they don't know either. They are just as lost as you, and they don't have the light. So today, if you've been limping, and yet you see some light coming through, I want you to stand up because I want to pray for you in this moment and in this season of your life, that you would not lie down and die in the light, but that you would live to see the scheduled revelation of who God has created you to be and what He's called you to do. Father, in Jesus' name, I take a page from Hebrews chapter 11, and I bless your people by faith. For some of the things that we're going forward into, nothing but faith will get us there.

Nothing but faith will carry us forward. Specifically, now I want to pray for someone who has been limping and thought that it made them less. And maybe the light that you want to give them today is to the light that you want to give them today is knowledge that you've still got them right where you want them. And even just that would be enough to keep them going forward. Our eyes are on you, Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. We fix our eyes not on things that are seen, but things that are unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Thank you for the light.

Thank you for your word. Thank you for the gospel of your son, Jesus. Thank you that we don't wander like those in darkness, hopeless. Thank you that you have not left us in our ignorance, but you have given us the light of the revelation. And this in the face of Christ, the glory of God, we have seen you face to face, and yet we did not die. We call this place Paniol.

And we thank you for the light of the gospel flooding in. We thank you for new beginnings today. Right now I want to pray for somebody who needs to make this day their new beginning. Somebody who the Lord Jesus Christ is calling unto himself right now. You know, when the light comes and you can't see any way forward, but that next step, that's all God calls you to take. The very first step of faith is to give your life to Jesus Christ. And right now, it would be my privilege and my honor. If you say I've been far away from God, and this message today, I feel God drawing me back.

And yes, I'm limping. And yes, I'm limited. And yes, I've wasted some time. But I'm coming toward the light today. You take that one step toward him. He will carry you. He will rescue you. He will save you.

He will cleanse you. He will forgive you. He will make you a new creation. He will change your name. With heads bowed and eyes closed all over this campus and all of our campuses, we're going to pray a prayer out loud for those who are coming to God are coming back to God. Repeat this prayer after me. Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a Savior. And I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. And today I make Jesus the Lord of my life.

I believe he died, that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I received this new life. This is my new beginning. On the count of three, raise your hand if you prayed that. One, two, three. Shoot your hand up. I want to celebrate with you. Can we clap our hands?

Great together. Thank you, Jesus. I hope you enjoyed 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 I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.