Elevation with Steven Furtick - Use Your Inside Voice

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

Whose voice have you been listening to? In “Use Your Inside Voice,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church shows us that Jesus was not driven by the opinions of others, but led by the voice of God. It is ultimately up to us to determine which voice we respond to.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 fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. Turn in your Bible to Matthew, excuse me, Mark, Chapter 3. I'll go to Matthew in a minute. I got so much scripture, this is going to be overwhelming today. I hope you wore sweatpants because you're going to get fat off of this bread from heaven today. You need an elastic waistband for this. God has been speaking to me. Because I asked him, I said, God, give me a message for your people.

And he gave me so much to give. We'll see if we can get it done all in this one session. Mark chapter 3, I'm going to pick up at verse 20. Do you remember a couple of years ago I preached savage Jesus? And we were saying how Jesus isn't soft, Jesus isn't scared, Jesus is so great and so awesome and so powerful, and he's confident in that way that true authority always carries itself to know who he is and what he came to do. So I figured we'd spend some time with him today.

Our example, the author and finisher of our faith, let's spend some time with Jesus, seeing his example. In his days, things were much different than they are now. There was division, political division. It was different. The Bible's not as relevant in our times, but in his day, there was uncertainty, there was instability, and so he was dealing with things that we don't deal with as an advanced civilization. But let's see if we can find any help at all from this quaint book called the Bible that has absolutely no bearing on our current lives. That was sarcasm. I can see them taking that and putting that on YouTube. So I have to...

Mark 3, verse 20. This is the message that I never got to preach from Savage Jesus. So we're doing it today. Then Jesus entered a house. Somebody say, come in my house, Lord. Come on, come in my house. Come in this room. Come in my kitchen.

God, come in this house right now. Come in my house. come in my heart, then Jesus entered a house. And I believe he's coming to your house today, too. Okay, not Mr. Rogers, but Jesus coming to your house right now. He said that he entered a house, this is what Mark said, and a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. And when his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, he is out of his mind. And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, he is possessed by Bielzbo. By the prince of demons, he's driving out demons. So Jesus called them

over to him and began to speak to them in parables. How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot. stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man's house. Truly, I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter. Some of you better praise God with some of the stuff you've said. That's a good verse. Let me read it again.

People can be forgiven all their sins and every Facebook comment they utter, I lost y'all. But whoever blasphemes, listen to this, against the Holy Spirit, will never be forgiven. They are guilty of an eternal sin. He said this because they were saying, he has an impure spirit. Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived, just at that moment of tension, this climax of conflict with the scribes. Here come his family members. And standing outside, I want you to pay attention to this, standing outside they sent someone

to call him. outside, they sent someone in to call him. What I want to talk to you today is from something you might have heard in school from your teacher. The message is called, use your inside voice. Did you ever have a teacher tell you that? Did you ever tell those fifth graders at Township 3 Elementary Hall? Holly was a school teacher when we first got married, and she taught these wild kids.

your inside voice. Of course, I always love to talk about my kids any chance I get because I'm proud of them. Using them a sermon illustration as a way that I have them earn their keep around the house. They don't do anything else. But I figure Abby is a paradox, because she's the littlest one in our family and the loudest. And we often wonder about Abby, how can she be so little and so little and so. so loud. It's baffling to the mind. I had this flashback while I was preparing this week thinking about, use your inside voice of one time she came to me. And I'm not going to make

up what she said, because I honestly don't remember, but she was probably fussing about her brothers. The odds are very high that she was, that's what she was tweaked about. She said, there's a lot of people around. I think it was at church. And he was at church, and there people around. So she's so loud and she doesn't even know how loud she is. And I say, baby, I'm listening. Use your inside voice. She goes, without adjusting her volume one decibel, this is my inside voice. She was so confused, so frustrated, this is my inside voice. I wonder about your inside voice. And what I wonder is, what is your inside voice? Mine would scare you.

My inside voice. I'm using that not to mean my volume level. I'm using that to mean my thought process and how critical I am of myself. Even right now in this moment, there are two preachers preaching, the one you hear and the one I hear. And in between everything that the one you hear is saying, the one I hear is trying to stop me from saying what I'm saying, your inside voice. Because I wonder about your inside voice, because Holly's not that self-critical like I am.

And I've often wished that I could take a break from my brain and spend a day inside of hers. I thought that would feel like a vacation because she's really nice to herself, it turns out. And one time we were watching this movie, and they were externalizing an inside voice, and it was so harsh, and it was so bad, And it was almost demonic. And I told her after the movie, I said, that's exactly what it sounds like in my head. She said, really, that's the dumbest movie scene I've ever seen in my life. I didn't relate to it at all. And we were watching the same movie and having a completely different experience within our own minds.

I wonder about your inside voice. Abby said, this is my inside voice. It's just normal to me. I just walk around talking at this volume all the time. Somebody asked me sometimes, are you the same off the stage as on the stage? I was like, well, I hope I have the same character, but I don't speak at the same volume. It would be so weird to walk in the house, you know? This is how I find my...

Sit down. Take out the trash. This is how I wash the dishes. I don't do that at home. Different approaches, right? And what I noticed about Jesus, I promise this is a sermon from the Bible, from the passage I just read you. What I noticed about Jesus is that he was rarely, if ever, driven by the opinions of outside voices.

Think about it. I grew up hearing all about how Jesus died for our sin, and he did. That's foundational. But what I wonder about for a lot of us, your inside voice, my inside voice, all of the voices that we consume on a daily basis, whether we read them with our eyes or hear them with our ears, all of the inputs, all of the noise that I mentioned earlier, what I wonder about that is, have we accepted that Jesus died to forgive us for our sin, but not experienced, that he also died to deliver us from cynicism. Can I preach for three and a half hours today? Maybe we'll do that.

Maybe we'll just preach and chop it up and run it to the end of the year. Because Jesus didn't just die for my sin. He died for my cynical heart, which I will mention multiple times in this message, but it's all from the text. I mean, think about it. Jesus' greatest struggle in life was not the temptation to sin. He was perfect, blameless, God of God. He was the son of David, but he was also the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. That means he was perfectly pure. That means that no matter what he was tempted with, he knew within who he was. Yet we see him in this passage, like so many passages, dealing with the cynicism of those he came to save. Not the people outside the church. But the passage I read you said that the scribes came all the way from Jerusalem to Copernium, where he was doing his ministry around the Sea of Galilee. Remember, he was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, and then he moved to Copernium. That's cool. He moved away from where he came from to do what he came to do. I'll come back to that. I promise. If I

forget, come up here and tell me to go back to it, because it's very important. Now, these rulers come from Jerusalem, and they come to accuse Jesus. They're fired up and mad, probably not because of what he's doing, but because they are not able to do it. So, when you see someone who is able to do something that you can't do, it is easier to criticize it than it is to be challenged by it. For many of us, I feel like preaching, cynicism has become our strategy. It's how we deal with disappointment. We don't get our hopes up. Then no one can bring them down.

For many of us, cynicism serves as a shield to keep us from ever exposing ourselves to the elements of mystery, which are the essence of faith in God. These cynical scribes, can I tell you about the scribes? They had a lot of knowledge, but they didn't have real wisdom. They had a lot of knowledge. Information was their specialty. They were trained in the law and discipline. These were not pornographers. These were valued members, esteemed members of the Sanhedron, the Jewish ruling council.

These were them that should have known that the one who was the fulfillment of the law that they had excelling. expertly divine was standing right in front of them. But they criticized the very one that they spoke of, and they didn't even know it. Because Jesus was doing weird stuff, healing shriveled hands, packing out crowds. And I wanted to tell you this, Anna, in Mark's Gospel, it says crowd 13 times, and it's never positive. Me as a preacher, I always wanted to draw a crowd. But when Mark records his gospel, the thing that most preachers are trying to create was

the thing that actually got in Jesus' way of doing what he came to do. That's not just for preachers. A lot of the times the things that the world celebrates actually get in the way of God doing what he wants to do in your life. So everybody wants to be busy. That's another way of saying crowded. But sometimes our busyness is the very thing that keeps God from doing it. in his work, his business.

Now, Jesus said, I have to be about my father's business. Not what the crowds or the consumers wanted him to do. He had to be about building what he called in this passage, his father's kingdom, or the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. It was a phrase that was unique to Jesus. He came to inaugurate that kingdom, and he was doing it. And in order to do that, he had to drive out Satan. So this man comes to him, and we don't read about him in Mark's gospel, but we read about him in the other gospels where he was possessed with a demon.

And he couldn't speak. He was mute. And he couldn't see. He was blind. And so the Bible says that Jesus dealt with both of those issues. And since we're talking about inside voice, it's significant that the man left speaking, right? That the man who could not speak now could speak. Hold that for a moment.

Now, here come the Pharisees, the scribes. It was their job to interpret the law. And now they can't even interpret the actions of the one who stands in front of them to fulfill the law. I'm going deep today, are you with me? So what God showed me in this context is that the cynicism of the scribes was one thing, because they had too much knowledge and it blocked wisdom. Too much noise. Too much of how we think things are supposed to be. Too much of our mastery of God closes us from the mystery of God. And it makes you cynical. It makes you start to think that you know God better than God.

Before he died for our sin, he had to deal with their cynicism. Now, can I really freak you out? Go to Matthew 12 real quick. This is the same account. He heals this demon-possessed man. The scribes don't like it. They don't like it. It threatens them. So they do what we do when we get threatened. They criticize.

They become cynical. They don't want to learn anything. They don't really want to experience what God came to bring. They just want to defend themselves. You know how you hide your own dysfunction? I'm not breaking it down fine enough for you. You know the thoughts you have when you go through your Instagram feed about other people? A lot of those are designed to keep you from having to be alone with you.

So the scribes have their scrolls, right? And they interpreted the scrolls. What's it called when you're on your phone? And they accuse him of doing the devil's work, but they don't do it out loud. This is what I want to show you, verse 25. Jesus knew their thoughts. If that happened every time you came to church, you'd stop coming. Be honest about it.

Come on, tell me about your inside voice. I've told you about mine. Mine will tell me the most horrible things about myself, about others. It is unthinkable. It is not PG-13 what my inside voice says to me. I'm sorry, but it's not King James English. It's not Greek. It's compound cuss words.

It's cuss words in tongues. is cuss words that bypass cultural cuss words. I'm talking about my inside voice. And Jesus heard what they said in their heart. So it goes to show you can have all the words right. You can sing all the songs. You can do all the stuff. You can call yourself a certain label.

Jesus knew their thoughts. And we think that he came to deal with our external values. He came to deal with your inside voice. I want to talk about your inside voice. I want to talk about the temptations that you don't bring up in E-group. They are not Zoom appropriate. They are not church appropriate. You don't need to tell anybody, but he knew their thoughts.

The word was made flesh. That means he already knows. He already knows. He knows it before you speak it. It's so silly what we try to hide from God. When he hears your inside voice. He hears your inside voice. One scripture says that his spirit interprets your groans.

When you don't know what to pray and you can't find anything to pray and all you can barely do is move your lips, he interprets that. The scribes can't do it. The Savior can. He knows how to interpret the events of your life. He's good at that, but we're not. So they see him, he makes a mute man speak, and they go, that must be the devil. Because you know in church we love nothing more than to blame the devil.

We should do a word count of one of my sermons one day and see if I say Jesus or the devil more in my sermon. I might be embarrassed. Well, we do it all the time when we give the devil credit for something that God. is actually trying to do. That's what they were doing in the passage. Oh, the devil did that. The devil attacked me. That was the devil. It wasn't the devil. And I don't know if you want to write this down. Yeah, write it down. The devil didn't do it. The devil didn't do it. Sometimes your decisions did it. The devil didn't wreck your car. You trying to turn the radio station at the same time you tried to return the text. That wrecked your car. That was.

wasn't the devil. That's what Jesus said. The devil didn't do this. In fact, it was Jesus doing it, but they blamed the devil. It's like this voice that always makes you a victim, this voice that always tries to give the devil credit for things that God is actually doing. Isn't it crazy that the kingdom of God was coming, but their cynicism stopped them from participating in it? Oh, the number of times that you and I have missed the God who was in our midst and the miracles he was performing because of a cynical spirit. And I'm going to show you where all that comes from in the text. See, in the text you have a contrast.

It's the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Did you notice that? He said, if Satan's kingdom is divided, it will fall. And the crazy thing about it is, Satan is more strategic about his kingdom than a lot of God's children are about God's kingdom. Because we do all the time what the devil knows better than to ever do. He says Satan won't fight Satan. He's bringing a kingdom.

But we as God's children, we don't have enough good sense. So we embrace strategies of cynicism and we call it wisdom. So let me tell you something, and it'll come up on the screen when I say it online, later. Not right now, they'll put it on later, and I promise you it's going to come up on the screen. Cynicism is counterfeit wisdom. It looks like wisdom. It looks like that tag Hoyer watch that I bought for $30 in New York. It looked like a tag.

It wasn't a tag. It looks like the truth. It isn't the truth. It looks like righteousness. It's not righteousness. It looks like faith. It's really manipulation. Cynicism is counter.

It's as fake as that Louis V. Gucci bag that you picked up online. It's as fake as that when you go through life with a cynical spirit. That is not the spirit of God. And let me just tell you something right now. I don't intend to run this pulpit with the spirit of cynicism. no matter what happens in the world. Gospel means good news, good news, good news, freedom.

I'm going to preach that from this pulpit. I'm going to preach that from this pulpit. How about your pulpit? Whose report will you believe? What's your inside voice? So he's building this kingdom. In the contrast at first, I thought it was God versus Satan. Then I thought, well, that's kind of it, but it's something else, too.

And then I thought, well, maybe it's about the strong man versus the weak man, because that's in the text too. And then there's this verse that people worry about where it says, if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you can never be forgiven. And people are thinking, oh, no, have I done that? But if you're even asking, have I done that, you haven't done that. because that is the Holy Spirit convicting you, which means that you are not denying his work inside of you. So when he says anything you say or do can be forgiven, that's based on the finished work of Christ that he was completing. But what cannot be forgiven is a sin that you will not deal with. And that's why he mentions the Holy Spirit.

So on one hand, you have the kingdom of Satan versus the kingdom of God. On the other hand, there's like a division. He says a house divided against itself. He's talking about the eternal versus the temporal. The eternal versus the ephemeral. What lasts forever versus what's going to wither and fade. The Word of the Lord versus the values of the world. But here came the real thing for me, and it went all the way back to the beginning.

Do you remember how when I started reading the text in verse 20? I stopped and said, then Jesus entered a house. And you're probably thinking, like, come on, man, get on with it. Don't make a big deal about this. No, no, no. Everything significant that happens in this text happens on the inside. He entered a house. Probably Simon's house, Peter's house.

That's where he stayed in Copernia. Yeah, that's where he stayed. And they probably just got done repairing the roof. Because in Mark Chapter 2, there was a big crowd. And the man who really needed help couldn't get in, so they tore off the roof. roof to get the man down to Jesus. So now the roof is freshly repaired. There's another crowd.

Peter's telling Mark the gospel, he's the one who gave Mark the account to write, and Mark wrote it for Peter. So Peter puts in there, we didn't even have a chance to eat. I think that's probably due to what he was really focused on, you know? Like of all the things to remember, Jesus is driving out devils, and Peter's like, and we missed lunch. You know how we get focused on the temporal. But really the contrast that I want to bring up is external internal.

Because not only is Jesus receiving criticism and opposition from the scribes, but his own family? I never heard more people tell me than this year in 14 years of pastoring, how they're not even speaking to their own family. It's got us so divided with different things that are going on. And yet when I preach the passage, everybody thinks they're Jesus. Everybody thinks they're Jesus. So if I preach this and I say his family was standing on the outside of the house, everybody thinks that they're Jesus in the passage. And I came with something real deep to tell you, you ain't Jesus.

You ain't Jesus. I see a wife elbowing her husband right now on a couch in Minnesota saying, you ain't Jesus. did not tell you to tell your neighbor that. But listen to me when I say this, the secret to Jesus doing His Father's will and the secret to you doing the will of God and the secret to you not going crazy in this season of life and with what the world is going through is going to be the voices that you respond to. The voices that you respond to are going to mainly from what you surround yourself with. God help me preach it. What made you Jesus so strong. Remember, he said, I'm going to go in the house of Satan and I'm going to tie

him up. And if I bind the strong man, if somebody greater, somebody stronger, he says, I am binding Satan. That's what he was doing. Now, he could not bind Satan if he was fighting with people. So when he gets to the point where the scribes are criticizing him and they're not even saying it out loud, but they're saying it in their heart. One translation says, They reasoned in their heart. Look what Jesus did in verse 23. You got it on the screen? Verse 23.

No, no, no. I'm talking about Mark 3.23. I'm sorry. I think I gave them the whole New Testament to get ready for this sermon today. Here it is. So Jesus called them over to him. They're over on the other side of the room, the scribes, talking about what Jesus just did.

But he doesn't shout. He calls them over so he can use his. His what? His what? See, real power doesn't have to show. He called them over. He knew where he came from. He knew who he was.

Do you? Do you? I'm checking on your inside voice. On one hand, externally speaking, I am the child of faith, Bracey Lyle's verdict. On one hand, speaking genetically, I am the son of Larry Stevens-Ferdick. I am Larry Stevens-Ferdick, Jr. on one hand, but that's not where I came from. Do you know where you come from? Let me show you in 1 John where you came from.

You're ready for this? Now, where did Jesus come from? I just told you he was born in Bethlehem. He grew up in Nazareth. He went to Copernium. but in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word was God. So Jesus didn't come from Mary.

He came through Mary. So when his family showed up and said, hey, here's what you got to do. And the scribes showed up from the synagogue and said, hey, here's what you got to do. And everybody had an opinion. Jesus was not driven by their opinions. He was steered by the will of his father. Are you? Are you?

Because if you're not, you're going to be tossed and driven with the wind and your emotions are going to ruin your life and your cynicism is going to constrict your wisdom. 1 John 4. Where do you come from? Ask somebody, where do you come from? Look at them in the pupils of their eyes. Y'all didn't say it in the room. Where do you come from?

Ask them again, where do you come from? You don't even have to answer. I'm going to answer it. You ready for this? This is 1 John 4, verse 4. I love this Bible verse. I've quoted it a lot, but I don't think I ever understood it until this week. 1 John 4.4, are from God.

You are from God. You are from God and have overcome them. Because the one who is hard for me to say this like I want to say it is so powerful to me. It reminds me of a lady. She came up to me one time after I preached. She had a deep southern accent. And she said, aren't you from Monk's Corner, South Carolina?

I said, yes, man. She said, I'm from Somerville, which is only 20 miles from Monk's Corner or so. And that's where my rival, the high school team, football team, the Somerville Greenway. So I said, well, I won't hold that against you. You know, that little small town humor, you know, give her that little Monk's Corner. I said, well, I won't hold it against you because I'm a Berkeley stag. and they're the greenway. I said, it's all right. She said, well, then I got a question for you if you're from Monk's Corner. Why don't you talk like where you come from? She said this

about my accent, but I want to ask this about your attitude. Now, I just read you a Bible verse. I just read you a Bible verse that said you are a China. of God. LJ, I didn't get a B12 shot. Give me a B3. You are a child of God. So why don't you talk like where you come from? You come from his side.

Come from. I'm looking for 30 people to have church with. From the well. Come from Larry. Y'all do it real quick. To declare the praises. To declare the praises. To declare the praises.

praises, to declare the praises. Anybody can describe the problem to declare the praises. It doesn't take faith to be cynical. It doesn't take smart to be cynical. It takes faith to contradict your circumstance with your confession. Right there in the chat, say, I'm talking like where I come from. I'm talking like, she said, you don't talk like you're from Monk's Corner. Some of y'all You don't talk like you know that his blood was shed for you. You talk to yourself like you're worthless. I'm not even talking about what you say to other people. I'm talking about how we talk to ourselves.

I'm talking about the inside voice. God said, let us make men in our image. You were made in his image. Paul said you are God's workmanship created in Christ. before the world got started, what gave Jesus the authority to focus on his assignment. And what's going to help you do it? As a mom, as a man, what's going to help you to still know who you are, even though the addictions that you carry say otherwise?

Because I'm telling you, God knows what's going on inside of your heart today. I don't. He does. But even still, before any of that, before any of those layers. of life that labeled you. You children of God, dear children, have overcasts. Greater is he that is, if I could teach you one thing about God today, I can't tell you who he is, because that would take the rest of my life to even read the introduction. But I can tell you where he is in one word, inside. So look at the rest of the text in 1. John. It's very powerful. He said, in verse

Verse 5, they are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world. How can we have God's spirit and speak Satan's language? How can Satan drive out Satan? Synecism is counterfeit strategy. The real wisdom of God is peaceable and pure and it creates more faith, not less. But who are you listening to? Voices become viewpoints. He said that you come from God but you listen to the world.

come from God, but you listen to the opinions of people who don't have your best interest at heart. I know everybody's trying to read into what I'm saying, because you can't say anything anymore without it being political. I'm saying, 1 John 4, 5 is what I'm saying, that worldly values have no place in the heart of a Christian. That's right, preacher. That's why I don't smoke.

The Bible don't even have cigarettes in it. This is not about the external stuff. That's not what he's writing about. He's saying there are false prophets that have come. And the way you can recognize, put it back up, verse 5. He says, they speak from the viewpoint of the world. You see it? Voices become viewpoints.

Voices become viewpoints. What you hear gets in your heart. What you scroll gets in your spirit. I'm helping somebody in the most practical way today. Help me help them, Lord. Help me help them, Lord. The Lord said, this is why you're stressed. Cynicism is not wisdom.

It's a sickness. They are from the world. They speak like the world. Why would we have the spirit of God and speak the language of Satan? Just the things we say to ourselves about ourselves. He said, the world listens to them. But watch what I found in verse 6. I love this.

We are from God. And whoever knows God listens to us. That really got me, man. Because I pictured Jesus, there's a crowd around him, and they want something from him. How many you feel like there's people that want things from you all the time? I know you're sitting next to them, so you can't really raise your hand on that point. I know. I hear your inside voice.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, the incarnate eternal, in itself. contradiction, is standing with a crowd surrounded by scribes and even dealing with the cynicism of his own family. But he knew where he came from. We are from God. This week in your heart, I want you to, and don't start playing self-music because I'm not closing. I want you to talk like where you come from. Talk like where you come from.

Another way to say it, use your inside voice. The world is so loud you think it's normal, like Abby. This is my inside voice. I'm just a pessimistic person. That's just the way I am. What about the great I am? I thought we just read a verse that said, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

So what about that? Voices become viewpoints, right? I thought you were seated in heavenly places with Jesus, where he reigns. So what are you doing down in the sewer of cynicism? The real issue isn't whether our nation is divided. The real issue is whether your heart is divided. Do you really trust his authority? Jesus had internal authority.

You know what that means? He didn't need other people to tell him who he was. That's so cool. Wouldn't you like to get there? I would. You're already there, Andrew, but I still got some work to do. If I had your beard, I'd be more confident too. Look at Jesus.

In verse 28, he says something. You can't really get the full sense of it in English. But go back to Mark 3.28. Truly, I tell you, this phrase is only recorded from the lips of Jesus in the whole New Testament. In this way. And let me tell you what's interesting about it. Usually when a priest or a prophet would prophesy, they would say, thus sayeth the Lord. And the people would say amen.

It was a response to what was spoken that confirmed the truth of it, or a witness. Everybody say amen. Say it louder. Say amen. Come on, say it like you're from Monks Corner, South Carolina, Pentecostal Holiness Church. That was terrible. That's terrible. Don't ever do that again.

That's terrible. Well, in the text, it says, truly, I tell you, but the actual literal translation is Amen, I tell you the truth. What's weird about it is he said amen first. He is the only one who does that. I don't mean to bore you today. I know you want to get back to count and ballots, but can I talk about the Bible for three seconds.

For three seconds. Can the Lord have three seconds of your attention? All right, then. Let me read this to you. Witherington said in his commentary, I read this really expensive book to be able to tell you the significance of this moment. Jesus goes on to say this in Mark's Gospel over and over again. The phrase is, amen, I tell you the truth.

Amen, I say to you. And this is the first instance in Mark, but listen, this phrase which was characteristic of Jesus, get ready to shout, suggests that he felt free to vouch for himself. It was a real expensive book, so I got to read it again. This phrase, Amen, I tell you, suggests that he felt free to vouch for himself and the truth of his own word without requiring external human testimony to his truth. So I want you to say amen. I want you to say it again.

I want you to say it again. I want you to learn how to say amen from within. What I mean is I want you to get to the point in your faith, and I want to get to the point in my life where I do not wait for humans to validate my identity or for events to validate my optimism. I want to be able to watch this. Be able, watch this, to say amen to begin with. So say amen. If you know who you are, you can say that and not wait for anybody else to say it for you. If you know what he's spoken, if you know what he said, if you know where you come from, you can start your...

This is so grammatically incorrect, but theologically is so powerful because Jesus wasn't waiting on anybody else for an amen. He wasn't waiting for anybody else. He wasn't waiting for anybody else. He had an amen that came from within. And I think we've lost that. I think we are so consumed with the voices of others that we can't even hear our Father. And then we start asking God to take away things that we put in our hearts through the wrong voices. But today the Lord said it's going to be a better week for you because you're going to begin with amen.

clap your hands. I'm going to try that again. Clap your hands like you're not at the Masters. Clap your hands like what God spoke. There you go. Clap your hands. I'm going to need 13 of y'all. I'm going to need 30 of y'all.

I'm going to need somebody to clap your hands if you receive this word. So Jesus, Jesus, who was surrounded by cynicism, was not driven by the agendas of others. He was led by the Spirit of God. We make this our prayer, God. We came today so you could deal with our inside voice. We've been saying amen to the world's values and the world's vocabulary. Lord, help me to begin my day with amen.

So be it. Yes, Lord. Agreement with you. I agree with you. You say I'm your child. I agree with you. You say I can make it. I agree with you. You say you got me. I agree with you. Why in the world would we allow the language of the enemy to permeate the heart of a child of God? Everyone's standing. Everyone's standing. Everyone's standing. A woman told me one time, I know I'm doing all these quotes today, but she said, I say amen when you're preaching, but I just don't say it out loud. She said, don't ever think that I'm not listening to you. I'm saying amen on the inside. Everybody in here is saying amen to something on the inside, coming into agreement with viewpoints and values on the inside. Jesus said something very interesting when his mother and his brothers came to the door. And they said, get out here, go back to Nazareth, you know? You know that voice that always tries to call you back to what's familiar, even if it's not

good for you? Come on now, you've got to go back to Nazareth. Jesus had an inside voice. He knew what his father had spoken. Do we? Do we? Voices become viewpoints. Jesus wasn't going to be driven by something from the outside.

He was steered by the Spirit of God on the inside. Am I? Are you? Or have you got so much noise that you don't even notice God's voice anymore when he speaks? I've got to confess, I'm guilty. Most of the time I preach to you what I pray to God about. Help me with this, Lord. How many need some help with your inside voice?

You got it. He said, greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world? And I believe that. The voice you give attention to, that's the one you're going to experience. Jesus said, I'm not going to be driven by the opinions of anyone. I'm moving according to my father's agenda. He used his inside voice. God help us to hear your voice of wisdom in this moment.

Somebody right now is making big decisions in their life. deciding whether to move or to stay, whether to sell or to buy. Somebody's deciding, do they even think their life is worth living? And right now it's so important that they can hear your voice. That's why the enemy has been crowding them out, doing everything he can to keep them blind, to keep them mute, to keep them confused. You are not the author of confusion, Lord. So right now we ask for the clarity of the whisper of your speech.

Call us over, like you called those scribes over, and correct us, Lord. Because we have our own opinions in ways that things are supposed to work. And we need to hear the word that only you can speak from the inside voice. Speak on the inside, Lord. That we start talking like where we come from. That we start telling ourselves that we're loved and we're okay. And we're sufficient, not because of some accomplishment. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Because God made me. Because I am made of the same substance that God spoke the world with. So that word is alive and active. The inside boy. Hey, look at me, Chad. Do you remember, I want to tell you this because I know you love the scriptures. When Jesus showed up at the tomb of Lazarus, You remember how he got there and Lazarus was already dead?

So Mary and Martha were just so hurt by that. Like a lot of people that are listening to this word today, it's just so much noise, so much confusion. Literally, you have felt like you're going crazy, and you kind of are, because you're trying to hold too much in your head and in your heart, and you're being controlled by external stuff, and everything else affects you,

Everything else tells you what it would take for you to matter. That's what's happening. Well, in this particular case, they lost their brother, Lazarus. I spent the whole year trying to write a book about Lazarus, so it was fresh on my mind. And when Jesus got to the tomb, it said that he felt something for the sisters. Look at me. He feels something for you. He feels something for you.

He felt something on the inside. and put up the verse in chapter 11. John chapter 11, please, I got to show you this. It would be disobedient to the Lord for me to not give you this. It was the last thing God gave me for the sermon, but it may be the thing you came for. John chapter 11, please. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled by her pain, by your tears, by your questions. Deeply moved in trouble. That's what he felt the inside. Next verse. Where have you laid him? He asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. And what came next was a miracle. How many are ready for a miracle today? This may not be for someone

in this room. Maybe it's for you. I don't know. I don't know. But the scripture says that in verse 35, Jesus wept and the Jews said, see how he loved him. But some of them said, You ever had some of them say? Come on, talk to me. Don't use your inside voice. Some of them will always say, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying? All these voices on the inside of you.

Could not he? Didn't, wouldn't, shouldn't he have? The Bible says Jesus once more deeply moved. Verse 38, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. take away the stone, he said. But Lord said Martha, the sister of the dead man. By this time there's a bad odor, for he's been there four days.

Then Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? Now, here's what I wanted to show you. Please lean into this moment. Please don't get distracted. This is so important. So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, Father, I thank you. that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.

Verse 43, this is what I'm familiar with. When he said this, Jesus called in a loud voice. In a what? So I want you to say Lazarus on three in a loud voice. One, two, three. So he didn't, he didn't say it softly. I could cry thinking about it. When he spoke to Lazarus who was dead, he said it loud. Jesus has an outside voice. He really does. He can command and speak. I mean, Jesus, some of y'all don't like it when I hollered, when I preach.

That's my Bible verse right there, y'all. He said, in a loud voice. But he didn't get loud until he was talking to Lazarus. When he spoke to his father, he said it in his inside voice. Because he knew God is not up there, out there, distant, and my father are one. And I want you to know that this week that when you talk to your father, you're using your inside voice. That's the real you.

That's what God knows about you. It's not what others say, others think. That's going to drive you off the edge of a cliff. But Jesus said to his father, I know you always hear me. So, Lord, you said that your word would be like rain that came from the heaven and did not return void. I believe that about your word in this moment. I believe that your word is gaining entrance to the hearts of men and women.

Even now as I preach it, Lord, there's a certain heaviness to those who are really receiving it because the chatter is so bad and the noise is so loud. I pray that this week, amongst the shouts of the scribes, the cynicism of those who should support us, the division that we experience in our world and the questions that will remain unanswered, that we would use our inside voice, that we would talk like where we come from, that we would remember that we are citizens of a heavenly kingdom. And we have a king, and his name is Jesus. And that king is inside of me and inside of you.

So if you know it on the inside, come on, use your outside voice for a minute. Come on, that's not it. That's not it. Lazarus! I always like to share a final word. hear that it's kind of ironic. I preached about inside voice. And then I preached so loud, I lost my voice, but I'm working on it. Pray for me. Seriously, we're praying for you. Don't forget that when you share this message with somebody or when you invest into this ministry, when you give,

God uses it. It's planting seeds of the gospel and we need it right now more than ever. So I want I thank you for keeping the word of God going strong. There are so many thousands of you that make up our eFAM around the world. It used to stand for extended family, but 2020, now it means everyone. And so we just thank you for being a part of this global ministry, this global family. It is an honor for me and for Holly to share God's word with you. Make sure you subscribe. And don't forget this week, use your inside voice. Subscribe. We love you. Guaranteed human.