Elevation with Steven Furtick - Your Label Is Lying

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

This sermon is for someone who has been hearing the same lies from the enemy for so long that you’ve started to believe them. But you are not your issue. You are not your bad decision. It’...s time to interrupt your story with truth and leave the lies behind, because the Word says otherwise.If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: http://ele.vc/tIepfr Scripture References:John 5, verses 1-11See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:18 Enjoy the message. You've been redeemed and you know it. If he snatched you out of the pit and you know it, if he brought you this farm, and you know it. Take Jesus be the next. The Lord is coming your way. Whether you're in this room or whether you're watching this later, or whether you're listening
Starting point is 00:01:15 in a car, I hope you're not watching in a car unless you're a passenger. Just listen and watch the road. The Lord has something he wants to show you today in His Word. This is the final message in the greatest series in the history of our church. Y'all don't like it. favorite series in the history of our church because it's the one that I needed the most. Because it's called same lies, new loops. Same lies, new loops.
Starting point is 00:01:52 And the Lord is giving you some new ways of thinking, some new ways of being, some new ways of talking, some new ways of seeing, new loops. loops. It's going to be amazing today because we're going to see a picture of somebody who had believed a lie for so long that to him it was true. And when you have believed a lie long enough is true to you, even though everybody else can see that it's not. Today, God wants to show you something about the way that he sees you. Go ahead and put your name in the comments. And since you can't do that live, tell the person next to you your name. Tell them your full name, the one on your driver's license. Go ahead. Give them your name real quick. Give me your driver's license name. We're going to be spending a few moments today. Well, that's a long name. I didn't say your
Starting point is 00:02:50 eye color and your height. I didn't say tell them about your DUI either. Leave that part out. But we're going to be spending some time today together in John Chapter 5. Remain standing if you're able for the reading of God's word. And as I share this with you, today, the Lord wants to give us a picture of what it means to leave the lies behind. To leave the lies behind. That's what we come to church for, right? We don't want to come to church and hear truth and just take lies home with us like we didn't hear the truth.
Starting point is 00:03:26 I want to come to church, receive the truth of God's word, and take it forward into the world that he's called us to change. John chapter 5 verse 1 I may just read all 16 verses I was going to stop around verse 6 7 but I thought I would go on down and read the whole thing now y'all listen what's wrong with y'all john chapter 5 verse 1 sometime later Jesus went up to jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals now there is in jerusalem near the sheep gate a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda. That word means house of mercy. It's like Bethlehem means house of bread. Beth is house. And then Seda from Hesed, the word that means covenant love or favor or grace or mercy. It means all of those things. It's the house of mercy. At least that's what is called.
Starting point is 00:04:22 It's supposed to be a place where people can come and get grace. But it isn't, and you'll see that in the passage. It's called Bethesda and it's surrounded. by five covered colonnades. And incidentally, since we're in John 5, five in the Bible is often symbolic of grace. It's the number of grace. So this is supposed to be a place of grace. You know, can I say that about our church? This is supposed to be a place of grace where anybody can come like they are and not leave that way. It was surrounded by five covered colonnates. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for 38 years when Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been
Starting point is 00:05:18 in this condition for a long time. He asked him, do you want to get well? Sir, the invalid reply, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me. Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk. At once the man was cured. He picked up his mat and walked. But that's not the end of the verse, is it? The day on which this took place was a Sabbath. And so the Jewish leader said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, well, I love this Bible verse right here. The man who made me well said to me, I hear what you're saying to me, but the one who walked by me and told me I could walk to told me to do
Starting point is 00:06:29 this. The man who made me well. said to me, pick up your mat and walk. I got good news for you today, church. The title of my message is, The Word says otherwise. The Word says otherwise. Tell your neighbor, I know you feel kind of depressed. I know it looks like it's over,
Starting point is 00:07:00 but the word says otherwise. Put it in all caps in the chat, put it in your language, put it in your native tongue, put it in emojis, I don't care. The word says otherwise. And we're going to give this message a subtitle also. We're going to call it, hmm. See if I can explain this. Your label is lying. Your label is lying.
Starting point is 00:07:33 You know how that thing said it was a healthy food? Your label is lying. You know how that guy said he was a Christian guy? Your label, and he wore a Christian shirt, your label is lying. You know how people say when you come to Christ, everything will just be better all at once? Your label is lying. But God's word is true. Father, thank you for your word in Jesus' name. Amen.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Be seated. Your label is lying. I'll share by way of anecdote what I mean by this statement. But first write the statement down. Don't label it until later. Don't label it until later. Now you're going to write that down. You don't even know what I mean by that, but you will later.
Starting point is 00:08:35 I was in a songwriting session recently, and we were just starting to work on a song. We had really not identified the tempo of the song, the time signature of the song, or even the theme of the song. I didn't know yet whether it wanted to be a ballad or a bop. Sometimes you don't know. Sometimes a song starts like, really, really worshipful, and the next thing you know, you're dancing on a table and you don't know what happened. So the key to this is to be patient. Be patient. Let the song tell you what it wants to be.
Starting point is 00:09:10 Let the Spirit of God have his way if you're writing a worship song. We were just starting to write a song, and the producer who was recording the session and needed to save the song on his computer, stopped and asked a question. He said, what is this song called? I looked back at him and I knew that he needed to save the file so he could access it and be organized. I looked at him and said, I can't name it. We haven't even made it yet.
Starting point is 00:09:39 We need to make it before we name it. If we name it before we make it, there may be something else that the song wants to be that we don't allow it to become because we already gave it a name. So what we need to do is just save the file as a work in progress. And then we can see what it's going to be by the end of the day because we'll label it later. We'll make it now and label it later. I'll know who this is for, but maybe that's the word that you came to get today. Make it now and name it later. We're so specific in our time about trying to diagnose everything.
Starting point is 00:10:27 Even every child is diagnosed with all of these conditions before they are seven years old. And sometimes that can be helpful, but other times it can be a hurdle. because if I give a child a label before that child has even had the chance to develop beyond those developmental limitations, I may limit what the child thinks that the child can be because I gave the child a label too soon that limited their potential mentally, even though their potential in God was unlimited. Label it later, and I'm not talking about not going to doctors and specialists. You understand I'm using this as a way to get you to see that, Sometimes you are trying to label your life as you are living your life.
Starting point is 00:11:12 And it is causing you to misdiagnose some of the things about you that only God can reveal in time. It is causing you to name things and save things to the hard drive of your mind. And you call yourself things and you call situations things that they really aren't because you are trying to label it before you have even lived it. So you say things like, this is the worst. season of my life. How do you know that yet? The seed hasn't even given the harvest for it. You have no idea. As a matter of fact, I would imagine that any time the dirt is being plowed, it is hard for the dirt. But we understand that this is the part of the process that is absolutely necessary for anything good to be cultivated. And so it is true in your heart that some of the hardest seasons you will go through,
Starting point is 00:12:06 some of the heartbreak seasons that you will go through. Some of the things that you would wish away if God came down and asked you, would you like to skip those stages, will be the very stages, that later you will look back and label it, and you will say, that was the season where God taught me the most. That was the season, am I right, where God got me out of that relationship, and I'm so glad that he did. That was the season where God set me free from something I thought I needed,
Starting point is 00:12:33 and if he would have kept giving me what I wanted, I would have never gotten what I needed. And when I label my situation while I'm still in it, I limit my situation to how I see it. And the problem with me is I can't see things like they are. I only see things as I am. And I am limited. And so if I look at my situation and label it with my mind, I will always find a way to zoom into the microscopically bad. Or maybe I'm just wanting this one thing to happen so bad.
Starting point is 00:13:03 Or maybe something happens in my life. And I don't like the package that it came in so I don't receive the purpose that it came for. I'm going to stop and breathe for a minute. Clap your hands and give God praise. Now, clap your hands and give God praise for all of the gifts that he gave you that you didn't know it was a gift when he gave it. Praise God for all the gifts that he gave you that you grumbled about when he gave it to you. You got to remember. John wrote John.
Starting point is 00:13:41 Okay, you know that. Okay. John, the disciple who Jesus loved, that's what he called himself. That's how he labeled himself. That's wild to me. Who are you? The one he loves. Not one of the one he loves.
Starting point is 00:13:53 The one he loves. John did not write his gospel as the ministry of Jesus was happening, though. He wrote it somewhere around 50 years. years after the events transpire. Now, there's a reason I'm telling you this. Sometimes I think we read these stories in the Bible like they're coming from the journal of one of the disciples. And so we read a story like this and it's wonderful. There was a man who couldn't move and he got up and he was healed and it was amazing.
Starting point is 00:14:29 And even the titles that are in the Bible like over John chapter 5, it says, the healing at the pool. That's what this story is called in retrospect. But in real time, this was not a healing at the pool. In real time, this was a confrontation with the authorities. I'll explain that later. Y'all see what I'm doing? I'm going to say it now. I'm going to explain it later.
Starting point is 00:14:59 Jesus, a lot of times, as he was doing things in his ministry, would not explain it to his disciples. he would just do it. And as he would do it, they might think about it. Boy, that was a really bad move. I mean, Jesus should have waited until Tuesday to heal this guy. Did you see it in the text? It said, he healed him on a bad day.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Now, let me ask you a question. If you haven't walked for 38 years and you have the opportunity to walk, is it ever a bad time to do a good thing for somebody? And yet that's what the religious leaders said. They said, he should have done it on a different day. And Jesus knew that. But when John is writing the gospel, he's not writing it later that night. He's not taking what he saw happen.
Starting point is 00:15:50 And John's gospel was a little different because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all written somewhat differently. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called Synoptic Gospel. It means see-with. They kind of use the same source material. They refer to the same events. and they just take them from different angles. John's gospel is wild. He just shows you stuff from the bonus footage from the cutting room that none of the other disciples showed you.
Starting point is 00:16:14 Maybe it was the special way he felt about his relationship with Jesus, that he includes things that the others don't. And this miracle is only included in John's gospel. That's the first thing I wanted to tell you. But the second thing I wanted to tell you is that it was included in John's gospel after decades had passed. which means that sometimes it is better to evaluate your situation later. If you look at it in the moment, all you can see is, man, this is a lot of trouble Jesus is about to get in. Man, Jesus really is wasting time.
Starting point is 00:16:49 I mean, imagine this. They're setting out to go to the festival. They're on their way. The Bible doesn't mention which of the three festivals, but it's one of the major ones. And they get to Jerusalem, and Jesus stops by this porch. where look at verse three, these kinds of people are lying. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Please circle those three words, Justin, if you can. Verse three, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Jesus is stopping by to see somebody.
Starting point is 00:17:22 He is the most important figure in human history. He is the centerpiece of civilization. He is the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the lion of the tribe of Judah. the Alpha and the Omega, the master and the maker of the universe, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Shepherd of the Lost, the one that the angels worship 24-7 around the throne, and he stops by to see about somebody that doesn't even have a name. Of course, he has a name, but his name has been replaced by his label. So we don't know who he is, or he. what he can do. The only thing we know about him is that for 38 years, watch this, he has not
Starting point is 00:18:13 been able to move. And there are some of you listening to me preach today who have been labeled so long by what you can't do that you forgot your name. You have been labeled so long by what you don't have that you have forgotten your true nature. You have been labeled so long by what life didn't give you that you have forgotten your blessings. But the devil is a liar. I said the devil is a liar. I'll preach this another 10 weeks if I need to. He's telling the same lies over and over and over and over again. And what he wants to get you to do if he's effective at his job and the devil is really sneaky at it, because he will try to convince you that your issue is you. But I found out That God is masterful at using situations that we would not wish to accomplish purposes for which we don't even know to pray.
Starting point is 00:19:18 I'll give you an example. I can tell I'm kind of overwhelming you with information today. About five is the number of grace and Bethesda means House of Mercy and synoptic gospels and all this. So let me just break it down like this. When Holly gives gifts at our house, I will say that she is the best gift giver that I have ever known in my life. I'll also say she is the greatest gift that I have ever known in my life. Other than you, Lord. Amen. And I'll also say, Dad, I'm not even saying that just so you'll clap for it.
Starting point is 00:19:55 I really feel that way. But she used to do something when she would give gifts that was so disappointing. and we finally got her to stop a few years ago, but let me take what she was doing. I don't know if she was just something she did out of efficiency. I don't know. What she would do? Okay, I already told you. She gives great gifts.
Starting point is 00:20:15 But let's say Christmas will roll around, right? And there's several gifts for each person that Holly bought, right? So she wraps them, they're beautiful and all that. You take the wrapping paper off. And then there would be a box that she would put the gift in. But the box was absolutely no indication. of the value of the gift. And here's what I mean by that.
Starting point is 00:20:38 She would take the box from the nicest store you can imagine. Like picture your favorite store, your favorite brand, right? Like the fanciest, nicest box. So you peel the paper back and you'd be like, oh yeah. Yeah, this is going to be good. This is about to be good. And then when you would take the lid off the box, she had put the worst gifts.
Starting point is 00:21:01 The box would say Nordstrom and the gift would say dollar tree. And you'd be looking at the gift talking about what is this? She would put the worst gift in the best box. God does just the opposite. I'm sorry, Holly, but this is one time where you are nothing like God. Because God will take the worst. box, the worst situation, the worst hell you've ever been through, the worst insult, the worst persecution. God will hand you a box, and the box will be so beat up, and the box will look
Starting point is 00:21:50 so small, and the box will look like it's been rained on, and the box will look like the dog chewed it up, and the box will look like betrayal, and the box will look like, God, I don't know what to do, and the box will look like there's no way out of it. But if you open that box and trust in God, not the box, I said trust God, not the box, because my God is out the box and God will put the best stuff. Can I preach like I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota on a Tuesday night? God will take the worst box and put the best gift. And I'm saying this in case, life dropped off a box on your door,
Starting point is 00:22:35 and it doesn't look like what you prayed for, and it doesn't make any sense with what you feel called to, and it doesn't line up with your expectation. But open that box, because God has a way of putting the best blessings in the ugliest boxes. So the box doesn't have to be beautiful for the gift to be from him. High five somebody say, open the box, open the box, open the box. God can do what he wants to. Open the box. Let God out the box.
Starting point is 00:23:10 You got your little puny way of labeling what God can do and who God can do it through. But open the box. You're not even in church today. But God can meet you in the kitchen. Open the box. Put down the fork in the night. Lift your hands and give God praise. God is out the box.
Starting point is 00:23:46 Jesus said to the man, I know this situation isn't what you would have chosen, and I know this is not the place you want to be, but your label is lying. I wish I could draw this, but I didn't bring my screen out this week, and I'm not going to slow down the momentum of this message for technology. But just imagine, boop, boop, loop, right? You've seen it. And imagine one of the loops says, you can't do that. That's the lie, right? But when everything that's around you looks like sickness long enough, you begin to believe the box. When everything that your eyes can see, when everything that your emotions feel tell you, well, I guess alcoholism is just a genetic thing and there's no amount of therapy or recovery that can break those chains off of you.
Starting point is 00:24:56 And there's not even enough prayers for it because didn't you pray about this last year? 38 years, man, that's a long time to circle the situation. It brings me all the way back to the first story I shared in this series when the Israelites wandered in the same loop for 40 years. You know, technically it was 38? Yeah, it was 38. Because one year they spent getting out of Egypt, one year they spent getting into the promised land,
Starting point is 00:25:27 those years aren't counted in the 40, it was 38 years. And people will always tell the story of your first year and your last year, but they don't see the 38-year loop. So, please do this. When you're sharing your testimony with somebody, be honest with them. Don't make your label a lie. Don't tell them, and the Lord just set me free from anxiety. I had somebody tell me that one time, and the Lord set me free from anxiety. Now, I said, I believe that he does that, and I believe that he did that for you, and I praise him for it.
Starting point is 00:26:00 But what exactly do you mean he set you free from anxiety? Because when they said it, they said, the Lord set me free from anxiety in 1984. So what I wanted to ask was, and since then, what did you do? Swallow the key? The Lord set you free? Friend, you swallowed the key? Or the Lord swallowed the key? Like what happened?
Starting point is 00:26:22 And as they began to share in more detail, it was actually more powerful to hear about their process than it was to hear about their product. what they meant by it, when they labeled it, the Lord set me free, was they meant he began to show me ways to deal with it that were not harmful and destructive and sinful. And so instead of just going to porn every time I felt anxious, instead of just going to drugs every time I feel anxious, instead of just going to self-mutilation every time I felt anxious, instead of just waiting up all night, I learned some, they didn't say this, but they basically said, I learned some loops.
Starting point is 00:26:58 I learned some new loops. I quit just going around and around spiraling, and I found out how to interrupt my worry with the Word of God. Isn't that more powerful? Come on. Isn't that more powerful to hear that than to hear somebody say, well, the Lord just set me free? And then you're like, well, I guess he doesn't love me. He must not love me like that, or I must be doing something wrong. Maybe they're just not describing freedom fully to know that freedom involves a journey of 38 years.
Starting point is 00:27:30 This is powerful, man. I even feel it as I'm preaching right now. I feel the Lord telling me to slow down and tell you what it really means that this man got up and walked. It doesn't say that he knew where to go. It doesn't say that his life was problem-free. In fact, Jesus finds him a few verses later and tells him, stop sinning or something worse is going to happen.
Starting point is 00:27:53 He's not even finished with his issue yet. But the powerful thing about Jesus, when I get to the part of my sermon where I know this is the Word of the Lord? Because there is a moment in a sermon where the Word of the Lord comes. It's all the Word of the Lord, this whole passage, it's the Word of the Lord. But there is a moment where the Word of the Lord comes to you. And what happens in that moment is your condition is interrupted by a command. So it's like this. The man's condition is sick, paralyzed, and stuck on the porch. The command of Jesus makes no sense in the face of that condition. Get up, take your mat, and walk. Sometimes God will give you a command that makes no sense in the face of your condition.
Starting point is 00:28:44 Sometimes God will tell you as a teenager, I don't care what all your friends do, I don't care what they say you're weird about, I don't care what they call you for it, you be pure. I don't care what a thousand people do over here, a thousand people, just like your parents used to say, I don't care if everybody else is doing it. If everybody else was jumping off a bridge and you'd be like, shut up. But see, I don't say if everybody else was jumping off a bridge. I just want to tell you what Jesus did. Everybody else didn't die on the cross for you. Everybody else can't rise from the grave. Everybody else isn't going to be there for you in the midnight hour. Everybody else didn't make you, knit you, call you, choose you, gift you. Don't let them label you. Don't even let them tell you what kind of
Starting point is 00:29:25 kid you need to be to be cool. I'm not concerned with you being cool. I'm not concerned with you being cool. I'm concerned with you being called. I'm concerned with a God who can raise you up and make your name great. And I'm concerned with a God whose name is greater than any other name. And that's what I'm concerned about in this season of my life, not what they label me. I don't care what they say about me. I don't care what they say about my preaching. I care when I close this Bible today, did I say the word of the Lord, did I speak the
Starting point is 00:29:56 word of the Lord. Did I say what God gave me to say the best I could say it with a stammering tongue and a limited vocabulary and a monks corner South Carolina accent? Did I say the word of the Lord? Not how somebody else said it, not how I should say it, not how I would say it if I was smarter. Did I say it to the limit of my IQ? Did I speak the words of God? And when the word of the Lord came to this man. It was so personal. The Bible says something that I think you need to see. Before you hear what Jesus said to him, I want to show you something in John chapter 5, verse 5. This is the part that made me cry when it says, when Jesus saw him. Excuse me. That's verse 6. That's verse 6. When Jesus saw him. Go back to verse 5. The one was lying there. Now, lying is not his name. It's his label. That's the condition he was in.
Starting point is 00:31:10 And he was lying on a mat. Matt was not his name. Could have been. It is a name, but it's not his name. It's where he is. Not who he is. I'm going to preach this, Lord. I am going to preach this just like you showed me. Because it was so beautiful how the Lord showed me in verse 6. The key to all of this is when Jesus saw him. Justin circled the word him. Now contrast that. When Jesus walked by, there's a blind person. There's a person who can't move. There's another person. I'm not sure of their condition. There's somebody who's only been at the pool two weeks. Here's somebody who's been here two years. Here's someone who has been here 38 years.
Starting point is 00:31:59 I'm speaking to somebody today, and this is not your first day in this situation. This is not your first frustration. That's all right, because the Bible says that Jesus saw him. I still got to show you what I mean. It says that Jesus saw him lying there. Now, if you fast forward, when the man gets up, the religious leader, see the man, but they see him a little differently. They label him differently. They label him according to his condition, and they label him according to their expectation. The Sabbath was supposed
Starting point is 00:32:36 to be a day of no work, but they see him carrying a mat. The Sabbath was not a day where you can't make up your bed. The Sabbath was a day where you couldn't do commerce in the city, but they've twisted it. They have labeled it. Their label has become a lie. Did you know that religion will always try to label something that the Lord gave you, and instead of using it to lift a burden, it will create one. So you begin to see God as the person who's perpetually disappointed in you. God is not disappointed in you. How can he be disappointed in what he appointed? If he called you, that means he knew you would be in this situation before you were in this situation. You think you can surprise God? You think God's like, I wish I would have done a
Starting point is 00:33:21 scouting report on them? You think God is somehow mesmerized by your weakness? Now, people are. People are very different. The religious leaders in verse 10, they have their focus somewhere completely different. The Bible says that the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat. Now, hold on. I'm confused. They are looking at a man, and they are talking about a mat. How can they only see the mat and not the man? No, no, no. I'm honestly asking.
Starting point is 00:34:02 How can they see a man who has never walked before if he's 38 years old? Maybe he did walk a little while before those 38 years. We don't know. But for almost 40 years, he hasn't been able to walk. And he's walking. And they walk up to him. say, hey, you can't do that. And he's like, I know.
Starting point is 00:34:29 I didn't think I could either. Talk to me. And he told me to get up and take it up and walk. And I'm walking in the power of his words. And I'm walking in the potential of a brighter tomorrow. And I'm living in the life of a new day. I'm just speculating. I think this man started singing at this point.
Starting point is 00:35:04 I think he started singing, look at what the Lord has done. I'm never going back to the way I... That's why I got my mat, because I'm not going back. Say it. Not going back. Say it. Not going back.
Starting point is 00:35:19 Give up my spot. Because I'm... Because I'm... Take my mat. Because I'm... All right. We need to work on y'all's rhythm and call it. was far. My man is walking. And you're talking about a math? You're about a practice? You're talking
Starting point is 00:35:42 about a mat? I'm a man. You can't see the man for the mat. And it makes me wonder, what's your mat that I can't see that's got you magnifying mind? It's to be singing, carrying a mat. He's not going back to the place he's been for 38 years that isn't working anymore. Man, he's happy, too. He's happy carrying that mat because he's holding something that's been holding him his whole life.
Starting point is 00:36:20 Boy, he's happy. He turns around. Goodbye yesterday. Five covered colonnades. Goodbye colonnades. Y'all missed it. I'm living in the light of a new day. I won't waste another minute on my old ways. Praise the Lord.
Starting point is 00:36:49 He's not even saved yet, not even born again. He doesn't even know it's Jesus yet. He doesn't find that out to later. See, sometimes God does it now, but you praise him later because you didn't even know he was doing it. At the time, I feel God's saying, praise me now, and I'll explain it later. That man is walking. Talking about I'm dancing on the I'm carrying the mat that I once laid on Carry in the mat that I once laid on
Starting point is 00:37:32 Oh, carrying the mat that I once laid on Carry in the mat that I mean this mat ain't heavy Carrying the mat I slay or carry a Yeah, you can't do that You can't do that Yes I can We're not doing the stairs
Starting point is 00:37:52 And here's the Pharisee. He's like, carrying the mat that I want to do that, no, you're doing it wrong. Carry in the mat that I want to be. You can't do that, no, you're doing it wrong. Carrying the mat where I used to lay. You can't do that because this is the wrong day. Now we got confrontation. Y'all don't know how to act in church.
Starting point is 00:38:25 What kind of church is this? What kind of church is this? This is the house of mercy. This is a place for grace. This is a place. Can't do that. Just no way. Can't do that.
Starting point is 00:39:11 New Loop. I listen to what that man say. I'm making this up on the cuff I don't know if it's any good but they said the law says you can't the man said the word says otherwise somebody shout otherwise otherwise and the hand of the Lord was upon me and he took me down to the valley and the valley was full of bones and they were very dry And the bones said death, and the bones said over. But the word said otherwise.
Starting point is 00:40:03 And God said prophesied to the bones. Proposied to the marriage. Prophecy to the bankruptcy. Prophecy to the depression. Prophecy to the blindness. Prophecy to the lameness. I prophesy to your legs. I prophesy.
Starting point is 00:40:25 to your righteousness in Christ. I prophesied there is a better word than condemnation. Shame said died, but God said live, live, live. I'm dancing on the grave. I'm dancing. You can't do that. You can't dance in church. You can't be happy. You're going through hell. I might be in it, but it is not in me. I'm not my man. I'm not my mad. I'm not my bad decision. I'm not my shame.
Starting point is 00:41:29 I'm not the abuse. I'm not my past. I'm not myself. The one he loves. I'm the one he stopped by for. And I'm tested on the great. I'm dancing on the grave. You can't dance.
Starting point is 00:41:53 You got moves? Show me your church dance. Get up on your feet and praise the Lord. Jump up and hollering. You can't do that. You can't dance on a grave. You can't get beauty for ashes. You can't be grateful when you still got a kid who's far away from God.
Starting point is 00:42:28 You can't keep worshipping through tears. You can't keep trusting that God is good through cancer. You can't do that. But the word says otherwise. Said the word. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. It's because of you that this ministry is possible.
Starting point is 00:43:37 You can click the link in the description to give now or visit elevationchurch.org 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. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

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