Bonus Episode: Protected By God's Presence (Praise Party 2019)

an even bigger God. Enjoy the message. I believe that God has given you strategic influence and He's positioned you, and I want to help in this new year to set a trajectory for your faith that you can believe that God is going to use you to make a difference wherever you are. Tell somebody next to you you're a big deal. Ask him, can I get a selfie with you? In fact, pull out your phone right now?

Would you do that? Just real quick, real quick? Pull out your phone, pull up your camera app, put it in self and point it right at that beautiful face of yours. And when I say three, I want you to take a picture. Are you ready? Come on, We're going to do this together, and there's a reason for it. When I say three, I want you to get a picture real quick. Are you ready on every location. If you're ready to say ready one, two, three, cool, put your phone on. I just wanted you to have proof.

I just wanted you to have proof because all this year, the enemy is going to try to get you to think that you can't make it, and that your faith isn't strong enough, and that you don't have what it takes, and that you can't survive the storm. And when he does that, I want you to pull that picture up and remind him that he told you that same bs at the beginning of twenty nineteen. I'm sorry, it's late.

My filter comes off at ten thirty. And I want you to have proof that the weapon may be formed, but it didn't work last time and it won't work this time. And so when he comes in your face trying to make you think this is the end and you can't do it and you're not enough and you are not significant, I want you to show him that selfie how you were in church for the last hour of twenty nineteen and all for the next ten years. Just flash it at the devil and say I got proof.

You know, we so easily confused use the presence of God with the absence of problems, the goodness of God with the absence of problems. I'm preaching already and I haven't read my verse. Second Kings, chapter six, verse eight. How many of you this is your first New Year's Eve ever in church? How many of you? If I knew what you were doing last New Year's Eve, I'd be really proud of how much progress you've made. Wow,

You're my favorite. In Second Kings chapter six, there is an illustration of what happens in these moments where we must make a decision whether we are going to view our life through faith or through fear. And I want to share it with you from Second Kings chapter six, beginning in verse eight. And please pray for me, because

I take these moments seriously. Not so much just to give you a lesson where you can write a few things down or a few tweetable, quotable lines, but to really speak something over your life that will bring to closure some of the conflict that you've been going through, so that you can transform it and convert it into power for what's ahead of you. That's why we came tonight, and that's what we intend to do. In tewod Kings chapter six, verse eight, the Bible says now the King

of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, I will set up my camp in such and such a place. The Man of God sent word to the King of Israel, beware of passing that place, because the Aramians are going down there. So the King of Israel checked on the place indicated by the Man of God time and again. Elisha warned the king so that he was on his guard in such places.

This enraged the King of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the King of Israel. Do you know how mad you made the devil just by showing up tonight. I mean, he said, so many traps for you this year. Tried to make you bitter, tried to make you envious of others, tried to keep you in a depression. I know you've been going through things. He tried. He couldn't get you to go crazy, so

he started messing with your kids. He thought, if he could get your kids to go crazy enough, maybe you would lose your hope in God. Even some people in your life left this year that you were counting on and after all of that, here you are. The Bible says it enraged the enemies of Israel because no matter what they did to try to bring down the king, God had someone on the inside to warn them about it. Tell the person next to you, I got somebody on

the inside. And it makes the devil mad, and it makes them a little bit confused, And honestly, it makes him nervous to see you praising God like you've been praising God tonight. I mean this that some of you, just by lifting your hands tonight, you caused all kinds of confusion in hell. Not only have angels been watching you this year, but the demons have been watching you too, the ones that were assigned to wreak havoc in your mind.

And they thought, surely by now you'd be tired. They thought, surely, after all you've been through, you would skip church and sleep in. But look at you in the presence of God. To confuse the enemy, now we need to take nineteen seconds and embarrass the enemy to let him know him. Then what he did, it didn't work. Then what he did it hurt, but it didn't work. You'll still got eleven seconds on the clock. Read my scripture. I'm reading

my scripture. This is a dignified moment. You're chaotic, church members. Well, he was mad because everywhere he wanted to attack Israel, God's chosen people. There was a there was a I don't want to call him a spy. He was a prophet Elisha. He had an ability to see things. And you think Siri is scary. Really, Alexa scares me. How stuff starts showing up on my phone And I think Alexa is talking to Siri, and Siri is talking to Google, and Google is talking to Instagram, and I'm terrified that

they're listening to me. Now watch this. This is interesting because the spirit of God in Elisha would give him a location where the enemy was going to attack God's people. And when they called together all of the different high ranking officials to see who is the one who is spoiling our ambushes and causing our attempts to attack the people of God not to work, the response came in verse twelve, none of us, my lord the king, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the King of

Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom. Yikes. So everywhere that Israel travel, God would send a word through Elisha to tell them where they needed Verse tences to be on their guard in such places. Tonight, I want to tell you that for this year twenty twenty, you know, like twenty twenty vision. Yeah, for this year, you need to see some things with your spirit that

you cannot see with your senses. And the reason this is so important is because if you don't recognize where the enemy is attacking you the most frequently and ask God to give you insight into the places of your greatest vulnerability, you will spend all of your energy this year fighting battles that you could have avoided if you would have learned the lessons of last year. Yeah. I

don't like this part of my sermon. I know makes you mad when you realize that a lot of the battles that you fought you could have avoided if you had listened to what was on the inside instead of responding to what was on the outside. So I want to spend this year with what Paul called open eyes in my heart. It sounds grotesque when you describe it like that, but he was saying that there is a kind of sight that does not revolve around external stimuli,

and it is more based on internal processing. If I could break it down even more for you, I would use this phrase on his guard in such places to describe how I think God intends to pret text you as you go into this next season, this next decade of your life, and that requires self awareness. There's a

theological term progressive revelation. It means that while God never changes, our understanding of Him unfolds over time, not necessarily chronologically, but as we experience different things in our life, we come to see God in different ways. Even the Bible is constructed with the progressive revelation in mind, so that you see concepts introduced in the Book of Genesis that

are mirrored in the Book of Revelation. That's the first and the last, and by the time you get to Revelation, you get a full picture of what was hinted at in Genesis. So you see types and shadows in the Old Testament which ultimately point to Jesus Christ, but they're pointing to something that you have not clearly seen yet. Life is this way. It is that many of us, in this season of our life are going to see things that we only saw a shadow of in a

previous season of our life. Progressive revelation means that God wants to show you some things about himself and even about you that will cause you to be able to avoid what I call unnecessary roughness. It's a football term, but it also applies when we're going up against the devil. And let me help you with something real quick. Some of the battles that you fought last year were in places that you never should have been. I know it's supposed to be a praise party, but before we party,

can I preach for a moment? I got twenty four minutes to tell you about this. There are certain places that you need to stay away from this year, because if you go there and then ask God to protect you in those places. I don't know whether to start with Facebook, or whether to start with CNN, or whether to start with Fox News, but we have to be

very careful about where we go. Watch this not just with our bodies, but with our minds, because it is very possible that God is trying to warn you about certain places that every time you go there you start feeling judgmental, or every time you go there you start having comparison, or every time you go there you start feeling like your life is missing something. And if I were you, I would put that Bible app on the

front screen of my iPhone this year. For those of you who aren't saved yet, you might have an Android, but you could put the Bible app on there too, and I would find that thing that deletes some of the other apps. And can we all just make a covenantal agreement in the presence of God on this the last sermon of twenty nineteen. Let's all not post our workouts until we have been doing them consistently for at

least four weeks this year. Can we do that? Now, look at somebody and say, I don't have to post it to prove it, because if I do the work, you will notice the results. I won't have to screenshot my sweat on the floor. Nobody wants to see your spandex. Thank you very much. Do a rep in the secret place, will know, will know. And it's really interesting how certain places bring me into vulnerability. And I just want to ask the question, have you lived long enough to know

yet where you're most vulnerable? There were certain places where the enemy intended to attack, but because the king had somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody on the inside that could tell you, like it can tell you where there's traffic, and it can show you on the GPS where there's gonna be traffic. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody on the inside like Elisha was on the inside and he was feeding information to the King saying, don't go there. Wouldn't it be

nice to have somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it be cool if you didn't have to go into this year alone, but you could have somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it be awesome if when Jesus Christ went to heaven he sent down his spirit to live in those who would believe in his name. Wouldn't it be awesome if you had somebody on the inside, the spirit of truth, the spirit of righteousness, the spirit of God telling you don't go there, don't think that, don't complete that, cut off

that conversation, don't give them all that information. And here's the beautiful thing about it. God will show you where to be on your guard if you will give him the opportunity. Even this, God will even show you what days of the week you are more susceptible to discouragement, so you can plan around it. Y'all, don't believe in God. You don't think he's in you. You don't think God can show you about yourself what he knows from the inside up. You don't think the one who created you

knows how to counsel you. And yet we all the time we go into states of discouragement and then we try to pray our way out of them. But we got discouraged because of a mental game that we played, and no cliches can rescue us. New Year Knew You because if we told the truth, it doesn't sound as cute, right. What really has to happen for you to change is that Romans twelfth says you have to be transformed by

the renewing of your mind. Okay, So that means that you have to do things a different way for a

long time. And so the pathways that were in your mind called neuropathway, that were causing you to do the things that you don't want to do anymore, whether that's an addiction to pornography, or whether that's an addiction to a substance, or whether that's an addiction to food, or whether that's an addiction to gossip or whether that's an addiction to judging people who struggle with pornography, food, or substances.

Because I can preach to everybody in the room, I'll tell you, Pastor Steve, I don't struggle with these sins that you mention. It's actually great because I'm starting this new year with a pretty clean slate. I'll tell you I've been walking with the Lord for a long time, and I don't really have any of these struggles except the one with self righteousness that I am expressing by saying that I don't need anything new from God this year. But to really have a new year, New year, new

you doesn't really work like that new year new neural pathways. See, it doesn't preach's good. Who's gonna put that on Instagram? But the fact of the matter is for God to do something new in your life this year. You will have to save your strength for the things that matter, and that means you are going to have to listen to the spirit of God. And the spirit of God will tell you, don't return that phone call, don't return

that text, don't even go there. You'll start thinking something in your mind and the Spirit of the Lord will show you. You can't afford to play with that, you can't play around with the devil, and then ask God to deliver you from the devil that you were playing with. There are some places you cannot afford to go this year. Your soul cannot afford it, your joy cannot afford it, your peace cannot afford it. And I've got somebody on the inside that can show me where the attack is.

Wouldn't it be cool if some of the battles that you fought last year you could avoid this year, so you'd be singing, this is how I fight my battles. And you're just sitting there and they're expecting you to be swinging, but you're not fighting your battles by swinging. You're fighting your battles by staying away from the places. I know this is heavy for a party, but I got to preach it because God will not strengthen you for a battle that He did not call you to fight.

So you've got to let go this year of the need to prove things to people because that it is not a battle God has called you to fight. You've got to let go this year of trying to of trying to make up for things that are in the past and that God has already forgiven. That is not a battle God has called you to fight. It is over. It is gone, the oldest gone, the newest come. You have got to ask the spirit of God what areas

to avoid in this year? Okay? So Elisha is giving the information for the military attack, and I wonder if the spirit of God is trying to give you information for the spiritual attacks that you're under, but you keep going two old places. And when he found out about it, not only was he mad, but he was determined to get rid of this guy because Elisha was a problem. Elisha was a it was a problem. Are you a problem for the enemy? I'm gonna tell you how you

can know if you are. If nothing ever goes wrong in your life and you never burned the toast, if everything is so nice and neat and orderly, and you never face any kind of resistance, it means that the devil isn't threatened by you at all. And here's how I know that from the text, because again we often perceive that the presence of God is proven by the absence of problems. Right. Wrong couldn't be more untrue, because when Elisha was giving the word of the Lord to

prevent the attack. For the people of God, watch what the king did in verse thirteen. Go find out where he is. The moment that you begin to fulfill the purpose God created you for, the enemy will dispatch special forces. Raise your hand. If you had some things happened this year that made you question if God even loved you, raise your hand. Be honest enough to raise it. I

suggest to you keep it up. I suggest to you that the reason you had some of your problems is because you are such a problem for the darkness, because of the light that you carry. Somebody shout, I'm a problem. So let me tell you how you can prove that God is with you. Okay, the way that you can prove that God is with you is not by the fact that nothing bad ever happens to you. The proof, my mom used to say, the proof is in the pudding. Well I found out when it comes to the things

of God, the proof is in the problem. How do I know that God is using me and that He has great plans for me? How do I know that God has put a big calling on my life? How do I know that God has something outstanding for my future. I know the size of my calling by the size of my problem. Y'all shout if you've been through something this year. When Elsa started telling the king where to look for the attack, the King of Arab said, you

gotta find him. He's a problem. The enemy set special forces for you because you are right on the verge of breaking a generational curse and changing a plot line. You're a problem for the darkness. You're a problem, he said, Go find out where he is so I can send men and capture him. And the report came back, he's in Dothan. Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there, and they went by night and surrounded the city. Now verse fifteen is really what I want

to preach. You'll get ready. You're ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Because I only got twelve minutes to preach this, and I'm gonna need a little bit of help. Are you ready for verse fifteen? No, you're not. You can't be, because when the servant of the men of God got up and went out early the next morning an army with horses and chariots that surrounded the city. Oh no, my lord, what shall we do? Asked, Now, this is this is something that I need to illustrate.

Give me, like Wade, give me like a six men on the stage, real quick, and six men that are not very big. The team captain. Yeah, he's too big, he's too big. I need six men that are not very big. Six men that are not very big, and don't be insulted if he chooses you. Six men that are not very big. Six men they are not very big. Come on up, six men that are not very big, Six men that are not very big, Six men that are not very big. I want you all to form

a circle around me and look intimidating. All right, not too close, just like how the servant woke up. Get around me. Six men that are not too big. Six men that are not too big. We need we may need two more. Give me eight men that are not too big. One, two, three, four, y'all get all around me, Get all around me and look ferocious, look at me like, oh, we're gonna kill you. He're that prophet, that's man you know,

messing up? Aul. Come on, it's a problem. Come on, give me all the way around, all the way around. Six men that are not too big. Eight men that are not too big, and the servant, I want to show you something. This is gonna be so helpful for you to understand what you go through in the next twelve months and in the next ten years, and for as long as God's hand will be on you. The servant woke up right, and the first thing he saw that morning when he got up, he saw something that

he didn't know how to handle. Hm hmm. And I think everybody here, personally speaking, has something that they're looking at that they don't know how to handle. It's usually not a military thing, it's a mental thing. So I've got I've got maybe like, I got a decision I don't know how to make. I got bills, I got this, I got that, I got transitioned. So he's looking around and he's like, oh no, my lord, what shall we do now? Elisha is the prophet that would tell the

king where the enemy was going to attack. And here's my question. If he knew where the king was going to be attacked, why did he get attacked? Wow? If you have the ability to know when other people are going to be attacked, how can you not see it when you're going to be attacked. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to give other people advice for their marriage, for raising their children. All but mess around and have one of your own, and you will shut

your stupid mouth when it happens to you. And the servant goes, oh no, my lord, what shall we do? Now? Watch what Elisha says. Give me next verse put on the screen. Please don't be afraid. The prophet answer, oh man, this sounds like great advice. Don't be afraid. Now. These are chariots and horses. These are not you know, no offense. But this is not you. This is trained Syrian soldiers. And the prophet says, don't be afraid. Those who are

with us are more than those who are with them. James, get me twelve men who are real big, twelve men who are as big as you. Come on right now. I need twelve big men, twelve really fierce men, twelve men that are on CrossFit and creating and protein and TRT and AH and steroids. Come on, I need twelve big men, and I need you to come here because I'm gonna be Elisha. I'm gonna be Elisha, and I'm gonna stand here in the middle, and I need you

all to come surround. Me, because the Bible says that when Elishah praid, come on, get real close, get real close. Come on, I don't have any proximity issues, not that close. Back up a little bit, come in, Come in close as we can get and I can still you have function functionality. Come on, getting close, getting close, because Elisha said. Elisha said, don't be afraid those who are with us, come on, surround me all the way. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. It not only means we've got more in quantity, but they are greater in strength because those who are with us are more than those who are with them. So I'm gonna show you something real quick. So he said, he said, don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And then the next verse, verse seventeen, says and Elisha prayed, Oh Lord, open his eyes so that he may see. Okay, now,

if I'm the servant, I'll be right back. Stay right there, stay right there, stay right there. If I'm the servant, I'm thinking that God is about to do something so awesome, and he's gonna make all the enemies, the first ones that came to attack. I'm gonna close my eyes and he's gonna pray. And when I open my eyes, all the enemies are gonna be gone. So you'll leave real quick, just leave, just go somewhere. Not the good ones, the bad ones. So yeah, yeah, that's what I'm expecting. Open

my eyes. Wow, it's a miracle. But come back, come back, come back, come back, come back, come back, come back, come back. Instead, get back in position quickly, quickly. It's almost midnight. Am I gonna show you something? So Elisha's praying, right, He's like, oh, Lord, open his eyes that he may see. And he opens his eyes, and what does he see? The same enemy that he saw before the prayer. In fact, go to the next verse, verse eighteen. As the enemy

came toward him, Now stop. How did Elisha pray and the enemy still came toward him? How did Elisha, the powerful man of God? How did Elisha who had the word? How did Elisha the prophet that struck the water? How did Elisha the successor to Elijah? How did Elisha who let an entire nation into a time of revival? Who could purify the waters of the Jericho. How could Elisha keep praying but the attack kept coming. Well, the proof of the presence of God is not the absence of problems.

The proof of the presence of God is not that the problems disappeared. The proof of the presence of God is that He kept me surrounded and the enemy came, but he couldn't kill me. The enemy came, de presant came, the panic attack came. I could barely catch my breath, but somehow the word of God sustained me through every season of my life. I almost lost my mind, I almost gave up, I almost let go, But there were

more for me than against me. And I declare into the darkness of your life, greater is he that is in me. And the proof is in the problem. If God sent you a really big problem, he's about to demonstrate that he's a really big God. I got a really big God, I got a really good God. I got a really faithful Savior. So I got a really great praise, not because of the absence of problems, but

because of the presence of God. Hey, hey, stand up as two minutes and forty three second until the next decade of your life it's two minutes and thirty eight seconds until the next decade of your life. And tomorrow morning when you open your eyes, guess what's still going to be there? Your problems, but guess what's within you. Wow, y'all got my back when I say this. Get ready to rejoice. Get ready to rejoice. The bigger the problem, the greater the opportunity for the presence of God. Y'all

don't even need me to finish the sentence. You know what I'm saying. The devil's in everything. He could detrack you down. He put a target on your back. He ain't right in your head. But look at your praise. It's your purpose. Look at your praise, look at your God. And I say, I'm gonna put it up to a vote. What say ye, elevation. Let's stop telling God how big our problem is and start telling our problem. I got it even bigger. God greater as He greater is he?

If God mean for you, look, get there guess him. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevation Church dot 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 at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.