Christ Is In Me. I Am Enough.

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 your perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message in just a moment. If you're standing at one of our campuses, stay standing for a moment, because we got a very special message today. You may be wondering, yes, is Holly gonna preach?

Kind of? And so am I? So today this message? Did you ever used to watch not wrestling, but wrestling?

Did you ever used to see tag team wrestling like the Legion of Doom, the Steiner Brothers, stuff like that, And then when you would when you would be tired, you tag your partner in the corner. Today, Holly and I are going to tag team a message as we continue our series called Do the New You would you look at your neighbor and say, I.

Barely recognize you. You've been changing so much?

Is that now?

Put it in the comments, say is oh man?

God has been doing an amazing work through this book, through this message series, through these mindsets, and today we're gonna we're.

Gonna change it up.

You may be wondering, why is there furniture behind you? Good question, Uh Holly, We're gonna have a little chat.

And we're gonna chat.

That's right.

We're gonna talk about some stuff. I've been wanting to talk to you about some stuff.

Okay, but you said you said we were gonna tag team, and in my mind it was less wrestling and more like volleyball, you know, like where I don't know my you know, like the person and then you yeah, so I'm spiking or your spiking, your spiking.

OK maybe I'm a setter, you know, you go like that, that's what it is, and then you spike it.

Yeah, I'll say, knew more about sports.

But I have been wanting to interview you for really. I have been begging him, babe, please let me interview you.

Let's sit down on a Sunday morning.

And because there's nobody I would rather talk to than you, thank you. And sometimes our conversations are so I mean, they're so good and they go I just love the way you think, and so I'm really excited.

I've got questions.

I'm ready, and y'all y'all pray for me, because she's prepared.

I'm not.

I made a deal that I wouldn't look at her questions. She left her notebook on the kitchen table, and I was very tempted because I like to prepare. But in this mindset we're going to share about Christ is in me. Everybody say Christ is in me.

Christ is in me?

I am enough. I am enough, And.

I thought, what better way to put that to the test than let her ask me whatever she wants in front of We've got about a thousand E Group leaders here helping us share this message. And these are the real MVPs of Elevation Church, along with our volunteers, our givers, our staff, and you know this is what they do every week as they open their homes and opened their computers.

And whether it's in the room where.

It happens or the zoom where it happens, so many great discussions happen. And one of my passions in this year is to get God's word deeper and deeper and deeper into your heart so the enemy can't snatch it.

So if you're ready for.

A conversation, but I could go anywhere and make some noise all right, y'all be seated as we are seated. Let's go Holly. When they were playing, it made me remember how we used to sing. When I think of.

That, out the Lord, you can't make me sing.

How he saves me, how he raised me, how.

He filled me with the Holy Ghost, how he healed me.

Judie termost when I think about the Lord, how he picked me up and turned me around, how he placed my.

Feet from side brown, it makes me na shout.

Thank you, jeez, I know it.

Lord, You're worthy of all the glory and and.

Olua, thank you Jesus, Oh, thank you, thank you.

That was our song in college. I think I think that's part of the reason you married me. Not because of my singing, but she was scholarship. We met before college, Hollie and I met before college. I promise this won't just be story time. I'm gonna preach your minister to work out. But I want to tell them this because when people see you like later in your journey, it's like walking into the middle of a movie and they can be really confused. And one time somebody said to me,

We started doing ministry when we were eighteen, and.

Then the summer we were nineteen, we traveled together and she was on scholarship to this singing group called Joyful Sound.

But she was the sound person. But I knew she really wanted to sing.

You didn't know I was had a background in Yes, she has a background in running JBL eons.

She can set up a tent revival anywhere if you need her to. I'm good with the snake and you should start it.

You should start a sound company for worship events called holly Lujah.

That'd be good anyway.

I'll turn it over to you in a minute because I know your interview and we're gonna preach and teach today, not just tell stories. But so I made a choir and guess who I recruited to be my alto section leader holle Lujah.

Okay, wait, I have to interject, because you he was casting this vision like he does we were nineteen years old, and he.

Was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna start a choir. We're gonna have a choir and a band.

There's be just we're just gonna sing gospel songs. And I was like, I don't okay, and he was like, and I want you to help, and I was like, I don't know. And there was this other girl, I tell the truth, there was this other girl and she was like that sounds awesome. I mean, how can I help? And I was like, I didn't say it wasn't gonna help.

That's true, that's true. Hold on a second, the healthy competition. So what are we talking about? Ali? What are we doing? You called this meeting?

I did? I called this meeting. First of all, I am so.

I love this book so much and it's very special to me. I matched my jacket to the book today.

It's so special to me because.

You haven't released a book in eight years. And what a lot of people don't know is about a year ago we had to fight. Well a conversation, yea, a rather heated conversation, and I was saying, because we don't fight.

Yeah, it was, as the Baptist say, intense fellowship, intense fellowship.

So we have this intense conversation where I am saying like there's I just feel like there's more inside of you. I feel like there is a huge group of people who need your words in written form. And he was telling me how his sermons don't translate into books. He said, my sermons, my idea is, Holly.

I've tried.

He actually, you actually wrote a book in twenty twenty that we never released.

And he said, I tried to wrote a book in twenty twenty. I'm done. I don't want to write. My sermons don't translate.

And we went back and forth, and I felt like I had pushed too hard, you know, like that wife pushing, and I was like, okay, okay. So I decided I was going to let it go and I was.

Going to push the Lord. It's so much more effective, And this is the answer to my prayers.

Right here.

She finds starting. She finds y'all think she's sweet.

So we're talking about mindset too today.

But before we get to it, okay, I.

Have just like I just want to keep you loose and keep you on your toes, and so I have a little fun lightning round situation.

Okay, So here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna play ten seconds of a song of an artist that we.

Love, and it's gonna get copyrighted.

Ten seconds. We checked ten ten seconds. I think you have up to twenty.

Okay, So I'm gonna play a little clip of a song and you're going to pretend like that song title is your sermon title for this series, do the new you, and I want you to tell people how you would preach that title.

Okay, got it, all right? Roll the first song. First song, it's just again.

Got stuck again.

I see the Israelites standing on the shore of the Red Sea. I see Moses telling the Israelites, why are you crying? God's about to deliver us. Stand still, you'll see the salvation of the Lord. And I hear God saying back to Moses in Exodus fourteen, why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.

I promise you.

I did not give him a heads up about this.

Okay, all right, you righty for the next one.

The last time a game like this was played on this stage, Bishop td Jakes was doing the answering, this is really really wrong of you to do this to me.

No, it's not, no, it's not all right.

Here we go.

You're the next one. Okay, you can't think so.

In a world keep side pushing me around, got up, spam back down.

There was a king who made a treaty with an enemy king in the Old Testament, And after he made the treaty, the enemy said, well, I actually want your children too. He said, all right, and then he said actually I want all your livestock too. And at some point the king had to say, that's it. I'm drawing a line the deal off. I know I said you could have my children, and I know I said you could have our treasury, and I know I said you

And if I give you my behaviors, you're going to want to take my patterns.

And if you take my patterns, you can have my life. So I see somebody like that Old Testament king going back to the enemy and saying that deal's off.

I changed my mind.

I remember what King David said to a giant, the Philistine that stood nine feet tall.

And all of the other Israelites.

Said he's too big to fight, but David said he's too big to miss.

Who is this uncircumcised for listening? Send him a message?

Tell them I won't Somebody shout, I won't want back down, back down, high five three.

People say, don't back down now. You come too far to back down now.

Yeah, yeah, I hear Tom Petty say, don't do it.

Don't be petty, don't come around here. No more?

Can we do another one, Holly, We gotta get to the book.

When the book all right, one more, one more, one more.

So I can see you.

New life so viby.

I feel like we need a vibe Bible character for New life love the Angel the Lord showing up the glory of the Lord shown around about them, and they were terrified. And Angel said, and them fear not, for be old. I'll bring you good news of great joye beat all people from the youth born in stan City.

David say, which is Christ the Lord?

So the new light appear in the valley of the shadow. And sometimes we want God to remove us from valley situations where the shadow has made us unable to see the provision that He's given us. We look around and always see his shadow, always see his darkness, always see his uncertainty, always see his fear. But God sometimes doesn't take you out of the place. Sometimes he gives you his presence in the place in.

A new way. So maybe God's got you right where he wants you. Maybe the greenest grass is in the valley.

Maybe the growth opportunities happen in the low places, in the uncertain places, in the strange places. And maybe sometimes when we're asking God to give us a new life, instead he wants to shine a new light come.

And the life that He's already given us. Do you want to bring a podium out?

In the beginning, God said, let there be light, and light was And when the light shines, you begin to see what was there all along. And I'm praying that today God would shine his light on your life to show you everything He's given you, and that you may have a fuller understanding of every good thing that we have in Christ Jesus, and you would see your inheritance and Jesus in a new light.

Sometimes you think that there's something wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you, there's just something wrong with your view of you.

So today, as we discussed this mindset, Christ is in me, I am enough. I hope that you see yourself who you are in the light of who He is.

I think we should bring the podium out instead. Okay, I love you so much.

Please don't send that to Bishop Jakes.

Oh I am okay.

So we're talking about out this mindset Christ is in me.

I am enough.

We opened up by talking about how you said I'm not a writer, basically, I'm not enough. I don't have enough. So how did you Where did this come from? How did you get from I'm not enough to I have enough to give.

One word at a time, followed by some commas periods.

Other words, somebody told me you never have to write a book.

You just have to write a word, then a word, then a word, then a word, and then when you said enough of those, you put a.

Period exclamation point.

If the point is weak, put an exclamation point to compensate for the weakness of the point, and then move on. In all seriousness, though, you know how we say that God's word is a lamp into our our feet, a light into our path. I guess I'm still thinking about light because everything that God used me to do up to this point in my life, he never gave me.

A floodlight that I could see one hundred yards away.

He never even gave me headlights where I could see farther.

Down the road. In Bible times, they had.

A light that you would wear that would just light your feet. And so when the Bible says your word is a limpun to my feet, a light into my path, it means that God will give me enough light to take the next step by.

And to see that there's a hole and I should step around it.

But he won't show me everything that's down the road, because then I would trust the path, not the person.

And this book was like that. You know, this church is like that.

Every sermon that I preach every time I write a song and everything that that you're doing, because I don't really want this conversation today to be about how I wrote a book or how I'm enough. I really want to get inside of your soul if we're able to do that through a conversation and just begin to think about what are the ways that not enoughness keeps you from showing up? What are the ways that not enoughness keeps you from even finding out? One thing about not

Got you some steroids, got your little gear.

Kidding about the steroids, but not kidding about the growth process, is that you have to start with the bar in your spiritual life. You know, I really want to be a person of prayer. Don't book a three week prayer retreat in Ireland and say I'm going to do that in ten years when the kids are out of the house.

I found some of my best prayers.

I have a little chair right next to where I get dressed, and just plopping down in that chair for thirty seconds sometimes and saying Ooh God, Ooh God, yep, Ooh God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, Mother, Mary, Tom Petty. You know, because every prayer doesn't start pretty. Yeah, and this project didn't start pretty. I mean it was me with voice, memos and kind of not having much confidence in myself.

And by the way, sometimes.

God will speak to you through the people who are right in front of you. So all of us who want to know, well, how do I hear from God? Sometimes is through something that sounds annoying to you, from somebody who loves you. Oh and so I'm not saying I was annoyed with you. Wait a minute, Well, anointed and annoying can sometimes feel the same. So sometimes the most annoying things that you've said to me I have been the most annoying on the surface because it challenges this thing.

Well, she doesn't get it, and she doesn't know.

But one day in particular, I had this feeling like, if you're going to start this book, you need to start, and you feel that it's time for you to give another book, And these are a lot of the things when when you get this book, and if you're in this book, I wrote it.

To myself, Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Yeah, I wrote it to myself to challenge myself from the old mindset, and then I wrote it for you.

Yeah.

But before I wrote it for you, I wrote it to myself. Yeah.

You just I want to verify that all of the mindsets are things that I saw scribbled on legal pads next to your bedside table next to your desk. These are all things that you wrote for yourself to coach yourself.

This mindset, Christ is in me, I Am Enough was like a breathing exercise I started doing ten years ago.

Yeah, Christ is in me.

Will feel like the breathing in remind me that I'm filled with His spirit. Yeah, And that Jesus isn't just a historical figure who died a long time ago. He is a historical figure who died a long time ago, but he's a very present help in the time of trouble. And the power of Him that raised Jesus from the dead lives in me.

Yeah.

So when I say Christ is in me, I'm saying resurrection power is in me. When I'm saying Christ is in me, I'm saying healing is in me. When I'm saying Christ is in me, anybody on this side realize that when you say Christ is in me, somebody shall Christ is in me.

Christ is in me. I am enough.

I am enough.

It's a truth and a consequence because He's in me.

I am enough. And so one.

Day I'm sitting there going like, you can't write this book. You tried in twenty twenty you wasted time, you wasted money, you hold yourself up doing it, and I just got overwhelmed by this idea. You need to do something now the first mindset, do the new us. I'm not stuck unless I stop. And sometimes God will give you something stupid to do seems stupid to you to get you unstuck. Raising a staff over the Red Sea looks stupid.

But I saw a.

Commercial one time that says it's only weird until it works. I know a lot of people think we're weird as Christians because we praise God, we lift our hands, and well, I'm not one of those hand lifting, out loud singing Christians.

But you know what, I found It works for me.

Worship works for me when nothing else can help me. So on this particular day, I did something that felt so stupid. I set up an appointment with my literary agent, who hadn't heard from me in quite a while because I was duck in her because I want to write a book. I put on a suit, went to the office in a suit, y'all. I don't even suits on Easter most times in church. And I went to the office to let the devil know I meant business now I know what you're thinking. You just wanted to impress

Put it in the chat, I'm doing it this time.

And that was a day that I sat down and wrote the whole book in that day.

No, that's the story we want.

And God healed my marriage that day, and my kid got off drugs that day, and the business was out of the red that day, and the breakthrough.

Concept went to and we had an IPO that day.

And I never struggled with wanting to drink alcohol again that day.

But it was my one day when for that day.

So I'm gonna give you my favorite phrase that I learned in therapy. Okay, yes, I go to therapy because I'm crazy. No you're not, and I want to help you with your crazy in case you don't get to the therapist. All right, all right, So I'm not going to charge you for this, but we worked through a phrase in therapy.

This was a game changer for me.

When you talk about enough, everybody shout enough enough, put it in the comments, enough enough, sit again, enough enough for now, for now who. That was big to me, babe, because you know how I am. I'm projecting so much into the future, and and I operate sometimes from a fear of running out. But then I remember Jesus taught his disciples to pray this, give us this day our daily bread. Don't you wish he would have said, this day our monthly bread, so you could have the whole

He's going to give you the strength when you.

Need it, one word at a time, one apology at a time, one day of sobriety at a time, one day of coming to church at a time, one day of going to E group at a time. And so I don't want you to think that now that I've written a book, I live in a place of perpetual enoughness. We're in the abundance of God never leaves the forefront of my imagination, causing me to triumph over every doubt an obstacle. I just trust that He's going to give me enough for now and when I need the next step.

No, I'm talking. I do. I have plenty of questions, But you say it comes out.

If we run out of time, we'll put a bonus session. I'm running back, walk it out.

I love it all right. This is.

My top one of my top two quotes in the entire book, and I'm going to just read it for you. You say this, what's been a lot harder for me than accepting Jesus is accepting Even accepting Jesus took a moment. Accepting me is taking a lifetime to accept.

Then you go on to say to accept.

Jesus but not accept Stephen is to miss the gift of salvation where it matters most.

You can't just accept Jesus by faith. You have to accept yourself by faith too. This quote like.

Let off the page for me because I grew up Southern Baptist and Baptists, we love the phrase accept Jesus into your heart. I mean that is like a core belief of mine. Yeah, you have to accept Jesus into your heart.

It's a it's a moment, it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a monumental decision in your life. But when I read this, I was like, oh, I think I missed half of it.

Where did this? How do you do this?

How do you practically grow in accepting Stephen?

Give us some how.

You help you do?

You know, I don't know if you remember saying this, but you've heard me say that. You said it a lot, and so trust me you said this. We're sitting at Firebirds on a date night. This is maybe twelve years ago, maybe even longer than that. But the church was growing. I remember the day that the church got bigger than Monk's corner of the town I grew up in.

That was kind of a scary thought for.

Me, like, wait a minute, talk about I'm not enough the town I grew up in. It was wonderful, but there were less people that lived in that town when I grew up in it than are coming to church now.

So not only have I never seen anything.

This big and let it, but I lived in a town that was smaller than what I'm responsible to lead. And one day I wanted to fire everybody, and most of all, wanted to fire myself, because I'm like, wait a minute, if the whole team is messing up, they fire the coach, right, So you don't just trade players.

If every player is bad, you get a new coach.

So I'm telling her this, I'm like, if the oh, the team is bad, then you thaw the new coach. I just don't feel like I'm the leader that our church needs. Without hesitation, she leans across the bread at Firebirds. You'll know that bread at Firebirds. She leans across the bread. She's got the butter knife in her hand. It's a big old knife. So maybe what she said more powerful she said.

I said, I.

Don't feel like I'm the leader we need. She said, well, you're the one we've got.

With a knife. The firebirds knives are big. That helps.

You tell me.

When I was walking out the door when the kids were little, you've got what it takes, and again, almost hearing that would make me angry, I didn't go but her there buckeroo.

I would be like, hey, yeah, you don't know how heavy it is.

And then you were carrying your own pressures of trying to figure out who am I And I think we've worked through this together, yeah, because we started in ministry as kids together. And the part of the story that I didn't tell earlier is that before we went to college, Holly was traveling with a ministry team through Monk's Corner and I grew up in a Methodist church with a heritage from that church because my grandfather was a Methodist pastor,

Brother in law. So it's a whole story.

Right, like God is always working everything together in.

Our lives for his glory.

But at that revival, I went down to the altar and I was like, yeah, I'm ready.

I'm ready to accept Jesus into my life.

And it was transformative, Like what an amazing deal that is? I give him my sin, I get his grace. I give him my shame, I get his justification. I give him my broken pieces. He begins to build my life into a bigger picture story that he's telling.

For his glory. Who wouldn't want to accept that?

It'd be like giving away the Apple Goggles thing today, the thing that's going to make us all robots and send us all to the mark of the beast, the new thing that just came out, the End Times Goggles.

I get, Apple's going to take this sermon down if I keep going.

But yeah, it'd be like giving something away Like here you go, and and God is a giver and so there's no strings attached. You leave your sin, you leave your shame, but you don't leave yourself.

I need to get this.

I need to get this through because one of the ways that we are taught salvation is actually destructive to our sense of self worth.

And it's this God doesn't like you.

God, in fact, is so angry with you that the only way he could deal with it was sending his son to die for you. Now, did God send Jesus to die for us.

Because we couldn't pay the penalty?

Yes, because sin demands a price, and the price is perfection, and you couldn't pay it. So Jesus did. How many are grateful that he did.

Come on, all of my.

Fellow perfectionists, that you don't have to get it right all the time. That he got it right. He lived as if he had sinned, so I can live as if I never did, so I can hold my head up so I can belong to Jesus.

But here's the part that got me.

I started hearing it described in certain classes that I took for Bible College, and all of that almost like a group insurance policy.

Jesus died for you. God really doesn't like you. He really can't stand you.

Because he knows all about you, and he sees you at three in the morning, and he knows where.

You were last night, and he knows what you did last summer and last fall.

You're so funny, thank you. And because he can't stand you, he sinned his son. And now when he sees you, he doesn't see you. He sees his son. And because he doesn't have to look at your terrible, worthless self, he loves you.

Cool.

It's like I have a pre existing condition called sucking.

But I pray to prayer accepted Jesus.

I got in on the policy and I'm good and God has to forgive me. But he really doesn't want to remember this whenever you are tempted to think that way. Yes, we're all sinners in need of a savior. No, there's nothing in me that can save myself. And yes, I need Jesus in order to be right with God.

Yeah no, but just that.

Yeah?

Now from that? Did the Bible start in Genesis three?

No?

Come on, when we sinned and became separated from God?

No?

Or did the Bible start with let us make man in our image? And when God made snakes, he said it's good. Everything he made he said it's good.

When he made you, he said very good.

So I know you got some very bad things you struggle with and some y ugly parts of you that you're working on, and I know you have some very deep issues that go really deep, but remember that it started out with a God who made you.

Very good, very good.

And God is trying to get me back as Steven Larry Stevens Fredick Jr.

He's trying to get me back to very good.

He's trying to give me a vision of his very good for my life. He's trying to get me back to the seed of Stephen. He's trying to shine light, give water and yes, even fertilizer to your life to bring you back to what you put inside of you.

So holly for me.

The whole way that this message do the New Youth starts and I won't review it long because we've already covered it, but it talks about do you do you as possibly being the worst advice that anyone could ever give you, because.

If I just do me, but I don't develop me, I'm.

Going to be a perpetual, emotional two year old if I just do me, if I.

Don't grow into who God made me.

On the other hand, if you're one of these people who's very driven in you're like, I'm not going to just do me, I'm going to do future me. Future me, Well, that's a treadmill that will leave you exhausted and you'll collapse trying to chase something that you think you're supposed to be.

Usually what we're chasing when we say.

Oh, my future self that's patient and ripped and rich, and patient and ripped and rich but can still enjoy a nice dessert. But I'm ripped and I'm not uptight, but I am driven and focused. Stop that, because you are comparing your behind the scenes to everybody else's highlight reel.

Come on, and what you're chasing is.

A compilation of what other people have shown you of their life that you've cobbled together and think you need to be that for God to bless you.

And you don't wow.

Wow.

So accepting Stephen means that when I show up to preach to you, or when I show up in a tough moment with one of our kids, or when I show up to try to be the husband that she needs, and I know that I'm still under development, that I believe that if God would have needed somebody else to do it, he would choose someone else to do it.

And the fundamental component of my belief.

System about this is that if there are eight billion people in the world, God had options. Yeah, and He put you in that house, He put you in that business, he put you in that ministry, he put you with that woman, he put you with those kids. God chows you say it to your neighbor.

God shows you.

Now look right back at him and ask him a question, Will you come on, come on? Will you choose you, that's the decision you're making every day, yep. Or are you going to feel the need so much to measure up to something called perfection that God knew you were never going to be? Or can you be cool in the process when you say to yourself, well, I did cuss, but I didn't say the real bad words this day, next week, I'm a dial it all the way down

You saw where I came from. It wasn't heck.

And I'm passionate about this because I am a perfectionist. I don't know what version I think God is looking for when I come through the door. But sometimes I just have to sit myself down and be like, dude, you grew up in a small town, you stepped out, you met this woman.

God's me good to you. You're doing all right.

I always wondered, though, Holly, I want to read you think about this. Where's the line between being content and being complacent?

Yeah? It's tough because.

I want to be content, yeah, in every circumstance, but I don't want contentment to turn into an excuse.

Yeah.

Whereby I can just accept immaturity in my life.

Yep.

The first step of growing into who God knows you are is to accept who you are. Accept it, accept it, accept.

It, and step into it.

Yeah, and we'll get you from this bar, and we'll put some plates on it, and some more plates on it, and some more plates on it, and you'll barely recognize yourself. This is the process of transformation.

Yep.

Okay, you open up this section, this mindset crisis in me. I'm enough with this story that you tell about dropping a class in college and the professors say to you it's something they imply that they knew you weren't a serious enough student. And then you say this later in that chapter, you say, I'm constantly fighting a voice that tells me I'm not deep enough as a preacher, or that I'm not serious enough, or I'm not a hard worker. And then all that defensiveness is going to come out

I need to be deep. I can't get on that platform and be shallow.

I've got to prove to the people wrong who said I'm not deep. And then you talk about you go on to talk about performing.

For the wrong voices in our lives.

So how do you catch yourself when you find yourself living for the wrong voice?

Says? And how do you get yourself back?

Can we do it in stages?

The answer to that, yeah, if it's a sermon, I'll put Eric on the front row while I'm studying.

Eric's been my best friends since we were fourteen.

We did Green Day shows together, Pearl Jim shows together, and now we spread the gospel together. And then when I put him on the front row, I realized, wait a minute, ericting thinking about me like a seminary professor judging if I said I'm aphibischev right. And then I say, and nobody's going to know in your church if you mispronounced my aphibichev either, because they can't say.

It right either.

And once I lock in through a lens of love somebody that I love and somebody that loves me, it frees me up.

That's good. Lock into the lens of love.

Yeah, lock into the lens of love. Even in your Bible reading. When you're reading the Bible, start explaining it after you read it to somebody you love.

Wow, Try any group.

It's not too late.

It's not too late.

And I wish it were that easy in our lives, because when you're performing for somebody else's approval. There's one story about Jesus that I want you to go back to. I want you to go down to the Jordan and almost like picture if you can put yourself there. Jesus is being baptized. Why to be cleansed from his sin? No, he had no sin, to be obedient to his father. And as he's coming up from the water, I'm about to blow your mind. If you've never heard this before,

Well, he was proud of his son. Okay, now I haven't blown your mind yet.

I you're like, that's nice, it's nice, and it's cool until you put it in context, and then it becomes a game changer. What if I told you that, at the moment that the voice from heaven said, this is my son whom I love, I am well pleased with him. What if I told you that at that moment Jesus had not yet performed a single public miracle, right wow, And God said, already love him. Had not opened a single blind eye. God said, I'm proud of him. That's

And God said he's enough. Right. So, when Jesus went.

To do all of those things, Lazarus come forth. When he went to do all of those things, Pharisees shut up. He wasn't trying to prove anything to the Pharisees. He wasn't trying to prove anything to Lazarus because his starting place was the.

Love of his father.

Now, every day, I need you to find a way to be baptized in that lovey. I don't mean you have to go get into jacuzzi, get slipped, get over the fence and your neighbor's jacuzi.

I'm not talking about physically.

I'm talking about spiritually, letting God baptize you in the enoughness that is Him incredible, so you can come from abundance. Yeah, I don't mean just material abundance. There will be times where you'll say, Paul, I've learned to be content in every circumstance, whether with plenty or with little, but one thing you will never lack a day in your life is his love and his guidance. How many of you struggle with a scarcity mindset? I tell one little embarrassing

It's probably five, but let's call it twenty.

It makes it a little more justified what I did, because when he grabbed the napkins, I start freaking.

Out, like, you don't need that many napkins.

And I gave him the greatest lesson on napkin conservation in the history of parenting. And I don't think he should have wasted the napkins. And I think it's good. But I remembered, Mom. Do you remember how how Dad when he was growing up, he was very poor, and so when he had his own house and his on napkins and paper towels. Sometimes he'd walk around and he would tear the paper towels in half, and.

He'd go, you don't need a whole paper towel. You think you' some kind of prints.

Coming in here taking a full paper towel.

Now I'm bringing this up.

It sounds so small because when we make it too big, and we think like when.

You stand before the Red Sea, stretch out your staff. You're probably not going.

To lead a nation of millions Monday, but you will walk around your house and ask the question is it enough? And the way you answer that question is not just tied to is God enough? But it's how you answer the question did He make me enough? And here's where I think the gap is. I'm fired off.

Now I'm glad they got a bounc chair. You can swivel while I preached this. Get a little kinetic motion.

As I preached this, because what you're talking about, in the process of those professors telling me we knew you weren't a serious student, That's how I saw myself. What they say about you only has the power you give it by the way you see yourself. I want to break this victim mentality off of Christians, like that if somebody spoke something.

Over you, you just have to believe it like it's your birthright.

No, your father spoke over you, and whoever spoke over you.

What wasn't true. Your father is over them. So watch this. I have a better word over my life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't have a second opinion for God. I have a truth from him. I have a revelation from him. I know the truth of the Gospel. Come on, He's not against me. I am enough.

He is with me. I can't do all things through Christ. High five. Your neighbors say you got what it takes.

What it takes, so.

We gotta listen to that voice.

I know a lot of people speak a lot of things over us.

It happens to all of us. They say stuff about me all the time.

But I got somebody else I can go to and say, Father, is what they said true? And if it's not, and if what they spoke contradicts what he is saying, go with.

What your father spoke.

God.

I love this stuff.

Because I see you breaking free from this idea of what they told you you couldn't be.

They didn't make you.

If they didn't make you, and they don't own you, they don't get to label you.

God is my label maker. I'm mating his image.

I'm redeemed by the blood of his son, and it's precious, and so am I.

Got time for one morning just talking. No, you're not, you're preaching, Okay.

I hope y'all are getting this at Riverwalk.

I hope y'all are getting this at University City. I hope y'all are getting this at Ballad Hide. I hope you're getting this in Greenville. I hope you're getting this in Raleigh. I hope you're getting this Epham.

All over the world. I hope you're receiving this word in.

Your college norm me receiving the calling I've been almighty God.

Yeah, people can't cancel what God calls.

That's right.

Come on, Christ is in me. I am enough. Now, don't leave that first part out. You just run around. I'm enough. I'm enough. It's kind, I'm as smart, I as important.

Like that's great for a movie, but you get into real life on Monday, you're gonna need something hire to point too. And so that's where it comes from from me, babe, because if I did the self acceptance thing without.

Jesus, I'll hit it dead end. I've got to know that he's with me, and I got.

To know that he didn't make mistakes when he made me and I'm gonna tell you one more thing before we get to your final question, and we got to do a part.

Two of this, Yes, two, three, four or five.

I like to tell you the's a little behind the scenes stories.

By the way, I don't holler when we talk about these things when it's just me and her.

Wouldn't that be weird? Holly touch your neighbor.

It's like high five in bo.

But we do this. This is what we do.

Some of the best sermons I ever preached were our three point two mile walk after Sunday when we start talking and then you start sharing, and I think you really need somebody that you love in your life, whether in the E group or whether it's somebody that you love where you can unpack the word of God. Because if God speaks a word over you, but then you don't water it, yep, it'll die and you'll think it didn't work.

But it just needs water.

And I think what we're trying to model today, and I know it's a little different way to do it, but that God is a conversationalist. And when I say do the new you, sometimes the only way for you to do the new you singular is to do the new you plural in the South. We don't say you all, We say yeah yeah. So one day I'm gonna do

Makes me mad.

It's called the one you Love. When we were writing that song, well, why aren't y'all streaming it? There's no streams on Spotify for that song? Y'all clap them and stuff of it. The song was a journey with some other great writers, and I don't say this to insult any of them, but at one point during the writing session there were several writers and we're working on the song and the second verse began to come out in a way where it said, I know you're proud of me, even though I don't deserve it.

Sometimes.

No, I'm not a perfect child, but I still make my father smile. I know you're proud of me. And then the chorus said, you take me just as I am. You would choose me all over again. I am the one you love. You know that's what John called himself in the Bible.

Yeah, he loves the one he loves.

And somebody in the room said, I don't know if theologically I can really vibe with the fact that God is proud of me. And I said, then you don't have to sing it, but I've got to because I deal with so much self critical internal dialogue. And maybe you don't. And if you don't, I'm happy for you, and I hope you never do. But God sent me to reach a few people that you don't know how

I saw that.

I see you giving what you have even though you feel like you blew it. And you yelled at the kids six times today. The reason you're yelling with them is because you're with them.

To say that again.

Yeah, Sometimes the Lord will say I'm proud of you that you were so caring to your kids today.

And sometimes it'll say I'm so proud of you that you didn't kill your kids today.

Now I realize that people will take this to the extremes sometimes and just justify behavior that frankly, God wants to rescue you from. But even if you're going to grow out of that, you're going to do it by accepting that you make your father smile even though you're not a perfect child, and you've accepted Jesus.

If you haven't, you ought to do it today. But you also ought to accept you. Yeah, because he did.

Wait a minute, Wait a minute, he accepted you, and you don't you have a higher standard than God.

Well, WHOA.

So I just want you breathing in this thought. Christ is in me. I am enough. Say it again, Christ is in me. Christ in me, I am enough.

I am enough.

That's the most powerful revelation I think in the whole book.

Yep, not, I'm going to be enough?

Ye boy, God's really going to want to hang out with me when I'm no longer dealing with this man. He's really gonna use me when I get smart. No, no, no, he's going to use you, stupid.

Ask Peter all these Bible characters we read about.

I don't know how you wanted to close, Holly, but I have one more thing I wanted to share in order to solidify this. Is there any question that if you didn't get to ask it, you're gonna fuss at me, like because I didn't let you ask the question? Okay, Okay, I'll talk about one more song line and we're going to sing and worship and just close this time by reflecting and responding on what God has spoken.

How many feel that God has spoken something to you today?

No?

I think yeah, I think this is one of those messages that you do need to get in with your E group or sit down with your notebook and your coffee.

And watch it back and listen to it again.

Yeah, because we talked about so many things, but there was something specific that God wanted to speak to you. So let me just bring it back to the entire revelation that Christ is in me. I am enough in a way that you can hold it in your heart because I don't want you going well, there was a lot of good stuff. Now I want you to remember one thing today. The song Gyra, which literally Jira means will see see.

It means that God will see to it.

So when he called the place Jehovah Jira, he was calling the place Jehovah Jirah where God provided. This is from the Abraham and Isaac story. Anyway, that's not important. I don't even know why I said that, probably just to show that seminary professor, I know what I'm talking about. Here's the point again, in a songwriting room, is that song began to take shape. It was very beautiful song with our friends Chandler and Naomi and Chris and we

Again, that is enough, that is enough.

But as we sat in that writing room that day, it went to a different place. We begin to say, you are enough, You are enough, because my sufficiency is in Him.

Not in myself. You are enough, You are enough.

But what happened next is a life message that I want to give to you, because immediately after we sang that is enough, the truth and you are enough, the God that speaks truth and is truth, we begin to sang, you are enough, So I am enough.

Come on, so good.

When we recorded the song, it was eighteen minutes long right in this empty room, back when we couldn't have everybody together for church.

And in that collaboration, some of the songs.

Had to be edited way down because the Holy Spirit bro out in such a powerful way. We had to get Gyra to under ten minutes because we couldn't put it out on the digital streaming platforms if it was one second more than nine point fifty nine. They sent me back several options. We could edit this, we could edit that. But one option they sent was unacceptable because it said that is enough, the truth, and it said you are enough to God. But in order to save time, they had cut out so I am enough.

I said, whatever we have to cut out to put that back in. I need that back.

In because if you just say that is enough, the truth is enough, you are enough. God is enough, it hasn't become personal to you yet.

I want it to be personal for you that He is enough.

So I am enough, and you'll never be more loved than you are right now, right now, clap your hands about.

We'll do that just right here where you are.

So beatison, i can't hear what key we're in. I'm waiting to hear a piano so we can sing together.

Thank you God that you are enough. So I am enough.

Thank you, Lord, you are enough. Thank you Si.

You are.

Shy, thank you you are.

S.

You know so he.

Now sing Gira, think about how He's provided for you.

You Yes, Lord h.

C S will be consent, Sun said.

Jia.

Cure, No, clap those hands like you love it. Let you know he loves you.

Well, Jo.

You singing out church.

So.

Every son said, shop you right choice, say.

I love that.

I'm don't want you to say thank you. I'm lay.

Hold if that.

Jo said, I.

I know you walk.

You a you know, take you that you.

It's you.

Quee yan. Now we're singing that to the father. You are enough.

What if he's singing it right back over us? Thank you Jesus, who you are, how you were made.

Father.

I pray for each person who will hear this message. May they receive it in the place where they doubt the most deeply, where they need it the most. May every insecurity meet the presence of Jehovah Jirah. Every past trauma, every failure, every mistake be overwhelmed.

Yes, by the presence of El Shadai.

I thank you for your presence with us today, Lord, and thank you for how this ministry will go forth and touch those all over the world who need.

To hear it at just the right time.

Yes, in Jesus' name, would you hug eight people and tell them you've got what it takes.

Got what it takes, and men, 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 Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.

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Thanks again for listening. God bless you.