Come Through Drippin

permeating that atmosphere like it's permeating this one. There is a sense of hope, eagerness, and really a purity of faith that is in this room tonight. It's the kind of atmosphere that makes it easy for God to move because He doesn't have to try to get our attention. He already has it. And so now that we're here and we made it, let's really seize this opportunity to go into the Word of God and to see what

He would speak to us on this occasion. I might as well let you know upfront, because I believe in being honest and direct that I am absolutely ready and prepared for you tonight. I heard that you were coming, and I cooked something. I feel like that I know exactly what God wants me to say, what he wants us to do, and what he has said that he will do for us if we will do what He's going to tell us to do. That he already told me that I'm going to tell you over the next

few moments. To me, this is a very precious night. I started having the praise party in twenty thirteen, right around the time that Holly and I got so old that we were having trouble staying up and in the ball drop, I said, this is pitiful. What we need to do is start our year with some other people that are having trouble, stay in a wake, and maybe if we all caffeate together and come together and seek God together, we can start the year with a disposition,

a belief, and an expectation of greater things. I want to say thank you to the church family that I pastor. I know there are many guests here and our evam around the world, but I wanted everybody to hear this what I'm about to say. I am really really becoming more and more aware of what a privilege it is

and a sacred trust. It is that you would allow me, as a leader in Holly, as a leader in our family, to have this part in your life, to be able to minister to you in those moments of your life where you don't know if you can go on, or where you're seeking direction from above, to be able to stand in this spot week in and week out for another year and declare the word of the Lord has nothing to take for granted. And I want to thank you for allowing me to be on the journey with you.

That's a real privilege wherever you are in the world. Just I know our church feels this way. It is an honor to minister God's word to you. It's really a great privilege and a joy. And so stand up, just in case, love you to just in case you're starting to nod off. Stand up, and I want to read you the scripture. And it is a familiar scripture and it is an epic scenario. It's found in Exodus chapter fourteen. You like that one. I feel so good

up here right now. Anything could happen tonight. I mean, I don't know if it was the thirteen cups of coffee or the Holy Ghost work in tandem. But I just feel good because normally on a weekend, I have to behave and there's a lot of constraints, and I just feel like tonight should be our night, you know what I mean. Like usually we have to kind of just tone it down in case there's guests and visitors and all that. But I don't want to do that tonight.

I don't want to do that night. No, no, no, I didn't put on my best jean jacket just to come in here. But this scripture in Exodus fourteen is of course all about transition and victory, so it's appropriate for tonight. But let me read it to you. Verse twenty six Exodus fourteen. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their cherry

and horsemen. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water. On their right looked to your right, and on their left looked to

your left. Okay, while you'll turn in two different directions, it's a universal kind of thing. But the Israelites went through the sea on try ground. But the Israelites. This is how you can tell I belong to God because I went through the sea on try ground. Do me a favor. Since this is a party, everybody participate and look at your neighbor on your right or your left. You choose. I'm gonna leave that much up to you. But now let me tell you what to tell them.

You're gonna give them my title. Tell them this, say I don't know what you went through in twenty eighteen, but you made it. And tell them hold on, no, that's not it. That's not it. We're not done. Tell them, since you came through, you might as well come through trip it. Please be seated. How many of you twenty eighteen didn't go like you planned for it to go.

Messed up your workout plan when your knees started hurting, you were paying off some stuff, and then you're transmission and plan for that, which is why, of course I don't come up here and do the predictable preaching maneuver where I challenge you to make New Year's resolutions, because resolutions are cheap, resilience is priceless. I want to lay a foundation for what I want to say from the

text from a study that was done. The article was printed in The New Yorker several years ago, and I saved it because I thought it would be helpful for us to look at it at some point in the future, and that point is now. And the writer of the article, George Banano Banano, if you're watching, George I tried, was talking about how the central element of resilience is perception and that there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as

a traumatic event. The reason he came to this conclusion was because he interviewed children, over six hundred of them, who had gone through the worst possible situations imaginable, and found out that many of the children who went through the worst situations came out with the greatest emotional stability and sense of connectivity. And so from that he concluded, listen, that events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic.

And he wasn't necessarily negating the post traumatic stress of growing up in a broken home or going to war and then coming back to a situation that is so foreign to the experience of the battle that you thought that you cannot find your own equilibrium. But what he

was saying is much deeper than that. He said that to call something a traumatic event belies the fact, and so he coined a term PTE, not PTSD, which is a very real thing, no doubt, But his term was potentially traumatic event, which he argues is a more accurate way to look at the things that we go through in our lives. The theory is straightforward, every frightening event, or you might insert painful event, no matter how negative it might seem from the sideline, has the potential to

be traumatic or not to the person experiencing it. I don't know if you agree with that, or if it was a little bit boring and you didn't pay much attention, but wake up now. He's making a distinction between what we went through and what we do with what we

went through. I couldn't think of a more appropriate group of people to come and share this evening with us than the Israelites in this the birth of their nation as such, and their escape from Egypt, where they had been slaves for over four hundred years, as God told Abram that his people would be in Genesis chapter fifteen,

many years earlier. But now as they are coming out of that season of their life, they are carrying with them much of the trauma from what they experienced in Egypt, and they're escaping this place that had become so painful for them because of the unrealistic and inhumane pressure that they were under as slaves or servants in Egypt under a taskmaster who did not know Joseph and did not

remember or regard the people of God as special. The trauma of what they had been through in that four hundred years would be impossible to cover in forty minutes tonight. And I hope you'll give me a little grace as I kind of brush past some things that probably for them would be much more, much more traumatic than my summary would lead you to believe. But you understand that they were so oppressed in this period of being in Egypt.

Not only were they forced to do a job that they weren't paid for, but they were forced to do it with not enough materials. By the way, have you ever felt that way like trying to raise kids and get through life and do what you need to do in the world. And I'm not comparing us to them, but many of the things that they went through, while not similar situationally, might have a similar psychological effect in that what they went through had left them traumatized in

a sense. And tonight I have to believe that the reason you came here, whether you thought you came here for this reason or not, is that there are some traumas, even if they're micro traumas, that God wanted to deal with, some tears in the tissue of the muscle fiber that God wanted to deal with specifically and surgically in the

way that only his spirit can. And he brought you here tonight, maybe under the pretense of just having nothing else to do, or maybe there was a girl who asked you to come, And maybe you're more excited about after church than during church. You're stuck with me for a few minutes. I'm gonna talk to you for a few minutes while I can with this microphone and talk to you about some of the things that you went through. And also I would add to that that you probably

came to celebrate a little bit. I mean, it's not like everybody here tonight had the worst year of their life. I can never understand that why we're so why we're so hasty to want to leave this year. One of the ways I can tell when my life is out of alignment is when I'm in a hurry for no good reason. Like it's one thing to be in a hurry, and there's a reason that I'm in a hurry, and I can point to the next thing on my schedule

that I'm trying to get to. But when I'm in too much of a hurry and there's nowhere that I'm going, it's a sign that something is wrong in my life.

It's a sign that something is not working right. And so now we find the Israelites not serving Pharaoh in building the different construction projects that he has ordered to be built, but they are escaping Egypt, which is interesting in itself because originally they escaped to Egypt because there was a famine at home, But over a period of many years and a transition of leadership, what they escaped to they became enslaved by Sometimes this happens in all

of our lives, is that we're so tired of being alone that we escape to a relationship that in the end produces a worse loneliness than being alone ever could. Sometimes we cry tears because we escape to something that we ultimately become enslaved by. Sometimes the thing that we run too is more dangerous than the thing that we're running from, and it wasn't their fault. Sometimes we make

decisions to run to certain things. But really they had to go to Egypt, not only to fulfill the prophecy which extended into the New Testament, which we know at Christmas time that out of Egypt I've called my Son, which ultimately projects into the very life of Jesus Christ himself. It's an arc of a narrative that God was creating for deliverance for his people before they were ever born. But now they're in transition, and transition is dramatic, even

the good kind. Even when God blesses you in the way that you asked him to, a lot of times you find out that what you ask God for way more than you were prepared to carry. Ever had your prayer request turn into your praise report and then turned back into your prayer request. And so transition is traumatic, whether I'm devolving into a dire circumstance or whether God is elevating me and developing me into something greater. Transition

is always traumatic. And so perhaps tonight you're not bringing your traumas to church. Maybe you're bringing some trophies to church. Hey, I had a pretty good year. You know. Some things happened for me this year that I never thought could happen. And some things happened for me this year that I really had looked forward to for a long time. But I had some things happened for me this year, Like I had a breakthrough in an area that I'd been running up against the same thing over and over again.

I had a breakthrough somebody that I was praying for. They got better this year. Something that I've been struggling with for a long time. I don't struggle with it as much anymore. I mean, still there, but it's not overwhelming me. It's not overcoming me. It hadn't been as dark this year. I've experienced some of the goodness of the Lord that at once I only forecasted this year came into my life, and it reigned over my life.

And I'm here tonight not only to bring before the Lord my traumas, but my trophies, because I want to acknowledge, before my blessings turn into pride, that I want to turn back to praise God for every victory that he gave me this year. And make no mistake about it, every mountain that I stood on this year, I did not get there alone, not at all. I'm not smart enough, I'm not sharp enough, I'm not connected enough. And so whatever state of transition we find ourselves in any given

moment of our life, it can be traumatic. Yet the men said that the experience is not inherent in the event. Rather, it is your perception of the event and how much resilience you have. The children of Israel were nothing if not resilient. They were resilient even when they didn't have a lot of resources. They were resilient, even when they were complaining. They were resilient, even when they had a

bad attitude. They were resilient. In fact, the Bible says something kind of weird, says that the more that Pharaoh oppressed them, the more they multiplied. And I don't know if I'm looking at anybody tonight that just turned stuff into this year, that transformed and converted stuff this year that happened in your life that might have caused other people to quit. But look at you in church after

all that. Come on, nudge somebody next year say after all that, look at me, after all that, I'm still cute, after all that, I'm not petty or bitter after all that. Don't get me wrong, I have a reason to be and I could be in a in a sour state of mind tonight, but I decided to do it differently. This year. I decided to bring all my trauma and all my trophies into the presence of God. Come on,

here's somebody say, I came through Now. One difference between us and the Israelites is that they came through something physical that you could see. Did you see it in the text? It's really beautiful how the text paints the picture. And it's not only the event that it describes, but it's the entire trajectory of deliverance that is depicted in the whole Book of Exodus, which is one of the major themes of the Bible from beginning to end. For many years, I thought salvation was just what we were

saved from. But the big picture of God's purpose for your life and my life is what we're saved too. And so on this journey to freedom, not just from sin, but freedom too, they're going, this is the crazy thing about God. When he brings you out of something, he does not let you choose your escape route. Because I should probably talk about this, because there is a Bible verse that says God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. That with the temptation,

he will provide the way of a us escape. But it promises he will provide the way of escape. It does not promise that he will let you pick the way of escape. It is not a multiple choice. It is not a choose your own adventure escape route. So God's way of escape is not up for debate. When God calls you out, he leads you sometimes strange ways, Which is why they must have been so disappointed when Moses took them on those backcountry roads to camp out right in front of the Red Sea, because it would

have been shorter. Even the Bible says it would have been shorter. It wasn't just their opinion. The Bible says It would have been shorter if they would have gone through Philistine country, but they weren't ready for war yet. A lot of times, when God brings you from point A to point B, he takes you on a zigzag because he knows, and I don't mean to hurt your feelings how fragile your faith is, even if you don't, so he brings them out on a way of escape.

That to them must have seemed long, but they could deal with it. They didn't complain about that. What must have seemed really weird to them was when they heard the wheels of the chariots, the horsepower of the engines of Pharaoh's six hundred chosen chariots, coming up behind them, when they thought they had left Egypt and they were done with that. Now we're at the text in verse twenty six where the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand. I'm so excited to share this with you.

God showed me something this week that was so cool, because the first time Moses stretched out his hand, which had a staff in it, the sea parted so that the Israelites could go through, so that they could walk through what they shouldn't have been able to walk through. Now, there are some things that God did in your life this year with a strong east wind that if He didn't do those things, you wouldn't have been able to

go through. Within yourself, come on a minute, within your own strength, with your DNA and with your dad and your mom and their genes still kicking around in a cage fight inside of you, you would not have gone through it. You would have stopped in the middle of it, and you would have drowned. But one thing about God is he is only known by the evidence of what

he does. He has not experienced directly. The Bible says that the reason they went through is because a wind blew from the east and made the waters stand at a so that the people could go through. Now, you can't see wind, You can only see the effects of the wind. You ask me how I know God is real. I can't point to his nose or his ears. I've never heard his audible voice. But there are just some things in my life that don't make sense unless there

was a wind blowing. There are just some things, how about you. There are just some things that I went through that I know me and I would not have had the grace to go through it if there hadn't been something working with me. Now let's get into the text. There's a good part. Does somebody say, come through? So Moses is stretching out his staff so the people can trying to get you tonight. I'm trying to get you

tonight to come through. I think it would be a shame for you to be stuck in an inferior version of yourself, clutching onto a beta blessing when there is an update available in this house tonight by the spirit of God. So I'm trying to get you to come through. But by the time verse twenty six hits, they've already done that. They're already on the other side. I mean you already, you already made it through twenty eighteen. You don't have to come to church for that. The odds

are good. You wouldn't have died over these three hours that you're going to be in church. You were good. That's not why you came. That is not why you came. And sometimes we get so focused on whatever we went through, and it makes sense because it's traumatic. I get it, well, I really don't. I shouldn't say that. That's not fair for me to say because I don't know what you went through, So how dare me stand up here and

say I know what I don't know? I know what I went through this year, and it wasn't all stuff that you could see, like this water that was on either side of the Israelites. To me, it'd be easier if everybody could watch you go through what you went through, so they could have some pity on you and be extra nice to you, give you extra sprinkles on your cupcakes, because after all, if I went through what you went through,

I'd be in a bad mood too. Wouldn't be cool if everybody could see what you went through and they could experience, you know, be nice. But every storm that we survived this year wasn't something that other people could see. It's one thing when you walk through something physical, like certain things you go through, people see you going through it. It's like, man, I heard your husband has cancer. We got you and pray for you. We're gonna get through

this together. You're gonna come through this. We're gonna do it. When when you lose your job, you know, people hear about that. Maybe you don't even want them to, but they hear about it. And then it's kind of embarrassing on one hand, because everybody's coming up to you and we're praying for you. If you need anything, let us know. I know you're going through right now. And although that's a little humiliating on one hand, is helpful on the other because then you get to be the beneficiary of

other people's empathy and maybe even their materials support. What's a little different is when the thing that you went through isn't something that you can point to and directly name. Times I find myself going through things that that aren't like the Red Sea. It's not something I can exactly describe to you. Did you ever go through something and while you were going through it, you didn't even know what it was? Just a phone, just a thing, just

some stuff I'm going through. I even tell some people that from time to time that pray for me. I'm like, I'm just going through I can't say what. I don't even know. It's like it's like a It's like the Bible describes the arrow by day or the terror at night, And sometimes the thing about what you go through in the night is you can't exactly see it, to name it or to know what it is. And in the passage that I'm preaching from tonight. They were going through.

What they went through was able to be seen visibly. But maybe what you through this year wasn't. Maybe it was a divorce, maybe it was just a loveless home. But you're so good at faking other people out that they're all praying they could have a marriage like yours. Meanwhile, yours is falling apart. Some of the things that you go through. What happened to the praise party. Some of the things you go through aren't so simple now, although this is dramatic, one advantage that they had is they

went through it together. By this time, the Israelites are millions strong, and to go through something with others who were going through the same thing that you're going through is one thing. When the stock market sucks, it sucks for all of us. We get to go through that together. When the government is out of control, we all go through that together. But there's something about the things that you go through that nobody is going through with you

that makes it difficult for you to know. Is there something wrong with me? Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the only one who wants to quit? Am I the only one who wonders God, or are you really even there? Or is this thing I've been believing my whole life just a fairy tale that my parents told me. Like Santa Claus, some of the things that we went through this year were invisible.

Some of the things we went through this year were emotional states, and there wasn't even always something to cause it. It would be nice if there was. It would be better if I did lose my job, I'd have a reason to be pissed off. Come back next week, and I won't say pissed off. It's just late and I'm unfiltered and unhinged and unplugged. But watch me. The miracle is in what they went through. The proof that you belonged to God is not that you did go through,

but that what you went through didn't kill you. I'm gonna need you to shout right here on this point, whether you feel it or not, on every location, come on, tell somebody I went through. I went through. I figured, if I stand here in front of this red sea, I'm gonna die at the hands of the same Egyptians that have been terrorizing me. But I'm not gonna stand here and die if I'm gonna die, I want to drown. I'm going through. I'm going through. If I'm gonna die,

I'm gonna die on my feet. I'm going through now Now Now, I love the word of God. I love the fact that they went through. But the point of tonight, right is not what you went through. It's not what you went through as much as what you went through as important and as much as what you went through as is indicative of some of the things that you might need to deal with. I'm not saying that it's

not important what you went through. I'm saying that that's not what God told me to talk to you about tonight. On this auspicious occasion at Elevation Church Praise Party twenty eighteen slash twenty nineteen, as we are thirty one minutes away from a New Year Eastern Center Time, United States of America, God said, don't you spend this whole sermon

talking about what they went through. He said, right in the middle of the sermon, I want you to shift it from what they went through to why they went through. And now we need to go back to the text because remember, there's water on their right side, water on their left side. For their enemies, it was a trap, but for them it was a path. And now they're on the other side. And so it seems strange that God would tell them to do anything other than run.

But he tells Moses to do something that God wants you to do tonight, and he says, I want you to take the instrument in your hand that is a symbol of your past, that is a symbol of the mistakes that you made when you killed the Egyptian Moses and ran and hid him in the sand and then hid yourself. The staff that is the symbol of your potential, the same one that you used to turn the Nile

River to blood in those ten plagues of Egypt. I want you to take the that same instrument, and before you leave Egypt, stretch it back over what you just went through. And when you do, you will understand the purpose of what you went through. God brought you here tonight. If I can be so bold as to say that, I believe this applies to everyone in the room who will have the faith to receive it, because He wants to use what you went through. That's the good news,

God tell you. The whole thing. God wants to use what you went through, and so does the devil. And the question in this moment is will you allow God to use what you went through? This? And when he had finished leading an entire nation all night long in the dark with water that could collapse on them at any moment, don't you think they moved fast through this tunnel of supernatural, miraculous potential death that at any moment

could sweep them away. And they make it to the other side, and God says, stop, before you take another step, I need you to stretch your hand back over what you just went through. The water that you just went through was not sent to destroy you. Can I tell you something. Everything that made you afraid this year was not the devil. Everything that made you cry this year was not the devil. Everything that broke your heart this year was not the devil. Everything that you lost this

year was not the devil. Everything that didn't go according to plan this year was not the devil. Some of the stuff that was sent against you was not sent to destroy you. At the time it felt like it would. At the time you felt like you would never be happy again. At the time you felt like you would just drive away and never come back. At the time, you felt like you would never find that love, that passion, that feeling again. At the time it felt like it

would kill you. But the thing that you went through was not meant to destroy you. And when you stretch your hand over what you went through, what you went through is going to deliver you from what you just came out of. Let me see if I got this right, what I went through could have killed me, but it didn't hit Somebody say, but it didn't. It didn't. I could have laid down and died in what I went through. Doesn't them say, but I didn't tell him. I could have lost my mind, but I I don't know. Maybe

you did. But here's the point of the message. Here's the point of the message. Whatever you went through that did not destroy you, God is now going to use to deliver you from the decide to see. If you believe the word of God, it's in the bi bl e. He said, what you just went through. If you will stop at this moment, at this juncture, in this time, in this season and stretch your hand over what you went through, it's not meant to kill you. It's meant

to kill your enemies. It was never gonna kill you. The weapon thought against you South. Now I know why I went through. There were some things that God had to kill so they would kill me. That's why I went through. That's why God had to deal with some things in me, in me, inemy. God had to drown some of my enemy. That's why I went through. So when I look back over at what I thought I wouldn't get through, and I see, look at verse thirty, I didn't give you that, dude, I forgot to give

you Verse thirty. I'm so sorry. And so when they look back that the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. Now, what do you want to look at this year? What you went through or what God did in you through what you went through. God deliver me. You know He's not going to do that in acute, comfortable,

convenient place. Some stuff that you went through this year. Now, if you don't process it correctly, if you just am in a hurry to get out of twenty eighteen, don't be surprised when you hear the chariot wheels in twenty nineteen. We'll be right back here in three hundred and sixty five days shouting over nothing all over again. And the Lord gave me this word. It's more like an image

from the text. It said that Moses. The way I saw it in my mind was that the water had done something supernatural all night long so the Israelites could get through. God kept stuff away from you this year so you could get through. But when the time came for them to leave, God said, stop, you got twenty two minutes. Let the knee year. And before you're in such a hurry to get out, turn around and stretch what's the verse verse twenty eight. Stretch your staff, and

the water flowed back and covered the cherries. Water flowed back. So it had been like this, and then it went like that, and then the enemies went like that, and the people of God went like that. So God said to tell you, it's time for you to flip the flow. Touch the person on either side of you and see if they can get us. Say, flip the flow. It's been going this way. It's been going this way all year long. It's been going this way. But tonight we

came to flip the flow. And everything that was against me this year now Romans eight twenty eight says, oh I got a new Testament Verse two. Then all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord is that you. Do you still love him? If he's still your friend? Do you still trust him after what you went through? If that's you, then all thing work together High five eighteen. People say, flip the flow.

Flip the flow. Flip the flow, instead of concentrating on all the moments that it didn't go your way this year, Flip the flow. What way right? What did work out? Who did stay? Who did give you a hug? How did he meets your knees? How did he come through? Did he come through for you? Flip the flow. Stop focusing so much on what your dinner didn't get. Maybe it isn't about what God wanted to do for you this year as much as it is about what He

wants to do through you in the future. Because I sense a little bit of confusion, I'm gonna be honest with you. It's like, all right, all right, all right, pastor, Pastor Steve, this is inspirational. Don't get me wrong. My your enthusiasm, But you said come through dripping and the text said verse twenty nine and the text said, I'm saying his voice. The text said, they came through on dry ground, seeing it's right there in the And that's all the people who don't know the definition of drip.

It's something in the technical sense. And I didn't either. I didn't either. No, I was clueless that I didn't know either until Graham came in my closet one day this summer. He was going through my drawers where I keep my watches, got a couple of watches in there, got a few chains in there, and that boy had gone in my drawer, my jewelry drawers, and put every chain in my jewelry drawer, eleven years old, every chain

around his neck, all at the same time. And when I said, you know, what are you doing my drawers? He said, Dad, what if I what if I went to school the first day of school this year dripping? And I'm so coolless. Now I'm really not as cool as some of y'all want to give me credit for. You just project your own coolness under me. I am not cool. I'm a little Bible preacher from Monks Corner, South Carolina, to which I said, is it going to be raining? Probably better dry off you probably not better

go to school. Dripping, he said, no, Dad, dripping like drip, drip, like CARDI b like offset, like flexing, like dripping. I said, oh, you mean dripping drip drip? He played me in the song ice real quick. That's nice. Can I have it? Can I have it? Yeah? Thank you? Appreciate it? Thank you? That's nice. Can I have it? Appreciate it? That's nice? Can I have it? Appreciate it, appreciate it. I'll buy you another one, and God's going onto your faith. Can I have it? Everything you got? Can I have it?

Can I have it? Not the wedding one that sketchy on every level? Can you have it? Because I still didn't tell you what dripping has to do with the

children of Israel. And I understand that it's a little confusing because typically when this passages preached, all that we ever really talk about is what they went through for hundred and thirty years of oppression and after that, the plagues that they endured, and the time at midnight when the Angel came through and struck down the firstborn of Egypt.

But if they had the blood on the door post at midnight when the angel came by if they had the blood on the door posts when the angel came by at midnight, if they distinguished themselves at midnight the angel passed by them, and when Pharaoh finally let the

people go. There is one thing that I've seldom heard mentioned in messages that I always found I and to really understand how the people of God not only went through the Red Sea, but how they came out of Egypt, you need to see something in Exodus chapter three, when God first spoke to Moses that I think is so important for us to understand tonight before we leave twenty eighteen, before we leave the pain of it, the trauma of it,

the successes of it, the victories of it. There's one thing that I think we need to do tonight before we leave. Whatever Egypt, whatever suffering, psychological or physical, whatever bondage, whatever has forced itself on us in this year, in whatever way, before we leave it, Let's not be too quick to leave and just expect that because the calendar changes, our lives will. And it's really interesting what God said

to Moses. He said, go to Pharaoh and tell him let my people go, And tell him that you're taking all the livestock to sacrifice to me in the wilderness and tell him, tell him that you're going for a three day journey to sacrifice to the Lord, your God, and he's not going to let you do it. But you've got to be resilient. He's not going to let you go easily because you're valuable. Freedom isn't going to

come with a good feeling. Freedom is going to come by force and focus and frequency, by force and focus and frequency. By force and focus and frequency, deliverance isn't going to be a magic trick in your life or my life, no more than it was for the nation of Israel. There will be a discipline of sustainable deliverance in each of our lives, because God will give us the way of escape, but he will not let us choose the way of escape down the road of ease

that we might select in our most comfortable moments. And yet God said, I want to show you the reason for what you went through. Not only did the water come to cover the enemies of the Israelites, not only I love God for what he does. He uses what I went through to set me free from where I came from. He knows if he doesn't kill certain things in my life, I will operate by the same template

from my childhood. I'll operate in the same patterns. I'll stay locked in the same prisons if he doesn't kill it. So he brings me through deep waters to drown my enemies. But watch this, he said, before you go, I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed towards this people, so that

when you leave. I wonder, is this true in twenty eighteen, So that when you leave, so that before we count down to midnight all over the world, so that when you leave, and you put this one in the books, so that when you leave, I prophesied this over you, you will not leave empty hand. So watch what I

want you to do, every woman, God told Moses. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold, and for clothing which you will put on your sons and daughters, so that when you cross out of Egypt on dry ground, you come through dripping. I feel God on this sermon, I said, I feel God on this sermon. I don't just want you to come out, I want you to come through driven, And so you will plunder the Egyptians

by the way, y'all. We call this a praise party, but it's not. It's a praise plunder. We got to make sure before we leave twenty eighteen we did everything that God has for us in the form of a blessing, in the form of a lesson, and so you will plunder the Egyptians. So when you come through, you make sure you don't come through like you went in. God. That's why I wanted us here tonight, because why would we want to come through all of this and come

out empty hand. I didn't go through twenty eighteen just to wave goodbye to it. I didn't work this hard in Egypt and suffer this much in Egypt and push through the things I pushed through, not to receive the benefit of it. No. I came here on this night, on midnight of the last night, on the last stop, because I want to come through saturated the presence of God, saturated with the glory of God, overflowing with the glory of God. Come on, I don't want to leave this

year empty. I don't want to come into this priest party. Yeah. I've been through some things. Yeah, there were some things that tried to take me out, and there are some things that I still got to deal with. But I didn't come to church to come through dragon. I come it through dripping. And watch this, It doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed. It doesn't mean I wasn't disappointed. You can

be disappointed and still come through dripping. You can be like Samuel, the prophet who prayed for Saul and coached Sau and mentords Saul. And there came a time where God rejected Saul, which the people had chosen, and Samuel was so hurt about it that he wasn't even sure if he wanted to go on when he saw how little his investment had yielded. But God told Samuel something that it was in my heart to say to you before we had midnight. He said, I need you to

stop mourning over what I have rejected. That I have already made a plan to replace in your life. And so here's your instruction. Here's your instruction. Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. And when you get to Jesse's house, he's gonna line up all of his sons that he thinks should be the next in line to be a possible king. But don't look at it like people look at it. Don't look to see

who's the tallest or who's the strongest. I need you to stop judging your life by what you can see, and take that oil, and take that joy, and take that strength that you've got left, and take those lessons that you learned this year. And when I tell you it's the one, I want you to empty that crew of oil on his head. Now, David wasn't even in the room when they started lining up suns. He was overlooked. But by the time God spoke, he went back to

the sheep field dripping. Why it's not what people do to you, it's not what people see in you, it's not what people have said about you. If the oil of God is on your life, I'm dripping. I'm dripping. I'm dripping. My feet are dry, but I'm dripping on the inside. God brought me through. But I've got a power that is not of this world. So tonight we flip the flow. We flip the floe. Stand up to your feet. We're gonna flip this. We're gonna flip this.

We're not going into twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen or whatever comes next. It all runs together. We're not going in dry. We could have done that at home. We didn't need a praise party for that, a praise plunder for that. We came to get everything that God wanted us to have and leave everything that he did, so we do not go away empty handle. This is not a gimmick. I don't preach for gimmicks. The Lord showed me that Moses was not the only one who stretched

over something that had threatened to kill the people. And he took me to John chapter nineteen, where the Bible records that when Jesus stretched his arms and they drove nails into his wrists and into his feet, and the soldier took a six foot spear with an iron tip and plunged it into his side as he hung on the cross. The Bible says that from his side began to flow the blood and the water. When blood flows from someone, usually it is a sign of the loss

of life. But Jesus flipped the flow and win his blood. I feel the spirit of God so strong on me right now. Please receive this wherever you are, whatever you've been through, God said, I'm about to flip everything that you have been through, and it is going to now be to your advantage. Come on, every rejection was setting you free from the need for people. I wanted you to depend on me. Every failure was setting you free from the need to keep up an image. I want

you to depend on me. Come on, let's slip it. Let's slip it. Let's slip it from what we went through to why we went through. I need a new definition of drip. For too long I thought that it was what I wore, or it was what I earned, or it was what I had. But I found out that's not what it means. I'm talking about a different kind of drip. I'm talking about when the spirit of God is an abundant supply in your life to anoint you for every assignment that God has prepared for you

to do in advance this year. You're not coming in dry, You're coming in driven. God what it takes. I am exactly who I need to be. High five. Somebody say I'm dripping. I'm dripping. The press of God is so strong on me. The purpose of God has prevailed for me. God has anointed me for this season, for this city, for these children, for this time, for this moment, for my generation, for my battles, for my challenges. I'm not just coming out. I'm coming through with the South on

my lens, the mountains. I believe I'll see you do aka. This is how we come into twenty nineteen. This is how we plunder the enemy. This is how we plunder the enemy. He thought he drained you. He didn't drain you. No, he didn't drain you. I see you. All he did was put you in a position where he could drown behind you. I'm telling you you're not going in dry. I see it too. Come on, let's declare the faithful

less of God over a new year. Just moved the mountains and I I see it too, and I've seen him John moved the mountains and toppingly come on through. I see it too, and made it a lie, made you made it alive with the corse still intact and I and nothing is missing. I see it too. And his shock up the plant and you well see it. To move to mountain and you will anxiety and you will serious. He is sounding night you went there. It

was Stoway. Come on, let's run this house. See I see Sue can see it your most mountains, and I believe I'll see it. Took oh we got one man. We got one man down. Les go come onna snatch yourself and snatch the ball. Snatch the wisdom, Snatch the heiling, snash the wistom, stash it. You love the mountains through Green I your man has me to you f with Hanstollway and I get those handsome let's getting We're going, We're going in let's go again scene, Let's go together.

I see, I'll see you, No, Jill, save until it's fine. Jo see what way I see it? I see well. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. If you did, there are just a couple of things I'd love for you to do. Number one, subscribe to our show. That way, the most recent episode will always be in your feed,

waiting for you ready when you are. And Secondly, if the this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to help us continue to reach others, you can click the link in the description and you can give now and I'll see you next time on the Elevation Podcast