Concealed But Not Canceled

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. Come on, praise Him for every valley and every mountain and stepfast. Love is better than life. Wow. What an awesome God you are no doubt about that.

Everything in our life points to the fact that there was a steady hand guiding us.

And now Lord, we clap our hands.

To celebrate your hand that never left our lives in Jesus' name.

Amen, you know what you got to do?

High five to eighteen people and tell them it was the hand of God.

Raise the Lord.

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Did you do eighteen or did you round up lazy bones everybody online as well? Give a high five in the chat. Look, fist pump in the chat. Let us know you're here too. Our epham around the world.

Today. I have a word for our anniversary. I told the Lord.

Hey, I tried to tell God several months ago that I wanted to invite a guest to speak for the anniversary. I said, this is great Sunday for me to just enjoy all that you have done, Lord and the works thy hands have made. So invite a guest speaker, and I even had a little list of guests that I wanted to bring. You know, almost anybody will come preach to you because you are the most amazing church in the world. No, I'm saying that that's not bragging, is a fact you are the greatest, all right.

I'm not saying the greatest on stage.

I'm saying the greatest people, the greatest volunteers, the greatest prayer warriors, the most generous, amazing people in the world are.

Right around you.

So I was getting my list ready of guest speakers, and then I saw something that I felt in the scripture that I was supposed to preach on this day. So then I was conflicted, because I want the day off so I can just cry through the baptism video like you do and not have to dry my snot and put vizin in my eyes and get up here and pretend to be all composed. But so when I saw this word, though, it really felt important and it felt appropriate for the day.

Now Graham looked at me, because we went a little longer in worship.

We had a video and Holly baptized half the town of Charlotte here at Valentine and at all of our locations. Let's welcome all of our locations right now. So we sang and we and we prayed, and we praised, and we sang and we prayed.

And Graham looked at me and goes, are you preaching today?

Like?

How long is this going to be? I got an appointment with a bull at Chipotle. You'd preaching too. What truth of the matter is, not only should we.

Really make time for God's presence that matters the most, But I believe that if you listen good, I can go quick. So I want to turn to a scripture in Isaiah forty nine, because when I told the Lord that I would get a guest speaker, he said, okay, then you be the guest. Because it's my church. The Lord said, he said, I'm inviting you say yes. So here is my yes Isaiah forty nine, verses one through four.

The word of the Lord.

Listen to me, you islands, hear this, you distant nations. Before I was born, the Lord called me from my mother's womb. He has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword. In the shadow of his hand.

He hid me.

He made me into a polished arrow, and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, you are my servant Israel, and whom I will display my splendor. But I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing at all. Who hasn't felt like that? Come on, who hasn't felt like that? Someday the servant of the Lord feels unappreciated and unseen, And he says, so, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength

Yet.

Yeah, that's an important word for this message today. So I want you to emphasize it. Just three letters, but say it with everything you got. Say yet, what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is.

With my God.

The word of the Lord. Do you receive it? The word of the Lord? For our eighteenth anniversary. Is this concealed but not canceled. Concealed but not canceled. I thank you for favor God as I preach this message. I thank you for penetration of these principles that have ministered to me. I thank you for each precious person that you brought into the room. And I thank you that you're going to do it like you always do, in a way that you've never done. And we will give

He's the greatest.

But just to start this off for the sake of time from a personal place, I was avoiding things that I had asked God to give me, and I started canceling things that were a priority in my life. I was talking to a friend about this, who's very wise and more experienced than me, and I told my friend, I just can't believe that, after all God has done for me, I can't find my motivation. And I'm grateful and I'm thankful, and I praise him for what he's done, but I guess I'm just getting lazy.

My friend laughed.

My friend said, anybody who's known you for five minutes knows there's not a lazy bone in your body. One of the hardest working people I've ever met in any profession. It's not that you're lazy, it's that you're afraid. You know, somebody can say something and all of a sudden, it's like they turn into Yoda and you say, tell me more about that.

I'm not lazy. I'm afraid. Yeah, you're afraid. You're afraid.

You're not motivated right now because you're afraid, and you're afraid because you have accumulated a few failures and disappointments, and so now you're not doing the thing that you're called to do not because you're lazy, bad, evil, wicked, hateful, or an apostate.

You're not lazy, you're afraid.

You're not showing up because you don't want to fall short. Turned around my entire view of it in that one conversation that the fear of falling short was keeping me

It to life. He says, before I was born, the Lord called me.

Everybody say called, and right now put it in the comment say called, and just personalize it and say I'm called.

He said, from my.

Mother's womb, he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword in the shadow.

Of his hand.

He hid me me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. Now, what drew my attention to this text for our purpose today is that you can be called and concealed at the same time. You can be called and concealed at the same time. You can be in the will of God but not feel God at the same time. And this draws my attention not only to Isaiah, but to all of the people that I pastor who feel sometimes like the hand of God has left your life.

You know that He put you where he put you for a purpose.

At a time, and then at times you go through seasons and maybe even just hours in the day where it feels as if the hand of.

God has lifted.

I should talk for a moment about the hand of God before we move on, because there is no other reason that I'm here celebrating the eighteenth anniversary of this church today as your pastor than the hand of God.

The fact that I'm here and saying, and married.

And not addicted to substances other than diet coke.

Leave me alone about.

It aspar dame or amphetamines. You decide, I'll drink the diet coke and stay married. No, it's the hand of God that I'm here, not my skill. It's the hand of God that I'm here, not my status. It's the hand of God that I'm here. This church was great before it was ever famous. We live in a time where fame is conflated with greatness, and people can't tell the two apart. But everything great is not famous, and

He says that my reward is in God's hand.

It is the hand of God that decides when I'm promoted. It is the hand of God that decides when the people come into my life, when the people exit from my life. God is deciding, and God is deciphering, and God is discerning, and God is developing with his hand. It was nothing but the hand of God. Say that it was nothing but the hand of God. Look at the person next to you and say, I know i'm pretty, I know I'm cute, I know i'm handsome, I know I'm charismatic, But none of that is what got me here.

It was nothing but the hand of God. Yeah, my parents helped.

Out, but it was his hand on them that got me through. It's nothing but the hand of God. It was nothing but the hand of God that got us through COVID as a church. It was nothing but the hand of God that got you through that divorce and kept you with the shred of your hope for love in the future. It was nothing but the hand of God that you got in the car drunk but still didn't die. Somehow an angel kept you alive. You know it,

With hand.

High five three people and say.

It was nothing but the hand of God, nothing but the hand of God, nothing but the hand of God.

Yeah.

Yeah, I heard.

A saying one time, tell me, if you agree where God guides, he provides, is it true? Won't he do it? How many have a testimony. If you go down in the deepest valley, there will be grass in that valley because the good shepherd will never lead you somewhere, He won't feed you.

His hand has provided.

And I heard how the hand of God provided, and I heard how the hand of God gave, and I heard how the hand of God would provide. And I've seen how the hand of God can provide.

What I had to.

Realize in the moments of my discouragement and in the places of my deepest deficiency, is that the hand of God that provides is also the hand that hides. Isaiah said, I felt like it was all for nothing. The disciples who followed Jesus watched him go down into the ground, and the two on the road to Ammaeus. In Luke's Gospel, I believe about the twenty fourth chapter said it best.

We had hoped he was the one, but they buried him.

It was all for nothing to leave our boats in our nets and follow him. It was all for nothing to step out on faith. It was all for nothing to love that person who used my love.

As leverage to hurt me. It was all.

It made me feel like less of a little whiny baby brat that. Isaiah said. I know God made me, I know He's got me, and i know I'm in his hand. But look at verse two, so beautiful. I fought back to tears while I was preparing this message, because I wanted to save the emotion for our moment together, so we could feel it together. He said that God took me in his hand and he hid me. Isn't that The part that they never tell you about God's hand is that sometimes the greatest gift that He gives

Ways, great is I faithfulness, Oh God, my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee thout. Change is not thy compassions. They feel not as thou hast been, though forever will be all I have needed. Thy hand hath provided, Thy hand hath provided.

And then that same hand that provides sometimes hides. I want to speak to everybody today who is in a season of your life where you sense that God is hidden, that you are hidden, and the reason you're going through what you're going through has not been revealed. Turn with me to the words of Isaiah, who said that God spoke of me before I was born, and made my mouth like a sharpened sword in the.

Shadow of his hand. He hid me.

He made me into a polished arrow, and concealed me in his quiver. Do you remember the first time you ever heard the phrase they got canceled. I remember very well someone saying that a major celebrity was canceled, and I said, what their shows off the air?

They said, no, doesn't mean that.

That's what it meant in the eighties, back when there used to be sitcoms. This is not full house. It means they were canceled. It means they did something wrong and they got canceled. I said they died. No, they got canceled. I said they got fired. No, they got canceled. I said, explain to me what it means. And what they showed me was comments that people were making about this person that were disagreeing with what the person did, and they called that canceled. Now, these comments were not

And a little phrase went through me.

And I want to see if I can get it to go through you too today. Man can't cancel what God created.

Put that in the comments section. Let's do something good with the comment section.

Repeat after me, man can't cancel.

What God created? Or if you prefer the.

Language of Isaiah, Man can't cancel what God is called. Now shout, I'm called. I was called before I got here. I was called before I blew it. I was called before I went through this sickness. I was called before I passed through these waters. I was called before I came to this challenge. So if I'm called by God, how can I be canceled by man? I understand we can lose a reputation and we need to have character. I understand we can make mistakes that have to suffer

I'm talking about those who feel hidden in this season.

Of your life, and you feel like nobody even cares that you're here. Because you're here, but you're hidden. Let me illustrate right now. There are frequencies going through the air making my voice go to your heart, hopefully your heart. First, it has to pass through your ears. And in order for the noise that is coming from my mouth, and I'm shouting way too loud, so let me modulate down. In order for the sound to reach you where I am,

Out the other.

But something that is vibrating is creating something that is not visible.

And it is proof for the fact that if God speaks a.

Word over your life, you might not see it, but that doesn't mean it isn't here.

Right now, I.

Came to have an anniversary party for every word that God spoke over your life from the womb.

He spoke it before you were you.

You spoke it before you got your Social Security digits.

He spoke it before you messed up the last relationship. He spoke it.

And if he spoke it, and if he created it, and if he made.

It, you can't mess it up.

But so much, all right, all right, all right, Yesia.

Let me teach you Sunday school story. Now. They let this one.

Out of your Sunday school storyboard flannel graph textbooks, and it is quite possibly the most inappropriate story that I could share with you on such a glorious, beautiful occasion as an anniversary of a church on the eighteenth year. It involves a dagger, it involves a stabbing, it involves a king named Egglon and a warrior named Ehud.

I'm gonna go quit.

I'm gonna go quick, but I gotta show you this. God has secret weapons. God has secret weapons. He has more than one way to win in your life. He has more than one way to make a difference in the world. So the Israelites were doing what they always did, turning away from God. They were turning away from the one who rescued them, turning away from the one who were deeming the Let's pick up the text in Judges

But watch what happened in verse fourteen.

The Israelites were subject to Egglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years.

And now you see why I picked this passage that got my attention.

Eighteen years and I'm like, yeah, but Lord, we hadn't been subject to Egglon for eighteen years because they were having to pay tribute and they were having to bring all this extra taxation to the king, and they were oppressed by him, and it.

Was causing them great hardship.

Now we're here today celebrating, of course, eighteen years of blessing. But let's see, before we finish this celebration, if there's a parallel for this eighteen years of oppression that Israel suffered and the victory God gave them, and the eighteen years of victory he's given us.

Watched this verse fifteen again.

The Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer, Ehud, a left handed man, the son of Garah, the Benjamin.

And now we have.

A completely confusing situation where God gives his people a gift that makes no sense. The tribe of Benjamin, Larry Bride will tell you, is literally known as the right handed tribe because Heaven, the name Benjamin literally means son of my right hand.

That's what it means.

So when God wanted to deliver his people, he sent them a left handed warrior.

From a right handed tribe.

This makes no sense. Repeat after me, This makes no sense. How many been feeling like that about a situation in your life right now?

Now? This makes no sense.

Why would God sharpen an arrow polish an arrow and then conceal it.

In a quiver. Did you notice that Isaiah chapter.

Forty nine, verse two said that God hid me in the quiver? Did you know that God has a quiver. The quiver is the pouch where the archer keeps his arrows so that he can carry them to the place so that when the time is right, the arrow can be launched.

But until the arrow is ready to be launched, the arrow is kept in the quiver. And if you.

Judge your potential by the quiver, you'll think I'm never going anywhere.

If you judge watch.

This the potential of your child by what they're struggling through in adolescents, you'll be preparing to give them money for.

A homeless ministry named after them.

But what if it is not a destination where they are right now? What if you have been cursing something in your life and.

What you call a curse, God calls a quiver. So I came with a challenge. Church.

Let me smile at you while I say it, don't.

Curse your quiver. That's where God.

Keeps his most valuable weapons, his secret weapons, his special weapons, his sharp weapons, his ready weapons, his capable weapons, his weapons.

That no one will see. Come in.

Now the Bible seems kind of brilliant because I understand that it is the shameful things that God uses to shame the strong, that it is the foolishness of the cross that God used to save the world. When he got ready to redeem us from our sin, he found a virgin womb.

Why this makes no sense.

When he got ready to take down a Philistine giant, he chose a shepherd boy who was hidden in a field coust this.

Makes no sense.

When he got ready to use somebody to liberate the Israelites from Egypt, he chose a murderer who was a fugitive. Why Because this makes no sense. And when this makes no sense, that's where.

God can get the greatest glory.

So he said, I gotta get a left handed warrior. Teezus, are you feeling this like I'm feeling this.

Because somebody in here has the left hand?

All your life in a right handed tribe, and you never really fit in, and you've never really been what you thought you were supposed to be, and you've never really had what you felt like you were supposed to have. And what other people do easily. You struggle, for you're a left handed warrior from a right handed tribe. And God looks across fifty thousand Bingjamite soldiers. They had about forty seven thousand swordsmen and only seven hundred lefties, and

Of this eighteen year old church.

Eighteen year old church. And you know what happens when you turn eighteen. You can go to war when you turn eighteen. I believe God's about to raise up a warrior. As I've reached this word today. As a matter of fact, what's sat in your hand?

What's sat in your hand? What's that in your hand?

You look like a whapish Isaiah said he had me in the shadows, but he wasn't punishing me. He was polishing me. I'm not being punished. I'm being polished. That's his hand working on me. That's his hand sending me down. That's his hand too, hiding me for the right time. And when the right time comes, I'm going to be the right one for the right time because he hid me in his quiver. It's not a curse, it's a

But he said three words, but he should have said three phrases describe.

How he's felt his whole life, left out, looked over, and less than. Now understand this church for the historical context that if you were left handed in a right handed tribe, they didn't let you serve in the military except in a special position, and it wasn't the best position.

So imagine all the times that.

Ehud got looked over, left out, and felt less than. And the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them Verse fifteen Police. He gave them a deliverer from a place they weren't looking. He gave them what they had looked over. He gave them someone who had been left out. He gave them what they considered less than. And we regard Christ according to the flesh. We miss his glory because God will always wrap his favor in flesh.

We miss what's on the left.

Every time I'm trying to say, God's trying to give you stuff, but you're watching the wrong hand. You're waiting for everything to go right. But sometimes God wants to bless you from the left.

Now do you see.

Why I invited myself to preach this message, Because it's been eighteen years they've been struggling, and eighteen years they've been suffering. And for eighteen years God has been blessing this ministry. And for eighteen years it was nothing but his hand that kept us going.

For eighteen years.

And then they cried out and God sent them a blessing from the left.

So WA's what happens when he goes.

The Israelite sent him with tribute to Eglon, king of Moab.

And I want you to picture this in your hand.

Because this loaner called a loser, looked over and left out, This loaner called a loser, looked over and left out. That's not always just the way people talk about you.

Sometimes that's the way you talk to yourself.

This left handed warrior, this left handed judge, he takes the tribute to the enemy king.

But verse sixteen says something kind of interesting.

Now, Ehud, the left handed deliver had made a double edged sword about a cubit long uh huh, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. So we called this conceal and carry all right, not making a political statement.

This is just you know, they would have canceled the Bible.

Isaiah would have got canceled, Paul would have got canceled. Jeremiah definitely would have got canceled.

Some of the prophets were walking around naked. Cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. Some of us have canceled culture in our heart.

And anything that doesn't look like, oh yeah, I'm coming for him this morning, Mama, I'm coming for him on my eighteenth birthday. I didn't come here just to blow a kazou. I came here to break a chain, because every once in a while you have canceled out something that God came to give you, and.

You keep canceling. He carried a weapon in to deliver his people, and.

It was first of all, it was concealed. Everybody say concealed. He put it under his clothing. Watch what he did. Verse seventeen. He presented the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab, who was a very fat man. I didn't call him the Bible did. Don't cancel me, cancel judges. He was a fat man. You couldn't even read the Bible if it was written today. He was a fat man. So I un presented the tribute. Here's your stuff.

We hate you eighteen years of slavery. Keep going, And he sent the.

Rest of them on their way, because sometimes you got to do what God gave you to do and nobody's gonna get it, but you still got to do it.

So he sent them.

Away and they carried it out, but on reaching the stone images near Gilgal, he himself went back to Aglon and said, your.

Majesty, I have a secret message for you.

And the king said to his attendant Lebos, and they all left. And he had then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace, and said, I have a message from God for you, and the king gets up from his seat. Stop knowing nothing, because if they came in from the tribe of Benjamin, they were probably searched for weapons, but the warriors always carried the weapon on the opposite leg that they intended

Everybody say, conceal the weapon on his right leg. Why his right leg?

Verse twenty one tells us because when the moment came, he had reached with his rejected hand, with his weak hand, with his left out hand, with his looked.

Overhand, with his less than hand.

You keep thinking, God, he's going to use your special strength. He's going to use your secret weakness as a secret webbit. And old fat Egglon never saw it come in, Old Egglon, he didn't check that right leg, did he? And verse twenty one says he took that sword that he made himself from his right thig Boone plunged it into the king's big old king Hippo belly walked out, blew a trumpet, got ten thousand mobabides dead, and the land had.

Rest for eighty years. Why Why did God give them the victory? How?

How did God give them the victory? It was from something concealed. Not only was it concealed, it was crossed. It came from the other side, which was the right side. You don't get it. You're the right one for this, And what you think is wrong with you is what makes you right for this. What was your Hey, work on yourself, get yourself better, do what you can do

So turn to your.

Neighbor and say, look to the left, because it's going to come from in this season, and unexpected place. It's going to come from in this season, and unexpected blessing.

It's going to come from.

In this season, an unexpected experience. It's coming from the left. It's a concealed weapon. Everybody say concealed, and he crossed it. Everybody say crossed. But I gotta show you.

One more thing.

Not only was it concealed, and not only was it crossed where it came from the other side, But the Bible says that this dagger, this sword in verse sixteen.

Was about a cubit. And I had to look up. I'm just being honest.

I don't remember they talked to me, probably in seminary, but I forgot.

I had to look up how big is a cubit? Actually, what I googled was how big is a cubit? In American I don't want them meters? Well, I look like international annoying thing.

No, how big was the instrument that ended eighteen years of oppression?

And Google told.

Me something, and God told me something, and Google told me.

That a cubit is eighteen inches.

I said, what now, we're celebrating eighteen years eighteen years.

And honest, eighteen No, that's another Bible verse.

Eighteen years of captivity ended with eighteen inches of faith. So you mean to tell me that for every year they were oppressed, e Hud made a weapon an inch bigger. An inch for every year, an inch for every year.

Do you know how long eighteen years is?

That's as long as my oldest son has been alive.

Do you know how long eighteen years is?

Eighteen years is seventy two summer, springs, winter and falls. That's eighteen years. Eighteen years is a long time. Is six thousand, five hundred and seventy four days.

That's eighteen years.

That's one one hundred and fifty seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty eight hours.

That's eighteen years.

That's nine million, four hundred and sixty three thousand, two hundred and eighty minutes. And all of a sudden, ten million minutes of oppression ended. Eighteen years of oppression ended because of eighteen inches in the left hand, not.

The right hand. So God said, on this eighteenth year anniversary of elevation, Church, what do you have in your hand? It's enough?

Eighteen years is long, eighteen inches is short.

But isn't this what God always does to use the small thing to take down the big thing?

Isn't this what He always does, taking the mystery of the gospel to mystify the scholar and the wisdom of this age, to confound it to be brought to note. So I came to remind this church that God called me to pastor this year.

This is a church that.

Believes in eighteen inch miracles.

Hallelujah Jesus.

Eighteen inches is all it took for eighteen years to come to an end.

Eighteen inches, they say.

They say that the greatest journey and the longest trip in human experience is eighteen inches from the head to the heart. These numbers are approximate, but the truth is very relevant because some of you are eighteen inches away from faith. Isaiah said, I know he called me in my head. I know he chose me before I was born. But sometimes my heart gets discouraged and I say to myself, I spent my strength in vain. It was all for nothing. Have you ever felt that way? I feel that way

God says, I'm wired by him. The Master workman.

And if I can find a way to preach to you over the next few weeks as.

I launch my book, Do the New You, I'm.

Going to try to get you to see that God has brought you to this moment of your life because you are a weapon in his hand to do good for His kingdom.

So the next time you feel.

Like Isaiah and you feel concealed and you say, God, I can't see how it's going to work out, and I don't see how it's going to happen, and I'll see why I have to go through this. Remember it's concealed, but it's not canceled. It is still active in your life. And this weapon of the double edged sword of the Word of God is in your hand today. For Isaiah said, and I echo, Yet what is.

Due mean is in the Lord's hand.

Stop looking at how small it is in your hand, and start realizing how powerful.

His hand is.

He's got you in his hand, Church, He's got us in his hand. I've seen it in the baptism tank. I've seen it in the boardroom. I've seen it at the bottom, I've seen it in the breakthrough. I'm still in his hand. And if you know you're in his hand, Lift your hands and give him.

Praise for eighteen years. 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 pots for more information.

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Thanks again for listening. God bless you.