Don't Blow It!

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. Something God told me very clearly as we begin this series called Waymaker, is that before we.

Can change the world, we have to change our ways.

Would you please turn with me, if you can find it in your Bible, to the Old Testament Book of Hagi. I'll give you about fifteen minutes to find the Book of Hagi. After that the screens will kick in and give you assistance. And what we want to look at today, we want to take a look at. Give me just a moment. I got my new notebook. Every series I get a new notebook. I got the one with the

He's got you and me, brother.

In his sense, in his hands, got.

The and if you'll permit me, real quick.

Just uh, he's got the Clemson Tigers. Okay, now let's look at Hagai Chapter one. I'm ready now touch somebody say. We can't change the world until we change our ways. This is the message of Hagid the Prophet. I'm having you seated because along scripture today fifteen verses we will endeavor to preach. In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came.

Through the prophet Hagi to Zaruba bel son of Schiltiel, Governor of Judah, and to Joshua, son of Josidac, the High Priest JJ.

You know how we text about preaching all the time. I would have skipped that verse in my first five years of preaching.

One thing that I want you to do. This will help you develop your preaching skills.

Take the verses that you naturally want to skip over and make yourself preach them.

What I did. I went back and I figured I'm not going to do it, but I could.

Preach verse one for a whole sermon, and what I would do if I was going to preach it, And you might want to preach it sometimes, JJ, because every once in a while. Let you get up here, and if your beard keeps scrolling, you might get another shot. But I figured you could reach that verse using only the prepositions.

So watch this.

In the second year of King Darius, on the first day the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Hagi to Zir Rubebel. So what I was thinking is it was in the second year. That's the that's the setting. Okay, it was the word of the Lord.

That's the source. It came to Zor Rubebel.

Now he's the he's the he's the servant, and it came through Hagi, and he was the server.

Now all of those start with the letter S.

And what's cool about it is it didn't come from Hagi. It came through Hagi. So the word of the Lord came through Hagi.

You see what I'm saying. This is how God speaks to people.

God will speak to you through others. God will speak to you through life. God will speak to you through hardship. God will speak to you to through of the Lord, through the prophet, to the people of the Lord, through the prophet to the people.

In the second year of.

Darius, because God's word is not spoken in abstractions and theoretical constructs. God's word is designed to speak to specific situations.

So this is not a history lesson that we came for. Today.

We came for a word from the living God, and his word is living and active and sharper than any double edged sword. Now, so, if anything ever comes out of my mouth that helps you, it might have come through me. But it wasn't from me, because I have nothing of substance to offer. You are way too desperate for me to be able to help you of my own accord. But if God speaks through me to you, then anything can happen. Verse two.

This is what the Lord Almighty says.

These people say, the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord's house. Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Hagi. Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? Now, this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. There's that word ways. Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on

And be honored, says the Lord.

You expected much, but behold, it turned out to be little.

And what you brought home I blew away.

Why, declares the Lord Almighty, because of my house, which.

Remains a ruin. Well, each of you is busy with your own house.

Therefore, because of you, the heavens have withheld their due, and the earth it's crops. I have a very challenging message for you today, and I hope you're ready for it, and I'm gonna need your help to preach it. So look at the person next to you and say, neighbor. God has given you a great opportunity. Now look at them and give them my title. Say don't blow it,

You know this right.

And if you did not grow up in the South, perhaps from time to time it is shocking to you to hear some of our sayings and to try to decipher the meaning of them.

I will never forget Miss Taylor.

I probably should have given her a pseudonym, but I've said her name now. The day that she corrected my Southern slang in front of the whole class, Now, granted I deserved it. I was such a punkin seventh grade. Granted I deserved it because she had told us to pull out our books and begin our silent reading time. Granted I was talking to somebody instead of pulling out the book like I.

Was told to do.

But did it give her the right to say the following I'll let you be the judge, Stephen Ferdick. Did you not hear me say pull out.

Your book now?

Miss Taylor was Northerner, So what I said next she had no context for. I said, I'm sorry, Miss Taylor. I'm fixing too, she said, Stephen ferdie She said, before you leave my class, I am going to make sure that you understand how ignorant you sound when you say things like I'm fixing too. Nobody else in the world outside of South Carolina says things like I'm fixing too.

And if you go anywhere.

Else in the world in your life and say I'm fixing to, it is going to automatically cause people to question your intelligence. Not only do you not have your book out, you are not even able to speak intelligently to deliver an excuse about why your book is not.

I said, I'm about to Is that better? And it really doesn't matter what you call it.

The problem was procrastination. And I found out we have a lot of different things we say to disguise our procrastination.

Can I give you one thing we say in church? We don't say I'm fixing to. We say I'm praying about it.

I will preach this word until three people are left in the first two rows of elevation balanine. And it's cool, because you do need to pray about some things. But some things that God just told you to do get your book out, do not require prayer.

They require action.

And that guy has a hard job because the people on one level are making progress, at least it seems to them like progress.

And the question becomes, this is point number one. They'll put these on the screen.

Is it progress or is it procrastination, because apparently there were some really nice subdivisions going up in the suburbs of Judah. The exiles have been back from Babylon now twenty years and that was a god thing, wasn't it. I mean, they didn't know if they'd ever come back, and only because Persian control took the territory of Babylon back were they able to come back and rebuild their homeland.

It was the.

Preeminent place for the presence of God to be manifest among his people, so that He would have a dwelling place. You and I understand that now this temple is not a physical building, but it is you and I the Temple of the Holy Spirit, where God dwells and where God lives. But in the midst of rebuilding this place where God had appointed his presence to dwell, something was lacking in their perseverance, or perhaps.

It was just that they got distracted.

This has helped me so much in trying to minister to people and challenge people and call people hired to God's standard.

Is that Often people.

Are not willfully disobedient. They are just distracted, you know what I mean. I don't think that people always decide to live in disobedience. Sometimes life just creates such a scenario. And this is what guy said. He said, each of you is busy with your own house. I thought that was an interesting phrase that he said, you're busy with your own house. He didn't say they were bad people, just that they were busy people. I don't think those of you who don't serve in the church don't in

It is the very.

Sacrifice that happens this time every year, and not just at the end of the year, but weekly and monthly, as people give to God and put him first. I think everybody values that on one level, especially the business owners. I was talking to a business owner one time. He said, I'm so glad I don't.

Have your job. I said, why is that. You don't like to speak?

He said, no, I don't mind speaking, he said. I just can't image imagine running a business where people came and decided whether they wanted to pay for the service or not. I would go broke if I ran my business like that. But here at our church, over and over again, people have stepped up sacrificially and consistently.

And here's the keyword, systematically.

To put God first, because I understand that my harvest is connected to God's house.

Now this is where the word gets rich.

Sometimes you are struggling in your life in ways that you do not understand, but you are not directly discerning the source of the dysfunction. Such is the case for the people in haw Guy's day. He said, you're disappointed, aren't you. I know you are.

It's August.

It's the season for figs and grapes and pomegranates, and you planted a lot of seed, but when you went to get the harvest, it was only half of what you expected. Have you ever invested in something or someone? Keep eye contact with me when I say what I say next, only to wonder how could I put so much into it and get so little out of it?

Have you ever? Have you ever? This is the scene? And how guys they remember?

This is a specific work to specific people, but I think it has universal application and it is a timeless truth. Is that when you do not start your process with God at the center, it will always end in disappointment. And it will not matter how much energy you give it, or how much talent that you have, or or or how sincere you are in your efforts.

I'm telling you, man.

I have sad with rich people, famous people, people with great status and no satisfaction, great prosperity, and no peace. Because any process that does not start with God ends in disappointment. Write that down, teach it to your kids, put it.

On your mirror.

Any process that does not start with God ends in disappointment. You plant much, you reap little, you get dressed, You're not warm. You drink, you drink you drink, you drink, you drink, you drink, but you are bottomless, and even the blessings that God gives you will be will be. Can I say it this way?

Hollow?

It's a hollow harvest. And while the people were busy building their own houses, busy building their own bodies, busy building their own dreams, busy planning their own future, they neglected the place of God's presence. I was praying about this message. I said, God, I can't preach that. I don't want to make them feel bad. Their lives are already hard enough. And God told me I didn't hear this out loud. Its just depression I have. Okay, so

That you don't control.

You can decide how much to plant, but without the cooperation of the elements, it will only grow to be so much. It takes a little while to learn this that you can do everything in your human strength that you know to do to guarantee a happy life, but there is a certain dimension of life that is outside of your control. Touch your neighbors, say, don't blow it. Here are these people. It's been twenty years. I understand.

They come back from Babylon.

They're really trying to get acclimated to being back in a place that has been so ravaged. They're settling into their towns. Maybe two years, maybe five years, but it's been twenty years. It's been twenty years now, which is a significant number for me. Let me tell you why. This summer, I was going back and watching some of the sermons that inspired.

Me to be a preacher.

They're all on YouTube, and it's cool because I don't have to pay for them.

I can bootleg them now, and.

I've long since lost the cassette tapes, but they're all online now, And so I was online watching some of my favorite preachers that were inspiring me as a boy.

These were my heroes. I was watching them.

Just to kind of get in touch with sixteen year old Stephen, who used to walk around the block with the walkman, and I would preach with the preachers and I would hold an imaginary microphone I've said too much, okay. And I was listening to them preach, and I was watching them on YouTube, and I thought, man, these guys looked so much older to me. And then I did some math, and I realized that the guys that I used to watch when I was sixteen were the age then.

Right that I am. Now.

You talk about a broken heart, you talk about a wake up call, because see, I still feel like I got all this time. You know, I still feel like we're just getting started. The church is just getting started. I mean, in my mind, this is still the IPO. But it was a wake up call for me to realize that what they were to you, then you are to somebody now. In other words, you don't have any time to waste. Touch your other neighbors say, don't blow it. You only got so much time. I know.

You keep telling.

Yourself one day when and we're gonna get around to it, and I'm fixing, but you might find yourself one day run it out of strength. What is it your heart to do? You better do it now. Some of your neighbors say, do it now, cock a doodle, do this is your wake up call I was twenty years ago. Man, if we're gonna build it, we gotta build it now. But sometimes the devil will tell you you're being patient when really you are procrastinating.

And if he can get you.

To mistake procrastination for patients, he can keep you locked out of the blessing.

That is on the other side of your obedience.

Yes, it's a process, I mean, yes.

It takes time, but really twenty years.

And after all, hat guy says, it looks like somehow you found time to build your own house. So glad Pastor Mickey taught me that. He beat that into my head. He said, boy, you find time for what you want to do. He said that because I told him I didn't have time to do something he told me to do. He said, boy, you find time for what you want to do. You find time for what you want to do. You find passion and energy. If I could get some of you to apply the same energy to serving God,

How did I?

How did I get here on a Minecraft tutorial? I'm thirty seven years old. And then it gets kind of dramatic. I don't apologize for God's word. He said, when I saw that you were so busy with your own work, when I saw that you were so busy with your own interest, I didn't mind you building your own house. I didn't mind you driving a new car. I didn't mind you enjoying yourself on the weekend and telling your friend who's always trying to use you that you didn't have time to help them move.

It was fine because they're always asking you in.

There there, But what I minded was what I minded was that you lost your sense of what was really important. And so now God says I had to take action. I had to frustrate your process to remind you of your priorities.

You know how, sometimes you'll be doing something that.

Used to be fun for you and it's not fun anymore, and you can't even explain why. Sometimes that's God sucking the fun out of something that is keeping you from your.

Calling him purpose.

It is getting frighteningly quiet on week one of Waymaker. Good news is if I keep preaching like this, you will have plenty of seats for the rest of the four weeks of Waymaker. This is a space maker. That's what this sermon is. Nobody said I had to do something about it. I had to interrupt you in order to get your attention because I brought you back from Babylon. I made a way for you, and I gave you an assignment to rebuild my temple. But you took what

And I'll watch this.

You might not like this to you of Godess okay, God is not running for any office. He does not need your vote. I said, he does not need your vote. He is not on any ticket. You expected much Verse nine, But see it turned out to be little. This is the part. And what you brought home I blew away. Well that's not nice, Heavenly Father. I thought your eye was on the spare row. I thought you had the whole world in your hands. I thought you would give me this day my daily bread. I didn't know you

Does.

God said, no, I did that. I let it go bad. I made him break up with you. I made her not call you back.

This is crazy stuff here now, this is.

This is the stuff that you get in the parts of the Bible, like Haggi. That's flip pass to get over to the good stuff. My God shall supply all your knees according to his glorious riches. Can we get back to that, No, not this week. This week is Hagi. And Hagi said, God, blew it away? Why why would you do that? Why would you blow it away? Why would you blow it? God said, so you wouldn't. It was not to punish you. It was to protect you. If I allowed you to depend on your stuff, you

And if I don't breathe out, you don't breathe in.

Touch somebody say, don't blow it, don't blow it. When I see you building your house on sinking sand, sometimes I gotta send a storm.

To check your foundation.

And the rains came down, and the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, because God would rather have you go through a season of frustration than to build your whole life on the wrong foundation. You uh, I'm fixing too. They didn't say they wouldn't. You never say you won't. You say you're gonna. Ah, God, I'm gonna. This was the craziest got I tell y'all, crazy story.

Crazy people go to this church.

Wow.

See what I'm.

Saying right on June good crazy, bad crazy. This is bad crazy, I told the man.

He kept saying, I love the church.

I love the church is the gravest.

I love the church.

Do have a lot of money too. I love the church. I'm so successful. I love the church. Church is so great. I love the Lord. I love the church. I checked the record. He never gave anything to what he said he loved. Now in my universe, God so loved the world.

That he gave.

I said it real respectfully, and I don't check everybody's record. This was a long time ago. I just got so tired of it because he always loved the church. Love the Lord, love the word, love the worship, Love what.

Y'all are doing for the community. I love it. I love it. He's a baller. Yeah, I love it, I.

Said, I said, there might be something wrong with our records, but we have no recorded gift you ever made. This is when I was a younger preacher. I wasn't as sophisticated. I said, is that correct? He said, oh yeah, oh dog son, but hold I had. He was a Baptist, but he started speaking in tongues.

I was so confused. I didn't know what to do about that. Tom. He's he's so long. He said, you know what he said to me?

He said, he didn't say I'm fixing to but he said, he said, all right, when I die, I'm gonna put the church in my will, and I'm gonna send you one hundred thousand dollars. I wish I would have told him what I thought, but I didn't think of it right then. Holly does this all the time. She'd come home to me and she'd tell me about somebody who said something to her.

And they just say, I was like.

Time to town, and she just slices and burns them and roast them and told them to down.

And I was like, Donna, sat down. I'll be like you sat that because she's so nice. I'm like you sat that. She's like, no, I was like that.

I was like, it means I mean I would have said it. I mean I'm fixing too. I mean when I when I die, I mean, I'm gonna get my money over here, my checking in, my savings, and I got this thing over here, my money market, and it's somebody's gone.

But we don't say never. We say not now.

And twenty years past, and you were gonna, and you were gonna, and now the kids graduated and you were gonna.

You were gonna. We were gonna. Oh, we were gonna build it.

He God, we were gonna build it.

We were going building a.

Bamba son dahmba shan. And you say I'm fixing to And your whole economy is broken. Maybe not your financial economy. I mean you can financially succeed without God, but you can't have significance, not without God. There is no significance to any process that God is not the center of.

I don't believe anything more than I believe.

That there may be short term success, there may be illusion of happiness, but there will be no deep seated fulfillment in any process. That God is not the center of whether it's your money, whether it's a marriage, and God doesn't want you to blow it. He does not want you to waste the opportunity. I don't think there's any greater pained and the pain of a wasted opportunity.

But right now it looks like simple timber.

Bring down the timber, which represents the potential where the place where my glory will dwell. Right now it looks like timber. The temple is in the form. Now you got it. That's my dude right there. That's my dude right there. How did you know where I was going? The temple looks like timber until you bring it down and build my house. That's the process. So there's the position, there's the potential, and there's the process.

Here's the thing. There was no shortage of provision. There never is. There never is.

When God made the earth and spoke it into existence, When God breathed the breath of life into man, he gave everything that would be needed in the form of seed.

There's no shortage in God.

You think the unlimited God of the universe has shortage? Do you think there's anything in your life that is too hard for God?

Even when you see a nation ravaged.

By poverty, it's not because there wasn't enough stuff. It's because the systems did not allow the stuff to be distributed. There's never a lack of provision. In God, never everything that you need is already here. There is never a lack of provision. So the problem of the people in the way they experienced it was a problem with provision. Haw God said, it's not provision. Consider your ways. What you think is a lack of provision is a lack of priority.

Because if you will seek.

First the Kingdom of God and make this your foundation, if you will seek first His righteousness, all these.

Things will be added to you.

Everything you need, and everything you don't even know that you need, and everything that you really want beneath what you think you want.

All of these things will be added to you.

But if you seek the things, you'll miss the kingdom. But if you seek the kingdom, you'll get the things thrown in.

If you will seek God.

First everything your heart desires, we will be made manifest in His presence. And so often we are asking God to send provision. God can't send provision where there are no priorities. And if I can be just as basic about it as Pastor Mickey was, you find resource for what you.

Want to do.

How come people who can't afford to tithe can afford to iPhone seven Oh, they sit him back down now, just to write it down, Just to write it down when we take an offering at the end of the year in our church this year, and I want every campus to hear this, especially the newer ones. The only reason that you're sitting in a seat is because somebody brought down timber for the temple.

Somebody did that.

Somebody did that, And this is the time of year where we develop and demonstrate our faith as a family for those who have not yet been reached, for those who do not yet know the ways of God.

This is the time where we go up.

To the mountain. Our church is called elevation. After all, we go up to the mountain. We don't stay down in the in.

The muck.

Of the of the current viewpoint of our culture.

We go up on the mountain. We access the resource.

After all, the same resource that God was calling them to build his house with was the resource they were already building theirs with. Because you find timber for what you want to build, right, And why I love to seek God first is because when I prioritize my life, God's provision has a place to land. If you really remember some of the miracles in the Bible, where God did something great for someone, the first step was for their priorities to be ordered.

The first step when the woman needed a miracle from the man of God.

In the Book of First Kings, do you remember this story, the prophet said, I know you don't have much left.

I know you lack provision in your own eyes right now.

But if you will first give me a little cake and prioritize the purpose of God, if you will sustain God's work in the earth, God will sustain you. If you remember the little boy with the lunch that Jesus had Peter go over, beat him up, take his lunch, pass it out to the crowd.

Creative internation.

What started with a lunch ended in leftovers, But it was because of the prioritization to bring it first to Jesus and put it in his hands. That's what we do every time we tithe. It's the first ten percent of your income. It's setting it aside for God and saying God before anything else. You be the foundation of my finances. You be the foundation of my family. You be the foundation of my future. I want to build my life on you. And when you bring that first

You don't lay.

And you are waiting for God to send something, and He's waiting for you to lay a foundation that will sustain what he sends.

When you seek God first, all these.

Things will be at it to you. And that's why I'm not afraid of what I might face in the future, because I have a foundation, because God is the bottom line.

Of my life.

Now, when you can't say that, you live in constant fear and suspicion and paranoia and emptiness, and even your blessings seem hollow, and you expect much and you.

Come up empty.

But God says, go up, bring down, and build. I love the Lord because even when he has to correct me, he still gives me another chance to get it right. God said, you've had twenty years to do it. I send in my prophet Hagi. By the way, you might be interested to know that Hagi's name means feast. So God is preaching to a people in a famine about a feast. And if you will have the faith to go up, bring down, and build, this is what the

Don't blow it.

And some of you have had the kind of year that Hagi describe, eating not filled, drinking not quenched, dressed not warm. And God is sending his word to you today saying that the storm that I brought you through was to check your foundation. Everything you've been through was about establishing a foundation for your future. And I want to take a pastoral privilege right now and agree in prayer with all of God's people on every location.

And I need you to join your faith.

With me, everybody who's been coming up empty and reaping in disappointment and reaping in tears and reaping and frustration and wondering why. And God is now bringing you to a point of prioritizing His presence above all else. I want to pray with you right now, and that's that we stand at every location.

This is the word of the Lord coming through the sermon.

To your life, to your famine, to your frustration, to your barrenness. This is the word of the Lord, go up, bring it down, and let's bill.

Don't blow it.

God has put you in this season for a reason. God put you in this church for a reason. God put you in this city for a reason. God gave you those children for a reason, on that job, in that school for a reason. Now, don't you blow it. God kept you alive this long for a reason. God delivered you from sickness for a reason, brought you out of sin for a reason, kept you from going down for the last time for a reason.

Don't you blow it.

Don't waste his grace, don't waste your opportunity weeping over what you didn't do.

Let's get building.

We've got a kingdom to build people. Let's get building. Now is the time God said, I want to be your highest priority. And when I see you giving your best self to lower priorities. But if you will bring your best self and make God your highest priority, I guarantee you you've never experienced deep peace like this before.

Now I'm going to pray in just a moment.

After I pray, there will be a little bit more of a setting up of what's going to happen over the next few weeks.

I'm excited about the journey.

How many are excited about the journey. God is going to do some things in your life like never before. That's the phrase I hear, like never before, a blessing like never before, even now, making a way away in the wilderness, doing a new thing in your life in this ministry. And I come into agreement with you right now in the name of Jesus Christ, the son of the Living God, the eternal Word made flesh to dwell

We want to see the things you see. We want to know the things that you speak, and we want to walk in your ways. After all that you've.

Done for us and after all that you've been to us, and in consideration of all that you're going to do, we give you our full and total lives, our complete selves. We repent of all the ways that we've put everything else ahead of you.

We repent of the excuses that we've made. We repent of the spirit of procrastination.

There are some things you called us to do that we keep putting off, we're fixing to.

But today we declare.

That what you have spoken, because you say so, we will let down the nets, and we believe for a great catch, a great harvest, more than we can ask or imagine, according to your glorious richest.

In Christ, do it. God, you are a wave maker.

Do it in their life, do it in their life.

You are Thank you for joining us.

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Thanks again for listening. God bless you.