Don't Fight Your Future

But if you live near any of these cities, listen, this is where we're coming for Elevation Night Spring twenty twenty three. Austin, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kansas City, Missouri. Not in Kansas Abbey, Missouri, Inside Joke, Denver, Colorado, Saint Louis, Missouri, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Toronto. Welcome to our Toronto campus as well. God bless you. We're coming Elevation Nights dot Com April eighteen through twenty seven. Tickets are available right now.

Next weekend, we'll be celebrating our seventeen year anniversary here at Elevation Church. I hope to see you for that. It's it's time right now, though, for the word that God has for you today. And I do believe He gave me one a certain word for an uncertain situation in somebody's life, a certain word for an uncertain situation. Go back in your Bible. Stand up, everybody, if you took a moment to sit down on your couch, stand up your calves arrested. Now in Ephesians four, I think

this is our last week in Ephesians four. We'll celebrate the anniversary next week and then see what the Lord says after that. But I have just been so transformed while I was teaching this passage, and I pray that you have been receiving as well. And this week, Holly can tell you I have been nicer, more patient. I've been helping with the dishes, like all the time around the house, taking out the trash before it even gets full. She's telling me, stop, we need to use the bags

full of you taking out the trash too much. But in all honesty, I sence the Lord doing a new work in me and in our church, and this week is going to speak directly to that. So in Ephesians chapter four, let's just do verses twenty two through twenty four. This week. All the messages are online that I've preached so far this year and last year and a year before that. But all the messages are online if you

want to catch up sometime this week. But this week I'm going to focus on these verses Ephesians four twenty two. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Aren't you glad to know that the new you is the true you? All that other nasty crap you're struggling with,

that's not the core of who you are. Who God says you are is who you are, and all the other stuff is subject to change in the presence of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. I declare it, I decree it, I believe it. So the word God gave me for this week. He told me to tell you, don't fight your future. Don't fight your future, and let's pray before we're seated. God speak it, we need it, and give us the strength to do it. In Jesus' name. Amen, high five somebody on your way to your seat, and

say God's not through with you. God's not through with you. I mean that God's not through with you yet. Say it, God's not through with me yet. Put it in the chat real quick and say it out loud again. God's not through with me yet. You keep saying you so, say it to the person next to you. Apparently you want somebody to hear this. Tell them God's not through with you yet. That means He's got a lot of work to do on you. Tell him you got a lot of rough edges. You really, really do you need

that spiritual sandpaper? Uh huh, You got a lot of pieces floating around in that box. You are not a finished product yet, So don't do you do the you that God knew before you ever got here on the earth. What a horrible piece of cultural advice. I get it. Be yourself. I'm all for that. Find your gifts, play to your strengths. I do that all the time. All I do is talk and write stuff. I don't even sing the songs I write. I just write them and let somebody else sing them. That's how much I believe

in play to your strengths. But at the same time, I do believe that there are manifestations of who you really are that you haven't met yet, and so to sell yourself short is really to insult God if you just say this is how I am, this is how my mom was, this is where I come from, this is just how we do it. And that has been the challenge of this series that radical self acceptance because of the grace of Jesus Christ, should not lead to complacency.

Radical grace leads to change the more you accept all that stuff about you that only the people who live with you know, and they only know affraction. Don't make me prophesy. I'll speak in tongues, interpret my own tongues. Intil your business. Is very true that we need to be okay with who we are and where we are. It's very true that we need to celebrate our strengths and celebrate in each stage of our development, not waiting for a future day for us to give God praise

for all that He's done. In fact, on the way to church today, I just went through several things in my mind that I was worried about through the last few years that God worked out. I was driving eighty miles an hour by the time I got to thinking about it, because I'm like, let's go, Jesus, what are you going to do in this season? I remember that rear view mirror. What seems so big, y'all? Remember meat love Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than

they are. And I would do anything for God a mash up, a meat love mash up. Let's get back to the message from the apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus and writing to us to tell us, and this phrasing is really cool. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self. Ah, that doesn't mean you stop texting people back when you blow up. That's not what he's saying. That doesn't mean a bigger house necessarily, although it could.

It has to do with the inside things that are keeping me from being what God created me to be. And we know what He created us to be. I'm gonna tell you what God created you to be. Look at verse twenty four like him. Did they put the verse up on the screen or yeah, that's what He created you to be. Did God want me to be a singer, or does God want me to go over here and study abroad? Or does God want me to go to Penn State? Or does God want me to be an athlete? Or does God want me to double major?

Or does God want me to move my mom in with me? I don't know. He wants you to be like him, whoever's living with you, wherever you're going to school, whatever you're majoring, And that's what he's doing in my life, in your life. And yet I had an interesting picture. I'm gonna give you a picture from my life, really, really, from every Saturday in my life. When I go watch Graham wrestle, takes me back to when I wrestled. I wasn't nearly as good as him, not even close, not

even close. And be told he could beat me now, right now, he could beat me, and I outweigh him by twenty five pounds. But don't tell him that because he might try it. If we had to play according to the rules, I mean, I hit him in a

shovel if he really comes at me. But if we had to do the rules, then there was a ref and a whistle and a mat and all that, then I'm going to give you an Old Testament picture, and we're gonna try to tie up this idea, not the idea of you becoming what God made you to be, because when you stop doing that, that's when God has done changing you. That's when you're done. We made a song one time that said, if I'm not dead, he's not done. Greater things are still to come. I believe that.

I believe it for you. Whether you want to believe it for you or not, you can't stop me from believing for you. What you're gonna do about it, Believe that God is not through with you. Tell your neighbor one more time. God is not through with you. And here's the proof. Here's the proof. You're still doing this. He's still making ways. If you're still doing this, he

still has a plan for you. One prophet set on behalf of God, for I know the plans I have for you, Plans to pross for you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. That's Jeremiah chapter twenty nine, eleventh. Your grandma had that on a quilt somewhere, and you ought to get it in your heart and in your consciousness, because he knows the plans he has for you. I want to preach a little bit of faith before our seventeen year anniversary. God is not through with us yet, not yet. Stop

doing this and he'll quit doing what he does. But as long as you have breath, you have a reason to believe that all things are possible. You know, when I started the series, I mentioned Jeremiah. I mentioned Jeremih twenty nine to eleven to day. That's the most popular verse that he did, his greatest hit. But then he's writing to captives in Babylon who are going to be

taken away. And when he was spoken to by God check this out, he didn't really believe that God could do it through him because he had the three excuses that we mentioned earlier, where he said, I don't have it. I don't know how. I'm not like them. I'm too young. I'm not like them those who are seasoned who can prophesy. I don't have it. I don't have the words that I need. And for us, it's not always worse. It's resources,

it's money, it's time, it's energy, it's good knees. I got all ages in the church, so we just hit everything. Too young, too old, you got Moses too old, Jeremiah too young. So all of that is an excuse. But remember what the Lord said. I want to show you the scripture again. I wasn't going to show this one, but I think it's we need the whole sandwich. Verse five,

chapter one. The Lord said, before you were born, I knew you, k n e W The me that I'm going to be as I grow into what God called me to be is the meed that God has already seen that sets you free from trying to become something I thought. Oh man, I wish I was. That. You don't have to wish you was. You was long before life did what life did, and you did what you did. God knew you. So when he said I knew you before you were born, that means that God knows my potential.

It also means I don't I know my past, I know my preferences, I know my problems. God knows my potential only he does only he really knows what he put in you. Only he knows what he sees in two years that he's training you for. Right now, you got to believe this as I appreach it. You got to put a little bit of faith on this word a little bit of faith. God knew, knew, And what is new to me is known to God. What is foreign to me is familiar to him. That's Jeremiah one

to five. He knows my potential. In the chat right now, God knows my potential. Say it. God knows my potential. Riverwalk, y'all aren't saying anything today. I feel your empathy. Say it right now. God knows my potential. But then in Jeremiah twenty nine, he says, for I know the plans I have for you, and the plans I have for your older sister, and the plans I have for your best friend who's getting married this spring but you're not yet.

And the plans that I have for your your friend who's getting on your last nerve and you keep trying to fix them but you can't. And the plans that I have for your boss, who you think is in control, but really I'm gonna move him to Minnesota in six months. So don't get impatient. Just stay right there because I know the plans. My confidence is in God's knowledge. He said, I knew you before I formed you. You were spirit, before you were skeletal, before you had a birth certificate

you had a purpose. I knew you win. Now when people say that they want to keep you stuck in something that they're comfortable with, I knew you in. But when God says that He's calling you forward into something that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and neither hasn't entered into the heart of man, what God has planned. I know the plans I have for you. Spoiler alert. You don't know the plans. You know the plans you have for you, and you know the plans

you have for your daughter. And God knows. God knows the plans he has for you and for her and for them and for this and for that. Okay, He's not through with me. He still has things he's doing in me. So I can't do the me that I memorized from last year. When God knows the me that is going to manifest as I'm a tour in him and grow in him so I can surprise myself. Wow, Look how I responded to that so well. Wow, look at me giving money away. When I used to be stingy. Wow.

I used to wait for other people to pay for my meal. Now I'm paying for somebody else's. Wow. I used to need somebody to put tires on my car, and now I'm paying for the tires the good ones. Wow. Look at you in church. Wow, look at you in an e group. Wow. Look at you not even texting or scrolling during my sermon. Wow. Look at God doing a new thing in you. Give him praise for what he's already done. Give him praise for what he's gonna do. I knew you, and I know the plans I have

for you, So Paul does. It's this annoying thing that we preachers do often, which is to make something that is such a struggle sounds so simple. I don't know if it's been irritating you the last few weeks. It really gets under my skin. Where he said in verse twenty two, you were taught with regard to what you used to do and what you still struggle with, both secretly and openly, the rude things that you do, the

rude things that you think. How many people would be impressed with how nice you are if they knew how nasty you wanted to be and didn't be in certain situations. So all of that that's on the inside, Paul says, you were taught with regard to your formwhere life to put off your old self. Thanks Paul, because he said you were taught. And here in the Greek, I spent five and a half years on a seminary degree, so

I have to use that sometimes. In the Greek the phrase means that it follows from the teaching you received. So when God teaches you, it's to transform you, not to puff you up. You don't get these messages so you can look down on other people who aren't enlightened because you know more of the Bible than they do. Is so that you can grow by it. That's why God feeds you the Word of God, so that you can grow. And in this passage, he said, you were taught give me verse twenty two, with regard to your

former way of life, to put off your old self. Now, the way you read that is you were taught to put off your old self. Somebody taught you to put off your old self. But that's not what it means. It means you were taught Jesus in order that to put off your old self. So it's an infinitive imperative. It follows from the first one. It means you were taught. The reason God taught you the reason he brought you here was so that you could put off That's the

reason God has him and you're teaching. That's the reason that God gives you a word. That's the reason God gives you an experience. That's the reason he leads you through the valley so you can get to know the Shepherd, so that when you face that situation again, you'll be stronger, wiser, better, and ready. Stronger, wiser, better, and ready. I'm stronger, wiser, better and ready. I'm stronger, I'm wiser, I'm better, and I'm ready. I was taught to put off my old

way of life. Wouldn't it be nice if it were only that simple? Yeah? Man, just put it off like this, like everybody, everybody in the room. Do what I say when I say it. Ready, stand up? I love the contrarian's like, no, I am seated in heavenly places with Christ. I know where this is going. Stand up, illustration, help me now, sit down. That's kind of how I read it.

Put off the old self and put on Jesus. That's simple. Right. Well, so yesterday we're at Graham's wrestling right, and this lady was sitting up at the top of the bleachers, and she kept yelling for her team, not just her kids, the whole team, and that's great. I yelled for our team too, and it's great to do that and be supportive. Only know, these kids can't hear you while they're out there wrestling, so all you're really doing is getting it out of your own system. They can't hear any of that.

And besides, what is this lady going to coach that kid to do from up there? I mean, maybe she was a former NCAA Division One champion her in her heyday. Didn't get that feeling though, didn't get that impression. Just seemed like she was loud and so so this was the moment of moments, and I was already praying about how to end this series, and I was like, I was out there praying about it, and she gave me my answer. Because I'm thinking of Paul saying, just put

off your old way of life. Just stop being negative, be positive, right ready, just do that, Just stand up. Just just trust God, just trust him, trust him, like the Bible says, with how with all your heart and and and so. All right, so it's a heavyweight match, right and her team was the Spiders. She was cheering for. She was cheering for. The spiders. Had a big spider on the back of the uniform, the single lead, the tights, the spandex that they make wrestlers wear. You gotta be

tough to wear those tights out there. I'm telling you right now, that's that's that's tough. So so it's a heavyweight match that goes up to two hundred and seventy five two hundred and eight eight five pounds, and the boy who was winning was every bit of two eighty five, and the boy who was losing was not. Because it's a it's a Broadway class. The boy who was winning was on top of the boy who was not winning.

I think I'm gonna do this as an illustration. I put it in my notes if you feel they need it acted out. So I'm gonna act it out because I feel like you need it. I feel like you need it because I feel like all this is good. Put off the old self. But what I wore in here is heavier than a jacket. What I wore in here, and what I'm worried about is heavier than just a

bad day. Remember, he said, the old self. Old means that's been going on a long time, and a lot of the things we preach about real quick have been have been things you've been carrying for a long time. So it doesn't feel like, you know, just just put it off. Just stop being you know, manipulative, dude. I struggle with manipulation because I was abandoned young and so I had to make things happen. So that's the only way I know how to do stuff, is to make

things happen because I had to make things happen. And now you're telling me just take that manipulative. Trust God. So I'm going to be the guy that was down on the bottom, and I'm gonna show you how you feel and what this lady was screaming, Graham, come up here. Graham's going to be the big guy. Remember this is an illustration. Had this been an actual reality, I would kick his butt right up here. But just get on top of me like you're two eighty five. And so

it's something like this, don't hurt me. And then and then all right, so maybe he has the bigger guy has his forearm in the back of his neck, so do that. Yeah, And then the lady at the top of the bleachers is yelling stand up to the spider on the bottom. And I'm sure he thought she knew his name. I don't remember. Let's say his name was Timmy stand up. Let's just call him Stephen. Stand up, Stephen. And I'm sure Stephen was thinking on the bottom. Oh yeah,

that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to stand up. Thank you lady at the top of the bleachers who had an act exercised in five years for reminding me what I'm supposed to be doing down here. And I think you feel like this when I preach sometimes, but you don't want to hurt my feelings, so you won't admit it that I'm saying trust God, and you are like, thanks, Ah, I didn't think of that. Yeah, I should just trust God. Already had to fire fourteen employees my small business, but

I just trust God. That'll be great. That'll really mean a lot to their pregnant wives who are expecting their fourth child, and now I had to lay them off. I appreciate it. I'll trust God. You know whom the sun sets free? Is Frandy be free? Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be free. Never mind that this dependency is chemical and psychological, and societal all at the same time.

That's why when Barbara King Saliver was on Holly's book Club and she was talking about the opioid crisis in Appalachia, I was so enlightened for her to talk about how we judge people as being bad by their behaviors, but we don't understand the brokenness that came from their background to create the behaviors. To begin with, Yeah, stand up, she said, stand up. Be a spider. I don't have a legs, I don't spin webs. I'm not a faith giant.

I'm not the apostle, Paul. I'm not Jesus Christ. I'm just down here trying not to get pinned, trying not to be on my back. And what I realized when I preach more and more is like I still need to tell you to stand up, But being told to do it and being taught to do it, Paul, say you were taught Jesus. I can't see all right now? Am I doing good? Makes them noise? I need the encouragement. This is very, very embarrassing. I did not want to

do this illustration. But if will help us get on the same page, do the new you I'm like, do the new me. I'm just trying to breathe, eat, feed people, not end up in prison. There's pressure because I said stand up. You know what I want to say when somebody says stand up and you got to shut up? You know, hey, just go make it work and trust the word and step out on face and all this. And there's something inside of you that says, you tell me to do it, but teach me to do it.

You all right, Graham, you got the good part of this illustration. Why did I do it this way? I could have flipped this. Watch what happened when Paul said in verse twenty, he said that you got verse twenty ready, I'm running out of running out of blood of your That, however, is not the way of life you learned next verse when you heard about Christ, and we're taught in him in accordance with the truth. So watch this, everybody say stand up. Shut that say stand up quit. I don't

want to be a Christian. I think I'm gonna dry Buddhism. Ah, this is too hard. I can't do this. But if truth comes, If truth comes, what I've been trying to do what I know I need to do what I wish I could do what you keep telling me to do. Watch this buck, come buck, come bu bub bub bub. You see what happened when I called buck. You see what happened when I called buck? Oh you see what grit? You see what that devil did when I called the name, when I said, I got somebody greater, greater is he

that isn't me? That he that was all not back? Nah? I got it off me. Nah, I got it off me. You see what I just did. I caught somebody bigger. I caught somebody stronger. I called a state champion. And you knew it too. And see, the devil knows your weak spots, but he also knows that there's something in you that is so much greater, that what is in you is so much greater than whatever is on you. So that's why I declare, and I prophesy, and I preach and I proclaim. In the name of Jesus Christ

of Nazareth. Stand up, Stand up, stand up. I know the money is real bad right now in the car at new but stand up. I know it doesn't look good right now and you can't figure it out. But in the name of Jesus christs a nathism, Get up, been walked, Get up being worse. I've been moved forward. I know the plans I have for you, plans for a hope and a future, a new beginning, had a different ending, a gift that is in you that I has not seen, and here has not heard, and neither

has it entered into your heart. But when you call the name of Jesus, when you say, the one that created me is greater than the one that is fighting me. When you say the one that created me gave his life to redeem me from the shame that is on me. Now I can stand up like a spider. I can stand up like a saint. I can stand up like a new creation. I can stand up like a child of God. I can stand up like a spirit. Film

blood bought Devil Chasen send to Facon overcoming style. What the most time, God, Jesus, I need to try it again. I'll call Buck, tell the devil try it again. I'll call Jesus, try it again. He'll send the angels fright again. He'll frown you in the red sea of my trouble. So so so what you do every time Buck comes, come on back? No, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. What you do every time that God keeps sending come on back, come on back, God keep sending,

come on, come on, come on. God keep sending things in your life to get you up. You say, no, no no, no, I'm good. I got this. I got this. I got this. I don't want anybody think I'm weak. Now, I'm good. I'm good. God, God, God got this. I got this. I got this. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it, I'll do it. I'll do it. You even whisper the name of Jesus Ques, just fuck fuck. You're supposed to come when I whisper to show them how

the Lord death. But then it's something I'm about us that can be comfortable being down to the point where when help comes we fight it. Like that corny old joke. The man was drowning. He said, Lord, save me. Here comes a helicopter. He said, no, I'm waiting on the Lord. Here comes a carrier, a vessel, a boat, and word choice. He said, no, no, I'm good. I'm waiting on the Lord. And then he drowned, and he went to heaven and he said, Lord, you didn't come. He said, I sent

you a helicopter and a boat. You big dummy, send your buck you wanted stuck. So here's what I say. Thank you. I might call you again, so be ready. Listen. There is a future that God knows for you. That He is not bringing it to you. He is bringing you to it. And for the future that God has for you, you are the perfect fit for it because He knew you before he knit you together in your mother's womb. That's how long God has known you, and

that is for you. God is loyal to and he will do what it takes to bring you into the life that He's called you to live, not only for you, but for his glory and for others. God's not through with you. You don't get to stay down there talking about if it were that I would have done it by now. No, you just haven't walked in what you were taught long enough yet to see the fruit of your faith, and you never will if you keep fighting your future because you are in love with your familiar.

Don't fight your future. When God sends you correction, get quicker to accept it. Don't be so defensive to the point that you stay dysfunctional because you are so defensive, because you get humiliated when somebody sees something. So instead of humbling yourself and saying all right, I thought about that for about three last three days, and I think, I think I do need to go and apologize you. Just do you and go off and don't speak for eight months and stay that. I know that we all

struggle with different forms of bondage in captivity. I know that I am not a judgmental dude, not at all. I would be if the Lord had done a better job getting me past the point where I'm at right now. But he works on me slow so I won't get all upity and think I'm there, so he has left. Remember when they used to say in sports that somebody would have a loser's limp. It means you pretend to be hurt so that you have an excuse for losing.

In the Kingdom of God, he gives you a winner's limp, like Jacob who wrestled with his angel won and limped away to remind him for the rest of his life that he needs Buck. I mean, God and tricks are for kids, and deceitful desires have to go. In this season, so that I can step into what I was designed by God to be and accomplish what I was called by God to accomplish. For he knows the plans he has for me, and I know the problems I have,

and he knows the plans. He knew me before I had the problems, and he knows the plans before I have them. So remember I said I would give you the teaching and then an illustration from Graham. And you didn't know you were going to get all that action today, I'll tell you right now. But I said, I want to give you a picture, and it is indeed a very unusual one. But when the people of God were coming into the Promised Land, they needed to be taught

how to transition. We all do, and when we are not taught what to do with our former way of life, we just repeat what nobody was there to teach us. To admit that you weren't taught, or that you might have been taught wrong requires humility. So I'm really proud. I shouldn't say I'm proud of Moses, because what does

he care if I'm proud of him? But I think I want to be like Moses, who had learned so many lessons in the wilderness from his own mistakes that when he was getting the generation that went after him ready to follow Joshua into the land, God was giving them which they would subdue and conquer just town by town, battle by battle, fight by fight. He gave them such specific instructions to not worship the gods of the people

all around them. Most of us weren't taught that we were just handed idols, but because they didn't sit as statues in our living room, we didn't know it was idolatry. It's an empty way of life that was handed down to us in a lot of ways. Not saying your parents were bad, I'm not saying they were good. We all caught a lot of things, and if we're never taught anything different than what we caught, we just stay down.

We just stay down, and every time God comes to help us, we reject him because he doesn't feel comfortable to us. So Moses is like, we made some big mistakes, and those of you who were twenty and under before those mistakes get to go in. We don't. You're going in, And he tells them festivals to hold to remember the goodness of God. I'm going to do a teaching on that one day too, about making an entrance when you

go into a new season. There are certain things you always need to do when you go into a new week, when you go into a new day. I'm going to teach that about entrance. Making an entrance teaches them that. He teaches them how to treat one another, how to deal with matters of justice. It's really amazing. But there's one verse that seems unusual. He says, you're coming into a new land, your relatively new nation. You've never had

this type of experience before. You're going to go from living out of the hand of Pharaoh forty years ago and from the manna that fell into having to cultivate the land that the Lord is leading you into. So you need to be taught. You need the Lord to teach you in this season of your life. Teenagers, you

need the Lord to teach you. You need him to show you so you don't end up with two hundred and eighty five pounds of addiction on your back when you're twenty five, when you're forty five, when you're sixty five, Just real quick, who wants to say, Lord, teach me, teach me? The preacher can tell me to do it, but only the Holy Spirit can teach me to do it. In the moment I can tell you stand up. Only God can strength than you enough that you can do it.

So Moses says, when you go take a city, now watch this Deuteronomy twenty nineteen, the most anointed verse I've read all year, and that includes Ephesians four. He said, when you lay siege to a city for a long time. Somebody say a long time. That means this is a protracted battle. It's dragged out. You go in to take the city and they hunker down and they won't come out and fight you. So you have to block them in, cut off their supply, and wait for them to fight you.

When you get in that kind of situation, because you're going to attack these people, they're bigger than you. But God is with you. But when you go to a place to take the land that I've promised to you on oath through your ancestors, and there's a siege, you lay siege to the city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it. Now, hold on, hold on. This is not a picture of you fighting a city.

It's a picture of you fighting your old self, and it goes on a long time, to the point where you wish you could just fight somebody else because you're so sick of you. How many have ever prayed that before? Just Lord, give me somebody else's problems, because I'm so sick of getting knocked out by the same right hook. And I see it coming, but I just lean right into it every time. If you don't, if you don't

relate to this, there's another church for you. This is for people who struggle, and it's not always so easy to stand. So he said, when you get in that battle and you're trying to attack a city, but you have to lay a siege to it because it goes on a long time. Look at this. Do not destroy it's trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. What wisdom, the wisdom of Moses, He said, When you go in and start fighting the city,

don't start chopping down the trees that bear fruit. Don't cut them down. Watch this are the trees people that you should besieged them. In other words, don't start fighting the thing that God wants to feed you with in your future. About to throw this microphone, don't take the thing, because see, we need trees. Right. It's a siege, right, we got to build a wall keep the people in. We got to build a ramp so we can get up on top of their wall and see the enemy

and attack them. So the natural tendency is when you're in a season where it's a battle, and it's been that way a long time. He said, you're gonna want to go in and just start fighting everything. Just start shopping at everything, just start chopping down trees. But before you cut those trees down to use them for battle. Before you take a tree and say, but I could use that as a battering ram and get through, Before you cut a tree down and say we could build

up a defense there against the enemy. Before you cut it down, check it and see is there something on that tree that I'm gonna need in my future so that I don't do something now that is going to fight against what God has intended for my future. And I see a lot of us. We're in a battle right now. We're in a battle with depression. We're in a battle with anxiety. We're in a battle for our sanity. We're in a battle for our money, We're in a

battle for our families. We're in a battle for our relationships. We're in a battle for our peace. We're in a battle right now. But when you are in a battle, be careful not to attack. Because of the battle. The thing that God wants to bless you with in the future, so that the very help God sends to you becomes the thing that you reject, So that the very lesson that God teaches you becomes the thing that you resent. Buck buck buck buck buck buck buck bob buck buck

buck buck Man, go back to your seat. You're in my way. That's what you've been doing with God. He was my fruit tree. He was coming to help me. The Lord said, you go in this land and you're going to be chopping at stuff sometimes that you really are going to need in the future. Wasn't that interesting thing? He said? Are the trees the soldiers look at Eugene Peterson how he put it in the message? Give me

the message. The message translation makes it so clear. When you mount an attack on a town and the siege goes on a long time, how many have been struggling with something for a long time, praying for something for a long time, Believe in for some Okay, three people in this whole section, everybody else. Just go to heaven. Why do you come to church here, Just go to heaven. Struggle with something for a long time, long time, long time. All right, don't start cutting down the trees, swinging your

axes against them. These trees are your future food. Don't cut them down. The battle you're facing today is your future strength. Don't run from it. The thing God is doing in your life to draw you closer to him, that is teaching you. You said, God, teach me. Okay, God said, this is your fruit tree. But if you keep chopping down everything God sends to strengthen you, you will live the rest of your life down when you had the power to get up. So I came today

with the prophetic word, stop fighting your future. Those trees that are bearing right now, they have the potential in them, just like you have the potential in you to bear much fruit. In fact, Jesus said that when something is fruitful, he prunes it so it can be more fruitful. Let me speak a word about not fighting your future. Some people God keeps trying to remove from your inner circle, and you keep chasing them down so that you can have friends. But God is leading you into a future

with some different friends. God needs you to reach out to some different people. It doesn't mean you hate them, but you just can't hang on to the relationship just because you liked it. God might be moving them. God might be moving you, but he's not through with you. He's just moving you into a new season of effectiveness, productivity, purpose and growth. Stop fighting your future. Stop every time something comes your way that you don't agree with getting offended.

This current offense is your future wisdom. How will you learn a new point of view if you don't listen to anybody. Stop fighting your future by being trapped in your past. Stop fighting your future by wishing it was how it was. It's not and it never will be again. So I commend you to the Lord today to put on the new self, new fruit, new opportunities. I've lost an awful lot, new fruit, new opportunities. I got two hundred and eighty five pounds of pressure on me. New fruit,

new opportunities, new strength. His mercies are new with every rising of the sun. The fact that you did this a couple hundred times while I've been talking, and you didn't even have to think about it. It's proof to me of what I started my sermons saying God is not through with you. Stop expecting angels to look cute when they come. You ever read about an angel in a Bible and seen somebody draw what they would look like and scared to crap out of you when an

angel come? Why did the angel have to say, don't be afraid when it came? If it wasn't scary. It's scary to step into a new season. It's scary to do it a new way. It's scary to let your guard down and say I'm struggling and I need to talk about it. It's scary to apologize. If I apologize, they might walk all over me, or God might come help you and defend you. So what do I keep cutting down that God wants me to continue in? What do I every time I get uncomfortable, I go run

for something that's going to ruin me later. And Moses said, I got to prepare you for this, or you'll start cutting down stuff now that you'll need later. And I mean in every area of your life, you need to be nurturing now so that what you need later will

be waiting when you get there. If you're a parent, and you've got kids that arerunning around doing all the sports, and y'all never get to know each other because you're so busy trying to champion them all the way to their glory of the high school whatever sport, high school swimming. They're gonna leave you. They're leaving your house. If you do the job right, they will leave one day and they might boomerang back, but you try and get them

out of there, and you just keep throwing that thing. Ah. And I told the kids one time we were going. They said, are you coming to this thing tonight? I said, no, me and I'm going on to date i've been at. This was a couple years ago. I said, we're going out, y'all. I'm going out of town next week and we haven't any time together. So you're gonna go do the thing and then we're gonna go out and then I'll see you after. And I was like, Oh, you're a bad parent. No,

I'm nurturing now. She's Holly's going to be in the house after they decide to go leave and they can come back when they want. So I need to know her in the next season. So I need to nurture it now. I just set somebody free to not go to the basketball game Thursday, go to Bonefish. And I know it's balanced, but don't you see that you are fighting your future when you don't nurture you're now, because you're gonna have to deal with that. And I have

to accept where God has me now. I am so tired of people saying, Oh, he's just an old head, an old head, an old head is full of wisdom. Oh yeah, I'm an old head. I'm an old head. I know I know things now I didn't know then. And I'm gonna make a T shirt of this that probably already is one I'm gonna make. I'm gonna make one too, and it's gonna say old is the goal. Make fun of me because I'm old? What did you do? I didn't die yet, and I've been not dying for

thirty years, longer than you. You can make fun of me. I've been doing it a long time, like the Lord. So I'm not apologizing for the fact that I'm getting a little older, and I've got to embrace that. But see, when you won't embrace where God has you because you wish you were where you were, you fight the future. He's bringing you into I think they're getting it. I think you've been getting it ever since I was down here on the ground. I think you like Graham choking

me out. And I think you liked it when I called somebody's name who came to help me? Because they'll let you know. You've got a name that is above every name. You've got a name that is above your old nature. And God is not through with you. Touch three people say God's not through with you. It's not through with you. It's not through with you. God is not through with you. God is not through with you. What you've been through won't be wasted. God is not

through with you. People throw you away, but God is not through. People talk about you like a dog, but God is not through with you. I want to speak to a pastor right now. You've been canceled, you lost your church. God is not through with you. You You get down to a rescue mission and you open your Bible and you talk about God in the wilderness and water from a rock. Because God is not through with you. He brings new things from dry places. God is not

through with you. They might be, they might be, they might be, but look up and stand up and put on the armor of God. Now UN's at him who is able to do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine. For now the plans I have for you don't fight it well, thank from the battle, so you missed the blessing it's here is now you are more than you've become. Yet God is not through with you yet yet and made it through the waters yet to even see the Egyptians drown. Oh, get to the other side. God is

not through. Stop making excuses and exchange it for the expectation of greater grace. Father, we have been taught today by your spirit. What good is it to be taught? What we will not walk in? I bring each and every man, woman, boy and girl that you put under the sound of my voice for this hour. I bring them and place them in your capable hands. We are the bread you desire to multiply. We are like the

staff that parts waters when the master touches it. So we want to ask you, first of all, Lord, that you would help us to see where we've been so comfortable being stuck, that we have cut down what you were trying to use to grow us. And we admit we've done it. From time to time. We keep on

doing things in the short term that long term hurt us. Well, that's what your grace is for, because we're learning now and we're changing now, and it's different now because this time we're not doing it in the strength that we have apart from you. We're leaning into your strength, your power, your supply. We're going to call the name of Jesus this week. We're going to do it right now. Get some practice, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Help me deal with this. Jesus,

help me. I got this meeting tuesday. Jesus, I got this all. Ser Jesus, I keep on going back to the doctor. They don't even know what's wrong. Jesus, Jesus. Help me get out of worry. Help me not play it out again and again in my mind and make it worse. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me resist that temptation. God. I can't do it in my own strength. I keep on giving in to it. But I believe you're calling me to stand up. Stand up in the name of Jesus, stand up in the name of Jesus. Throw it off,

put it off. Lord, We've been some of us. We've been in a certain struggle a long time. But before the struggle ever was, you knew who we were. I speak to the spirit of every man and woman today. I speak to the truest part of them, the part of them that is wrapped in love and called by God. And I admonish you in. I lift you up to the Father, and I remind you that he knew the plants he had for you before you did. He knew the pain would be bad, and he promised that the

power would be greater. He knew you'd be here. Listen to me, Listen to me. He knew you'd be here. He knew you were going to screw that thing up, and he loved you, and he called you anyway. He knew you would feel abandoned and let down. He called you anyway. That's why he said, even if your father and mother closest friend forsake you, the Lord will take you up. He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is able to be touched by the feeling of

your infirmity. He really knows you, he really sees you. He really called you, he really chose you, and he's not through with you yet. Don't fight it. Welcome it. Welcome it. Holy Spirit doing new work in my life. I welcome it. Don't reject it. Don't stop repeating the mistakes because you refuse to believe you deserve a blessing. Welcome it. God wants to bless you, He wants to heal you, he wants to keep you. Receive it. Don't call on him and then resist him. He's coming right now.

Stop thinking about lunch. God is here. You prayed, you asked him give me a sign it's gonna be all right, and he sent me to tell you I know the plans I have for you is not through with you yet. Well. If you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple of things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Also help us reach others by investing today at Elevation Church dot org. Slash give and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast.