Don’t Forget Where You Come From

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.

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.

Let's give a warm welcome to our entire church family and all of our campuses and online. Hey, welcome e fam. I haven't done an EPAM roll call in a while. Put your name and where you're watching from. Please in the chat if you're watching online, and everybody in this place today, be encouraged. The Lord has heard your prayers. The Lord has heard your prayers.

Tell the person next to you he heard you. Tell him.

Just because he didn't do it like you wanted him to.

Doesn't mean he didn't hear you. We were singing a song a moment.

Ago called call God, and we said I call God, and he answered And some people were like, well you hadn't yet. You know, I wish he would. But the thing is he did so many times before, so many times before.

And I'm gonna preach a little bit about this today.

But sometimes we adapt to our answered prayers and we cease to appreciate them. But one thing I'm gonna be very intentional about from this pulpit in this year is to not let you just walk past stuff that God did in your life without recognizing it, because that's how the enemy weakens you. So you're gonna notice me a lot more in my sermons and when I come up, just turning your attention not only to the things that God has done, but who He is, because that's what

Today? We're glad to have you. What a robust church we are. I love it. I love it.

Welcome Dayton, Ohio. Welcome California, Welcome Cape Town, Welcome Cornelias, North Carol. Well, you should be in church. You shouldn't be watching. You just told on yourself. I'm glad you're here today. Welcome settle in. God has a word for you. You Joshua, what chapter seventeen? You ever notice you don't hear many sermons passed around Joshua chapter three or four. All the exciting stuff happens kind of in the beginning of the Book of Joshua.

They're taking the land.

And they're you know, they're going forward in the promise of God and crossing the Jordan, and so we usually preach from that.

Well, I'm going all the way to Joshua seventeen today. See what happens after that.

Now, listen to this because this is where we live in our everyday life. Everyday life is not always exciting new adventures and explorations on the opportunities that all wait you. Sometimes it's just three advil and a prayer and sorry, I'm five minutes late, but I'm here anyway, And we're trying to deal with that. This year because I preached you last week that there will always be wheat and there will always be weeds in the garden of.

Your life with God. And I was trying to get you to watch the.

Wheat, not the weeds, Not just looking at the things you can't control and wishing they weren't there, but realizing that what God planted in you is significant in every season of your life, whether you can see the growth or not. Now, in Joshua chapter seventeen, something interesting happens, and I'll read it and then we'll back into the context.

But listen to this.

The people of Joseph said to Joshua, why have you given us only one allotment and one.

Portion for an inheritance?

Remember, they possessed the land that God swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and they got in the land and they won the victory. And the people of Joseph, one of the groups from the nation, comes to Joshua the leader, and says, why did you only give us one allotment? Look, we are a numerous people and the Lord has blessed us abundantly.

Now watch Joshua's response.

If you are so numerous, Joshua answered, since you're so blessed like you say you are. And if the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up into the forest and clear land for yourselves.

There in the land of the.

Perizites and the Rephites, those are their enemies. And the people of Joseph replied, the hill country is not enough for us. And all the Canaanites who live in the plain have chariots fitted with iron, both those in beth Shahan and its settlements, and those in the valley of Jezreel. But Joshua said to the tribes of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manassa. To Ephraim and Manassa, you are numerous and very powerful.

You will have not only one.

Allotment, but the forested hill country as well. Now lean into this clear it and its farthest limits will be yours. Though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron, and though they are strong, you can drive them. Ah, thank the Lord for his word one time. Would you come on right there? Thank him for his word. My message today is called don't forget where you come from. Look at three people say, don't forget where you come from.

And man, you may be seated.

Don't forget where you come from, Kenya or West Virginia, or like me, maybe you came from Monk's Corner, South Carolina. Boy, somebody said something to me the other day. I never thought i'd hear. They said, the traffic is terrible in Monk's Corner. It's changed a lot since I was there. Bad traffic in Monk's Corner when I was a boy meant you had to wait through the red light once at rush hour. My guess is growing, you know, is really expanding, And it is, it is, it is.

It's all the population that's pushed.

Anyway, I won't tell you the geography of Charleston in the low country of South Carolina. By the way, welcome our newest campus in Somerville, South Carolina. And y'all know I love Jesus because Somerville was our rival in high school. We were the Berkeley Stags and we hated the Somerville Green Wave. And now God has prepared a table in the presence of my enemies in Somerville, South Carolina.

But we love you, no.

No. The reason I bring up where you come from is because everybody in here has a point of reference for what you think is successful in your life.

You have a point of reference.

If you never had five hundred dollars in your bank account before, the first five hundred feels amazing. It's a point of reference if you're seventy three years old and hoping to retire next year five hundred dollars. There's not a prayer warrior in the world that can turn five hundred dollars into a retirement account, but it's your point

And I literally cried.

Twenty two year old, twenty three year old men just crying over.

Five hundred dollars.

Sometimes I wish I could still cry that easy, because there was something about that stage in my life where I wasn't expecting a bonus. I remember when he first sat me down and explained my salary package to me. He was like, this is how much we're going to pay you this year, and of course that doesn't include the benefits.

And I said, the what he said, the benefits. And this is how when school I was because my dad was self employed. I didn't even know what benefits were.

I didn't know that that's something that you could negotiate into a I wasn't negotiating. I was just thankful. I was like benefits. He's like, yeah, that's going to be additional to this amount. You know, it's been a while since I praise God for my health insurance.

Because I had it too long. I had it too long.

Sometimes I let three days go by and don't tell Holly how pretty she is. But that's wrong, because she's pretty every day and she deserves to be told that every day. And plus I spend too much on those clothes she's wearing, not to compliment how she looks at her and that two hundred and eighty dollars makeup that's in her bathroom, whatever I'm spending over there at Sephora. I feel like she she deserves to hear it. When

The only thing that you're focused on.

And when you forget the gifts that God has given you, it makes it impossible for you to access the power that He put inside of you.

Don't forget where you come from.

Don't forget that there was a time that a five hundred dollars Christmas bonus.

Made you cry.

Don't forget that there was a time when you prayed that God would give you these children that you're praying for Him to help you not to eliminate from the face of the earth at this very moment.

Don't forget where you come from.

We see an interesting dynamic in Joshua chapter seventeen in that these tribes the people of Joseph, it's actually two tribes.

One is called Manassa and one is called Ephraim. Those were Joseph's boys.

Manassa was his first born, Ephram was his second, and both of them were born in Egypt, in the place where he suffered, in the place where he was falsely accused, in the place where he was thrown into prison, in the place where God also raised him to prominence in Egypt. He had two boys, Manassa and Ephraim, and those boys have now several generations later turned into tribes, and these tribes have taken territory in the land of Canaan, And not only have they settled into the land, but they've

I have to talk with you later.

It's just that they're blessed so much that they are experiencing the pressure of blessing. Many times in church we only speak to the desperation of failure, but there is a need to preach to the pressure of blessings because blessings are heavy in your life. Sometimes when you're going through all of the things that you're worried about, it's not even so much that you're complaining about them or

You just left the.

Wilderness, and now you're complaining that there's not enough room for you. Did you notice what they said to Joshua.

Why did you only give us one allotment? We're too big for this place.

We need more elbow room, we need new countertops, we need hardwood floors, we need more space. We need a minivan. You know, we're a growing nation. We are. It's getting bigger. In Monk's corner. The traffic is terrible. In Monk's corner. Everything in the text is growing. And while everything is growing, their perspective is narrowing, and all they can see is

Just because God gave me.

A job doesn't mean I don't get tired. Just because God sent people to my ministry doesn't mean I always have a message to give them when they show up.

Blessings create pressure. If pressure is.

Not dealt with, pressure can create self pity.

Self pity, if not.

Dealt with, can create a situation where you are in this state of watch this. Too much and not enough. That's what they said in verse sixteen. They said, we do not have enough land. The land that you gave us is not enough for us, and the people are too much for the land that is not enough. I felt like when I I'd be preaching to somebody today who would understand this tension of too much and not enough, Too much and not enough. This is why we toss

Too much on my mind and not enough in.

My life that makes me feel happy and recharged. Too much demand, not enough supply. Too many people sucking energy out of me and not enough people supplying it. Too many people asking and not enough people offering too many things wrong and not enough things working out too much and not enough. That's what they said. Look at verse sixteen. It's in the Bible. They said, the land you gave us verse sixteen.

Is not enough. It's not enough. All right, let's talk about that for a minute. It's not enough.

I'm not gifted enough, I'm not talented enough, I'm not experienced enough. I told you during the Same Lives, New Loop series that the devil only has two lives that he puts on a loop in your mind, and one is I'm not loved, and one is not enough. So that's why you wake up in the morning feeling like, well, whats on my agenda for today? Is too much? And the time I have to do it and is not enough.

Matter of fact.

Start doing like this because I'm so blessed. I need some elbow room. I'm so blessed. I need you to scoot over a little bit. I'm so blessed. You better get out of my way. I'm so blessed because if I think for a minute about that five hundred dollars bonus and how much God has done for me since, then, if I think for a minute about how He kept me upright on my feet and in my right mind, you better give.

Me some room.

Because if I think for one minute about how I called and he answered, and he came through like only he could, just not. Your neighbors say, we're so blessed, getting more blessed every day.

I'm spreading out my tent in this season.

I'm driving down my stakes in this season because I'm so blessed. That's why I'm tired.

Because God bless me. What a perspective. And now the land I have is not enough?

And so now your prayer request is about all your praise reports? Did that make sense? I prayed for it, I got it. It's a blessing. It creates pressure, and the decision in this season of your life.

Is this What do I do with the pressure? What do I do about them? Not enough? Why do I feel like it's not enough?

Why when God sends an opportunity into my life do I reject it and send it away because I think I can't do it? Why do I send people who love me away and push people who care about me away and reach for things that destroy me?

Why am I still in this season.

Of my life struggling with something that I prayed about since I was a teenager?

Is there not enough of God's power to deliver me? Do I have not enough faith to receive it.

What's the problem here, Well, Joshua. Joshua gets a real I call this a dad energy with these tribes, and me and Holly are totally different in our parenting approach, totally different.

I told you.

Last week, if my kids run out the house without a coat.

I'm like, cool. She's like, You're going to freeze. I'm like, they're not going to freeze.

Like, first of all, first of all, they're not going to freeze. Secondly, if they do, it will be a memory in their life that will create maturity for their future.

So I'm just building memories.

I'm building memories of the time that your dumb self left without your coat and almost froze to death. And then maybe one day you'll give money to somebody who doesn't have a coat so they can buy one. So I'm promoting generosity. I'm teaching you good stewardship and responsibility all by just letting you be an idiot. The other day, Holly was telling me her schedule for the day. I said, what do you have the rest of the day. She said, well, all three kids have a dentist appointment. I said, what

This is not a good.

Path because if I got a sit of the dentist office to make sure you're here, you got a beard, and I'm taking you to the dentist. Help me, Praise the Lord. All the dad's in that house. Joshua was like.

So you want more land, now, listen, how you to tell you something? I forgot to tell you this.

The land that they had it was the second biggest piece given to all of the tribes, the only one bigger was Judah. So when they come to Joshua and they're like, hey, we don't have enough land, Joshua was like, it's interesting you should say that, because I noticed that when I gave you the land, there were some parts.

Of the land that you did not occupy.

I noticed that when I assigned you the acreage, you had the second biggest plot of land of any of the tribes. So if you want more room, if you really need more space, instead of asking me for more land when you've already been given the second largest piece of land, can I stop for a moment. Somebody else would die to trade places with you in your life. Somebody else would give all the money in their bank account to have the peace that you have in your home.

So when they moved in, they were like, cool, this is great, this is great.

But then after a while, all the land that was producing because it was a very fertile piece of land. Don't get it twisted. They didn't get any land that was like second rate. This was not scraps. This was good land. But they got in there and they eventually started to outgrow it, and then they eventually began to grumble because they had grown, and so they started to grumble about their growth, and they started to grumble about the gift that God had given.

And you just want to slap them real quick, just slap them real quick, like, really, you came from the wilderness. Really, God gave you the second largest piece of land, and all you can think of to say is I want more. Really, sometimes I want to slap myself when I hear the.

Things that I complain about. And here's what I've noticed. Without a constant focus on the goodness of God, Without a constant focus on the goodness of God, it is easy for me to go from inheritance to entitlement inheritance to entitlement. Look at this that Paul prayed in Ephesians chapter one.

Put it on the screen, please.

He said, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people. So Ephesians is telling us spiritually what Joshua is showing us physically, that you have an inheritance. But notice the verse again. Put it on the screen for another moment, where he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened to know the riches of the inheritance you already have.

What he prayed instead was so specific.

He said, I pray that you would be able to see clearly what God has already given you freely.

So this is the shift. Inheritance says God gave me this.

God gave me this responsibility to preach today.

I get to do it.

Entitlement says I've got to do it. Inheritance says, God has given me the privilege to minister to these precious people. Y'all don't even know how much I love doing this. Y'all don't even know how much it matters to me. Y'all don't even know how much. I wake up at two thirty on Sundays and say, go back to sleep, You're gonna.

Need your energy.

And then it's two forty five, and it's three, and it's three point fifteen, and it's three thirty and finally say I can't sleep. I might as well get up and start thinking about it. And then by about three forty five, I'm appreciating it out loud. So I know the kids think that's going crazy downstairs again, but I don't care, because God gave me this mantle.

And I'm gonna tell you something else.

I prayed hard for this, and I sacrificed for this, but it was my sacrifice. It was his sovereignty that gave it to me, because I could.

Not earn this.

And some of us know that it was not by Mike, and not by power, and not by intelligence, and not by connections and not by networking, and not by pedigree, and not by GPA, and not by your skill, but by his grace that I am what I am. Thank you, Lord, thank you God, thank you. I've got kids to worry about, thank you. I've got a spouse to fight with, Thank you. I've got clothes to get dirty.

And have to wash them again.

Thank you. I've got dishes to yell at somebody for leaving in the sink. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I've got a toilet to get clogged up. I remember where I came from. Slap yourself and say, really, you're fussing about this. You forgot where you came from. You were in a wilderness, you were in your sin, you were in chains. You beg God, God, if you'll take me, if you'll.

Use me, I'll do anything for you.

And has inheritance mentality become entitlement mentality in your life? Fussing cause the coffee's cold, fuss and because it buffered for twenty three seconds. Boy, you better remember that card catalog you used to have to go through to find out information. And now you're mad because chat GPT took twelve seconds to think. Don't forget where you come from. I come from Monks Corner, South Carolina.

That's why I cannot.

Be discouraged when I stand up in front of large crowds.

To preach, because when I look at the.

Size of the crowd and realize the town I came from, I'm like, oh, yeah, it was you, guy, it was you. I mean, this makes no sense. This is just absolutely stupid, and I'm so grateful that you use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Now I need to rush past this point because.

I have another point to make.

But maybe this would be a good challenge for you to put in front of your family this week. Have we allowed inheritance what God gave us to be replaced with.

Entitlement because it's not enough and too much. Not enough. You got the blood of Jesus.

One drop of his blood is enough to cleanse you from what you did Thursday. One drop of his blood can erase the shame of how you spent the years between twenty twenty and twenty twenty five.

One drop of his blood.

Holly said, they've been sending pictures around online of twenty sixteen.

She said, you need.

To know there's a trend all over Instagram, at least for middle aged white women that everybody's sending around pictures of twenty sixteen, and something like twenty six is the new twenty.

Sixteen or something. And then she was right.

Everybody started sending me pictures of where they were in twenty sixteen. I started getting them randomly on my phone. People are sending me. I'm not even on Instagram and I'm getting pictures on my phone twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen, and I thought that's crazy.

Where was I twenty sixteen. I pulled something up.

This is the first Sunday grand opening in our Ballantine building in twenty sixteen, and it was supposed to happen in twenty fourteen, but it was on a two year delay. The building I preached from, By the way, if you're in Kenya, you probably don't know what talking about when

It comes from right here.

Valentine to all of our other campuses, and we were opening it twenty sixteen and.

We were having the best time kind of. But show them the other picture.

This is the one that was next to it on my phone, and there's me and Holly and she looks like blessing.

And I look like pressure. Ain't that right? Would you say? I captioned that correctly.

Because for me, I was jet lagged that Sunday morning, and for me, I had just gotten back from Australia, and for me, the headlines were all about a potential place of civil unrest in our nation. And for me, my best friend was getting fired from pastoring his church, and so between the nine thirty and the eleven thirty I was talking to him on the phone before I came out to preach again because I was scared about whether he was in a safe place emotionally or not.

So now you understand, put the picture back up again. Why she's uh.

Smiling and I'm like, she's like, God is good all the time, and I'm like, she's.

Like, this is an amazing day. Now. Obviously that's just a really unfortunate capture of my face in that moment. I don't know I was.

Really thinking and we fired that photographer, by the way.

Capture that moment.

I'm kidding, but I just want to give you a visual for a moment here as we talk about Joseph and Ephraim and Manassa, and as we talk about your life, and as we talk about forgetting where you come from, and when we talk about your past, and when we talk about the things that you remember, and when we talk.

About the challenge that you're facing.

Remember, the people of Joseph, the tribes of Ephraim and Manassa, came to Joshua and said it's too much and it's not enough.

And Joshua said, it is enough.

There is all of this territory that you were given, but it's forest territory, and it's covered not only in trees, but there are canaanites that are there, which represent the enemies that you did not drive out of the land yet. And so God has given you an inheritance. But to develop in that it's going to take two things, work and war. It's going to take work and it's going

And it didn't look like a.

New farm, but it looked like a love farm, a farm that had received a lot of attention. And a preacher drove by the farm one day and he was so absolutely enchanted with the farm that he had to meet the farmer. And the farmer came over on the tractor and turned off the tractor for a moment and said to the preacher, can I help you? And the preacher said, I was just admiring your property. What a

In other words, I worked this thing.

In other words, the people that you're driving by and envying their life, they.

Didn't just get that marriage. They didn't just get that body. They didn't just get that financial situation. They didn't just get that influence.

They were in the field keeping sheep before Goliath ever showed up.

They were developing it.

And the question is are you investing into what you inherited in your life? If it's a gift, are you investing in it? If it's a relationship, are you maintaining it? Are are you working with what God gave you or simply complaining how it's not enough. Because I'm gonna tell you it is enough. It is enough. It just hasn't had the time yet in your life to develop into what it needs to be. So I came to declare a message today it is enough, but it is going to take faith on your part. God is not simply

We pray for deliverance.

I believe in deliverance, but I also believe in support groups.

I said.

I also believe in AA.

I said. I also believe in accountability. I said. I also believe in Christian counseling.

I said, I also believe in starting to exercise. I said, I also believe in app deletion. See the thing about some of us is we are praying for peace in areas where we are unwilling to clear out trees. How can it grow? How can it grow? It has nowhere to grow. And the problem is.

Not that I need more time.

The problem is that I need more priorities. Because God gave me enough time for what he called me to do. So I declare, in this year of my life, it's the year that I do what Joshua told the people of Joseph to do. Listen to this. He said, you have enough doesn't feel like enough. You have enough doesn't look like another. There's all these trees, there's all these enemies. There's all these things that you have not confronted yet. But behind what you have been unwilling to confront is

Clear it.

I gotta clear it. I'm praying for peace, but I'm not clear in my mind. How can I stuff my mind full of and then ask Jesus to fill the space that's already filled with jump Somebody shall clear it. It might have to be cleared in your life of some unproductive.

Relationships this year.

There are so many roots that can drink water in your yard. But any more than those roots and you are not going to have the rain you need for what God is planting. Somebody shall clear it. And don't even apologize to people. If you have to cut off some communication this year, that's all right. It's not rude, it's righteous because I gotta clear it this year because God has more for me. Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't get back with you. I gotta get clear this year.

Going on in your mind in an area right now, like if.

I would have just given it more attention. That may be true. You may have missed the opportunity. You may not have done it when you should have done it. But you still can. Yeah, you still can. I wish I would have lived for God in college. Well you are seventy nine. Now you still can live for God and leave the legacy.

Somebody shout, I still can. You can if you get clear.

But if you stay in what it was in the previous season of your life, you will have more available to you and you will die for the lack of what Jesus died to put in your life. Clear it clear it tell the devil we are not having this conversation again.

Clear it.

Yes, I'm talking about your calendar.

You need to clear it up a little bit.

It's got a little too much stuff on it that you're doing to impress.

People, and it's not making an impact. Clear it. Clear it.

Let me talk to a leader, because pastors watched me preach some of the people that you are running around trying to please by preaching the sermons that they want so bad. They're not supposed to be a part of your church in this season. And if you don't stop preaching to the people who are threatening to leave, you cannot reach the people that God has called you.

To reach, and they need Jesus. Clear it, you hear me, clear it? Clearing this might be.

A prophetic word about your shopping cart on Amazon.

Clear it. You ain't buying none of it this year. We're getting out of debt this year.

We're gonna use okay, lost all the shouts, ljay, no organ necessary on that point.

And if you can clear it, you can conquer it.

You remember I said we were two years late getting in this building. One of the reasons that we were so far behind getting in on this building was because the Environmental Protection Agency told us that there was a possibility that a Carolina heel splitter clam was on the property, and they said that this clam or muscle I think it was, but I'm gonna call it a clam because it sounds better what I'm trying to say. One little clam kept us from building this whole big church.

For six months.

We could not clear the land because of a clam. You realize how many times a little thing in your life keeps you from building.

A little thing.

One person you don't want to make mad, one thing you don't want to be judged about, one uncomfortable moment you don't want to push through, one phone call you.

Don't want to make.

So you're just gonna let dread eat you up like cancer for six months because of a clam. The devil doesn't even really have to put a clam on your land. He can just tell you there may be a clam. They may laugh at you, it may not work, you may look stupid, this may backfire, your kid may end up, your mom may it's not even there.

But you're not building.

And so we get to the heart of the issue. At this moment in the text tribes of Ephraim and Manassa. Ephram and Manassa, let's look at the moment that these boys were born. Now remember, just to be clear, it's been generations since Ephram and Manassa were born to Joseph, So these people didn't know Joseph.

They were Joseph's great great great great great great great.

Great grandchildren, and Ram and Manassa were his children.

Now look in Genesis forty one, verse fifty.

It's going back in time to when Joseph was in Egypt and he was starting to serve as an administrator in Pharaoh's palace. The Bible says he wrote in the Second Chariot in command of Pharaoh. But it says before the years of Famine came, after everything Joseph had been through, imprisonment, accusation, abandonment, the people who were supposed to remember him forgetting him. The Bible says, before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by asa Out, daughter of Potiferah,

Forget all my trouble.

Everybody say forget, say it out loud, forget, put it in the comments, forget forget forget the title of this messages, don't forget where you come from. And when Joseph had his first baby, after all the suffering, after all the hardship, after all the misdirection, after all the delay, after all of the things that went wrong in his life, and finally God gave him an opportunity.

In a child. He looked at the child, and he held the.

Child in a place that he never intended to be, in a place that he never planned to be, and that may be you right now.

I didn't plan to be here.

But he looked at the baby, and in deciding what to name the baby, he named the baby Manassa, which means to forget.

He said, I'm naming this baby manassa.

Because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's households stop right there. He named the baby manassa, which means forget. Not because the memory left him of the pain that he went through. It's just that in that moment, what God was doing in his life was so significant that it made what he had been.

Through small in comparison.

So he says, I'm gonna name this child forget, not because the memory left me. But because I'm choosing to remember it different, I'm going to remember it different what I've been.

Through, what I suffered from.

I no longer see it as being sold into slavery. I see it as God sending me here, and I am forgetting what is behind me so I can press toward what is ahead.

The name Manassa means forget. How many of.

You have ever heard of something called the man Mandela effect?

Yeah, have you heard of this.

It's named after Nelson Mandela, of course, who was the president of South Africa. But it's named because a group of people collectively were documented as remembering Nelson Mandela dying in the nineteen eighties.

So check this out. A woman did research and she found out.

That there were large groups of people in the thousands who remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the nineteen eighties. The problem with that was he didn't die until the year twenty thirteen, but they remembered it as if he did. They remembered somehow, some fragmented misinformation and they remembered Nelson

Of a leader.

For instance, how many of you remember the line from the movie Star Wars when Darth Vader revealed his real identity?

What did he say? What did he say? Now?

Thousands of you remember, Luke, I am your father. But if you check the DVD Old school, if you check the movie, he doesn't say Luke, I am your father. He says, no, I am your father. That freaked me out when I heard that. I thought, all these years, I thought he said.

Luke, I am your father. He didn't say Luke, he said no.

On how did I remember it so different than it actually happened. It's the Mandela effect, or the peanut.

Butter that starts with the letter J. What's it called?

No, there's no why on it. It's just jiff It's not Jiffy. You remember Jeffy. Don't I remember Jeffy too. I thought it was Jiffy all my life. I thought it was Jeffy. It's not Jiffy. It wasn't Jiffy. It never has been Jiffy. Somebody just called it jeffy, like they call it Walmart Arts and revelations, and we all run around calling it jiffy, but it was never jiffy. It's the Mandela effect. I remember it different than it

Who never did.

Who never fails, who never can.

Shove.

Your neighbors say, remember it different. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

I'm choosing to.

Forget some things so I can clear out some space, so I can receive some things that God has given me.

Clear it out, clear it out, clear it out, clear it out. It's the Manassa that here. It is.

God can do one thing in your life. God can send one person in your life. God can send one opportunity in your life that will make you forget everything you went through to be in this place. Make you forget about how bad it hurt, every time they said no, make you forget about all the years you thought it was never going to happen. It'll make you thank him for all the things that didn't come to pass, because you'll say, if I wasn't here, I couldn't have had this.

And I am preaching about.

The Nassa effect because now, generations later, the tribe that is named after the boy who made Joseph.

Forget has forgotten. They have forgotten.

Joseph forgot his pain, but they forgot their power. And Joshua had to remind them. He said, you are very powerful, and I have to remind you of that every week that the Holy Spirit lives in you, and you are very powerful. I have to remind you that every week that Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead, lives in you, and that power works in you. And because of that, you are very powerful. Don't give me all this self empowerment stuff.

I don't need any of it. I got the Holy Spirit. I got the Holy Spirit.

You don't have to hype me up to believe I'm worthy. Jesus died for me. He's worthy. I'm very powerful. And it's a beautiful thing when you remember where you came from. Right, Because see they were complaining about the chariots. Right, they said, we can't go into that land. They have chariots. Everybody say chariots. Come on, work with me, say chariots. This is the manassa effect. They have misremembered things because they

You defy the odds. You are not one of them. You are not like them. You are not subject to this.

And don't let what you are facing make you forget who you are. High five three people say, don't forget where you come from. Don't forget where you come from. The tribe of Manassa stood before Joshua, and verse eighteen. He said something that I've been declaring over our church all week.

He said, if you clear it, you can claim it.

That was for you, dude.

If you clear it, you can claim it.

Even though they have chariots, God says, I am an expert in overpowering chariots.

Holly, do you hear.

What I'm preaching, baby, Because I'm trying to say, after all God did for us up to this point in our ministry, how can we ever doubt him again. You're talking about chariots. God doesn't care about chariots. God drowns chariots. God will jam the wheels of a chariot. You're talking about chariots. You're talking about the economy. God will make it rain. If it's not raining anywhere else, he'll make it rain in Goshen.

You're talking about chariots.

God will make a way through the sea. And if you'll clear it, you can claim him. I came to tell you today you can drive them out.

Verse eighteen.

You can drive them.

Stand to your feet and give.

God a praise today.

Thank you Jesus. Let me talk to you for a moment. You still can? You still can?

They said, we're in this land, We're crowded, We're surrounded by enemies. And Joshua said, you still can't drive them out. You know, it's important for me to remember that every promise that God gives me comes with enemies still living in it. All of the wheat that God gives me guarantees that there will be weeds all around it.

But I came with the message from.

The word of the Lord that you can do all things through Christ to strengthens you, and you can drive them out. Make a different decision. You can reach for something other than that bottle. You can drive them out because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

You can drive them out.

Now, what's happened to a lot of us is we've gotten too comfortable with the Canaanites, so we've gotten in small places. But you can drive them out. You can forgive that person who hurt you. You can drive them out. You can It's going to be a process, but you can drive them out. You can absolutely repair that relationship if God means for that relationship to be in your life.

You can drive them out.

You can get this health issue under control. You can drive them out. You can't apologize. You can drive them out. But the problem with us becomes that we forget that we have a God who specializes in defeating chariots. The chariots won't stop you. They won't stop God. You can drive them out.

Now. The challenge of this message, only you know what you're them is I don't.

All I can tell you is I know a God who is greater than any of them that.

You can name. And this is the Manassa effect.

I'm praying that rather than misremembering something, I'm praying that you would remember it right today and remember how much God has done to bring you to this point and take that forward with you into your future. Because honestly, I don't just want to preach another sermon and then you go live among Canaanites all week and don't believe you can.

Drive them out.

I want something for Monday, when that anxiety comes strong, you hear the voice of God in your heart saying you can drive that out. You can breathe through that, you can move through that, you have other options for that. You can drive them out the next time you want to explode and go off and just freak out. I don't have to be a slave to anger. You can drive them.

Out because you're not in this by yourself.

And I want to pray for you right now because I know there are some things in your land and in your life where you have either become entitled or you have allowed your insecurity to keep you from being what God has called you to be.

And you know what I can.

Always tell where I get to a point in a message where you have a decision to make. Are you really going to believe what God is saying to you or are you going to go back home and talk to him about the chariots? For the rest of twenty twenty six, I want to pray for you. There is so much that Jesus Christ saved you for. There is so much that He sees in you, so much that you can't see in yourself, but if you can clear it.

It's yours.

Well.

I'm praying that your mind would.

Get peaceful right about now. Just the peace of God fill your heart and your mind, heads bowed, eyes closed. Father, thank you for the word that you gave us today. Don't forget where you come from. Thank you for reminding us to be grateful. Thank you for encouraging us to be strong.

Lord.

If there's anything I've learned in my walk with you. It's that we can't drive it out without your help. And we try so hard, and we try everything but you. But right now, in the name of Jesusus, I joined my faith with each and every man, woman, boy and girl who is living in a place today, and let's confess it together. We all have something. But God, you

God.

I thank you for every way that you have made for us. I thank you for all the times that you have shown yourself strong. And now God, I.

Declare over your people. They are very powerful. In your name, they are very strong. God.

I thank you for how you've blessed them and how you will continue to bless them.

Thank you for joining us.

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