Enough Already! (Lisa Harper)

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.

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I hope you're blessed today.

I don't know how. Honestly, I'm flamox myself as to how I slid in to the dms of Elevation. I don't know how. I'm shocked. I told Holly in the very beginning. I thought she got me confused with either Lisa Turkerst, who sells a lot of books, or Lisa Vivier, who preaches in leather pants. And I thought, I know, but I can't, or it sounds like Duxter being killed. There's a lot of squeaking if I've preached in leather and so I really don't know how, other than.

Pure grace, that I get to be here.

But I am absolutely delighted I do. There's not too many people respect more than Pastor Holly and Pastor Steven. I love Wade and Amy, Chris, Colleen Tunis.

There's just so many people at.

Elevation who have taught me, who have modeled for me what running hard towards Jesus looks like what it looks like to be enveloped in a family of faith. And so before we dive into God's word, let me get you to reach out and touch that saint next to you.

This is not rhetorical. Go ahead and touch them.

Don't grope them, just touch them. Gentlemen, I know this is real girly, so y'all don't have to interlock fingers.

You can just awkwardly pinky grip at this point. Those of you joining us.

Online, Epham, you don't have to touch anybody. Hope you're in comfy pants, you can just undo the top button because this is a safe place to lean into Jesus, we want you to be comfortable. Would you pray for

We have a perfect God who loves us unconditionally.

We're the prize, y'all, We're the prize. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, thank you for this time and the space that we get to come together and focus our attention and our affection on You.

Lord.

We confess that most of us come with a lot of distraction. It takes me more more than four or five songs to actually get my heart into place to receive from you, and I wish worship had been an.

Hour this morning.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for that promise that when we seek you with all our hearts, you will be found by us. But Jesus, I praise you even more so for that promise in Isaiah the beginning of.

The book, where you say, so great is.

Your love for us that you even reveal yourself to people who aren't looking for you. Yet, we're undone this morning, by your kindness, God, just undone, we confess as your sons and daughters. We can't even understand scripture apart from Holy Spirit. So Holy Spirit, just have your way in this place, and our hearts and our minds just plow up ground that's hard or numb or disappointed. Open our eyes, lift our view beyond our circumstances, so that we can

Men and amen. Speaking of.

Speaking of sliding into elevations DMS, this is called body glide. It's a it's a stick, it's an anti chafing bomb. It's all all about getting yourself slippery. And I just wanted to start with TMI because I had to wear this. The last time I was in an athletic competition, I got talked into running a tin k. And even though I'm wearing spanks this morning, it's probably very apparent that

They have really cute T shirts.

This was in Colorado, and I thought, Okay, I'll line up with all these paleo people and I'll run this ten k.

Because the T shirts are really cute.

And so before the race, she whipped out one of these body glide slides, and she said, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you know you have such it's gifted legs that I think that it might help you to rub this on your inner thighs. She did not say or else she will be arrested for arson, but that was the implication, And so I slathered myself up with body glide. Gentleman is like, what in the sam hill? We're getting to the Bible. We're gonna get there in just a second. So I'm all slathered up

I start running up those mountains and I thought, this is horrible. Who would do this as a hobby?

Who would I mean, I can understand if you were being disciplined or this was some kind of parole thing, but people do this on purpose.

And so about halfway through the race, I was like, I can't do this. I cannot do this anymore. This friction is too much.

I have what they call hotspots for runners, and so I thought, I'm an old athlete.

I played volleyball and.

Tennis in college, and I thought, I just can't bring myself to quit.

That just seems sissy ish, and I can't do that.

But maybe I could find a hole, and I could step in a hole and break my ankle, and then I could step off this course with some measure of dignity left. And so I'm searching for a hole on the race course, and all of a sudden, I hear this really loud swishing sound behind me, and so I look over my shoulder and y'all, there's a six foot bacon,

Just his face is poking through run and cheese.

Just his face behind him is like this green tart piece of lettuce. It was very lifelike. I want to eat it badly. And then he's rope to a middle runner. The middle runner, just his little face is poking out from a piece of lifelike American cheese. And then attached to that is three pieces of very wiggly bacon. I don't know what they made that out of. Then there's two other ropes pulling up the caboose. He's another giant

And I mean it was really incredible, so creative, this giant.

Six foot blt and it was passing me.

And that is a lot of wind resistance. And so that was.

The lowest point of my competition. I decided, never ever again would I compete in anything where I had to wear bodyglide. So I no longer compete in ten ks. I don't rollerblade, I don't go to Myrtle Beach because because of that particular vacation mecca, there's a lot of people there who need bodyglide.

It's pull a.

Lot of rubbing going on up at Myrtle Beach. And I haven't offended you, Myrtle Beachers, but I was there recently and I just mentally I couldn't handle that corporate need for something to stop the chafing.

Now. I don't know if running.

Is your nemesis or if chafing is real for you, but I do know all of us can identify with feeling like we're not quite good enough for whatever activity we've stepped into, that we don't quite meet the minimum requirement for some club, some community that we'd hoped to belong to. Feeling like we're not quite good enough. That's not just an athletic competition thing.

That's a human thing.

Part of the human condition is to feel like we were just a little bit less than acceptable. Maybe it's that your mother in law always treated you like her boy could have done better. Or maybe you're the only one who doesn't know how to pronounce sobaccac in your e fam, Or maybe it's that you're in a double Spans kind of season and you hang out with a

And the real the real danger is.

When we superimpose that wondering if we're good enough onto the character of our creator, redeemer. It's the human experience to think we don't quite measure up. It is actually not biblically defensible. It's not in this divine love story we call a Bible. If you brought yours, turn to Genesis forty eight and I'll prove it. Genesis forty eight. It's about a quarter of an inch from the beginning. Unless you have a Schofield Bible. We'll have it up

I'll read fast.

When Israel saw Joseph's sons, he said.

Who are these?

And let me qualify this just a minute, because when you hear the word Israel, we forget that Israel is synonymous for Jacob. So this is one of the patriarchs in in scripture, Jacob. So when I read Israel, I might just start changing it. I love you, I might just start changing it to Jacob because same name and Joseph. You all remember who Joseph is. Young, talkback, I'm not

Remember that.

And then they dragged him off as a slave. He was in Egypt, and then Pharaoh's wife was a total Houchi mama, and she accused him of sexual misconduct and he didn't do it, but he got thrown in jail away. Y'all remember this guy, and then he ends up being this great leader and God uses him to actually help his people not die of starvation.

Jaron Famine. Are you with me on the story?

Okay, so we're the part where he's done all that. He's a grown man, he has children of his own, and he goes back to Jacob the patriarch with two little boys, his two little boys, Ephraim and Manassa, who were born in each not in Israel. And so his dad, Jacob, the granddaddy of these little boys, Joe says to him, these are my sons whom God has given me here, and he said, bring them to me, please, that I may bless them. Now the eyes of Jacob were dim with age so that he could not see, so he

But God has let.

Me see your offspring also. Then Joseph removed them from his knees and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. He's so delighted to bring his boys to his father. And Joe took them both Ephraim and his right hand toward Israel's left hand, a Manassa in his left hand toward Israel's right.

Hand, and brought them near him.

And Jacob stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manassa, crossing his hands. If you've got a brick and mortar Bible and your comfortable writing in it, underscore that hugely significant even for us.

As modern day christ followers.

We'll get there in just a second, crossing his hands, for Manassa was the firstborn, and he blessed Joe and said, the God before whom my father's Abraham and Isaac walked to God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless these boys, and in them, let my name be carried on in the name of my father's Abe and Isaac can let them grow into a multitude.

In the midst of.

Years, when Joe saw that his dad laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manassa's head. And Joe said to his daddy, not this way, Dad, since this one is the firstborn, and put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know, I might have cataract, but I'm not stupid. That's not

A damaged woman, a damaged man like me.

First of all, in this ancient culture, they practice the law of primogeniture, and that just means the firstborn got everything. Firstborn un goot everything. The law of inheritance was the firstborn son was it?

Second? Really was just a spare? First is the heir second as a spare.

And so what would happen is the patriarch of any family community would bless the firstborn with this right hand, because in submitted culture, the right hand is the blessed hand. The right right hand is the holy hand. The right hand is the hand that you want to bless with. Left hand is considered subservient. I was just in Israel again in marsh and none of my Jewish friends will greet me with their left hand. That's considered disrespectful. The

Always the right, always the right.

So when when Joe multicolored coat guy brings his two little boys to their granddaddy and he says, I want you to bless them, dad, and then Jacob crosses his arms, y'all, this is the only time that happens in all of scripture.

That's called a hay pax legomanon. Isn't that cool? Share that with your efamgroup.

If they're thinking you're sliding, just go well, I was reading a hay packs legomanon. It's a fancy word that means it only happens once in a corpus or in a text. You will never read this again in scripture. This is the only time, you've got a patriarch crossing his arms intentionally to bless the second son instead of the first, as was their custom, as was their tradition. Joseph is so flustered by it, and he's like, Dad, you messed up.

You bless the wrong kid. And he goes, no, I knew exactly what I was doing.

He says, here's the deal, Joseph, I want both of them blessed. What this leads to scholars critical scholars call this etology fancy word that means, this is the foundation that explains what happens later on. This is the cause of something. This explains why Ephraim, who was the second son, becomes prominent in Israel's history.

From then on.

From Genesis forty eight, when you hear about Manassa, he's first born, it says Manassa and Ephraim. You would think they were twins by the way you read them in biblical narrative. And then Ephraim actually kind of gets bigger than Manassa.

Ephram is the one.

Where we get a lot of the leaders from in the Old Testament. Ephraim is the one when Israel splits into two nations. Y'all remember when that happened, because we had Solomon third Keen of Israel, and he was a player and had way too many wives and concubines, and they fought and they couldn't decide for an air.

Do y'all remember this? And so it was real Jerry Springer.

And so instead of Israel being one one united nation under Yahweh, they split and there was Northern Israel and there were Southern Israel. There were twelve tribes, y'all remember who the twelve tribes came from?

Y'a talk back?

Jacob's Jacob's twelve sons who make up the twelve tribes of Israel. Those are the tribes that step over the Jordan and they go into Canaan. They're the ones who occupy promised land. There are great great great great great great great great great great.

And then some spiritual grandmama's and granddaddies.

Well, Ephraim and Manassa are sons of Joseph, which means technically they aren't one of the twelve tribes. They're half tribe. But do you know that after this they're called a tribe. Technically they're not a tribe, but they're called a full on tribe. And when Israel splits, ten tribes go to the north. Two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, go to the south, where Jerusalem is. Do you know what they begin calling the north Ephraim. The name Ephram becomes a metonym for

But he's the second son, He's the spare.

It's so cool, y'all. What this means for us as christ followers. It means there's no second best. It means there's no jv. It means there's no lesser than. It means if you put.

Your hope in Jesus, we're all favorites, every single one of us. He doesn't go, Oh, you know what's it's thanksgiving up here in glory.

You got to sit at the kiddie table.

Only the mature believers said here that is not biblically defensible. He goes, there is now no more hierarchy. You humans have hierarchy. You humans elevate certain ethnicities, certain sociodemographic groups, certain wayte sizes, certain hair colors. You establish criteria for value I don't. If you have put your hope in me, you're all favorite sons.

Paul continues this theme. I just love this theme. He can te you use it in Romans eight.

Romans eight is basically the hub of our theological wheel. As believers, you know this Romans eight. Some of y'all have instagrammed it, but you might not know it. Know it Romans eight, verse fourteen. For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God.

That's not a gender exclusive term, by the way.

Paul goes on to explain later in Galatians three.

He says, if.

You are in Christ, there is now no more Greek nor Jew, male, nor female, slave nor master. So this is actually not a gender exclusive term. It's just in language. At this time it was a patriarchal society, so inheritance language was masculine.

But that's not just talking about boys there for all.

That's the operative word for all who are led by the spirit of God or sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive this received the spirit of adoption.

As sons by whom we cry.

Abba, Father, Do you know Jesus is the first one, and Luke eleven when he's teaching us how to pray. Prior to Jesus, the rabbis had really formal prayers and they would approach yahweh God.

The Father with a title.

Jesus says, no, you get to approach him as Dad, your sons, you're first born. You get to approach him has dad aha father Dad. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs.

Underscore that, y'all fellow heirs.

Your translation might say co heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified in him. Colossians one tells us that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. He blows William, the Prince of Wales away. He's not the firstborn in UK royalty. He is the firstborn of all creation. He is the definitive heir, the definitive first born.

And here Paul says, you're his co heirs.

You raggedy, broke down, prone to schaef prone to wander people, You are co heirs. The Greek term there is soon Clay Ranamos soon Clay Ramanas. It means we are properly entitled to inherit every single thing. Jesus inherits, properly entitled to inherit everything.

Jesus, y'all that should blow your doors. Properly entitled to inherit. So Jesus doesn't say, hey, Dad.

I've got a friend. I mean no, they're kind of broke down, another kind of rat. But I got to know him in Charlotte, and can we just invite him in?

And then they stay like they can stay in the basement. That's not it.

We sit right next to Jesus at the bank winning table of God the Father.

It's stunning. Our access is stunning. We're not less than adopted children. We're co heirs.

Missy and I were at a Christmas event last year and a man who has since become a friend, a Messianic rabbi from Israel, was at this event in Nashville.

We were teaching him how to talk, write, and eat biscuits.

And he watched Missy and I for a long time, and then he called me over and he said, Lisa, do you understand the distinction between adoption in America and adoption in a Jewish culture, especially a biblical Jewish culture. And I said, I don't think so. And he said, well, in my culture, and especially in the context of biblical narrative, a parent could disinherit a biological child, could disinherit a biological child. But it is illegal if you're an Orthodox

You read this in Looke too. That's where Simeon sings over.

Jesus and says, this is the Savior, this is the man you have been waiting for all this time. That's where Anna remember she was waiting there for almost one hundred years.

Simeon's old.

I always imagine her back in the bathroom, like filling the paper towel dispensers.

And she knows Simeon.

They're really close friends from the Jewish retirement home across the street from the temple. They're both big volunteers and temple been there for decades. And she hears me in warbling and she's back for filling the tape paper towel dispenser, and she thinks, al' know, aw, he's broken his hip again. And she goes running or kind of wobbling into temple and she looks up and.

She see these sees, these.

Teenagers and the boy has a pigeon squawking in his backpack.

Mary and Joe were poor.

They couldn't afford a normal sacrifice, so they brought a pigeon and they've got a baby boy. And Simeon is holding this baby boy, and Simeon's face is lit up like a Christmas tree, and he says, this is the one, and this is the one we've been waiting for.

All these are this, this is the Christ. This is a man.

You how.

My friend Samuel said, Lisa when that happened, when Joseph voluntarily went to temple and said, this is my first born. What he was saying is this one gets my full inheritance. Even though i'm technically the step dad. I did and get Mary pregnant technically on the step dad, this is my son, and every single thing I have I'm given to this boy. He said, that's what we have. It says we're co eers with Christ. We're co eers with Christ. We get everything he gets. That is so hard for

I won't go there.

But the few good godly guys I dated, God protected them from me because I was just crippled with shame. Even though I knew Jesus, I knew him as my savior, I didn't know him as my liberator in my twenties and thirties and so to. And by the way, when I hear babies, I love the sound of babies in church.

Don't worry about a baby.

When I see people in church give dirty looks to parents or grandparents or aunties or uncles with babies. I always pray the people give them the dirty looks would get hives because I'm like, Lord, have mercy, if ever

He was not a Jew.

All of the other authors of Holy writ are Jews. Got a few books that are formally classified as anonymous, but most of them were written by Jews, and so Luke is a gentile knew what it was to wonder if he fit that he actually didn't meet the minimum requirement for an author of a euon Gelon, a gospel, and so his stories are just riddled with compassion and with the idea of what it means to be close

This is Luke eleven, verse six.

For a friend of mine has arrived in a journey, and I have nothing to set before him, and he will answer from within, do not bother me.

The doors now shut. My children are with me in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend. Yet because of his impudence. Again, if y'all comfort writing in your Bible's underscore that one that is such an interesting word, this too is a heypax legomenon. This is the only time this particular word is used anywhere in the Bible. The Greek of that English word is nadea, and it's this audaciousness anytime you read about this in history.

Josephis talks about it a lot.

He was first century historian, and he always uses it in the pejorative sense. So he says, because the neighbor is so audacious in his banging, the dad eventually rises and gives him what he needs verse nine. And I tell you, asking, it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be open to you for everyone who receives, and the one who seeks finds, And to the one who knocks it will be opened.

What father among you.

If his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish, give him a serpent. Or if he asked for an egg, will give him a scorpion. And if you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. I grew up half Baptist. My mom's a Baptist at the bone.

You have too.

I'm sure you've preached it before, seen it, Flannel graphed. I mean, I thought I knew every nuance to that story, as horrifically arrogant as that sounds. And then in a seminary class I'm finishing up a doctorate at den sim I heard one of the he's considered the foremost authority on the parables, doctor Craig Blomberg, preach on this particular passage,

They don't have that.

They're with you in that one sleeping room. So you've got the dad, and then you've got the neighbor. And so the neighbor comes over because the neighbor wasn't prepared for a guest who comes to his house and didn't takest ahead of time, and so he pantics because he's got nothing in the pantry. He comes to the sleeping dad, bangs on the door and says, I need something, tortillas, you know, just anything, even though reduced fat trisk gets anything.

Is a good thing.

I think Cayle is just about from the devil. But anyway, anyway, you always had bread. This guy's run out of bread, so he pantics. Comes next door. He starts banging on the door. And when he's banging on the door, the dad goes, go away. I've already read the bedtime story. We've already had the water, we've already done everything. We are asleep, go away. This is so rude an idea.

Dad represents God. Where are we? Where are we?

Are we outside banging or are we in side reclining right next to our dad? Yeah, this is less about prayer and it's more about proximity.

It's less about us banging on the door.

That doesn't bear out with theological logic. We don't have to beg God to act on our behalf.

We're favorite sons and daughters. He loves us.

On our worst day, we'll get disciplined from our dad, But not disciplined because he's a unibrad library and who's mad at us.

We get disciplined because he loves us, He's for us.

Three years ago, Missy and I went from Nashville to Kalispell, Montana.

It was kind of toward the end of COVID.

We were so excited to actually be leaving the house because you know during COVID how you're not traveling much, and I travel a lot for work, and I got so bored at home and I accidentally cut through my propane line with a chainsaw.

It's actually not hyperbolic. I did almost killed us.

Single and old, and my dad was a contractor, so I know my way around a power tool.

And I was buzzing this this bush and I thought, I just will do some landscaping.

And I'm kind of a slow reactor, and I smelled propane and realized, oh, I just cut a propane line.

Almost killed us. So I thought it's good for us to get out of the house.

And so I was thrilled when Levi and Jenny said come up to Kalispell. They have a church called Fresh Life, and he said, come up, we'd love to love to host you at Kalispell. And it took us a while to get there because you know that tail into COVID, there weren't as many flights, and so we flew from Nashville to Chicago, long lay from Chicago, finally got to Kaalaispell, Montana. It was late in the afternoon, but I didn't have

And then I pulled out my piece to resistance.

I and my apologies if you build these are like these, But I just abhor hotel pools because I think they're just like big basins of bacteria. And so I love pools, but just not you know, pools with that much strange flesh in it, And so I don't usually swim in the hotel pools.

Missy loves hotel pools. So I kind of pulled.

The last trick out of my bag and I said, baby, you want to go swim in the hotel pool. There's like a big slide in everything. And she said, no, ma'am. It takes me a long time. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. But I finally, after four flat refusal, realized I am getting on my child's nerves.

You know, she's she was eleven at the time.

She's just stepping into pubrey and I thought, oh my goodness, I'm not her hero anymore. I'm getting on your nerves. And so I said, honey, am I getting on your nerves? And she said yes, ma'am. She said, is that disrespectful? I said, no, baby, that's not disrespectful. That's so normal. As a matter of fact, over the next few years, I'm going to get on your last nerve.

That's part of what growing up is.

I said, that's not disrespectful, honey, that's just normal.

So here's the deal. I'm going to draw an imaginary line down.

This hotel room, and you get to stay on this side of the hotel room, and you've got a little bit of homework. She can do the homework on your iPad, and then after that you watch whatever you want to watch. And then I'll stay on this side because I've got a little bit of homework too, and we can just stay on our separate size of the hotel room. And if you need me, just call me, but I'll stay over here and I won't bug you anymore.

And she said, yes, ma'am.

And a couple of hours went by in that companionable silence, and then the sun went down. It was time for us to get ready for bed, and so we brushed our teeth. They had two sinks, and then we went to bed. They had two beds. Missy got in her little hotel bed and I got my little hotel bed.

I turned out the light.

Maybe thirty seconds passed, and then I heard my little girl and she said.

Mama, will you come over here and goud on me, because I don't think of the hills are going to sleep if you don't come over here.

And cut on me.

And I said, I'll tell you what you can do. You can climb out of the window, and you can get in the snow and you walk through the snow, and you can go to the concierge, and you can ask the concierge if he'll bring you up to this floor, and.

Then you can knock on the door of your bang really loud that I might answer the door.

But I'm not sure. Do y'all think that's what I did?

When she said, I just need to get pentecostal for a minute, like.

I don't feel like I really preach unless the veins start poking out. And I did spit a little bit. I'll be just a little bit as fit. We call that annoying. I didn't yell.

I didn't tell her she had to go outside and bang on the door. When she said, Mama, will you come over here and cuddle me?

Y'all?

I leapt from my bed to hers, and I brought snacks. I mean, this is my kid, this is my daughter. I will give her anything I have. And my love for my kid pals next to God's love for us. We forget that we're co eers, we forget that we're right next to him.

We don't have to bang. He's for us, not against us. One glance of your eyes, you've captured his heart.

You don't have to put on matching T shirts and drive a long way to be in the presence.

Of your creator, redeemer. He loves you. He loves you. He is a perfect holy God.

That means he's transcendent, but he condescends.

To be close to us. He's a relational god. He's a father, and he says, you are my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and if you did, make sure to share it and subscribe so we can get you all of these new messages as soon as they're available. I also want to take a moment and thank all of you who are a part of Elevation. Whether you support us financially, or serve with us, or just these messages, it's because of you that we're able to reach people all around the world. And if you want more information on how to be a part of Elevation,

God bless you.