It's like June and I don't care how Roland, welcome to a special edition of the Basin. But not in the Basin. This is like a new thing that I'm trying. It's it's it's another effort to put God's words in people's hearts.
That's right in a beautiful space.
So, yes, this is one of our studios, and this is one of my wives, my favorite. Not the Bible says like do I have a sister wife? No? But isn't it always funny in the Bible where it says like where you're reading about that in the Old Testament and you just gloss over it.
Yeah, like they just did.
Yeah, no big deal.
Lots of wives.
Yeah no, his his other wife. No, No, that's just that was his other wife.
Okay, So I actually don't gloss over it because I watched this reality show about sister wives.
Yeah I remember it.
Uh huh, and so's.
Sermon called sister Wives about Rachel Neil.
You did it was a brilliant title. You're so good at titles. But anyway, okay, so I always think about sister wife.
So, speaking of titles, that's what I want to do right now. Okay, I throw away more titles per sermon.
Are you going to give us some of your titles from this past weekend?
Yeah, I want to do a cut I want to do a cutting room floor title. Okay, and tell you where the sermon started.
Okay, okay, So we're talking about this past weekend semon.
I preached a message called Challenge the Shadow, which was phenomenal,
thank you. And it was pretty obscure because Hezekiah is a king that you don't hear about too much, right, And the prophet Isaiah, who you hear about a lot, comes to him and says you're going to die, and he has these painful boils all over his body, and Hezekiah prays and cries, and God says, okay, you're going to live fifteen more years, gives him an extension on his life, and to prove it, he makes this shadow that had stretched on the steps of the temple go
back ten steps. And so Challenge the Shadow was the idea that just because it seems to be going one way, just because it seems like you're all out of time, just because it seems like it's too late for you, just because it seems like this is the way you've always been, just because it seems like everybody in your family. Just because it seems like doesn't mean that that's the reality. Right. So I got obsessed early in the week studying about
this idea of go back. Okay, all right, because Isaiah asks Hezekiah, you can look it up if you want to look it up. I promise it's in there. But he asked Kezekiah, do you want the shadow to go forward or back? And forward was the way it was already going, right, But for it to go back, well, God would have to do that, right, Yeah, So that would show him that God was going to heal him, right, all right. So I got obsessed with the idea go back because it's over and over in the passage where
Isaiah tells Hazekiah, you're gonna die. There's nothing I can do, and then it says that the Lord spoke to him go back, and Hezekiah, I've heard your prayers, and then he tells the shadow go back.
Okay. You left all this out of the sermon.
Yeah, So this is this is why when I'm done preaching and you say now you feel good about it, I'm like, oh, there's so much I didn't get to share, which is why I'm doing the basin, which is why I'm doing things like this. Yeah, because I think there's there's powering going back. And I almost called the sermon go back for your benefit, go back for your benefit. And it's the idea that not only did God tell Hazekiah you can live and send Isaiah back, but the
shadow went back. But also and this is what I thought was so cool in Isaiah thirty eight. And we're reading through the Book of Isaiah right now with our Bible Club.
We're definitely not at thirty eight.
No, but we got this six today, Holy, Holy, Holy, and this aady Sriff and chairman. Yeah, already sent the key verse. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Eight I never read before. It records more in detail.
Oh, it's like it's like the parallel to that story or the prophecy that story.
Yes, it's a parallel. So like when you read Second King's right, you read the Bible, like sometimes you can get a Bible on your phone where it'll put the reference and it'll show you, oh, this is also recorded in this other book and that will give you a different point of view. Or this is quoted by Jesus or Jesus is quoting Isaiah, right, Can.
I ask you a dumb question, is that in the column of the Bible, all those little references, is that what that is?
Well? Cross references in the center of your Bible can show you also related verses. So if you're reading something about shadow, it shadow, Yeah, do I walk through the valley of the shadow of death? Or these things were just a shadow? And when Christ came the reality? You know, there are there are so many ways to use the
tools that we have. So I was clicking around and I found how Isaiah's book, which is you know, written about many events and different kings that he prophesied to, has what has Akayah wrote after he recovered okay, and he starts pouring out his heart to God, not when he was still sick, but after he was made well.
Okay.
So it's another example of going back. Yeah, he's going back and he's looking at what he went through through the experiences of what he learned because he went through them.
Wow.
So he is looking at what he's been through through the lens of the benefits. Now watch this, this is cool, he says, And this is Isaiah thirty eight, verse seventeen Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish, Isn't that crazy statement?
Wow?
Surely it was for or my benefit? Wow, that I got a new house. Surely it was for my benefit that I got a promotion. Surely is for my benefit that God gave me the truce. That's that's great too, But this is different. Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love, you kept me from the pit of destruction. You have put all my sins behind your back.
That's amazing.
Yeah. So the question that it makes me ask.
Huh, did you know all this like before you got up to preach this?
Yeah? So I had the scripture ready to go when I preached, but it was just a time issue.
Wow.
Yeah. And I think a lot of times the enemy attacks us and we survived the attack, but we don't go back and get the benefits through reflecting and healing. Yeah, and so we just walk around with the trauma of what we've been through. You don't grow wiser from the wounds. So another potential title that I wanted to use was wisely wounded, Like when you go in for surgery, Yes, they wound you, but they use with.
Create a wound.
Had you ever been wisely wounded that at the time it felt like God was allowing something to be taken out of your life that you couldn't live without. You look back and realize if you had kept living with it, it would have killed you.
Wow.
That could be a relationship, or that could be a certain responsibility you thought you were ready for and you really weren't right. Or maybe sometimes God lets you go back a little bit, because if you don't learn what you're doing wrong and you just keep going forward in your life, you'll keep repeating those mistakes. So I think this.
Is thinking about like a lot of the painful things that I've been through in my life, and how even the ones that you can't even make sense of, you still can say I came away stronger. My prayer life is stronger. A relationship that I leaned into at the time is stronger.
You know.
I started going to church more during that time.
Because I was so like, even the things that you still can't make sense of, when you look back, you can think about how they benefited you.
Yeah. Wow, I used to say about a few things in my life. I wouldn't choose it, but I wouldn't change it. Yeah, and that really helped me because it's acknowledging you want to go through that again. No, if God give you door number one or door number two, door number three, and the suffering was door number one, would you choose door number one? No, I wouldn't choose it.
But after you've been through something that you can't really control anyway, it's good to take that perspective, like, all right, what are the benefits? So to me, that looks like going back for my benefits. Accepting it. It's it's it's it's what it is. You know, this is what it is right now. But then after you accept it, you kind of glean the good from it that you can.
You know, you glean the good from it. And this is not a a psychotic charge to you to just suffer as much as possible, and the more you suffer, the more benefit. Like no pain, no gain. No sometimes just no pain, no pain, right like wat uh oh oh, no pain, no gain, like no stump being stuffy and stupid. Right. So we're not like gluttons for suffering, and we think
that all suffering leads to growth. Some stuff suffering it's just to stutter stuffer, stuffering, suffering, some suffering in your life is a symptom of something that you won't deal with. And so when we get into those situations, that's when it's time to challenge the sh shadow and change our course.
Okay, because that's what I was going to ask you, because you're just talking about acceptance and then and now you're talking about challenge because the message was challenge the shadow. And one of the things that you said was there are some things that we accept and there are some things that we challenge.
So how do you know the difference?
How do you know the things that you're supposed to accept and the things that you're supposed to challenge.
You know that serenity prayer that they use in they use it an AA they use in church. It's actually one of the most beautiful prayers, and it's written a few different ways, and nobody knows who really wrote it because there were like copyright disputes over it. I know this because I looked it up when I was studying about what do you accept? What do you try to change?
And the idea that God will give me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to act accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference can only come from God. Like, God, is this you wisely wounding me? And in this situation, I need to stay, stick it out and learn what I need to learn, because sometimes if you don't learn from it, you will keep losing and praying and losing and going to church and losing and wondering why am I losing because you
refuse to learn. So there can be times in my life that I don't even stop to say, wait a minute, God, is this you right now? I assume in everything that happens in my life that even if God didn't cause it, He'll still use it, Okay. And that's where my faith comes in because I think even if I cause it, or my uncle caused it, or my boss caused it,
and I'm not making light of the things people go through. Yeah, in our ministry we have people who are paralyzed because of a drunk driver, people who are traumatized because of molestation. Our message is not, well, God put you through that so you could learn something, because that's how God teaches you. Of course, that's evil in the world, that's common to
all men. The difference for us as Christians is that we can put it in the hands of God so that he can make something out of it in our future.
Okay.
And so I don't always believe that everything came from his hand, but I do believe that everything has to pass through His hand in the end. Yeah. And so that's what I mean when I say it was for my benefit that I suffered. I almost see that not as Hezekiah saying God made me sick to teach me something.
Yeah.
I think he's deciding if I had to go through it, I might as well grow through it. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, I mean that's not original to me. I'm sure that's already a book and a sermon. But I like that way of thinking because it just assumes, mums that God is for you, so go back for
your benefit, even reliving your past. That can either be very destructive or it can be creative because sometimes, like when you go back to your past, when we do this all the time, I say, man, remember that person and I thought they betrayed me. Yeah, and you'll get kind of mad and remembering that we thought they let us down and stuff, you know, and and then we'll be like, maybe they didn't betray us. Maybe God had something for them and he had something for us, right,
and maybe we didn't even handle it that good. Like we've grown too. So that's what I mean, go back for your benefit, because if you just live your experiences and never reflect on your experiences, you leave a lot of wisdom on the cutting room floor.
And then and then it is so you said no pain, no gain.
It's it's like the pain and you didn't gain it all pain, no goin, pay, no gain.
Yeah, I don't want to live like that. If I got to be wounded, let me get wiser, Yes, If I got to get prune, let me bear more fruit. Yes, that's how I feel. And I think that is a choice that you can make too, Like you don't have to just suffer for nothing, right, And I thought it was really cool how at some point in the fifteen years that God gave Hezekiah to live, he took the time and Isaiah thought, I'm going to include this part too, and he walked through what he went through and without
denying how bad it felt. Because he says some pretty dark stuff. You can go read it on your own time. I don't want to bring the mood down. But then he goes, surely it was for my benefit. But then he said something else. I don't know if you caught it or not. He said, it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish in your love. You kept me from the pit of destruction. You put all my
sins behind your back. Now that makes me think that there's something that God taught Hezekiah spiritually while he was suffering physically, because he says, you put all my sins behind your back.
What was the secondary title?
Go back for it? Go back for your benefits, Go back for your benefits. So there were some things that Hazekiah needed to put behind him that he was still dealing with. You.
I need to preach this this weekend.
I will or just put out like this, But that's the word for you today. Go back for your benefit. You know what else I thought about? Now I'll stop after this. We went back to Shelby a couple weeks ago to take our middle child, Graham, to wrestling camp.
We're actually picking him up, and we lived five minutes from Gardner Webb University when we first got married, and it just so happened that we were going back to Shelby going back to Boiling Springs to be exact, like on probably the exact day that we had moved to Shelby as new right twenty one years early calculated. Yeah, I think this was the day we.
Were pulling in the show right around this day.
Yeah, yeah, and so, which is pretty cool. We're driving around remembering me Pablido and Monterey and you know all the restaurants where we shared shared chips and got water. Yeah, we can get keeso back then, that was a different time you were in the caso season. This was the free sauce of season on my birthday, keso on special occasions,
KSO on Easter, Christmas, in Valentine's Day. But with all the memories that we had, like how our our furniture that we moved in with half of it was from my best friend's dad who would repossess furniture out of mobile homes. He would repossess the mobile home and then take the furniture, and he had all this reput furniture and we actually still have some of that furniture. You brought it out the other.
Day, Yes, they did, yea yeah, a little table.
But going back was so good because we're like, remember pulling up with the repode furniture for mister Rob and for me, like we didn't get to share every little memory. But remember when I went out to the church by myself and wrote the song who I Am and in the middle of the night, and like him, and was learning how to write music. And so today we're in this studio where we've written so many other songs that some of them people have heard all around the world.
And going back and just driving past that church building and remembering sitting there learning to lead songs in that church, and how bad those songs were and how nice the people were to try to sing them along there. A few of them were good. But my point is it helped me see and feel my development and our development and how far we've come and how far God has
brought us. It made me grateful for God's grace. It's the benefit of going back and either physically or just in a moment mentally remembering, hey, man, I have come a long way. And sometimes we don't get that perspective because we're in it right, But sometimes you have to just mentally or physically go back to it and go back, Wow, God has done a lot. I want you to share as our closing thought. What you said about what you would say to those two kids who started back in Shelby.
You said you would go back and tell them something. Do you remember what you said.
I think I said I'd go back and tell them you're doing a good job. Is that in that what I said?
Yeah, you said, I'm proud of those two kids.
That's right. Yeah, And I was. We were just reflecting.
Talking about us talking in the third person. It's kind of exercise.
Well, we were reflecting. I mean like that was a It was a.
Very monumental place for us because we just graduated college, just gotten married, and so it was our first apartment, our first jobs. I was a school teacher. I was teaching fifth grade, and I mean we had to we had to. We had to get our own dial up internet and set up the electricity.
We had a cable modem.
That's dial up.
I was doing business. Dial Up is different. Well, we had dial up will kick you off if somebody picks up the phone. Dial Up will take you forty four days to download a song. We didn't have that.
Oh that was like the backup though, right, No, No, I had you on cable modem from day one of our marriage. All right, all right, So we had to set up our own cable modem, and we had to set up our own you know.
Repoide furniture, but a cable modem. Yeah, priorities.
But like looking back, we did it, and we we and I was proud of us. I think what I said was if one of our kids in a couple of years got married and did exactly what we did, I would be so proud of them. And so it was a good moment to look back, because when you're in the moment, you don't know what you're doing.
You don't know if you're doing it right.
We didn't do everything, That's all I was going to say, because if you're sitting there going like, I don't feel that way, I didn't do it, all right, neither did we. Yeah, we didn't do it. And that's why sometimes you need to go back from that perspective of grace and go a look at those two kids. Y'all did all right? Yeah, you know, you were dumb and you were broke, and you would do it differently if you did it again.
You can do it differently now because you've learned right, and even things you didn't get right, you can learn from and that's the spirit of the message. You go back for your benefit. And so I just want you to live with the power of reflection at your disposal, but not just any kind of reflection, reflecting on your current circumstances, with God's presence as your lens, just in the light. He was with you, with you, He will
be with you. And hope you go back today and some of the things that the enemy did to you, go back and kind of demand, you know, like I refuse to let this make me weaker. I am going to be stronger from this. I refuse to let this turn into bitterness and resentment in my heart. I'm going to turn it into wisdom. So do what has Akaya did. No matter what you've been through or even if you're
still going through it, go back for your benefit. Remember another time that God did something awesome in your life. Apply that same faith that you grew in that season to the current one. Go back for your benefit and put in the chat real quick. I'm going back, going, and we'll see you back soon.
Bye bye, Hey, thank you for watching the Elevation Church YouTube. I want you to subscribe that way you can know when we go live and post new content. Make sure lend me a comment, let me know what spoke to you today, where you're watching from, and what we can that's pay for you about And if you'd like to support the ministry financially, you can click the give button now and help us continue reaching people around the world for Jesus Christ.
Thanks again, I'll see you next time.