Handle It

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

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

I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.

Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving.

In your life. Enjoy the message. So I thought we would call on Moses.

If we're talking about faith, he certainly deserves to be heard.

As to how he did what he did.

And I chose a selection in Exodus four one through five, and I want to read it to you.

Now.

Let's go over and see Moses on the far side of the desert and Midian, the voice of God has summoned him from the crackling of a bush that will not burn, but is on fire. And I think that's a picture of a life that is set on fire by faith, is that it burns up but it doesn't and out. And now he's negotiating with God and he says, an exodus for one.

What if.

They do not believe me or listen to me and say, the Lord did not appear to you. And then the Lord said to him, and what's that in your hand?

Staff?

He answered? The Lord said throw it down on the ground. And Moses threw it on the ground. It became a snake, and he ran from it. Somebody say, smart guy. Well then the Lord said to him, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. So Moses reached out, took hold of the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand. This said the Lord, is so that they may believe the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

Verse four.

The Lord said to him, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. So Moses reached out, took hold of the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand. I need your help for one moment before you take your seat, and I need you to announce my message title to your neighbor.

So put your hand on their shoulder.

Get their attention, and when you give them my title in a moment, I want you to holler at him when you give.

Them my title.

I don't want you to whisper it, mumble it, suggest it.

I want you to command it.

Okay, tell your neighbor, say neighbor, I don't know what you're going through.

I don't know what you're dealing with. But God told me.

To tell you handle it. That's my nigh kid, fight your other neighbors, say neighbor, other neighbor.

You were my second choice.

Don't be offended, but just know that God wanted me to tell you handle it.

Amen, clap your hands. You may be seated.

Thank you, Worship team. Don't we have fun together? Don't we have a good time?

Amen? Look at this because.

If you can have a flashback with me from when Tom Hanks was on that island alone and he he had to make friends with a volleyball. Now, those of you who are participating in this portion of the sermon are old.

I know only five of y'all would remember this reference.

But in the movie Castaway, where Tom Hanks had been alone so long that his only companion was a volleyball, and he called the volleyball.

What Wilson.

And they did a good job with that movie that that they bonded you enough with a volleyball that you remember it as a character. You know, you can become so attached to something inanimate that it becomes lifelike to you. Exhibit a right. I remember when I first asked Chris Brown, I was like, you think I should get an iPhone. I don't know if I don't think I would. I don't think I would use it very much. Yeah right, I just didn't know what it was capable of. Moses has a staff.

In his hand in Exodus chapter.

And by the time God gets through showing Moses what that staff can do, Mose, I wonder.

I wonder if he got.

So attached to the staff that he ever gave it a name. Do you think do you think he called it? What do you think he called it? I think he called it rod.

Even.

I feel a connection to my microphone, this particular microphone. When I go preach other places and they give me another mic it takes me like five minutes to get it right in my hands because this one. I mean, I know this microphone, I know how to handle it, and I like having this microphone. I can control certain things about it. So I like the handheld microphone.

I really like it.

When I want to preach. When I want to preach like I'm Drake, I can grab it up here. It's not the professional way to hold it. My sound guys hate that when I do that, but they put a special thing on it because they know I do it, so it doesn't make all this feedback. But anyway, it's my mic.

It's see.

You can tell I have a close relationship because I gave it a name. I call it Mike. That's how close we are. Okay, I'll stop now. But in Exodus chapter four, Moses he's getting acquainted with his staff. He's getting to know God and he's getting to know Rod, all in the same scene. And I like it because, well, I know something Moses doesn't know about what that thing

I know what this staff is going to do at the Red Sea.

I know that when the Egyptians are chasing Moses and the Hebrew people two and a half million strong out of Egypt, that that Moses is going to stretch that staff over that sea, and the right side of the sea is going to tell the left side of the sea.

I'll see you in a little while. We got to split up for a minute.

I'll meet you back when the Egyptians hit the water, because we're going to drown them.

But we've got a part for God's people.

How many know that God will direct the elements on your behalf when you walk in in faith.

I found that to be true in my life.

But but that was the staff that Moses stretched, That was the sea he stretched it over.

He doesn't know this yet, we do.

So I'm really interested because I feel like I feel like I know the staff because I see it so many different times in the scripture. I saw it one time when Pharaoh wouldn't let the people go, and God told Moses, you know, take your staff and stretch it out and strike the Nile river, the river in Egypt. And when you strike that river, it's going to turn from water to blood, and that'll compel Pharaoh to give a second thought to keeping you inslaved. And he did that,

It in the right way, it did something.

It was cool and water came out of the rock and they all drank from the water in the rock that staff.

And so so.

I want to learn everything I can about this staff. I almost feel like it's a person to me because I saw Moses fight against the Amalekites. Well, he didn't fight against him. Joshua fought against him, and Moses had a job. He had to raise the staff. And while Moses was raising the staff, and Aaron and Herb got under his arms because he got tired holding it up. And when they supported him and he raised his staff,

But it was the staff in his hands. It was the staff in his hands.

Tell somebody next to you, there's a staff in your hands. And what's cool about it is that there are many lessons that we can learn and we don't even have to be Moses delivering people out of four hundred and thirty years of slavery to learn them.

We can just learn them for our everyday lives.

And the first thing that I think the staff is saying to us in this message today is that everything you need is within reach. I heard a motivational speaker say that once. It rang true with me, that everything you need is within reach. Moses, in response to God's calling. I feel the spirit of God on me today to preach this message, by the way, so you ought to be excited about what you're going to receive.

He continues the.

Conversation with God after God shows him who he is with the phrase that I preached the whole series around one time, and the phrase is what if? Verse one. Moses answered, what if? Do you know how many dreams have died beneath the weight of that phrase? What if? What if is a It's a phrase that I like to refer to as fierce greatest hit.

What if? What if? I mean, how many things in.

Your life did you not do because what if? And how many things in your life did you do that you shouldn't have done because what if? How many nights could you have slept?

But what if? Kept you awake.

How many mornings did you wake up anxious? Because what if was your alarm clock?

What if not? Just what if?

Moses wants to know? What if pay attention to the next word? What if they? What if they say.

The third time?

Because I want to come on the screen and I think there are times gonna be the charm? What if is in verse one? What if they? What if the scripture doesn't come up and I keep preaching anyway? But it's a it's a it's a good question, what if, And it's where many of us wonder and wander our whole lives. What if they? What if they laugh at me? What if they don't accept me? Now, on one hand, Moses is in a hypothetical situation because he hasn't even done anything yet, but he's just playing out.

The possible after effects of his obedience. What if they?

But on the other hand, it's not hypothetical at all. It's historical because Moses is afraid of the same rejection that he experienced forty years earlier, recurring, for it was forty years earlier that Moses had killed an Egyptian in defense of his people, and because he did the right thing, the wrong way he ended up on the run. And there's something about when you've tried to do the right thing and put your heart in something but you did it the wrong way, that you don't even want to

Would have had the staff in his hand.

So when God tells him what's in your hand, it causes Moses to have to reckon with the mistakes that he's made that have landed him in the position that he's in.

Because when God speaks to you.

About your potential, he will cause you to confront your past. Touch somebody say handle it. So he says, what's that in your hand? And to Moses is his staff, But to Moses is also his past, and to Moses is also his instrument, the thing that he has to do what he's doing. And so there's a whole lot happening in this staff. And yet God says, what you have is what you need. And God wanted to say that to a single mom today, that what you have is what you need.

That he put enough in you to raise that child.

He foresaw that you would be in the situation, and he compensated for what others didn't give you by putting a result and a determination in you. That's more than enough. And everything you need is within reach. So leave your list of what you don't have alone today?

What is that in your hand?

The wisdom that you need is probably in a book that's on your shelf that you haven't read. I was talking to a guy who passed her to church one time that was bigger than mine. I said, I need some advice and he said, I gave you a book. I said, you mean that book three years ago? He said, yeah, that book three years ago. Did you read it?

I said no, I didn't get around to it.

He said, I knew that you were going to be at this place because I've been there, so I gave you what I knew you would need. You missed it, he said. He said, call me back when you read the book.

At least read a.

Couple chapters and we'll talk. What are we even going to talk about? You know, sometimes when you pray and ask God to download information about a decision, God, how should I handle it?

He's like, did you even read the book that I book?

And we've never lived in a time where the information that is in the Word of God has been more accessible to us. My God, They'll send you alarms, They'll break it down for you.

They'll give you a Bible reading in a year.

Plan Bible reading in the Book of Psalm's plan a Bible reading in.

Southern Dialect.

Plan to give you a Bible reading Bible how to read the Bible with your dog in thirty two days every morning on your walk with your dog, an audio Bible Bible in Braille. Touch somebody say grab it, grab it, grab it. You gotta grab it.

You gotta go.

Joy is there, you gotta grab it. Wisdom is there, you gotta grab it.

It's there. The information that you need.

For the transformation of your life is waiting to be seized by those who will open their.

Eyes to what they've been given. And I appreciate.

Okay, So everything that you need is in your read which it was something that he had already in his hand that produced what he needed to move forward into the future and to accomplish God's purpose in the earth. I'm moved by that because I get caught up in what.

I don't have. I know you don't.

I didn't say you did. I said I do. Get caught up in what I don't have. But here's the thing the Lord is teaching me. It's less about what you have, and it's more about how you handle what you have.

I'll prove it to you. Do you have Netflix? All right? Go on Netflix? Put it on. I think they have this on Netflix. Thirty for thirty.

It's a documentary series from ESPN.

Put it on. Broke. Put it on the one called Broke.

It will show you athletes that made millions of dollars and by the time their careers were over, they were in debt. Because it's not what you it's how you.

What you have.

Say it again, come on with me. It's not what you it's how what you have. That's true with money. I've met rich people who are further behind than poor people. I've met poor people who are greedier than rich people. It's not what you have, it's how you handle what you have. That's what God wants to know. How are you handling it. It's not the woman you married, it's how you handle the woman that you married that determines whether you get the.

Marriage that you want. Now, the selection process is important. You can cook better with good ingredients.

But but I'm saying that somebody might be able to take your same ingredients.

And make something delicious. Because it's not what you have, is how you watch you that determines what you do.

I found out that teenagers think they're busy.

They do.

They'll tell you I'm busy, how do it? Oh God, I'm busy. You're busy. And they're twelve. Now they're thirteen years old.

And I follow up with a question, do you have a baby, because if you don't have a baby, you don't know busy.

Preach with me.

In fact, I want all you busy thirteen year olds. You're so busy. I want you to find a twenty five year old woman in the lobby, one that's got a little car seat that she's trying to carry on the way out the door from church, and walk up to her and tell her how busy you are, and watch her look back at you, and take about the next five minutes to show you that it's not how much stress you have, is how you handle the stress that you have that determines. I'm saying, you could do

Of your life.

But faith doesn't take the weight off of my life. It shows me how to handle it. How many of you have a situation in your life today and you want God to show you how to handle it.

Just wave your hand.

If that's you, come on, just wave your hand if that's you.

Well.

See, God is good and God is strong. God is great, and God is good. And so God told Moses, I heard my people crying out, and their cry reached me, and I've come down to rescue them. That's what he told Moses in Exodus chapter three. He said, I've seen my people in cruel oppression. I saw how Pharaoh was treating them. I see what you're going through. I see what it's like. I see that you're trying. And God said, I came down and I'm gonna handle it. I'm gonna

God has his own way of handling things. So you'll be like asking God.

To send all the people away so they can get some food, and he'll tell you to steal a little boy's lunch and bring it to him.

That's how he handles it.

You'll be looking at Jericho and you'll see some big walls and you'll be like, God, we need to knock these down whill you handle it? And God won't give you a wrecking ball, He'll give you a trumpet, because God has his own way of handling it. You'll tell him I don't have anything to pay my debt's off of and he'll tell you what do you have in your house and you'll say a little bit of oil. And he'll tell you to go to your neighbors and borrow jars. And you'll say, no, that's the problem.

I'm in debt.

I don't need to borrow anything else. And they say, but go to these people and borrow it in the right way. And when you borrow it in the right way, now you're going to get something that you didn't have because God has a strange way of handling things. Or you'll be praying that he would send the Messiah and you'll be thinking that Thora is going to come down

He tells you to turn the other cheek, and.

Usually you're the one turning someone's cheek when they offend you. And God said, no, I got another way to handle it, to handle it. Can you handle it? Can you handle it and see what started as the thing that Moses feared a snake became the very thing that Moses needed a staff.

Let me work on that.

The first time I did ministry was in a church called Santi Circle Community Church. Now, my first church was in the Methodist Church in Mook's Corner where I grew up. Mickey made me his youth minister, and he would put me in this little room in the Woodmen of the World Building. This is on the outskirts of Monk's Corner, South Carolina, on the outskirts of Monk's Corner, South Carolina in the Women of the World Building.

And I was reliving this with some of our team this week.

We have an apprenticeship program at the church called two K two and it's it's for all of those who wanted This is actually like a product placement.

Let me do this real quick. Elevation two K two dot com.

Have you ever felt called into ministry but didn't know what your next steps might be? Join us at two K two, a twenty two week immersive ministry experience designed to propel you into your potential. Join us at Elevation two K two dot com. So I was doing a teaching forum.

Thank you.

I was doing a teaching forum this past week and they said, you are good at connecting with different types of people people, white people, old people, young people, religious people, not religious people.

How do you do that?

I said, you got to go back to the Woodmen of the World Building to understand that. In the Woodmen of the World Building, I had these kids, about fifteen kids. They would bring in, most of them on vans, and me and Anne Johnson and Miss Delilah.

That was the lady's named Delilah. Miss Delilah. We get the kids over on.

The vans, and many of them came from really a low income part of town, and so they would come in and white kids, black kids, but most of them only came for food, and so they came over and just wanted something to do. And that's who I started preaching to. So you think it intimidates me, if you sit with your arms crossed. I started with much worse than you. I started in a room full of snakes.

I can deal with it. I can handle it, so I said.

But I had a balance because if I wasn't interesting, a fight would break out.

So I had to like it moving.

I mean, if they got bored, they got violent, and so you know, I'm over here working on my Bible text. I'd only been reading my Bible for a couple of months, so I didn't know a lot about the Bible yet. So I was just making stuff up out of the Bible the best I could.

I was sixteen, y'all. So there was one kid in the.

Group called Matthew Johnson, Matthew Johnson, and he was like he was thirteen, but he had been in Bible school all his life.

The kid's Bible, this Bible nerd. His mom had taken him to every vacation.

Bible school in the Charleston metro area all of his life.

He had like nine weeks of Bible school every summer under.

His belt vacation Bible school. So if I got something wrong, Matthew would stand up and correct me. In the middle of the Wednesday night class one night, I came in preaching about the woman with the issue of blood. And I hadn't studied it, but I thought I knew what it meant. And I said, this woman came to Jesus and she was bleeding. Her face was just covered in blood. Somebody must have beat her out I don't know who

Then those kids didn't care.

So one night a fight broke out in the middle of my teaching and I just walked out, walked out the building, shut the door on that little twenty five dollars a week they were paying me to teach that class. And I sat under a tree and I was like, Jonah, if you ever heard of Jonah in the Bible, he sat under a tree and prayed that he might die so he wouldn't have to preach to the Ninovites.

And I was like, Lord, you kill I'd rather you kill me than go.

Back in there with these kids, because I'm gonna kill them, and I'd rather be dead than in prison.

So I'm gonna sit out here till you show me what to do.

After about ten minutes of this, Ryan who was like the biggest kid in the group who came in on the van, Ryan came over and Ryan really liked me.

And Ryan came over to the tree and he.

Said, Yo, see, I want you to know something that as long as you need to stay out here and get yourself together, it's cool because I just had to talk with everybody in this room, and I want you to know when you come back in is handle. I don't know what he said to those kids. I don't even want to know. But when I went back in that room, it was like an Episcopalian church on a Sunday morning.

It was like a Catholic Mass.

Those kids were leaned forward in their chair. Why because he handled it. I don't even know how buddy handled it. Have you ever had a situation in your life where you were throwing a petty party and didn't want to go back in and didn't want to try again, and had taken off from Egypt and didn't even want to face your future because.

Of the paint of your pass.

But here comes Jesus walking up to you on the second road today on the fourth row at the Gaston campus, walking up to you on an iPhone street, wants.

To let you know, whenever you get ready to come back in and do what I've called you to do, come on back in. Its handled.

Somebody set his handle, set his handle's handled. God told Moses, you can go back to Egypt, because everybody who wanted to kill you is dead. While you were out here in Egypt, I was dealing with your issues.

And his handle touch. Three people say, is handle, is handle? Is handle. God wants you to know.

Shame can't keep you at bay anymore because what Jesus was doing on that cross when they thought that he was dying, he wasn't dying. He was delivering you from the power of sitting death and was held against me, was nailed to his cross. And I'm standing here today with my hands stretched.

High, with my hand held high, with my shoulders.

Strown back, blidly approached.

The throne with confidence in the time of my need. Because it's handle, it's handled.

I feel the sphirit of Olivia Pupe coming on me. Somebody shot his handles.

It's handle.

That's what Ryan said. He said, is handle. When you get ready to come back in, you need to know his handle. When you get ready to go into your future, you need to know his handle.

Somebody shot his handle, is handled, his handle, his handle, his handle.

I love that Bible verse in Philippians four thirteen, where Paul is talking about I know what to do in any situation. If I have a little, if I have a lot, I can handle it. Because he says, there is a famous Bible verse. Have you heard this before?

He said, Christ can do all things through me. Did I mess it up? And must because I'm tired from the race.

I must have got a little of that champagne absorbed in my body at the at the race.

Let me try again.

Christ can do because because He's gonna handle it right, Christ can do all things through me. God's gonna handle it. Huh oh, he wants to help you handle it. Here's how God showed me. He said, I will handle what you can't, but I will not handle what you want.

See.

I handle your sin. You can't handle that. A hand your past, you can't handle that. But he told Moses, let me show you one more things. So now he told Moses, somebody shot handled handled. He told Moses, he said.

Pick it up. Now it's not a staff anymore in this moment, it's a snake. So what does Moses do? He does what you do with your fears, and he runs. Did you see it in the text? He said, what verse was it?

Was it three?

Where he ran was it three get and he ran from it.

That's the same thing that he did when he killed the man in Egypt. He's learned to run. He's learned to run, and God won't handle what you run from.

So he runs. Can y'all hear me? Okay in the back?

Oh, I know what I should do, because this thing only works in my hand. This is a good sermon for your life, for your marriage, for your soul, for any situation. God tells him to reach for the thing that he's been running from, and as he reaches, watch this.

As he reaches, the staff changes back into a staff from us as he reaches.

We got to work on this, y'all weren't paying attention. Go to four Go to four seventeen, Exitus four seventeen.

I'm almost done. I will hasten to a close. Well.

He told him to go l jay, he said, but take this staff. Everybody shout, come on, shout the phrases inbolded orange letters for a reason. Take the staff. Hit me with twenty real quick. I think it's twenty. So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God. Next verse, when he was confronting Pharaoh, he said, go out and confront him on the bank of the now, and take the staff that was changed into a snake.

To survive in the country. And they were right. So I welcomed their advice.

And everybody was telling me, now you're you're gonna see you're gonna have snakes for the first time.

So here's what you need to do with the snake. And you know what nobody told me.

Nobody told me that to handle a snake the way God told Moses to handle a snake.

Nobody. Go back to verse verse four. He said, reach out your and what.

Nobody told me to take the snake by the tail, because that's not the way you handle a snake naturally.

Take it by the.

You'll look confused. I'm not doing my job, am I I got to get this right, he said, take it by the See, the way we try to grab situations in our life is we want.

To control it. That's not the right way to hold. He said, take it by the take it by the now, to take a snake by the tail, and I will.

Remind you that the snake didn't change back into a staff until it was in Moses's hand. Your issue is not going to change until you handle it. Your pain is not going to become your purpose until you handle it.

But if you handle it your way, you're going to be depressed about it.

But if you handle God's way, God's work, God's way, God's will, God's way, God's word, God's way. You've done it long enough your way. It is time for you to do it God's way. And it's time for you to take it by the tail. God told me to tell you you feel it, don't you. God said that mistakes happen, But when they happen, take them by the tail and trust me to turn your mistake into a

In the next. When you take it by the tale. I came to say that.

What they said about you isn't gonna destroy you. It's only gonna develop you, to make you stronger to give you a stepfastness. When you take it by the tail, you know what you're gonna do with that doctor's report.

Take it by the tail. You know what you're gonna do with that loneliness.

Take it by the tail. You know what you're gonna do with everything that's been keeping you up at night, worried, wringing your head. This isn't my problem, This isn't my issue. The battle is the Lord's. He'll handle Pharaoh. I got this thing by the tail.

I trust your Lord.

Does anybody trust them in your situation? So I.

So I trust God enough to take it by the tail. And it only changes when you handle it. As long as you stand there looking at it, it's a snake.

As long as you stand there praying about it, it's a snake. You can't pray and make the snake go away. Pray about it, pick.

It up and make it work, and come on, come on, make it, come on, make it work.

In your favor. I'm saying handle it. I'm saying there's nothing life can throw at you.

That you can't handle it.

By the spirit of God myself, I can handle it. Somebody encourage five people in your area tell him you can handle it.

You can handle it. You can handle it, Yes, you can.

You've gotta handle it. You've gotta handle it. You were made to handle it. You were built to handle it. God's gonna help you handle it. He's gonna show you how to handle it.

He's got you in the palm of his hand. He's gonna help you. Raise thou children. He's gonna help.

You'll get through this season. He's gonna help you make the decision. Lift your hands like it's handled. Come on, lift your voice like this handled and shut unto.

God, little voice God me on trial, need to We need to name God. We need the boy h got me, boyd.

Child, I gotta tell you this. My time is over. Touch somebody say it's handled his hand, because the thoughts.

Just hit me and it scared me and it would haunt me if I didn't say it to you. What if Moses had kept running, he never would have seen what the staff could do. He never would have seen the transformation that would take place.

Think about it. It was a decision in a moment.

What if I never would have picked a mic up and started preaching into cameras to screens. How many people could we not have touched together. And I didn't think I could do it, and I was real scared about it, and I didn't know if I could forgive my dad because he really hurt me right before he died. And I almost ran from it, and I almost didn't go over to his house on Father's Day and stopped by for fifteen minutes.

But I'm so glad that I took it.

By the tail side with my hands shaking, and I wanted to run, and still pretty much every week before I preach, there's a part of me that.

Wants to run.

I got a friend here today who's a good preacher, really good preacher, great preacher. He told me he's coming to visit, and I almost asked him, do you just want to preach? Because I think I got a sermon? But right now it looks like a snake. See, I told the apprentices the other I said, when when I know a sermon is going to be good on Sunday is when I'm scared.

Of it on Thursday. That's that's how it works for me. But if you I gotta go. I'm out of time. But I'm ensure you this.

If you stand there and look at it long enough, and you stand there and and and and analyze the snake long enough, and you get down here and wait for it to change. And God, if they say I'm sorry, then I'll forgive them. And God if you if you give me more money, then i'll get Then I'll tithe.

And God, if you and you're.

Waiting for it to change on the ground, but it's only gonna change when you trust.

God enough to take it by the tail, come on, lift your hands. I want to pray for you. God, give them courage. You know they're gonna need it. You know, Pharaoh has them running. You know, Pharaoh is that is that snake? Do you know? Pharaoh is that thing? You know, Pharaoh is that addiction. You know, Pharaoh is that insecurity?

You know, Pharaoh is that taskmaster that tries to convince them that they're never enough.

But we came today to say that the head of the serpent has already been crushed. Hallelujah.

We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for as stretch storms, we thank you for as crops, we thank you for as power, and we declare over our lives today, whatever it is that stands against your children and Jesus name and is hand on somebody claim your thank you for joining us special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry.

Is because of you that this ministry is possible.

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