Hope Is In Our DNA (Lisa Harper)

the world all weekend long. Let's see, We've got Melissa from Michigan. We've got Eric from Kenya, Joel is joining us from Mississippi, Hazel from India, literally all over the world. I just love it. I love worshiping with Elevation Church. It's an amazing part of what I get to do with my life. And I know you're grateful that too. Hey, shout out to Faith Verdick. If you don't know her, she is the woman who gave our pastor life and today is her birthday. So Faith, if you're watching, speak

for all of us when I say thank you. You are one special woman. You deserve an extra crown for raising Stephen Ferdick and not killing him, because I now know what it's like to raise teenagers. And so thank you. We all thank you. Are your kids all set E kids online? How many of you are grateful for E

kids Online? I know it's not the same thing as dropping your kids off, but at least they're watching something that's wonderful, and that's teaching them about God and giving you just a minute to be able to worship together. How many of you are grateful for our worship team? I just love our church. I love how they lead us every weekend. But if you're like me, elevation worship is not just something that you watch on the weekends, but it's a sound that's coming out of your home.

The songs and the sermons and the stories of this church are getting me through this season, and I know they are too. How many of you were with us last week when my husband preached about the plot twist? I gotta tell you, my husband is not preached on Father's Day in like a decade, and I was just thinking last night that apparently, in addition to all of the special anointings that are on pastor Stephen's life. He also has a special Father's Day anointing. Am I wrong?

If you saw that message, you know how incredible it was. And if you missed it, you need to go back and watch it. It It was called plot Twist. I think it's in my top ten. I have a lot in my top ten, but I think that was in my top ten. I just love how God speaks to me every single time the Word is preached on this stage, and today is going to be no exception. My dear friend Lisa Harper will be bringing the Word and this woman,

this woman can preach, and I'm not gonna lie. I love a good girl preacher, and Lisa is one of my favorites. Lisa and her daughter, Missy, live in Nashville, Tennessee. They drove down here to be with us this weekend. So get ready because this woman knows the Word of God, and every time I'm around her, I want to read my Bible more and i want to be a better Christian. So I'm gonna stop talking. I hope you're having a great weekend. It's a great weekend here in Charlotte. Would

you help me welcome Lisa Harper to the stage. Yeah, we're trying so hard to hug responsibly. I was thinking driving here. We drove here yesterday from Nashville, Tennessee, and I was just thinking about the breath. Y'all can sit down. You're so darling at home. I know you're already sitting down half the hollar, like vegged out and stretching pants

on the couch. But I was thinking about the breadth of elevation, what God has done in a really short season to take the gospel all around the world, and I thought, that kind of trajectory, I think it's almost unprecedented. It's obviously miraculous God has authored the favor that he's given elevation. But I thought, you don't get that broad without having really really deep roots. And I love that woman right there because she's got really really deep roots.

And you may only see her in a stream. You may only see Holly on a screen. But I've been through a couple of valleys in the last ten years, and Holly Ferdick was one of the first person to text prayers to speak life to me. So I am delighted to be back in this house. I always come here with just a little bit of trepidation is I too watch Stephen Ferdick every weekend, and so some of you are like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. I mean, Holly made me sound good, but I am

no Stephen Ferdick. This is going to be like a mule at the Kentucky Derby. But hang with me, because I think God has something for us, if nothing else, he has something for me. Because Chris, I have been waiting with baited breath. I don't even know what that means, but I've been so excited about being led in worship

live by y'all. I know what Pastor Stephen said last week is true that as Christ followers, we carry the church in our hearts and minds, and so the church is open as long as you and I are open to the working person in the Holy Spirit. But I've just got to be honest with y'all and tell you that my heart has been in a really stinker prodigal season lately, and every time it sees the Zoom logo, it just kind of crosses its arms and refuses to listen.

I miss corporate worship. As soon as y'all started, I just thought, I just I just feel like I want to sink into this one to marinate in this It's it's been incredible to be here with y'all. This has been a less than lovely season. I don't have to remind y'all of the reasons why, but I'll start with homeschool. I love my kid. For those of you who don't know my story, I became a mom the same year I went through menopause at fifty through the miracle of adoption.

And my kid is the most amazing child in the world except for years, of course, that's a tie. But but homeschooling full time once COVID caused schools in Tennessee to close, that was that was that was a faith opportunity, And I do have to confess that once I watched Tiger King and countadate as biology for her. But I I brought a two minute video that I want to show y'all just this proof in case there's any truancy officers in Epham all over the world. I bought proof

that we actually did have classes. This was an al fresco class we had on etiquette. Just a little short, two minute video. They'll show you what went on during school at our house during COVID nineteen am, I, how did you make that trashy noise again? Oh? The that noise? Yes, ma'am. You put your you put your teeth, your top teeth over your bottom lip, and then you like force air out of one side, like blow a little more air and just out of the side, like honey. I think

you're too sweet to make trashy noises. Maybe we should sing a song, I willship song. Maybe we should sing a worship show. Which one do you want to sing? Probably Jesus with dension, good grace. Oh I love that one. Okay you started peace? Oh dan Ah savags in his blood. That's a good one. It is a good one. I love it. How does the chorus go of that one? I actually think that is the chorus and Jesus our salvation, our reathomtion. What comes after is in his blood jeezesus

blood of it? Right? Friend forfu ish keen do come? That's what comes to us to that. I love that, tutor, I do too. That's better than making those bad, trashy noises, isn't it it is? Do you think you're sweeter than me? I think so. Of YouTube, most of y'all are probably sweeter than me. And have not been tutoring your children and breaking when noises. It's been a long three months, and I just my hats are is off to you if you have been singing worship tunes like my kid

instead of making trashy noises like me. But to be really honest, I'd like to kick you in the shins if you haven't suffered at all over the last three months, because it has just been a rough go of it. And again, I don't have to remind you of why it's been rough. I know we've all been dealing with our own kind of rough in our little corner of the world. We had an especially intimate difficult thing happened recently.

Someone in my immediate family committed suicide nine weeks ago, and his death just ripped the fabric of our lives. And over the last two months, I just feel like some of my hope has been leaking out of those holes. I just have had a harder time than normal hanging on to hope. It's been almost like wet soap. I'm just having a hard time hanging on to it. And my hope, my prayer is that none of you are having to gree the loss of a loved one on

top of everything else that we're slogging through. For those of you who have, I'm so sorry if you're dealing with the loss of a loved one. Please please please put some of those details in the chat, because we would love to pray with you and for you. But regardless of what's been shoplifting your hope lately, I think all of us can agree that that at least some measure of our hope has been threatened in the last

couple of months. And so I thought it would be so appropriate, so prudent, prudent, maybe not for you, but certainly for me to do a deep dive in scripture and try to recover some of the hope that these circumstances have shoplifted. And so I want to talk before we dive into scripture. If you're on the couch and you've got a Bible at your house, get up off the counts and grab that pumpy and come back, because

we're going to be in the Bible. If you have kids in the room, I want to reiterate what Chad said about sending them over to kids YouTube, because it's going to get a little hot in here pretty soon. So I want you to be careful to not have anybody under thirteen in your living room. Just send them off for YouTube. Don't let them watch Tiger King like I did with my child, because now I'm going to

be paying for therapy later. But anyway, before we dive into the text, our first text is going to be at the very big beginning of the book, I want to remind us all that we get our New Testament from Greek and the Greek concept of hope. The Greeks pronounced hope. It's transliterated elpis, but it's pronounced l piece, which I think that's cool. That peace is kind of in the Greek idea of hope. But the Greek concept

of hope was not an objective assessment. They didn't look around at their circumstances and go, oh, here's what justifies my hope this season. It was actually a subjective experience. They looked back over their lives and if there was proof of hope in their backstory, then they said, I will be expectant about future hope. If they could look back to tangible hope, they said, then I know there will be proof of hope. There will definitely hope in

the future. Let me explain it like this, COVID nineteen has effectively swaggered into my house like Dennis the Rock Johnson. And evidently the Keto boy in my mind was a much weinier crop pants wearing Wayfish guy because the rock just killed Keto up in our house. And as a result,

I have had an extreme uptick in carb consumption. And as a result of that, I definitely am am up about nineteen due to COVID, And so there is a very real probability that I'm going to faint up in this elevation house this morning because these banks are cutting off my circulation. I shouldn't have done that, because if I did that harder, you could lose an eye. But here's the deal. Here is the positive thing about my

expansive tragedy. I saved pictures from last fall and last fall I was really doing good on a low carb life plan, and so I saved pictures of when I was actually wearing pants with zippers. So I have a witness. I have a tangible testimony that it is possible for me to wear pants that do not have an elastic waistban Can I get a witness? Are you with me? There is tangible proof in my past that I could go there again. Hope is not based on now, not

for christ followers. I love pastor seement Stephen sermon last week on plot Twist. I loved that one. It's probably in my top ten two Holly, I will never again look at the geographical phrase Samaria and the New Testament without thinking of his wordplay, his application some area, there will be some areas will be reluctant to go through. I love that. But the thing that I resonated with most of all was when he talked about generational wells.

When he talked about generational wells, because what was implied was that we will not have to worry about dying of thirst in the now because there was ample provision in our history. And that's where we're going to go this morning. We're going to start at the beginning of the book. So if you brought the book, turn to Genesis chapter three. Now before we get there, John Michael, will you throw me my glasses out of my purse,

they're in a blue case. Before we go there, we'll be in Genesis chapter three beginning when verse twenty one. I want to give you just a quick review you probably know this, But at this point, at the very beginning of redemptive history, the Creator, Redeemer, Father God has already breathed the universe into existence out of nothing. And after he looked at the sea and the sky and the stars, all the creepy crawleys and eaters and elephants,

he said, something's missing, And so they got together. And that's not a misspeak. Genesis one twenty six and twenty seven explains to us that our God is in us. He's a trinitarian god, God the Father, God the Sign, and God the Holy Spirit. It says, God has an us, Augustine, Saint Augustine, I'll have huge crushes and all the dead guys, I have to be platonic about them because they're dead and gone. I only have platonic crushes about living theologians.

But anyway, Saint Augustine says that only the Christian God is a perfect community unto himself Genesis one, twenty six and twenty seven. Then let us make man in our image. We were hard wired for a relationship. That's why when some of y'all miss get together with your epham, you go. I just didn't have a great week we were hard wired for relationship. That's a whole nother story, but we'll go there soon. Sorry, I'm tinkling, and not just because

this thinks. So God then breathes man into existence, and then God takes a nap. I think it is so stink and cool that our father God created Rest modeled Rest in Genesis chapter two, y'all, that's before the fall. The fall happens in Genesis chapter three. That means Rest was not some divine accommodation for human weakness. Rest was part of his perfect gift. Us. Isn't that good as a whole other sermon? So anyway, He's created the heavens

and the earth. He's created man, he's taken a nap, wakes up really refreshed from his nap, looks around and goes, something is missing, something beautiful is missing, and he creates woman. And that's where the story starts getting sticky because a lot of people then put hierarchy in the story. Now, I'm not gonna lay it here too long because I don't want to take the heat. I want Stephen to take the heat. But the Hebrew word used for woman

is easier. It's translated helper in our Bibles. You know who else describes himself as an easer fourteen times in Genesis God, Man and Woman. And that was never intended to be a hierarchical relationship with suppression and with oppression. I was always intended to be a mutual, helpful relationship.

Not going to go there because Eve does drop the ball, because soon after she's created, she gets deceived by this really rotten, slithery fruits salesman named Satan, and she takes a bite out of some of his rotten fruit, and the trajectory of mankind has been downhill ever since. We're joining the story right after she has rebelled against God and hooked up with the fruit salesman Genesis three, chapter twenty one. And the Lord God made for Adam and

for his wife garments of skin and clothe them. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, and knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also over the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God send him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden. He placed the Cherubim in a flaming sword that turned every which way to guard the way

to the Tree of life. Now, I don't know if y'all get mental pictures when you read the Bible. Mom was Baptist, Dad was Pentecostal. So I'm Babtcostal, which means I love to wiggle in worship, but I have no rhythm. And so I've heard all these stories since I was teeny You've seen most of them flannel graft. And when I used to hear that story as a kid, I

immediately got a mental picture of Adam and Eve. I pictured Adam as being very lean, and this is way before Peyloa, when it was cool for guys to be lean. He was just kind of a lean, weak looking man, stringy hair extensions, and kind of threw his own wife under the bus. You know, I didn't need the fruit she did. And oh, cover my junk. I mean, he just he just he. Adam does nothing for me. He

doesn't blow my skirt up. And then Eve, I think of her as the woman I don't want to be because she's I mean, let's just face it, she's trashy, you know, she does exactly what God tells her not to do, and that's after she's paraded around nude. I mean she is trashy. So I picture her like the trashy girls that hung out of the skating rink and

town I grew up in in central Florida. So I picture her with kind of an ac DC tube top and Daisy Dukes and like, you know, really bad hair, and she's got tat since she's only, oh, I don't know, fifteen, I mean, she's just you know, this girl is rough, bad news. So when it says God drove them out of the garden of Eden, my first response used to be good riddance. You know, he's a sissy and she's trashy. Good riddance, And I kind of pictured him just booting

them out of glory. Y'all. That's not at all the contexts of Genesis three. That word drove out comes from the Hebrew word garosh. I can't pronounce it well because I don't get enough gutturle in my throat, but it's garash, and it's used redemptively in Exodus twice. For the moment this season when God drove his people the theocracy of Israel out of captivity toward the promise. Like us, they were about as smart as sheep, so they had gotten

really comfortable in captivity. God had to rock them out of a rut to get them from captivity to the promise. The word is he's in nexus twice, totally redemptive context. They're not being hurt, they're not being ushered toward their own death. They're actually being ushered toward their own freedom and life. But it says they were driven out toward freedom away from Egypt, redemptive context. And then in First Samuel chapter twenty one, that's after David he's running away

from Saul. Remember Saul was the first king of Israel. He was a narcissistic nut job, was really jealous of David because David had more followers than him, and so he's trying to kill him, and so David flees for his life and he ends up fleeing into enemy territory. Remember who their arch enemy was. Gonna talk back, you're

still social distance and spit. Let's go Philistines. So he finds himself in Philistine territory, finds himself standing before the King of the Philistines, the King of goth this first Samuel nineteen, if you want to check me. And when he stands before the King of goth he realizes, oh goodness, it's gracious, I'm wearing Goliath's sword. Do you remember who Goliath was. I mean, he was like the big dog daddy of the Philistines. You remember, He's this probably eight

foot man. When David before he'd even started using you know, claton or anything for his skin. Is that for girls? Or is that for acne? Is it for acney? Oh? Allergies? That's right. I was trying to do an acne medication. I couldn't pull one fast enough. So anyway, before David's even gone through puberty, he ends up killing Goliath, you remember the story, with a slingstone and slingshot stone, whatever, and so he kills the giant. Well, from that day forward,

David is enemy number one to the Philistines. He utterly humiliated them. Now Here it is years later, and he's up in the middle of Philistine standing in front of the King of the Philistines, wearing Goliath's sword. I mean, you talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull. I mean, surely he is about to get his own head cut off. And that's why David starts to feign madness. And he did what no other Israelite

man would do. He drooled in his beard. And by feigning madness and dribbling in his beard, which was a huge no no for Orthodox Jewish Men in that era of history. Gath, the men of Gath, the soldiers of the king of Goths, say we need to let this guy go. Otherwise, an innocent, crazy man's blood is going to be on your hands, and it says, and thus David was drove out. You see God's merciful sovereignty there. He's about to get killed and God drives him out

for his own good for survival. It's immediately after God rescues him from the King of Gath the David writes Psalm thirty four, one of my favorite psalms, where he says, those who look to the Lord, their faces are radiance. They'll never be covered with shame. He's just totally shamed himself by drilling in his beard, pretending to be a madman. God uses that drives him out from certain death, and immediately after that he says, my face will never be

covered with shame. Because of how you drove me out to victory God. It's in that same psalm that we get God is close to the broken arty. He's near to us when our lives feel crushed, which is just a theme verse for this season in our world and the world at large. So now when I think of Genesis three, I don't think of a girl on a tube top. I think of our gracious God taken his kids by the arms and redemptively ushering them out of Eden.

Not because he's a unibrowed librarian and is about to smack him over the head with the Bible, but because he knows what they don't, and he knows that they come back and they eat from the tree of Life, they will be forever frozen in Eden, forever separated from the intimacy with Him that they were created for. So he begins to drive them out, heard them toward recreating the intimacy that he had fashioned them for. It's such a redemptive passage, y'all. There is so much hope in scripture.

When people tell me the Bible is boring, I'm like, no, you may have sat under a boring Bible, teacher. The Bible itself is not boring, nor is it punitive. This is a divine love story. It's filled with hope. Okay, head to the right, and if you can prove to me that you've actually been spending your quiet time in numbers, specifically numbers chapter twenty seven, I will send you twenty bucks. Not that we advocate betting here at Elevation, but I want to take you to another passage. And this one

is just stunny. It's just one that we usually skip over because it sounds like it's one of those boring Old Testament passages. Isn't it funny how so many of us think of the God of the Old Testament as like this angry autocrat and the God of the New Testament as Jesus with brettgirl hair extensions, like all warm and fuzzy. You know, if that is true, then Genesis one, twenty six and twenty seven isn't. If that's true, then

God is bipolar. It's not true. Drives me nuts when people say, well, Jesus said in the red letters, I'm like, he didn't say the black letters, because last I know, it's Godfather. God's said and got the Holy Spirit. But when we stop stepping onion, based toes Okay numbers twenty seven. Then drew near the daughters of Zilofah had the son of Heafer, the son of Gilead, son of Maker, and a lot of other words. The names of his daughters

were Mila, Noah, Hogla. Now I need to stop there for just a minute, because I know a lot of you, especially you younger mamas, really want to name your kid's biblical names to impress your small group. Don't be working with Hogla, Hogla. That's just hard. That's not a good name. It's in the Bible, but it's not a good name.

Don't replicate that name. Hogla, Milka and Tirza. And they stood before Moses and before Elizer, the priests, and before chiefs and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meetings, saying, our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord and the company of Karab, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to

us a possession among our fathers. Brothers. Now you better bet. At this point in ancient history, everybody who's watching this take place start equipping out their cell phones. They're like, I Am going to instant story this because they are just about to be fright into a great spot of oblivion. Because at this point in ancient history, women had basically the same value as a good milk cow. Women were regarded as chattel, something a man could own, and the

law of the land was primogeniture. Primogeniture, if you remember from high school or college, history, meant that the firstborn son inherited all of his father's estate upon his father's death. That's what reigns during this period of Israel's history. And so these daughters of Zilofah had they have the hut spot to go against the law of culture, come before Moses and the high Priest and go, we think we

should get daddy's land. You just imagine all of Israel's like they just assume the lightning bolt is just about to come out and fry these cheeky jacks. But that's not what happens. All this is stunning. I so want to read this to my militant friends who are burning their bras and tell them that floppiness is not necessar. Moses brought their case before the Lord verse five, and the Lord said to Moses, the daughters of Zilofah had

are right. You shall give them possession of an inheritance among their father's brothers, and transfer the inheritance of their father to them. And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, if a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. Y'all. What that passage that we tend to skip over says is that our creator, Redeemer is not some autocrat or a massagynist to enjoy is punishing his people, But instead

he has always been actively redeeming culture. He's always been actively restoring the dignity that others have stolen from his image bears. This book is filled with generational walls of hope, y'all. Just over and over and over again, guys, if you'll stay with me for just one mo more second, I've got one more estrogen passage, but I'll be fast. Deuteronomy,

chapter twenty two, Verse twenty eight. If a man meets a virgin who's not betrothed and seizes her in lies with her and they are found, than the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife. Because he has not violated her, he may not divorce her all his days. Now, I don't know if you really heard what I was saying in the ESV there, but that is nasty town. I mean, that is just awful if you read it at first glance without the

sociohistorical context. Because what that is saying is a young woman who has been violated by a man. That sounds like that young young man bribes her daddy and then she has to marry her violator. So it sure sounds like God is advocating the insult be added to injury. You have to understand the context, y'all. Any text in this love story can be used as a proof text that is not true if you take it out of context.

In the context, God's people have just come out of Egyptian captivity, where they have been under what we could call the first iteration of Sharia law and the culture that they had been in for four hundred years, said that any young woman twelve and over who was not married or betruthed was vulnerable to be violated by any man who so chose. And the consequence of the man who violated her is, guess what, a nothing, not a

slap on the wrist, not a traffic violation. And so one of my professors at Denver Seminary, I love this. He puts it like this. He said, So God steps over the fence of ancient culture, and he says, you're not going to violate my baby girls anymore. Have you ever wondered why girls in this era of history got married at twelve? This is why you ever wonder why

women don't go alone to the well. This is why he says, from now on, any of you idiots who are even thinking about violating one of my daughters, here's the deal. If you do so, you will set up a four oh one k for her through her daddy. God. This is unheard of. Women were now even allowed to hold property at this time in history. He says, you'll

set up an account soci'll be financially independent. Then you will give her your name, not to reviolate her, but to begin to restore some of the dignity you stole. And then if you do not take care of her and provide for her for the rest of her life. You're liable to get stoned by the rest of the community, big boy. I heard this passage quoted about a year ago in a blog by a woman who is trying to prove that God is a massagist, and I thought,

you've missed the whole thing. The whole point of this is that God has always been in the process of redeeming clue, of restoring the value that other people have stolen from us. This is a book of hope, y'all. There is hope on every page. We don't always mine it correctly because we read the Bible lazy. We want something we can tweet instead of something that we can chew on. But the Bible is filled with hope. I'm close to landing. Just two more passages. Head to the

right to Matthew's Gospel to Matthew Chapter eighteen. And some of you, how many of y'all are eights on the enneagram? Eight's on the inneagram. My guess would be some of you eights are very familiar with this passage. If you're a female eight, you've probably cross stitched it. It might be hanging on your wall Matthew eighteen, beginning in verse fifteen. If your brother sends against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens

to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you. That every change may be, that every charge, excuse me, may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, Tell it to everybody. Go ahead and get on EPAM and just just blow the news everywhere in church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a

tax collector. When I was in high school, we had a youth pastor for a season who was really, really passionate, and he used to wave his Bible around like this. When I was in my twenties, I tried to imitate it and I hit a woman upside the head with Genesis. I just went out of my Bible and hit this woman in the head. I was like, I'm sorry, I'm

so sorry. They never invited me back. But he would swing his Bible around quote from Matthew eighteen, and you would tell all of us in the youth ministry that we were supposed to go and verbally confront, better yet assault our friends who were partying after football games or smoking pot, or were still engaged in heavy petting. So I'm older than the median of elevation, But can I get a witness? Did any of y'all have a pastor who used the phraseology heavy petting? Do you remember, Holly?

And it confused me, I mean confused me a lot. I remember being at this kind of fire and Brimstone revival. This was the late seventies. I was in middle school in central Florida and a pastor got up and started swinging his Bible around. Veins were popping out, and he said, any of you who've been involved in heavy petting wants you to come to the altar and repent, you know. And I'd come there on the van with our little

First Baptist church. And I was nervous because I was afraid the van would leave me because I didn't really always believe Billy Graham when he said they'd stay. But I sat there and I thought, half I half I. I mean, I love our beagle. We had the sweetest beagle named smoky, and I thought, have I just inadvertently like rubbed her fur the wrong way or maybe pet her with a little bit too much? Wait? Have I

caused my dog canine injury? I don't know. This verse has been used, y'all to shame teenagers who struggled with, you know, frisky feelings. I think since the beginning of Baptist time anyway. It's also been used to justify ecclesiastical expulsion. In other words, this passage Matthew eighteen has been used as the sole passage to justify kicking people out of church. Do you hear me? Now? I want to take just a second here, because I'm not advocating for anarchy in church.

I'm really not for church to be a healthy, thriving community. There have to be parameters. This is not just crazy town, and so we need spiritual leaders, we need people holding us accountable. But I really think that when we take this verse as the proof text to kick people out of fellowship, I think we're missing the main point Jesus was making. It's right there in front of us, and I've missed it my whole life. I am fifty six

years old. I have a master's in theology. I'm two years away, god willing from having a doctorate and redemptive hermaeutics. I have studied my behind off because I'm single and it's the only way I get any kind of endorphins. And so I've got scads of books on exit Jesus and catology and redemptive hermonutics and socio historical contexts. But it wasn't until this last summer I was sitting in a class listening to a professor unpacked the redemptive thread

in Matthew eighteen that I went Jesus. It's Jesus speaking, and Jesus says, treat them as taxs and gentiles. How did Jesus always treat tax collectors and gentiles? I mean Matthew's writing it. Matthew was a tax collector before he encountered Jesus, and Jesus said, come be a fisher of men with me. Might change your Facebook status. You're going to be an evangelist, but you were a tax collector. Do you remember Luke nineteen? If you don't remember it,

right off, Hannah about you? You sang Luke nineteen, There was wee little man, and a wee little man was he member, Zachias climbed up in a sycamore tree to meet Jesus. Y'all, he was the CEO of the IRS division in Jericho. It was implied by Doctor Luke that Zachias got filthy rich by padding to what he was assessing his Jewish countrymen and then skimming off the top before wiring those funds to erme. I mean, this was not just a tax collector. This was a tax cotor

without scruples. And yet when Jesus meets zach do you think he calls them out for his duplicity. Now he invites himself over for dinner. And after Zach and Jesus hang out, do you remember Zach's response, I'll give half of what I own to the poor, half of what I own to prison ministry, and to orphans and Uganda, and to feed the homeless here in Charlotte. I'll give half of what I own. I'm so happy to trade

in my billey for a smart car. And anyone whom I'm defrauded, I'll repay them four times what I initially stole. Treat them as tax collectors and gentiles. Remember Genesis, well, when God says to our great great Granddaddy Abraham. Through you, all of the nations of the earth will be blessed. They'll all meet Jesus. The promise goes all the way back to the beginning. It's fulfilled in the working person of Jesus Christ. Paul said, my whole ministry is so

that gentiles will come to know Jesus. Two thirds of the New Testament is about outsiders being drawn into the unconditional love of our creator redeemer. Treat them as gentiles and tax collectors. Do you really think he intended that to be punitive, y'a. We used the Bible as a club, and it was never meant to be used as a club. It's true, it's authoritative. There are parameters for abundant life in here. This isn't a joke, but it's not punitive.

We're going to land in Hebrews. Hebrews, chapter four, verse twelve. Any of you who grew up in church, hoighly, I know that you could quote this one backwards, because it's one of the first verses that we learned when we are growing up. If you've listened to pastor Steven for any length of time, you've heard this verse, you've heard

this whole book preach Hebrews, Chapter four, verse twelve. For the Word of God is living an active sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and the spirit of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Again, this is one of those passages I used to swing my Bible around in the twenties, in my twenties, not the twenties, I'm not that old, but I would use that passage basically to guilt people into being in a Bible study.

And it wasn't until recently that I started really looking at that verse and I thought, oh my goodness, now, y'all, let me qualify this because I'm probably going to step on some toes. I am a Bible banger through and through. I believe in the veracity and the authority of that text from cover to cover, God willing, I will spend the rest of my life talking about what's between those leather bound pages. I love this book. It's not just

a book to me, it's life. To me. Everything I've ever needed for life in Godliness I find on these pages. It's not a textbook. It's not a rule book. It's not a collection of benign morality tales. This is life, Gus. But I took that verse out of context in Hebrews. I thought it was all about the Bible. Do you remember when Hebrews was written, Colleen, You'll know between sixty and seventy a D between sixty and seventy eight D

is She's not uh huh uh huh. Do y'all also remember a D. A lot of people think that's after death. It's actually Latin and o domini the year of Our Lord b C is before Christ. Do you know they've changed the history books now and b C is now BCEE before the Common era, And instead of it being a d Ano Domini the year of our Lord, it's

ce Common Era. Just a little side note. Interesting how everybody's starting to throw Jesus out of history, and yet Jesus is the foundation of the history of hope anyway, wit and written between sixty and seventy AD. Between sixty and seventy eight, there were very few other epistles, New Testament epistles we've now called books being circulated. The very first collection, loose collection of most of the New Testament

books was in two hundred. The very first formal collection of all twenty seven New Testament books is in three sixty seven I think AD. That was by and I think something anathemas or anaphasia or something some mix of those terms. And then it was formally canonized into the very first New Testament of the Council of Hippo in

three ninety three AD. What do all those boring historical facts me means that right here, when this pastor is encouraging his sheep, because his sheep, like us, were really tired, and his sheep, like us, were running out of hope, and he said, I want you to remember that Jesus logos Greek Jesus. That word is used in John one in the beginning was the word, and the word was God. The word was with God. This is before we had

inscripturted text. He's saying, Jesus is sharper than a two edged short soord, Jesus knows the motive of your heart, and Jesus knows you're running out of hope. Jesus. It's all about Jesus, y'all. When we segregate the God who loves us from inscripturated text, it becomes punitive when we realize this is all about Jesus. This is the generational

well from which we can draw hope. In the driest season, you look back and go our creative redeemer has always been in the process of restoring the dignity that has been stolen from us, of redeeming the mistakes that you and I have made, oftentimes against each other. I can't even mention Hebrews without thinking of something that happened recently.

I was speaking at a conference for people who were in addiction Recovery from Addiction conference, and I have never struggled with alcohol or drugs or opioids, but I identify as a recovering addict because one of my favorite theologians, a guy named doctor ed T. Welch, wrote a book called A Banquet in the Grave, and in that book he said that all addictions are ultimately a disorder of worship. In other words, if you don't put Jesus in the biggest hole in your soul, you'll run to the wrong

things of the wrong people. So I thought, I'm at home with these recovering addicts. And it was on a Friday night. Then it went through Saturday Friday night, there's this woman during worship who came up front. And this church wasn't quite as wiggly as we are here at Elevation. It was a little more, a little less demonstrative, and so she was the only woman upfront, only person upfront, and she was completely oblivious to any body else about

six seven hundred of us at this conference. She was just dancing and dipping and twirling, and I found myself distracted by her as we were singing. I thought, I'd love to hear her story, because in my experience, people who were able to kind of step outside from that world most of us live in where we're afraid of what anybody else thinks. People who out operate independent of

other people's approval usually have these incredible backstories. And I thought, man, I'd love to know her story, and so I was excited. The next morning, I went to the sanctuary early because I was teaching that morning, and I went in early just to pray and prepare her. And she was in there with the only two people in the sanctuary. She

was up front. So I walked up and I introduced myself to her, and she said her name was Joyce, and I said, Joyce, I just want to thank you because I was trying to focus on Jesus, but I got distracted a few times by you last night. I was just really undone by how un restricted you were dear in worship. I mean, it was just you and Jesus, and I'm not quite that free yet. So I really

loved the model that you set before me. And I said, it also made me wonder what your backstory is, because that kind of praise usually comes from someone who's been delivered from a lot. And she said, oh, yes, ma'am, I've been delivered, and she launched into this story that could have come from cable. I mean, just horrible backstory

of abuse. And she was a hardcore addict and alcoholic for about thirteen years, and then she met Jesus, and Jesus just invaded every dark corner of her life and she became just a passionate follower of Jesus Christ was involved in addiction ministries and celebrate recovery had really impacted her community, and I thought, you know, I mean, that's

why she dances like that. Well later on, just maybe twenty minutes later, I'm standing up on stage sharking my message, and I look down and Joyce is just sitting right there, and I thought, oh, my goodness, she's got such a great voice, because as soon as she introduced herself, I thought, she is like a three pack a day smoker. Shut it, U gravelly awesome voice. And I thought, I'm going to

get Joyce to read from the passage I'm reading. I happened to be in Hebrews, and so normally I will warn people if I'm going to ask them to read something that i'm doing, you know, I'll tell them ahead of time. Even in our Bible study. I'm like, is it cool if I ask you to pray today? I don't like to, you know, shock people, And so normally I would have asked Joyce, but at this point I hadn't. Just I was so overwhelmed by how much I loved her story and she's sitting right there, and I thought,

we've got to use that voice. So I jump off stage and I go, y'all, this is my new friend, Joyce, and I just love her heart and I love her voice. So she's going to read the text for us today. And Joyce kind of looked a little flustered, and then she took the mic, and she read the passage, tripped over a few of the words in the beginning, but then you know, got a great even read the passage and everybody clapped politely, and I was like, dange Joyce, I go up and I finish well. Maybe four hours

later the conference is over. I'm in the back of the room and Joyce comes up and just kind of sheepishly says, miss Lisa, I need to tell you how you having me read that passage impacted me. And I was like, oh, man, you know, I'm sure sure I've somehow stepped on a bruise where she's afraid of reading in public or something. I so should have asked her. And I said, oh, Joyce, I'm so sorry if I wounded you, and she says, no, no, I need to

tell you a little more of my story. She said, I told you that God had healed me of alcoholism, and then I've been clean for a long long time, been sober for a long long time. She goes, what I didn't tell you was that nine months ago I fell off the wagon. And she said, nine months ago I was engaged to be married only guy I ever trusted,

And she said two weeks for the wedding. I found out he'd been stepping out with my best friend, and she said, I was just devastated, and so she said, I turned back to Jack Daniels to drown my sorrows. And she said I spent the weekend after I found out he stepped out on me. She said, I was just drunk as a skun all weekend. And she said when I sobered up on Monday, I came into church where she had been on staff, and she said, I told the leaders. I said, yeah, I fell off the wagon.

I told them why, and she said they were really really gracious, but then they were also very very sober in how they followed through, and they said, we can no longer have you on staff because of you having that mistake, especially since you work with addicts, and so they asked for her letter of resignation. She left staff, and she ended up leaving that particular church because she said, even though I wanted to stay there, I wanted to

walk it out. She said, Lisa, every time I walked in the sainctuary, I felt I had a scarlet leather a for alcoholic on my chest. And she said, I just couldn't do it. So After a couple of months, I moved my membership to another church across town. She said, I didn't tell you this morning, and that this is the church that I was asked to resign from. And she said, and last night was the very first time

I stepped foot in the sanctuary again. And I said, oh, Joyce, I'm so sorry because I thought, here I've ruined what God had shaped to be this precious homecoming. And she said, oh no, no no, no, you didn't ruin anything. She said, Lisa, you couldn't possibly have known that. When I was a little girl, I was illiterate. My mom didn't send me

to kindergarten. And on the first day of the first grade, I walked into a little school in Appalachia and the teacher was a new teacher, didn't know my story, and she called on me to read and she said I stood up, and she said, I can still remember how bad my legs were shaking because I didn't know any of my A, B, and c's, much less how to string them together. So she said, I just looked at

those letters on the page. They were like hieroglyphics, and I just recited something I had heard from one of mom's soap operas, hoping that somehow the line I spoke was close to what was in this book Little Jack and Jane Primer. And she said, all the kids started dying, laughing, and they all started calling me stupid. And she said that name stuck all the way through high school graduation.

So she said, I learned if I was ever going to speak out loud, say anything in public, in school or at work, she said, I would obsessively go over every single word that I was going to read or I was going to speak, because I was so nervous about ever speaking publicly. She said, But when you called me out of seven hundred people, you called me by name, and you said, I want Joyce to read, she said, it's like the heavens rolled back and God himself said,

that's my girl. Listen to her. And she said, today this place of same has become a place of honor to me. Don't y'all want to be a little more like Joyce? Don't you want to be so undone by the redemption and our story, by the redemption and the stories behind us, that we can't help but express some of that hope to the world around us, a hope that's world that's desperate for hope, y'all. Can you imagine

not knowing Jesus in the season. Can you imagine how hopeless some of the precious image bearers that you rub shoulders with, not really now, but you rub shoulders six feet away from now are. People are dying for real hope, and we have it. If you walk with Jesus, we have it. You may have forgotten it, you may have misplaced it. But the reservoir of hope for Christ followers, it's bottomless. We can alway reach into generational wells. There are millions in here and draw living hope, Peter says,

living hope, not stagnant hope, living hope. Shall just close your eyes and bow your heads, and when you sit for just a second, wherever you are, and if so many of you are in your cars, you're maybe at work watching a laptop, you're at home on the couch, still a little bit grumpy that it was me and not Stephen, would you just sit for a minute and ask God to open your eyes to the hope that is already yours. Ask Him to give you the grace to lean back into the generations of hope that we've

been forged from the eternal hope we're walking toward. Jesus, we can fester you this morning, as your sons and daughters, that all too often we look like that passage and proverbs that says, hope deferred, hope delayed makes a heart sick. And Jesus, some of us feel just flat heart sick this season because it's been harder than usual to hang on to hope. And so we need you, keen, Jesus, we need your Holy Spirit to quicken our minds and

our hearts. To remind us of our history, redemptive history, the history that you have woven us into, the history that you've always been actively a part of, redeeming, restoring, setting captives free. Oh Lord Jesus, remind us that there's no room for dry bones in our hearts, no room for dry bones. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this reminder that you see us. You've always seen us, you've always loved us, you've always been actively in the process of calling us home. Teach us what it is

to rest in your hope. We will be so careful, Jesus, to give you and you alone the honor and the glory and the praise for what you do this day in June twenty twenty, 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. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You

can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you