Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
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I hope you're blessed today.
I'm so grateful to be here with you all this morning, just already so encouraged by what God is doing through his church in Charlotte, North Carolina and throughout the world. I'm encouraged by it, refueled by it, refreshed by you. And I can't say enough how much gratitude I carry with me up onto this stage this morning, and the tremendous affection that I have for your pastor, his wife,
this team, and for you. I really feel like it is a supernatural love that this morning is easy for me, and it's difficult because I feel like I'm preaching to people I love and you may not know me. I'm just your little beige, five foot something cousin that just pulled up real quick with some high waters on to deliver the word of God.
But I'm grateful for you.
Pastor Steven Holly, thank you so much for your friendship, your kindness, and for giving your boy an opportunity to speak today. I love this team, Chris dot Brown, John Soal, Jenna tiff lj. I mean I could literally list one hundred people right now. Chunks, thank you for coordinating this getting me in the room.
Are you ready to hear the word of God today?
Now before you skip to a previous sermon Pastor Stephen recorded on YouTube, just give you boy a minute, because I do feel like I have a word for this church for this time, and I wondered if you would join.
With me in prayer very quickly for.
What God wants to do in the next few moments. Jesus, we give you this stage, this platform, this room, every room around the world where this message is reaching. And more than that, God, we give you our hearts, our hearts, devotion, our mind's attention.
Our focus is set on you. But I pray that our.
Faith would be reinvigorated this morning, that there would be a supernatural transfer of passion and love for the thing that you love most. God, we give you glory and it's in your name. We pray a to the men. Touch two people and sit down. Touch two people, just one two, just a quick one two. Take a seat, take a seat, going to read from the scripture today in the Book of Ephesians. Spend all year last year in Ephesians. Because I am a slow reader. It is
only six chapters. But I dwelled and I've got marks all throughout this text. And God has been preparing this word in my heart. And as soon as I got the invitation to be here with you today, I knew exactly what I was preaching. And I feel like I have a mandate from Heaven to communicate this word to you.
So are you ready?
The Book of Ephesians, Chapter one, verse twenty two, y'all got you also bring bibles? Or I mean, there's no judgment. I just wondered if you got your phone, you got your bible. It's on the screen. Pesians one twenty two. And God put all things under Christ's feet and gave him to the Church as head over all things. What priority the church must have if after God gave Jesus full dominion over everything in the world, the first thing that he assigned him to.
Was the church. Now the Church is his body.
And the fullness of Him who fills all in all. You see, there was a time when the humanity of Christ actually lived on the earth. It's documented it's SCIENTI. It's historical that the person, the god man Jesus, actually dwelled in the spaces.
And places that we traverse through.
But as he was crucified, put in the tomb, and resurrected, he breathed into a new living organism, not into just brick and mortar spaces like the buildings we may find ourselves in today, but into flesh and bone like you and I. Now the Church say that's me is his body. We're gonna fast forward chapter two. Y'all love the words
and verse nineteen. So then you are no longer foreigners and non citizens, but you are fellow citizens with the Saint and members of God's household, because you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him, the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
And I love this part in.
Whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place.
Of God in the spirit.
It's amazing to me that, as Paul writes to the Church in Ephesus, that he uses these particular words because you have been built on the foundation of the politicians.
No, he didn't say that.
You have been built upon the foundation of ethnicity and culture.
No, he didn't say that.
Because all of the things that we believe make us us are actually just superficial layers that exist at the surface, not at the foundation. You see, underneath all of this is this thing that the apostles.
Preached and died for.
That the prophets preached and died for, that Jesus Christ himself preached and died for. This foundation that was laid for the Church was put together.
By flesh and blood.
Sacrifice, tears, and we are being built on it to do something extraordinary.
This has just captured my heart.
God is fitly framing it together to create a space that He inhabits, dwells in, lives in, moves in, breathes in two It's beautiful. I actually still love the church. I know the Church is under scrutiny. I've been a part of the church now for twenty years, just long enough to be cynical, just long enough to be critical. If I could find some things, boy, I could find them. I know about things that happened in the church that
would make you limp in your faith. If you only knew some of the bumps and the bruises and the scrapes and the scars that comes along with being fitly framed together as a dwelling place for the spirit of God. I was nine years old and my dad ruined my weekend. He came home on a Saturday from the gym and said, rhn, you can't call me that. Just my grandma and my dad, Rena.
We're going to.
Church tomorrow, I said, Dad, with thought due respect, Because I like living and breathing. I don't think I can do that. I gotta play street hockey with my friends. It's Mighty Duck season, and I gotta get out there. With the Goofy movie soundtrack and skate.
Stead that.
Some people have called me power line in the previous life. I showed it to my kids and we were getting ready to do a talent show.
My son lost, and I said.
Hey, if it goes bad, just do the perfect cast. Some of y'all don't know what that is. That's all right, go watch the Goofy movie. Shout out Tevin Campbell.
So he says we're going to church. I can't do it.
He's like, well, we're gonna go to the mall first and get you, get you a new look. I said, okay, because as you can see, I don't put on clothes.
I put on outfits. Fits this.
Yeah, boy, I'd be throwing fits like a toddler.
Just fits.
So we went to j. C. Penney, you know before the rebrand when everything was just brown. Started walking through. Found my little navy blue blazer.
With the gold buttons.
Ain't nobody in this church put on my little khaki pants.
Got them creased up, so I want to get a whooping.
And then we went down to Ricest Shoes downtown Battle Creek, Michigan.
Picked up some Swede.
Loafers that nice light tan with the rust bottom.
You can't scuff them. So boy was ready to go to church.
But walked into the back of this little Pentecostal church, about seventy people in there. I was definitely the youngest, and my dad and I were the only people who looked like us in the room.
Then it seemed to bother my dad, so it didn't bother me.
And I can tell you when I walked through those doors and I slid into that second to last green pew, I felt something I never felt before. There was a comfort, a sense of belonging that I felt that I had never felt. See. My parents separated when I was little and things were unstable, and God changed the directory of my life through my father's decision to step outside of his dysfunctional habits to say we're going to church. I walked into that church and I fell in love with
the church. And I still loved the church, still love it. Later on that year, I went to church camp. Now I heard y'all talking about youth X. It's the last week to sign up to make sure you get your registration in.
Only about five hundred seats left.
So so I was I was fired up to go to church camp.
Man, it was not youth X.
We had basketball, sweat and anointing oil.
That was it.
That was recreation and church showers. Optional showers were terrible. You didn't want to go in there. You came out more dirty than when you went in because I took one once and there's just a trough running down to the main drain down there. You want to stay out of the showers. Don't worry about the girls. I was nine years old and I was just living my best life at church camp. Now, Remember definitively the moment that
I responded to an altar call. Don't remember what my man preached, don't remember the sermon title, but I remember the carpet that I was standing on as Jesus filled me with his spirit, as I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and it was an undeniable experience that has given me direction and purpose. That same week, I got my first solo in the camp choir. Oh yeah, you think fully grown, Torren sings Hi.
Little nine year old Tea.
Was straight soprana and I was saying, Praise the Lord, pray a lot, let everything that has breath, prayers a load. I had to share a soulo with a girl, so I was not happy about but it was the first time that I felt my soul aligned with a gift in service of the Giver for the ministry of the church.
And I wonder if you have ever had that moment in your life, a definitive moment, a moment that you would remember, a moment that would be ingrained in your mind and in your heart, that you realize that God had called you into something bigger than yourself, to accomplish something bigger than yourself. Your gift and soul aligned with the giver for the ministry of the church.
I still love the church at this point.
I've been to hundreds of camps, conferences, church services, rehearsals, award shows, prayer meetings, small groups, and I still love the church. Yes, I've experienced the shadow side of church because some of us started becoming worship leaders before you knew you could win a Grammy.
Ah.
When I was fourteen years old writing songs for my youth group, the music industry was something that happened on.
Another planet somewhere.
So to show up anywhere on a red carpet or on a stage or a TV screen was so far out that I didn't even have the awareness to dream those types of dreams. You know what, I loved the church. That's what I love about this church. Elevation worship isn't writing songs to win Grammys, although if anyone's gonna win some and might as.
Well be thelmed.
But I've talked to Pastor Stephen and he said, every time he closes his eyes to write a song for this church, he's thinking about this church.
So I have a suspicion he still loves the church.
I was getting ready to lead worship at this major gathering of young people, one of the biggest gatherings in North America, and I was so excited about it. Was gonna be leading worship on a Friday night. I was twenty three years old, and this would have been the biggest room that I ever would have been in, far beyond my wildest dreams. And because I had been going to churches with my band and dancing, I got canceled from the event. And it wasn't even like choreographed dancing.
It was just, you know, a little, just a little, just had nothing major.
It's funny in church.
You know, you can dance as long as you don't know what you're doing. We want everyone else to be good except for the dancers. Somehow being good is wrong, So leave Davite alone. Let him do his thing. He's it's the joy of the Lord. But I got pulled out of that conference. It was someone from the church that had to sit down with me and tell me, hey, you know, hips don't.
Lie, and you're not leading worship. Pulled.
The same week, I found myself in Sony Music's executive office sitting down with a record label having conversations about how my band could partner with provident music and carry what we're doing all over the world. I only tell you that story to tell you this. The Church hurt me and the church helped me. I've seen the shadows side of the church. I told you all this the last time I was here with my wife.
And I got married. We had our wedding.
Invitations mailed back to us from church people because black and white folks shouldn't be doing all that. I've felt the shadow side of the church. I've seen headlines that have broken my heart. I have been bruised by believers. I've been shocked by the politics surrounding the church. I've been stunned by reactions and mindseps and missteps by the church.
I'm still confused as to how some Christians managed to carry the weight of the cross and still possess the strength to hurl stones at their brothers and sisters who are trying to follow Jesus as imperfectly as it may be.
But I've learned that I.
Cannot judge the majority who are trying to do it right by the minority who got it wrong.
I still love the church.
I love the church because the Church has outlived empires and philosophical systems and persecution and sabotages from within it its traverse countries and continents. It's transcended kingdoms and cultures. From its inception on the day of Pentecost to today, the Church has moved by the wind of heaven to accomplish the mandate that Jesus.
Himself said when he.
Said, go into all the world and make perfect people, know disciples, and give.
God some praise for his charge. I still love the church. The Church is not dead. The Church is not atrophied. The Church is not irrelevant.
I can look around this room today and I can tell you that the.
Church is alive. I still love the Church.
I couldn't sleep last night because I was so excited to get here. I told my wife last week it was a Saturday, I'm like, I'm just getting excited for church tomorrow. It was like I had to wake up at four point thirty to get to our rehearsal at six point twenty.
I never missed my alarm on a Sunday morning. I'm just excited about it because I love the church.
I love the church because it's not a political platform.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's not a political platform.
It is the expression and embodiment of the Kingdom of Heaven, alive and active in the earth. The church is not a museum filled with ancient relics of what God.
Used to do.
It's a movement of selfless believers who have decided to follow Jesus, carry the cross and tell the world that Jesus says. The church is not a showroom for pretty perfect people. It is the beautiful, living, breathing.
Bride of Christ.
The church is in some empty ritualistic routine. It's not the equivalent of a nonprofit or philanthropic organization, although those are grown and they're great partners for the Church. But the church has the exclusive mission and mandate to elevate Christ, to preach him crucified, and to tell the world Jesus still say.
I still love the Church.
The Church is the imperfect amplifier of truth, justice, and the sovereignty of God. The Church is Jesus' love on display. It is a symbol of grace, a conduit of mercity of mercy, a hospital for the broken, a family for the lonely, and the place where captives find freedom.
I still love the Church.
I still love the church because Jesus loves the church.
The church is his treasure.
The Church is his bride, The Church is his love, The Church is his dream.
I've come to the realization.
That I don't want to spend my life building my dream.
Put my dream in the coffin.
And bury it six feet under, because God will use buried dreams to resurrect better dreams. I want to be a part of what he loves, of what he's doing, of making his name great.
Not my own.
If that's a byproduct of my obedience, so be it.
I'll live with the perks and.
The consequences because it comes.
With the cost.
But I want to build God's church. He died for it, I might as well live for it. The church belongs to him. I still love the church because I need the church.
Oh hear me today, I need it. We need one another, We need each other.
You want to look like Jesus, Get around some church folks who will pocash you and tell you when you gain it a little too more, wait and tell you when you need to be praying and when you need to wash.
Your car, And wow, you look a lot better than you used to.
People have said that to me in church. But I need the church. Some people say faith is a crutch. Yeah, because we're all wounded and limping and hurting and carrying pain. So yeah, I need something to lean on that's bigger than me.
But I also need the church as a crucible.
That melts me down to make me pliable to be conformed to the character of Christ. I can't look like Jesus and not love his church. I can't look like Jesus and not be in relationship with his people.
I still love the church.
I went to a the job site a few years back. We were building a house somewhere in Houston. We only live in houses for about a year and then we moved, so we weren't there for very long. But I went to that job site. And I don't know if any of y'all have been on a construction site. I'm not Bob the builder. So can we build it?
No, we can't.
But I went around this job site and it was absolutely disgusting. I mean, the workers are all in.
There doing god knows what. They weren't building the house, that's for sure. It took forever.
But I was walking around and everything's muddy and there's stuff tracked off through and things are exposed, wires are hanging in the bathtub is filled with filth, and I'm like, this is a mess. I'm supposed to live here. How am I ever gonna take a bath in that?
That's disgusting, But it was in process of beam.
We cannot come into the church and expect to apply ourselves to a finished product. By the time we got though at that house, it was beautiful and we loved being in it, and we couldn't never imagine leaving it. But it was fitly framed together, and it was noisy and loud, and they were banging stuff together and nailing things through walls, and it was messy and imperfect, but when it was presented, wasn't a blemish to be seen. In the same way God is building us together, you
can expect the mess, you can expect the bumps. You can expect things to be challenging and difficult at times, because God is using the church to make us like him. Being a part of the church means sacrifice. Oh God, I know we hate that word because it means the church is gonna cost.
Us something, But that's what it is.
What Christ did Jesus pay for the church everything, So.
What should I be willing to pay for his church? Coming early, standing in a line, having to wait to park, to.
Be a part of something greater than me, that's no cost. Being a part of the church means commitment when it's hard, laying down your personal preferences, not because they don't matter, but because you've decided something matters more. It means showing up when you don't want to, serving when you feel taken for granted, being honest and vulnerable, when you can build real relationships, accepting shortcomings and imperfections of others.
A mentor told me this recently.
He said, if you follow Jesus long enough, everything that happened to him will happen to you.
I want to be a part of the church.
I still love the church because God uses the Church to bring us into His presence, and I love the presence of God. The presence of God is the promise of the gathered church.
Can he meet you by yourself?
Absolutely, But something happens when two or three get together and touch any one thing. It commands the authority, the blessing, the favor, and the presence of God to show up.
Wherever you are gathered. I was shocked by this, y'all.
I know, pandemic was crazy, COVID was wild, and now this search engine algorithm is going to bury this message. But the average church member today, these are people like you and me who say, I love the church and I'm committed to it.
People's elevation Church.
That's my church, man, it's my pastor, Stephen Fredickman, that's my pastor. On average, we attend church once every six weeks. I know you don't think that's true, but if you actually looked at the time, the average once every six weeks, that's about eight times a year.
That means your kids.
Are in Sunday school learning the foundations of the faith.
In a community of their.
Peers eight days out of three hundred and sixty five. What does this say about the future of the church. If this is the present reality of the church. Now, you could say I'm weak because I need the church. You could say, man, you know you're really sure. I can't believe you need the church. You know, haven't you seen this and read that and heard that? Yeah, but I follow Jesus, not headlines. I live according to the principles of the prophets, the apostles, and the chief priest,
Jesus himself, not producers in Hollywood. And when Jesus stands up to speak before the people in the synagogue, the writer of Luke writes something very interesting. He says, and he came speaking of Jesus to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went into the synagogue. On the Sabbath day, Jesus went to church. Well, I don't need the church. It's just me and Jesus.
Jesus to the truck.
And then after the Holy Spirit wind blew into the upper room, and the New Testament church was birthed. The scripture goes on to say, with one accord, they continue to meet not weakly.
Daily in the Temple chords, and.
To break bread from house to house. So we have theological tribes that say it's church on Sundays, and we have other tribes that say this should be house to house. Well, if I look at the Scripture, which is the authority for my thinking and my paradigm, it tells me they didn't just meet at houses.
They met in churches.
Okay, this is where I knew this was gonna happen. So Jesus went to church, the New test Believers went to church. Paul started planted and pastor churches. A quarter of our Bible is God's instructions to churches.
So what should that say.
About our instruction, our imperative.
We can't reject the New.
Testament church's priorities and expect their power. We can't reject Jesus' priorities and expect his provision. I was in Louisiana recently, Lafayette, Louisiana. Laura and I were there, which Lorna is here with me, my beautiful wife.
Can you just give her a hand for being anointed and beautiful?
Lafayete, Louisiana, and we were announcing the launch of the church with our friends, and it was an incredible morning. And I got up and I told the people that we were planting a church, and everyone was so excited and they clapped and all that. And there was a guy apparently sitting in the room, and he said, when you said you were planning a church, I thought, I'm
going to give you a thousand dollars. And he told me this after and I was like, wow, a thousand dollars that'd be absolutely amazing.
You know, that's an.
Incredible We can buy goldfish for the children's ministry for a week with that, that'd be phenomenal. So then he comes back and he actually gets a picture with us, and he's like, when I walked away from the picture, God spoke to me and said, don't give him a thousand, give him ten thousand. So I thought, okay, I'm going to give you ten thousand dollars. And he told me that right before we snapped the picture. I'm gonna give you ten thousand dollars. I'm like, oh my goodness, this
is absolutely incredible. It's amazing. Well, later on that evening, we went out to dinner with the pastor. He said, I can't wait till the end of this meal because I'm going to tell you something that's going to absolutely blow you away.
I'm like, awesome, I can't wait to hear it.
Do we have to wait till the end because I'm on the Daniel Fast and this whole thing is torture. So if you could give me some good news, no, no, I won't be angry. So we get to the end of the dinner and he says, two people call me today from the church. Each of them are going to give you one hundred thousand dollars to start your church. I was in Ruth Christ make our brother shot. So I was talking to the guy that was a thousand and then ten thousand. I found out it was him.
He said.
I was thinking about it, and God started talking to me. He says, a businessman owned several businesses, sold several businesses.
He said, the Lord said, you.
Invest one hundred thousand dollars in businesses every year. Why don't you invest in my kingdom? And he was so excited about it. Most people would write one hundred thousand dollars check with dread and trembling hands.
He was so pumped. Why because he felt his soul.
Aligned with a gift and service of the Giver for the ministry of the church. I still love the church because God uses the church to connect us to our purpose. God uses the church as the context for the gifts of his people to be discovered, developed and distributed. We shouldn't have to go into musical theater to develop believers who love arts. We shouldn't have to go to coding camps to learn how to do technological things that I don't understand.
We should be able to excavate the gifts of the people within the body of the church to meet the needs not only of the people in the church, but beyond it.
You want purpose get your soul aligned with the gift in service of the giver.
Ministering to the church. Now, I've got these.
Guitar strings here, thank you creative team for pulling this together. And these are elixures, so they're they're really nice premium premium strings here. And it's actually they're guitar strings. So you have to know the context so that you can understand the design. But what's amazing about this string is that it's free. Doesn't it look free. It's just it's free. It can move, it responds, it reacts.
You could probably do things with it. I don't know.
Maybe you would want to lock your kids in the pantry with it so that you can enjoy ten minutes.
Of peace and quiet. It's just the thought. I'd never do it.
Or maybe if you were balling on a budget and you found the one, you could cut it and make a little guitar engagement ring. Because it's love, that's all that matters. I'm sure that it could be useful for a lot of things, but it's only designed for one.
See.
This string is free to do what it wants, but it was created.
To be connected.
And we will never see the full potential of this single string until it is connected to something greater than itself.
Come on, E, where's E come out here? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, grab your Grab the guitar.
Grab the guitar, because we're about to preach.
Some of you have been trying to operate in your maximum capacity and you feel limited. You're not limited when you get connected. You're limited when you're disconnected.
There's only so.
Much this thing can do by itself, but it's only activated in its purpose when it's connected to the guitar. Now here's the beautiful thing. Can you got some rope? Can come out here a little bit?
You turned up?
Yeah, because you're about to shred. Here's the amazing thing. This is called a headstop. It's the head of the guitar. This is called the body. There is a connection point between the head and the body, and it's a guitar string.
And the only way for the string.
To operate and its potential is to not just be connected to the head, which is where most of Christianity is right now. Me and Jesus got a thing going on. Me and Jesus just walk together and talk together, driving the car together, and don't really go to church. It's more of my grandmother's thing. That's not really for me. And we think that that's the definition of following Jesus. But will never be fully connected to our purpose until we take what is connected to the head and connected
to the body. You gotta get connected to the body. This is the living, breathing body of Christ. He doesn't just fill buildings, He fills people.
With his spirit. And when you.
Get connected to the house, you operate to your maximum capacity. Come on and give God some praise right now. Hey, he gave you a purpose, but your purpose is connected to other people.
Here's the problem with our society.
We have elevated individualism over everything else. Being you and being an individual is at the highest.
Premium and value.
The problem with that is when individualism is the highest value. Oh God help me say this, we end up cannibalizing each other our gifts, our talents, and our dreams to climb to the top of the tower of success, only to find out that loneliness is the name of the hotel and there is no one else there but us. We made it, but we're alone. I want to be connected. We want autonomy, not attachment. That's why we've been datinger for ten years. I got a guitar string right here,
we can get it right today. That's why we go into the job looking for the back door, because we think autonomy is the greatest aspiration.
God.
But when that happens, we limit ourselves. Now here's the beautiful thing. You just play one string, just one. Wow, isn't that impressive? Play that string one more time?
Special, it's special.
Now, now play it in harmony with some other strings, like maybe just a chord. Okay, so that it's a little bit better. Okay, Now give me just like a little something where you use the fretboard a little bit and just move on it just a little bit.
Uh huh, go ahead, eat you better play Yay, I'll catch the hole it goes right.
Now.
Here's the interesting thing. You know, what creates the sound, the tension.
See, so many of us want autonomy and not attachment because we don't want tension. But where you feel the tension is where you find your purpose. I'm not free to just fling around out here and do my thing. There's no sound that can be developed because there is no tension. But when you are connected to Christ, who has become the head of the church, and you are connected to the body, and you are willing to put yourself in tension, you become God's in tension for the body that.
You are serving. Here's how I want to tell you. If you see a problem, you're probably the solution. If you wish my church.
Did this, and my church did that, and my church did this, and my church did that.
If you're able to.
Recognize the problem, why don't you recognize yourself as the solution Because the thing that you see is the thing that you can solve. So instead of criticizing what the church isn't doing, why need you get yourself connected to the body so that He can do something supernatural through you.
Come on and give doc pray for the church. I still love the church. I still love the church. Where's the band?
Then?
Clock is right?
Who?
God wants to accomplish something and He's going to use his church to do it. Your gift was designed to impact the church, not just the culture.
Don't let your.
Life down for the culture. Don't let your family down for the culture. Lay it down for the church. Because God has designed the church to declare Jesus on the mountain and Jesus in the streets, Jesus in the ghetto, Jesus in the white House, Jesus in every country, Jesus on every continent.
He wants to use you to do it.
It's more revolutionary than apple, It's more valuable than an NFT, It's more virtuous in.
A social agenda. It's more accelearating than space X.
It is His son, and the case up Hell shall not prevail against it.
From on eleft the church, raise a sound.
Of praise in a worship in this place as a fresh commitment to what God wants to do wrong.
Hey, I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and if you did, make sure to share it and subscribe so we can get you all of these new messages as soon as they're available. I also want to take a moment and thank all of you who are a part of Elevation. Whether you support us financially, or serve with us, or just share these messages, it's because of you that we're able to reach people all around the world. And if you want more information on how to be a part of Elevation, click the link.
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God bless you.