New Year, Same God

we're celebrating a new year together as a family. Whatever you feed your soul is way more important than what you feed your body. And so no matter what you plan to eat today, you are ahead of the game because you're feeding your soul. It's so important to pause and to look back, and that is what today is all about. One of the primary ways that God speaks to me is through the messages of this house. Every single week, God uses our paths to bring the exact

word we need to hear. How does he do this? His messages penetrate whether you have been a believer for five minutes or fifty years, every age, every stage of life, there is a word for every single one of us. I wonder which messages spoke to you the most this year. Maybe one that came at the perfect time. Maybe it hit it a moment when you were doubting or anxious and the sermon was exactly what you needed to hear. I love how God works. I wish we could just

sit down together and talk about it. In fact, let me know in the chat which messages this year have resonated the most with you. Today I invited some of the people in our church to share about some of their favorite sermons from twenty twenty two. We'll be diving into our notes, sharing our stories, and then looking back at portions of these sermons. My hope is that these excerpts remind you of what God spoke to you and

what God did in your life last year. I want us to go into twenty twenty three believing that the same God that was with us last year will be with us again this year. Of course he will. That's why we're calling today new Year, Same God. We've been singing that song, Same God over and over this last year, and it has been such an anthem for our church that the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, of Mary of David. The God of your Grandma is the same God of you and I, and that is who

we worship today. He is faithful to see us through whatever is ahead, and the best way to stir up our faith for what's ahead is to look back at his past faithfulness. So I'm going to go first. I have to go first. I can't let others share about how the message is preached by our pastor my husband ministered to them without getting to share how they have ministered to me. And I'm pretty sure everyone who follows me and shares about their favorite sermon is gonna say

some version of it. Was so hard to pick just one, because it is sometimes I cannot believe the amazing feast that Stephen Ferdick lays before us each and every week. If you can sit under a sermon by Stephen Ferdick and say that God did not speak to you, you have a listening problem anyway. Okay, it's so hard to pick just one. But back in the spring, Stephen preached a little mini series three sermons on the Book of Ruth. They were called it Will Come Together, the One who

seeks fines and blown away. I felt like these three weeks, I was like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hydrant. Stephen was dropping wisdom faster than I could write it down, and God was speaking to my heart. So now that I've narrowed it down to three sermons, I'm gonna tell you the one that I want to talk about. Not necessarily my favorite of twenty twenty two, steven sermons are like my children, They're all my favorite, but this one, this one really got me.

It was a sermon called it Will Come Together Now. In this sermon, Stephen laid the foundation by talking about Ruth and the tragedy that she had experienced in her life. She lost her husband and she lost everything that she held dear in her life. It probably felt to her like her life was over, but as we read through the Book of Ruth, in reality, we realized that her life was barely getting started on the basis of all that God was going to do for her and through her.

Stephen told us that we don't taste life as a meal. We experience the ingredients as they come, and the problem with this is that the ingredients themselves can often taste bad in isolation. This really hit home with me because I love to cook, and I understand that there are essential ingredients to almost every recipe that tastes bad in isolation, like salt and oil and flour. If you only taste

those things, you would spit them out. But put them together, add in a little bit of baking powder and some eggs, and you're on your way to a cake. In my life, so often I experience disappointment or frustration when something that I asked God for doesn't go the way I thought it would. I ask God for this relationship, but it feels like we're fighting all the time. I ask God for this child, but now I feel like I don't have what it takes to raise them. I ask God

for this new job, but now I feel lonely. And when I start to feel these feelings, my tendency can be to think that God is angry with me, or that maybe I did something wrong, or maybe I wasn't meant to have these things to begin with and I got it all wrong. And the thing that suck with me from this sermon is when he said let God mix it. He told us that our prayer should be God, I want your will, and I want whatever comes with it. Those ingredients that taste bad to me and isolation are

actually building something good in my life. That relationship that feels tense is teaching me humility and the art of putting others before myself. That job that challenges me is teaching me to depend on God in ways that I never would otherwise. That loneliness is causing me to lean into my relationship with God and then also to invest wisely in the relationships around me. Stephen said, just because it tastes bad in isolation doesn't mean it won't serve

a purpose in the finished product. The good things often come with frustration and disappointment and difficulty. That's normal, That's okay, And he reminded us in this sermon, if it's not good, then God is not done, and that mantra will get you through. All right, I've said enough. Now I want you to check out this clip so you can see what I'm talking about. Whoever walked in the kitchen and just use an example. I'm not a cook. Take a scoop of baking powder and just down it. Did you

ever do it? So? Baking powder is bad? Anybody want a big, heaping pile of baking powder? For lunch today. Raise your hand. Why are you messing up my illustration? Bro? Now, this is the message you want, the whole message in a moment. This is a whole message, is a whole message. This is why you came from Michigan so God could tell you. This is why you tuned in online. Just because it tastes bad in isolation doesn't mean it won't

serve a purpose in the finished product. I'm not saying that the Bible said that after Naomi had gone so low that she said, this doesn't taste good. This doesn't taste good. And honestly, I figured out why people in church often look so sour when they're in church, because what you went through this week didn't taste good. And you are trying to praise God with a taste in your mouth of disappointment and fear? Am I preaching you? I mean it's hard to say Hallelujah when your mouth

tastes like hurt. Who call me bitter? You might as well? Well you might as well and taste good. And yet what a strange blessing that they gave. Let me give you a little bit more background so I can make sure I'm not confusing Graham's my Graham's my guy, you know. He he told me the other day, he was like, Dad, sometimes you got to slow down with these scriptures. You've been looking at them all week and we're just waking up.

You got to slow down and break it down. So even though I can't do it justice, the Book of Ruth is beautiful and you could read it in the time that you could watch half an episode of Ozark. And when we moved through it, we see Naomi a Limelech, Killion and Meelan's Ruth's husband orpa is married to Killyon And both of those baby names are available, by the way, if you want to have an original name for your kid.

But when they went to Moab, they went to a place that they didn't This is important plan to go. This message is for somebody who is in a place you didn't plan to go. And I'm gonna take it further. Sometimes it's a place you hate being there because they're from Bethlehem and they're in Moab. Kind of like when they went to Egypt. I mentioned it earlier, when the Israelites went to Egypt. They didn't go to Egypt because it was their dream to go to Egypt. It wasn't

on their bucket list to go to Egypt. They went to Egypt to survive. And we've talked about that a lot, because I think a lot of the sin cycles we get sucked into in our life are out of survival mechanisms, and if we don't deal with it that way, we just put so much shame on it. We can't help anybody get healed because people won't come to Jesus because you don't understand the power of his covenant with you.

You think Jesus is like other people and that there come a point where he'll be ashamed of you and he'll go, oh, well that's that's that's too far there. I was going to use you, but really you did that. You don't understand the power of a covenant. But but Ruth did. Because when Naomi said leave me, I've lost my husband's i've lost my boys. I've heard there's bred in Bethlehem. We've been here ten years. Naomi said, I'm

not leaving. Make a covenant with you. Whither thou goest I go, Your God become my god, and your God will often become the same god as your friends. If you are around people who worship status and stuff. It won't be long till you'll shear shackle to the same things they are. But now to touch somebody next to you and say, you ought to hang out with me a little. While you hang out with me, You're gonna have strong faith you hang out with me. Come on,

deth leopard, if you hang out with me. So so they go back together, and Naomi, in this this honest moment, she says, call me bitter. I still got the taste

in my mouth. I'm going back to Bethlehem, which means house of bread, which makes it that much more depressing when there's a famine in Bethlehem, when there's a famine in the place that is named after bread, when the joy of the Lord is supposed to be your strength, and you are a Christian and you're depressed, and you are a Christian and you can't sleep, and you are a Christian and you have addictions, and you are a I am a C I am ah, I am a c h R ST I had but I got a A D D A dhd hey d d I c

t I oh. I'm in the house of Brett, but hauk grief. Call me Mara. She said, Real said, I was with you when I wanted your son. Now you don't have a son to give me, but I'm still with you. I wonder who the Lord is saying that to. I'm still with you. I don't sell low and by High. God is not Warren Buffett. God doesn't trade like that. God said, I'm still with you because I made a covenant with you. It's not that kind of covenant I made with Noah that was limited. It's not the kind

of covenant I made with Abraham that was limited. It's not the covenant I made with Moses that was limited. It's not the covenant I made with David that was limited. This is the covenant of my blood, made with the life of my son, and I am worth you. What's up, y'all. I'm Elijah Fredick. I'm Pastor Stevens's oldest son. Now, obviously, my dad is a goat of preaching, so I had to share one of my takeaways from one of his sermons with y'all. The sermon that I'm going to be

talking about is a recent one. It's called I'm Not Dead Yet, and I actually have some insider information on the making behind it. A couple of months ago, me and my girlfriend started reading through the Bible one chapter at a time. It felt like something that God was calling me to do because I wanted to get the full context of the Bible and everything that God wanted us to know. We told my dad what we were

doing and he said how much he loved it. A couple of weeks later, he asked us what chapter we were on so he could read it with us, and he sent us an application from the chapter that turned into a group chat called to Read the Bible in four years club, because if we read one chapter every day, that's about how long it would take us. We started sending a key verse application that we took away from each chapter, and obviously my dad's were always the best.

We came to the Book of Leviticus. We started to struggle to find an application for every chapter because the chapters get so repetitive and specific, but somehow my dad would always find a fire application. Leviticus is tough because it's a lot of lists of rules and regulations for the ancient Israelites, but we still did our best to figure out what we could learn about God from reading it. Now, when I look at all the implications that my dad

had sent in the group chat. One particular one stands out Leviticus eleven. Leviticus eleven is a pretty boring chapter of first glance. It's all about the kosher laws and certain animals that people can't eat. I can actually show you, guys the text, but he throws us a couple of great points. We pull it out real quick. All right here it is, got it prepared. But you know, big old, long text. So what's crazy is a lot of this

actually ended up making it into his sermon. One of the things that he talked about in the text was how important it is to ask yourself. Do I listen when God tells me something that's polluting my heart? Or do I only see it in others plank and spect type deal. You know. He talked about verse thirty seven, which says if a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they remain clean. He uses to tell us about the idea of the seed will survive.

Sometimes a dead thing falls in the seed of what God is shying to do, but the seed survives. The devil tried to kill the seed of your potential, but the seed is still clean. You think it's dead, but it's just dormant. He even connected it to how Herod tried to kill Jesus, but the seed survived. I already knew that had potential, but I had no idea that he would turn it into a whole sermon. He was able to take the potential of what he told us

and polish it up a little bit. In the end, he used the example of the weasel which the people were not allowed to eat, which was specified in the chapter. He showed an image of a weasel that was eating some eggs before they had a chance to be born. He used it to show how you can't let the devil pollute the seed of something that God is doing

in your life. Another one of my favorite points he made was when he said, if you have confidence in God's promise but not commitment to his process, that's not faith, that's just denial. That really hit me because in my life a lot of times I don't struggle with my

confidence in God as much as my confidence in myself. However, when I doubt myself, that is kind of me doubting the process and doubting that God has put me where I need to be to impact people for His good, and at the end of the day, I can know that the seed of God's potential lives in me. It was so powerful for me to hear how he was able to take a seemingly boring chapter about kosher laws and show us how it applies to us in modern

day life. If we're not careful, we can make the Bible too much about ourselves and forget the framing of the story we're reading. However, if we read the Bible one way, that treats us like an ancient text with no application to our current day lives, and we might as well read Harry Potter. So I felt like this

was such a legendary sermon. He was able to give us the full background, context and meeting of the text, but also try to help us figure out what the chapter is trying to tell us about the nature of God and how we can use that information to become closer to God. Let me show you all this clip real quick, so y'all can hear the sermon for yourself. Look at that weasel, little sneaky. That guy is a serial killer. I was looked him up. You could get in a small place and then Oh, look at it.

He's got those eggs. Look what he's trying to do to those eggs. Look what he's trying to do to that thing that hasn't been born yet. Look at that weasel. Y'all are on board with Leviticus, now, are you? Because you do need to know how to deal with the weasel, don't you. You do need to learn how to deal with the weasel because you got a weasel called worry that while God is speaking his word to you, say amen in Portuguese when he gets through on this interpretation,

because I need to hear an amen. I need to hear an amen. That weasel, that weasel, that weasel. No, he's not just leaving you alone. He's trying to steal what God spoke. Now I know you think I'm out of context. It's not talking about that kind of weasel. It's talking about everything in your life to try to distinguish, like the enemy will plant a seed in your mind, right you say, okay, well this is gonna go wrong? And have you thought about this? And did you hear

what they said about that? And it's a recession of recession, a recession, a recession of recession of recession, of recession, of recession. You have thought about resurrection in about three months because all you've been reading about is recession. So now that weasel got right in there in your space, your little space where God does great things and he eats through the potential of what God sneaks. So what do you do with the wisel? God said, don't eat it?

What do you do with the weasel? God said, put it off limits? What do you do with those little thoughts that come up a million miles an hour? And you know that's a good question to be asking. Enemy will weasel his way into your marriage, He'll weasel his way into your business, gets you to start cutting corners and stuff like that. Yeah, I know how he works. I'm a weasel expert. Weasel try and keep you from

worshiping God, usel the Lord. I'm a list a lot of things that will multiply rapidly in your life, small things, moving things, sorrows, and I'm gonna show you what to do with them so I can keep doing big things. God still has big things for me. I felt chills on my body when I said it. God still has big things for me, things that are bigger than my intellect, things that are bigger than my imagination, exceedingly abundantly above all I ask, or imagine, the seed of God's potential

lives inside of me. I say it again for the people who who really believe what the word of God says. The seed of God's potential lives in me. I mean, think about it. Here are people in Leviticus who have been through Egypt, have been through the Red Sea, who started with a man named Abraham. All out of one man came millions of people because God said, I will bless you and multiply you. And Abram was waiting. We preached about him for two weeks a while back. We

preached about him for two weeks. How he was ninety nine, and God gave him the promise when he was a hundred. And I preached on keep it a hundred. But can I keep it a hundred with you? Abraham said, my wife's womb is as good as dead, and so is my body. And my body is as good as dead, because I'm ninety nine. But then something God inside of Abraham and kicked inside of Abraham, because see the seed that was inside of him was greater than the limitation

that was on him. So something got inside of Abraham and he looked in the mirror. But then he looked at the stars and he talked to himself and his situation. But then he talked to God, and God reminded him of the promise. And Abram said, I'm old, but I'm not dead yet. I think he said it with no teeth. All right there yet I'm not teddy yet. I'm not teddy yet. I'm not done yet. I'm not teddy yet. It's not over yet. I'm not dead. God's not done. If I'm not dead, God's not done. Greater things are

still to come. That. Wow, that was an amazing sermon. If you hadn't gone back and watched it, if you didn't know, it's on YouTube. Matter of fact, all of the messages from pastor Steven you can find on YouTube, and so go back watch them. I don't know about you, but every single Sunday I actually watched the message two times. I watched two times. The first time. I watch it for myself as a husband, as a father, just as

a man. I need to be able to take some time to see what does God want to speak to my life? But not only that, not only that I watch it the second time because I'm trying to figure out how am I going to reteach it, how am I going to repre And after Pastor preached this sermon called Bent Needs Breaks Chains, I went back and I began to read over and over and over again throughout the story of Joseph, and God just really ministered to

my soul. I love how Pastor it just gives us a fred fresh take on so many stories that maybe you've read over and over and over again, but in this message, it reminded us that life happens. Sometimes we go through things that are difficult. We have loved ones in our lives that are struggling, that are hurting, that are maybe sitting in a hospital bed, and in those moments sometimes you feel helpless. Sometimes I just get paralyzed because I feel like there's nothing that I can do.

What I love about this message, vent Needs Breaks Chanes. It reminds me that, yes, God is in control, but I'm responsible for my posture. And Pastor in this message, he gets right on his knees and he demonstrates that it's vent Needs that breaks chains. Now, I will either stay chained to the event or I'll make a decision to fix my posture. When Pastor said that, it really spoke to me because it lets me know that I can do something. I can focus, I can worship, i

can lean into the presence of God. I can get some people around me to support me and encourage me, and then God will do what only he can do. And so here's one of my favorite moments from this message that needs breaks chains and Joseph has a decision to make and he does it like this, I'm not God. And in the moment of decision, he takes a posture as the second most powerful man in the land. He takes his posture to say, God has been when what

looked like for you to have this mentality? To say, God put me here for a purpose, and I'm submitting everything that's happened to me to God. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna put myself in a position on my knees before God. I've never come to preach to you. If I can help it that I don't do this, even if it's for ten seconds before I round the corner, because a lot of times the way that I'll preach stuff will be just be coming to me to the

last minute, and I'm literally like, but I try. I try every time to take one minute by myself. I say God, when I get out there today and there's people out there whose parents abandoned them. There's people out there who were molested. There's people out there who are going through the most scary medical situation in their life or their kids are There's people out there who have no idea how they're gonna catch up on four months

worth of mortgage. There are people out there today who need you, and I can only meet that need on my knees. And it reminds me that if I do this, I can do this because see, the power that you need is not in me. But if I go to the one who has all power and all authority, and I get down low and I say God, I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from you. I know, bit and knees

can break chains. I know one word from Almighty God, one bread from the Spirit of I feel change breaking right now. I feel the bird is lifting right now. I feel sackle second on present floors at present dolors flying open right now. Because when you do this. God does that, Braith, Hey, what you did to me was bad. What happened to me is bad. What I'm going through is bad. But if I blame you, then my blame will become bitterness, and my bitterness will become bondage. Not

your bondage, it will be my bondage. So I either get to stay chained to the events or I get to make a decision. This is where God brought you to. This is why you logged on. This is why they sent you the link. This is why you came to church. You thought you'd decided to come to church. You're crazy. God sovereignly brought you to church. You had ten excuses not to come. What didn't fit and I have nothing to wear. But here you are. It's a size too small,

but you can't why for this moment. God wanted you to know. You are in an important moment of your life. And if you do this, come on. Every athlete knows you can't hit a golf ball good if you don't bend your knees. That's where your power comes from. You can't shoot a basketball right if you don't bend your knees. That's where your accuracy comes from You can't do a takedown standing up straight. There's no Division one wrestling champions that stand up straight time. Why are you fighting your

battles like this? When God gave you this? This is how I fight my down devil. Watch me surrendered to God. Cuss been knees break. You can't do it in your own strength. If you could, you would have by now. But God brought you to your knees cause he's breaking subsederational tag. I feel the holy ghosts. Come Lord, Come Lord, break ghost change, break it, break it, break it, breaking, break it, breaking, break it. Breaking the past has no power over you. The blood of Jesus speaks up better.

I breaking in the name of Jeson. Okay, bent these breaks chains. You gotta listen to chat there, go and catch that message, because just a clip like that, it's not enough. You gotta catch the whole thing. Okay. One of the things I love so much that we get to do as a church is see how far these sermons reach. Now. Back in September, we were able to share a story with you about one of our family

members in the DMV area. Now, I'm sure you remember this because all I heard was so many people said, man, we love Leon. That message was so good, that video is so good, and so today we wanted to bring Leon here to share a little bit of how messages have impacted him. So we don't have him in the room, but we've got him right here. So Leon, thank you for joining us. Thank you for being a part of Elevation Church. We love that. It's not buildings. We talk

about that all the time. It's not buildings here at Elevation, it's people. And from where you are, you've been impacted by messages. So why don't you share with the church family a message that has meant a lot to you this year. Well, thanks Pastor Chad for having me. There's so many messages, of course that resonate with me. But there was one particular message that Pastor Stephen preached back in April, I believe, and the name of the message

was the facts aren't final. And one of the things that Pastor encouraged us and this message was that most of the time, on some of the time, the things that we struggle with in our faith actually have nothing to do with the enemy and have nothing to do with an attack. But it is some things that happen with our friends, and some of those things are actually facts,

and because their facts, they scare us. But he encouraged us in this message that as long as we remain faithful and continue to believe God, that those things that we struggle with, that our facts are not going to put a limitation on God. But if we continue to worship and we continue to believe, that those things will be in to be a blessing in our lives. And I'm so grateful for that message. It impacted me because I was going through something at that time and it

really spoke to my heart. Well, leone, you're preaching it, you might as well keep going. Okay, No, we're gonna share it with you, though the facts aren't final. Take a look. It's kind of our junk drawer to say, I'm just under attack. Mm hmmm. It's not always an attack, No, it's not. It is sometimes it's not always an attack, and it's not always the enemy. Because I know the devil is a liar, even when I believe him. Something in me kind of knows, called the Holy Spirit, this

is not true. So the devil's lies are one thing. But look at the passage with me in verse thirty five. It doesn't say that the devil told Gyrus a bad report. It says that while Jesus was speaking follow Me, some people came from Gyrus's own house, people who worked for him, and they told him, your daughter is dead, and then they asked him, why bother the teacher anymore? Notice what they call Jesus the teacher because to them, that's all he was. They didn't believe in him yet. He hadn't

died yet, he hadn't risen yet. These were not believers in Jesus. These were members of the synagogue who were still making up their mind about Jesus. So when they call him the teacher, they're not lying, but they are limiting because if all he is is a teacher, then why are you still standing here listening to him with

this crowd. You need to get home. Your daughter's dead, and you are needed for the funeral arrangements, because in Jewish custom, there would be mourners that would come in two flutes and there would be at least four people. If you were poor, imagine how many people were filling Gyrus's house at that moment to mourn the death of his daughter. And if all he is is a teacher, we're wasting time. So when they call him a teacher and they say your daughter's dead, notice this. They are

not the enemy. These are his friends. And this is not a lie, but it is a limitation. Now, sometimes the devil would just outright lie to you. You can feel it when it comes on. You're worthless, your piece of crap, you suck. Bad word, bad word, bad word, bad word. That's the devil calling you stuff that you know. God doesn't see you as that, right, and so then you just rebuke the devil. Ah, God, rebuke you, devil. You're so crazy. You think I'm gonna listen to this

trash talk. You think I'm really just gonna drive my car into another car right now, feel so bad about myself, I'm gonna end my life. Come on, devil, you're crazy. I rebuke you, Satan, in the name of the Lord, the blood of Jesus against you, Satan, and all of these things you can do when it's the enemy and when it's an attack. But in this case, it's not the enemy, and it's not an attack. It's his friends.

And it's a fact. Some of the stuff that you're fighting with in your faith right now, it's not a lie. And that's what makes it so scary. It's a fact. I can't just pray everything away by denial and close my eyes and wait for the rapture. The facts are the facts, but are you feeding more facts to your spirit than you are faith to your spirit? I love that sermon so much, And if we're all really honest with ourselves, we can find a little bit of Gyrus

in each of us. And what I mean by that is maybe you've come through a situation or maybe you're currently in a situation where the facts are challenging your faith, Okay, And that looks like different things Like we'll ask ourselves questions like why am I here? How did I get here? Of God? Do you even hear me or care about what I'm going through? But the one thing that I know can be fact checked is that God is always

bigger than our circumstances. Okay. And here's the thing. This passage of scripture comes from March chapter and it is like the gift that keeps on giving because we got to hear not one, but two sermons from this passage of scripture because just a few weeks later, Pastor Holly preached a sermon called Waiting on My Miracle, where we got to revisit the story of Gyros. And this is such a great story of scripture that talks us through

several different things. But just maybe you remember, but in case you don't, this is a story where Gyros meets Jesus and his daughter is sick and he asked Jesus to heal his daughter, a thing that we would all maybe be looking for. What do you need healing in? Is this something that you're willing to come and ask Jesus for? But en route to go heal his daughter, this other really popular Bible story comes up that you maybe know about or have heard about, and this is

the woman with the issue of blood. And in the midst of Jesus going to heal Girius's daughter, well, he ends up healing this woman and stopping to address her, which is amazing, right, this is a good thing that's happening. But in the midst of this miracle happening, the miracle that Gyros was hoping for ends up not happening because his daughter dies. And here's the thing. We've all maybe probably had a dream, a hope, something that we were wishing for, something that has died in our lives, and

I wonder what we do in those moments. If you're anything like me, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I'm hoping I can be honest with you. I get mad, I get angry, I shut down, and I don't always handle these situations in the best way. But one thing that we learned in this Bible story is the example that Gyrus set, and this is what Holly preached about, is what should we do whenever we're waiting on a miracle? And Holly says it best whenever. She says,

if you stay close. If you stay close, you'll come out stronger on the other side. Holly preached about staying close to Jesus in the midst of waiting and then seeing what God can do through that, because that's where He reveals himself to us. That's where we grow in our faith, is in those moments of waiting and walking close to Jesus. I feel like I've talked enough about it. I would love for us to be able to relive a little bit of this sermon, So let's take a

look at this. One of the greatest things that I'm learning about prayer is that I have to hold my list the things I want God to do how I want him to do it, when I want him to do it. I hold my list with a light grip, because sometimes God's gonna ask me to let go of my list, but hold firm to my faith. May not happen the way you thought it would, But my faith is not in the list. My faith is in my God, who I believe is working all things for my good. My faith is in the God who knows the number

of hairs on my head. My faith is in my perfect Father, who knows me better than I know myself. All I have to do is stay close to Him, no matter how dark it gets, and remember that He is with me. You know that there is no darkness you can experience that Jesus has not already felt. Hebrews four tells us, look at this. I love this passage of scripture. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God,

let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Jesus experienced every grief and every temptation. He is the true friend, the true empathizer, our heavenly father.

He actually went to all the schools. He went to betrayal school, he went to raise a child with special needs school, he went to loneliness school. And you can you can come to him. I'm telling you now. You can come to him with confidence. And while we wait for him to give us an answer, we find so much more. We find grace, and we find mercy in our time of need. It's in the waiting that we

get to know him better. We find out that he's not just a god who heals, but he is a god who is with us in our pain and in our confusion, and in our frustration and in our disappointment. And he stands by. He never left. He's with you. He stands by, ready with the grace that you need for each moment. And when I think of the darkest season in my life, the seasons of my life when you wake up in the morning and for a brief second, you forget everything that you're going through. Have you ever

been there? And then all of a sudden, the pain and the realization of what's going on and the fear sets in. In those moments, what I remember most from those seasons is the tangible presence of God. If I didn't stay close to him, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed. If I didn't stay close to him, I wouldn't have made it through the day. I know I wouldn't have chosen those situations and those seasons. But I'm here to tell you today, if you stay close, you'll

come out stronger on the other side. One of the sermons that deeply impacted me this year was one that Pastor titled my future is My Focus. I honestly believe there may not be a better word for us as we start a new year than this one right here, Because, of course, at the start of another calendar year, many of us see this time as an intersection of what we're choosing to leave behind in the previous season and

what we're stepping into in this next one. So the passage Pastor preached from was Genesis forty nine and fifty, which is toward the end of Joseph's story, and at this point the Book of Genesis has covered forty years of Joseph's faithfulness. Even though he was mistreated, thrown into a pit, even though he was put into prison. Light about he didn't let that take his purpose. Pastor said, you got to learn to interrupt what the enemy sent to destroy you and break it with a butt God.

I was so inspired by Joseph's determination to not allow these things that could have kept him in bondage to keep him from his purpose. In Genesis fifty, Joseph's father, Jacob has just died, and his brothers are scared that Joseph is going to hold a grudge against them and pay him back for all the wrongs that they did to him. So they come to Joseph, who at this point in his life is really powerful, and he's sitting

in the court of Pharaoh because God's blessed him. But his brothers throw themselves at his feet and they're scared about his response, and Joseph responds in a way that only someone who's chosen to stay focused on their purpose could. He says don't be afraid. You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. And I want my

life to be marked by that same heavenly perspective. And so we just prophesied that same over you in this new year, that you'll focus on what matters, that your focus will be fixed on the truth that Christ is in you and that is enough. And when the enemy tries to attack you with shame or condemnation, you'll hit back with but God, who is rich in mercy, has

made me alive in Christ. When the same old hurt and bitterness tries to fight for all your attention, you remember Joseph's words, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for my good. In the clip we want to show you now, Pastor Stephen has just pulled a few of our campus pastors up with him on stage to help demonstrate what it takes to keep your focus. And I want to show you that now. Telling God you're worthless is an insult to the word that he

spoke over you. And it is the opposite of worshiping God to tell him how worthless you are, because the focus is on you. So watch this, watch this. This is a chain and what it becomes is terrible, but it becomes bitterness. And now you got bondage. Walk with it for me. In your own life, something bad happens, Oh that's horrible. I didn't get to finish because of them. They weren't there for me. I mean, if we just named everything that's in this room, forget about all over

the world. If we just named everything that's in this room, if we named everything bad that happened in this room, I wouldn't get to preach another sermon until twenty sixty four, all right. I wouldn't get to preach. And if we spent the rest of this day, we would still over into tomorrow. And then Yet Joseph, after after everything he's been through Genesis fifty twenty, put it on the screen you intended to harm me. And that's all he said

about that. Now that's freedom hold. He wouldn't in denial either, because he still wept. There was a process. He didn't say it the next day, he didn't say it in the pit, he didn't say it in the back of a caravan as he's being being sold in chained. But at some point his perspective became, but God, so you break it with a butt. Let me show you again, y'all. I got the I got the remedial class, the summer school. In here today, I'm gonna show you again. You intended

to harm me. That was bad. Now I could blame you. I could be bitter about it, and I could spend the rest of my life. But God show you again, show you again, get back together. Let me show you again. Let me show you till you see yourself interrupting what the enemy said to destroy you, and you can break it with a butt. God, you can break it. So so I'm looking now now I'm looking. My future is my focus. So I'm looking for everything in my life

that has me in bondage. And I'm looking to put a butt right here to see what God is gonna do next. I need thirty of yall. I need thirty people in a Hammond B three to brace God, not the power to break it. It's in your praise, in your perspective, in your purpose. Get together. That's how you break a chain. That's how they left me. But God has somebody else for me. They hurt me, but God healed me. He's healing me right now. Somebody's saying in

the chat but God, God, but God. I feel like preaching in this room today, right, God is breaking says I'm serious, Jop, you can break it with a fuck. We were dead in our sin, but God, you meant it for evil, But Gop. The weapon was formed against me, but it didn't prosper because I'm still breathing, living, walking, talking ooseh. But God, but God, but God, but God, Bah, break that thing. I can break that thing. You break it before it breaks you. You hear me. You break

it before it breaks you. New year, same God. I hope that this encouraged you. I hope that today you're walking away with a sense of gratitude for what God has done in your life and a feeling of expectancy for what He's going to do in the year ahead. God came through last year. God spoke last year, and he's going to come through again, and he's going to speak again this year. If you miss any of the sermons that we talked about today and you were thinking that you would love to see the rest of it,

good news. They're all up on our Elevation Church YouTube channel or also available on the Elevation Church podcast. The titles are all listed in the description below. I also hope that today you'll take a few minutes to reflect on the past year. Yes, it's important to set goals for the year ahead, but before you do that, take some time to look back at the faithfulness of God in your life in twenty twenty two. How did God provide for you? Who did God bring into your life?

Who did He remove from your life? What did God speak to you this year? If you'll just start writing and reflecting on the presence of God in your life over the past year, I know that you're going to be overwhelmed with gratitude and excited about what's ahead, or maybe I should say excited about who is ahead with you. He was with you in twenty twenty two, and he'll

be with you in twenty twenty three. And I have to say thank you to all of you who attend a location, who watch every week, who volunteer, and who give faithfully to this ministry. Pastor Stephen and I count it a privilege that we get to do this every single week right alongside you. Let me pray for us, Heavenly Father, we thank you for your presence in our lives. It is with gratitude that we look back, and it

is with excitement that we look ahead. We know that whatever we will face in twenty twenty three, we do not have to face it alone. You go before us, you come behind us. You're with us every step of the way. God, we surrender our year and our lives to you, and we ask that you not only be with us, but that you use us for your glory. Thank you for our pastor. May you continue to bless him and give him the words to speak to us each week. Thank you for this church. It means so

much to us. We love you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Ama. Well, if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You can also help us reach others by investing today at Elevationchurch dot org, slash give and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast.