Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
You God, how.
You praise the Lord.
God is good all the time. God is good all the time. In the valley, he's good.
Say Amen. On the mountain, he's good. Say Amen.
In the morning, he's good. In the evening, he's good. I will bless the Lord at and his praise shall be in my mouth.
O magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.
Today I want to move right into our sermon. I want to move right into the Word of God. Grab your Bible, open your heart, stand up on your feet, and get ready to re from the Lord. Tell your neighbor I'm ready. Tell them you need to get ready too. I can't sit next to a lazy neighbor today. Come on, if your neighbor looks hateful, you still got a minute to move before I start preaching.
Let's welcome our global EPHAM online all around the world.
All right.
I know you only got one hand.
Because you're holding your Bible, but clap a little better than that. Come on, welcome our Ethham. God is so good and so faithful, got one for you today. The Lord has been speaking to me. You mind if I pray before I read the scripture?
And I don't really care if you mind or not. I'm gonna pray before I read the scripture. Lord.
I enjoyed so much as you showed me this message. It helped me, administered to me and gave me that it helped my mindset. It really gave me something to hang on to in my own life this week, and something to encourage those I love with. And now I'm standing before thousands of people that I love with your love. Now I don't know them personally, most of them, but
you know each of them intimately. And I pray that you would help me in these moments that we have together that are so precious and so rare, just undistracted, unencumbered moments in your presence where hearts have been tilled by the truths that we've sang through the praise that we've lifted to your wonderful name. And now we're ready to receive a word from you. Help me to show them what you showed me. I believe if that happens, they'll be helped. I believe if that happens, they'll be
set free. I believe that happens, stronghold will break in this place, not just one stronghold, but stronghold after stronghold after stronghold, be broken by your word. I thank you in advance for testimonies that I will receive from this word that you will release through me today in Jesus' name.
Psalm thirteen is our passage for today.
We're in part four of a series called That's What I Thought. We're trying to take some of these patterns that are in our lives that are paralyzing us, the patterns that keep causing us needless pain, and to replace those patterns with God's promises in God's processes for our thinking. And so far we've looked at this from several different angles, but today's will be the most practical one so far. The Psalmist in Psalm thirteen has a prayer to lift to God, and it starts like this, How long Lord
will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me. How long must I wrestle with my thoughts, and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord, my God, give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love. You see how that just lifted. The sum is a lament. It's a cry for help. It's filled with anguish. That's in the tone of sorrow. But there is a lift within the lament. There is a lift within your lament today when you cry to.
God, he won't just leave you crying.
For weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes with the mourning. Somebody say, good morning. But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me. Go ahead and clap your hands for the word of God. I want to give you my title in a special way today, and I need you to turn to your neighbor one more time. You know i't to talk to him again after this. You don't want to, but start by asking them a question. It's
gonna set up my subject for today. Tell your neighbor first things first, Just tell them I know you've been going through some trouble.
Look at them and say I can tell now.
Now, look back at them and ask how long do you think it's gonna last?
Are you ready?
Now?
Look back at them and answer that question. They just ask you. Look them right in their eyes and tell them, not as long as.
My song.
That's what I want to preach you about today. Not as long ask my song Father. Make it plain and powerful and personal. In Jesus' name, I give you praise. Amen, you may be seated, Give three hugs before you sit down, and.
Then be seated. God is good all the time. God is good four times.
In the Psalm, the Psalmist asked the question that every parent has heard on a road trip.
How long.
We had a pretty rainy week of weather in Charlotte, North Carolina. Holly looked at me Friday and said, am I ever going to see the sun again?
How long? Lord? Doesn't take long, does it?
It doesn't take long for us to get gloomy, doesn't take long for us to buy into a narrative that's very negative, at least for me, doesn't take long. And I have discovered that even the strongest faith only can hold on so long through certain situations. And I have discovered that the human will has its limits even when you're in the will of God. Now I know I'm starting early, but that would have been worth writing down had you had your notebook ready, had I given you
a moment to get situated. Every human will has its limits, even when you're in the will of God. Even when you're doing what God called you to do, there is a place that you hit a wall. So today I want to talk from the subject how long Lord, But I want to talk about three l's that I think will help you. I'm going to give them to you up front and we'll review them at the end. And you've heard of lions and tigers and bears, right, this is modeled after that, But it's not exactly that. I
want to talk about limits and levels and loops. Limits and levels and loops. Put those in the chat please, if you're watching online or the comments, limits and levels and loops.
Oh my.
Amen, limits and levels and loops. Amen, you say, I say amen. My mind went to a personal experience that we had this summer, which I mentioned briefly, but my oldest son, Elijah, spent the very first weeks after he graduated college in the hospital, and the first part of it was planned because he had an issue with his spine that we've been monitoring with the neurosurgeon for five years, and upon the neurosurgeon's advice, we decided that he needed to have the surgery.
And the surgery was not going to be easy.
No surgery is minor, No surgery is minor, and this surgery wasn't even billed as minor, and so we were expecting.
A pretty rough recovery.
Now I'm not saying Elijah is not tough, but after his surgery, it.
Was amazing to me how good he kept his attitude.
Because part of the surgery where they operated on him, it was at the and I'm about to say stuff, I don't really know what it means, but I heard a doctor say it, and I'm regurgitating it to you. It somehow affected his nausea, and so for the first four days after his surgery he was just throwing up. He couldn't need anything, but he didn't complain much and it was amazing that he didn't complain much, because I've lived with this kid twenty years, and I'm like, who are
you from? Whence cometh this strength and power and self control and positive mental attitude. You've been watching David Goggins and reading the Bible or something like that.
You're not complaining, You're just ugging it out. And he did that for.
Several days, and I tried to keep him company in those days, and just any way I could think I've spent time with him since he couldn't really eat, and we watched entire seasons of Better Call, so I mean the chosen and you know, right about the time when it looked like his body was bouncing back, his fever went up. And Holly is our family doctor, and so she knew, I think that it's become infected, and she took him to the er and it.
Had become infected at the sight of the surgery.
And so while we thought we might be able to get him on any biotics, when he developed how do you say it, Holly brunt bacterial meningitis. They came to get him and said, we're going to have to do the whole surgery over again. That was the moment where his positive mental attitude left the building. And I got it because I thought, remember the series, that I was getting better, and I thought that this was almost over. And I set a clock for myself that I am not going to complain on this clock.
But that clock has run out.
And even the strongest human will has a limit, even the strongest resolve has a limit when your win has no inn in sight come because after the surgery, not only was it worse the second time, but he stayed in the hospital that time for the better part of a week, went home. They put a pick line in him to give him as antibiotics, and then what they were putting in his body to keep him from becoming infected and to get the infection out of his body
was making him nauseous again. So now I can't eat again. And when I can't eat, I am not very happy about anything. And don't tell me to praise the Lord, because I praised the Lord for the first week, but I wasn't planning on the second week or to have these tubes for thirty days in my arms. And I know there are people who are going through a lot worse than that. And your condition is a lot more serious than what I'm describing.
But perhaps we can agree together that.
Even the strongest human will has a limit, and it seems like the person who wrote Psalm thirteen has hit his limit. He doesn't start the beginning of the psalm with praise or glory be or hallowd He says how long? Not hallelujah, but how long Alujah.
It's a different kind of prayer.
And I'm choosing these psalms throughout our series to show you that you can come to God honestly and sincerely with your problems, but not focus on your problems and not remain in the same place that you came when you brought your problems to God. By the way, Elijah is doing so well, he's doing so incredibly well.
He's actually working for me now, clipping my sermons for TikTok. That's right. He's on the front road today.
They gave him today off, but he said, if you get preaching too good, I might have to run to the back and clip you real quick.
Now.
The interesting thing about the psalmist complaint that ends in praise but that starts with complaint is he says.
How long you forget me? Lord? How long? Are you going to hide from me? I can't find you.
Man.
It's like you keep telling me God.
To do something, but then I do what I thought you told me to do, and I'm not sure if that's what you told me to do because I don't feel you. I moved because I thought I was moving in obedience to the will of God.
For my life.
But even when you're in the will of God, the strongest human will can only hold on so long. And when you get in that place of how long, how long? I think I should say it like this. You can only be strong for so long. You can only feel forgotten for so long, you can only feel taken for granted for so long. You can only do for others so long, and say, well, I'm doing it for the Lord. I'm doing it for the Lord. I'm doing it for
the Lord. I'm doing it for the Lord. Think you would be nice, but I'm not doing it for thank you. I'm doing it for the Lord. And then you explode on us because even the nicest, most polite, most servant hearted person can only serve strong for so long before you start wondering how long till they reciprocate for me? Don't say amen. They'll know you're agitated with them and you're about to explode any minute, and they need to duck. How long will you forget me? How long will you
hide from me? He actually says something that I know we've all felt in here. How long will my enemy triumph over me? In other words, how long till I.
Get a win.
I don't feel like I'm winning anywhere. Maybe you felt that way as a husband this week. If I'm winning as a provider, I'm not winning as a parent. I'm paying for stuff, but I don't have time to play with my kids, because if I play with my kids, I can't pay for the stuff, and they don't want to play with nothing. But if I'm going to pay for it, I gotta work for it. If I'm working for it, I can't be with them. I can't win anywhere.
How long.
I can retire?
How long?
Lord?
And I'm making light of it, although there is nothing light about the feeling, just to bring us into the thought, how long will you forget me? Lord? How long will you hide from me? How long will it be till I feel you? How long will it be.
Till you confirm for me that this is the right thing to do?
How long Lord, till I get this thing out of my arm?
How long till I can.
Eat again, smile again, breathe deeply again and not feel that shallow, crippling anxiety that I've been managing for three months. And I can't tell anybody, But how long you expect me to smile at them while I'm stressed inside of myself?
How long is my enemy gonna win?
And I know you're mighty, and I know you're great, and I know you're awesome, and I know you're wonderful, But when are you going to do something about what my enemy is doing to me? Do you see how they're talking about me? Do you see how they're taking advantage of me? Do you see how they're walking all over me?
How long until you rise up and defend me? Lord?
How long?
But the one that felt so personal to me, and perhaps it will feel personal to you as well, was the one sandwiched right in the middle of all of that, where he said in verse two. And I don't know if you ever had an experience where you thought that the Lord wrote a special verse in your Bible because he's been following you around. And the Lord just took a verse that wasn't there before and put it in there for you. I felt that way when I read thirteen, verse two, how long must I wrestle.
With my thoughts?
I totally get that question, How long will I wrestle with my thoughts? You know, whoever wrote this song, he must not be very tough, because if he was tough, he would just buck up buckaroo, He would just get over it. When life gave him lemons, he would just make some lemonade. He must not be very strong in the Lord this man.
Look in your Bible, Abby.
Verse not verse one, but right before verse one, and you will see above Psalng thirteen the attribution of who wrote this song. Although it does not mention what the situation was that inspired the song, it gives us the name of the person who wrote the song, and he's a man named David. So I take back everything I just said a minute ago about he must be a whimp,
he must not be very strong. I would never say that about David, and I definitely wouldn't say it to his face, even if I thought that David was an emotional basket case. I wouldn't say it to David because if David could find a rock. I might comment it in the YouTube section about David, I wouldn't say it to his face. Internet courage. That's what some people have comment courage. But David had strong courage and strong faith, which is why we are surprised to hear him talking
this way. Most scholars tell us that David wrote this at the time of his life that he was no longer a kid but not yet a king. Those transitional moments in life, and in his specific instance, the king who was king was trying to kill him because he was threatened by him, and it is highly likely that David wrote some thirteen. David wrote some thirteen in this transitional moment of needing to trust God. But I'm stuck on the fact that it was David, because when he
says how long must I wrestle with my thoughts? It occurs to me that David was really good at wrestling. I'll take you to the moment that David's name became famous. Now, this is the one that put David on the map. You've heard it, you know it, you love it. It involves an uncircumcised Philistine named Goliath. He hails from Philicitia nine foot three inches tall, weighing in at three hundred and twenty pounds, carrying a bronze spear, a javelin, and
a shield that's bigger than David. Here comes Goliath, and for forty days he taunts the nation of Israel. For Samuel seventeen, David shows up one day with cheese and bread, disguised as a door dasher, but coming in as a deliverer.
You hear what I just said? Did you hear what I just said?
He's disguised like door dash, but he's carrying deliverance, and he hears the giant taunting the people of God and says, how long has he been talking to you all like this? How long are you gonna let him keep talking trash when you have the truth? Well, see, David, he's a big giant and you're a little boy. And the king that was threatened by David, that didn't even really know his name yet, says to David, you can't fight against him.
He's too big for you.
Now, I just want to remind you of David's resume pick up in First Samuel seventeen, verse thirty four. But David said to Saul, that's the king that's the kid talking to the king. Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flop, I went after it. I struck it. I rescued the sheep from its mouth. Checked this phrase. When it turned on me.
I seized it by its hair, struck and killed it. You see what I'm saying.
He didn't just kill.
The lion from a distance or say a prayer over it, and God gave it a tumor and it died. He said, I grabbed it up close, and I wrestled with a lion.
And tore the sheep out of his mouth.
That's David. That's what he did.
And when Saul heard what he was capable of doing with the mane of a lion, he sent him to the battle line to fight the lion, and with one smooth Stones had five ready, but only needed one. Smooth Stone knocked the giant down, cut off his head, and the Bible says with a sling and a not a sword in his hand, he triumphed.
Over the giant in verse fifty.
But the moment that I realized that David was very good at dealing with a lion that turned on him. Is the moment that I realized that this time in Psalm thirteen, he is not dealing with a lion. He is not dealing with a bear. And the problem in Psalm thirteen is that David knows what to do with an external threat. I can rip it apart. Give me a challenge, I'll figure it out. If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it. David Newt as a saw. I'm also if there's a lion in front of me, I know
what to do with the lion. I have a reliable strategy for a lion. I can beat a bear. But this time, David says, I am wrestling with my thoughts. I'm not wrestling with a lion this time, I'm wrestling with my mind.
How long can I.
Wrestle with something that isn't coming from the outside. I can deal with that, not with a to do list. I can deal with that, not with a challenge that I'm facing that I can plan for in an appointment, or something that I can prep for with my knowledge and my intellect and my skill. I've been able to do that on several levels throughout the years. But now now I'm dealing with something and it's not a bear. It's my brain. It's not a lion, it's my mind.
So it bets the question what do I do when the enemy moves the fight to the inside where I can't leave it at the office where I can't leave it in a location where I can't leave.
It for a nine to five And he hits his limit.
And he says, how long I could deal with this until they had to operate again?
I could deal with it.
You know what I was saying to the Lord the other week, I said, I thought I was through with this, And you.
Ever felt that way about something?
I thought I was through with this because you already praise the Lord for all your progress publicly at your group, and you don't really know how to go back and tell the group that I got bad news, it got infected, and I got to do it again because the first time they prayed me through it, but this time they might judge me because of it. Y'all, getting quiet, Preacher is preaching truth. This is Holy goes truth.
Right now. I am on your case right now, how long I could deal with it?
If you just give me a dumbbell, I can curl a dumbell, But when I am a dumbbell, when I'm dealing with stuff that's happening on the inside. You remember last week we talked about Paul saying I put.
The ways of childhood behind me.
That's wonderful. You can put certain ways of childhood behind you. I sold all my wrestling figures, all my lex Luger and Sting and Ultimate Worrying Halkog, and I sold them all. Wish I hadn't. They're worth a lot more money now. But I put all that behind me.
But I still wrestle with the ways of childhood. And so it begs the question, what do you do when you hit your limit?
I'm speaking to somebody today and you feel like I have.
Hit my limit.
I'm a pretty strong person, but I've hit my limit. I can carry a lot, but I have hit my limit. I have dealt with this, and I have coped with this, and I have managed this, and I have managed not to make everybody else crazy around me. But I'm going crazy. I have hit my limit. How long will you forget me? How long will you hide?
God?
I can go a little while without feeling your presence, but I haven't felt you in months. God, I can go a little while without confirmation and just stay obedient to the last thing that I heard.
But I need a side.
How long I can't believe I'm going through this again? I thought I was through with this. I thought I was done with this. Why am I more tempted than ever? Why am I more angry than ever? Why am I having bitterness flashbacks?
Now?
I thought I forgave them. I thought they cut it out of me. I thought they fixed it, and I went back and they put me back into ICU. How long am I gonna be here? I can only pretend to be strong. So long I can't wear this uniform home and wear it to work and pretend to be strong.
So David opens up to the Lord, and he realizes that when you have hit your limit, and you can't kill this with your hands, and you can't kill this with your biceps, and you can't kill this with your rational thinking, and you can't kill this with your college degree, and you can't kill this with your willpower, and you can't kill this with your focus determination, and you can't kill this with your vitamins, and you can't kill this with your collagen and your health routine and your cold plunge,
and I'll keep doing the stuff I'm supposed to do, but it's not fixing the real problem I have. And David realized that when you hit your limit, it's a sign that you need to change your level. So whoever I'm preaching to, when you hit your limit, change your level.
When you hit your limit, when you feel that in the course of a twenty four hour period, in the course of your college career, in the course of you trying to raise your own family, in the course of you feeling your way through the forest of your emotions and your feelings of forsakenness.
When you hit your limit, change your level.
Limits and levels and loops, Oh my lions and tigers and bears, Oh my. Wrestling with my thoughts of depression, Wrestling with my thoughts of insecurity, Wrestling with my old ways of handling situations, Wrestling with things that were passed down to me or exemplified, Wrestling with my sin nature, which is crucified with Christ but keeps trying to have a resurrection. Wrestling with the things that I thought drowned
in the red sea. But why are they swimming after me when I am wrestling with something that I can tear apart with my hands.
That's one thing.
But sometimes the Bible says in Ephesians chapter six, verses eleven and twelve, You've got to put on the whole armor of God for the king. James says in verse twelve, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. This is not a lion you're wrestling with. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood. This is not a bear this time. I'm wrestling with my thoughts. I'm wrestling with some secrets. I'm wrestling with some shame. I'm wrestling with some strong temptation.
I'm wrestling with some not me. I'm wrestling with some why me. I'm wrestling with some what about me? Well, I am not wrestling anymore with flesh and blood, but I am wrestling against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness.
In high places.
See.
I understand something about wrestling, not because I watched Taul Hogan, but because I have a son who is a wrestler. Not WWF, but the kind of wrestling where they put you on a mat for six minutes and.
You've got to outscore or pin the other person.
Now, in wrestling, I have a little experience because I was a state champion in the eighth grade in a freestyle tournament where there were no other entries in my weight class category.
But Graham is pretty good.
And I took him to see the National Championship where all the greatest college wrestlers were wrestling, and Carl Perry was sitting next to me, who was a former national champion, and I said, tell me what to watch when they wrestle. I don't really know what to watch. I understand wrestling, but not at your level. I said, what do you look for at your level? He said, at this level, all of the guys were out there know how to change levels. I said, I know what that means, but
pretend like I didn't. Then explain it to me so I could explain it to somebody.
Else who doesn't know what it means.
He said, Well, when you stay too still too long, you become predictable. But what you got to do at this level, you got to change levels so quick that I can't tell if you're about to pop me on my head or pop me on my head to set me up to grab my ankle, and the devil will come at you so many different ways.
And have you standing still.
So long talking about how long am I gonna feel like this? And how long is it gonna be like this? And how long are they gonna forget about me?
And how long till they recognize me?
But if you have hit a wall called how long today, and you have hit your limit and you don't see a way to win this fight, the spirit of God said, change levels. If you've been down too long, stand up and praise the Lord.
Wake up the.
Lion inside your lungs.
You've been sitting there thirty four minutes thinking about my sermon, But change levels for ten seconds. Jump up on your feet, stick your chest out, and tell the devils I'm saved.
Say it, I'm saved. Change levels.
Before we wrestle none against low things.
We wrestle against high things. And if I'm.
Wrestling against the high thing, I know a higher thing that can't bring it down.
I cast down strongholds, I cast down depression, I guess out fear, I cast out padding, I guess out say, I cast out suicide, hot castings.
Sit today that is above.
Every day help me live this day high five fourteen. People say I'm changing levels. I'm changing levels.
I'm saying, Oh, there he goes, Oh there he goes, there he goes, there she goes.
I can't predict her.
When I think I got her down, said gets back up. When I think just getting browned, she starts to pray.
I'm facing.
David, said, I don't know how long this is going to last. I don't know how long I'm going to be hurting like this. I'll know how long I'm going to have to push through this without any evidence that God is working. I'll know how long. But I'll tell you one thing, not as long.
As my.
Song.
And I talked about lions, and I talked about bears, and I talked about limits, and I talked about levels, But I want to talk about loops. Because when you get to verse five, David has disrupted his own despair.
And prayer for deliverance. Y'all are sitting down like you're not in a.
Hurry to get out of here and go back to whatever hell you've been fighting.
I ain't not waiting at home, but a lion and a bear for you.
Huh.
You might as well go ahead and get this Bible lesson.
But what happens so many times and an experience like this that we won't admit is we get the lesson and we leave.
And we don't get in the loop. Because David said something so powerful in verse four.
He says, if you don't do something soon, God, I'm going to fail, and my foes will rejoice when I fall. Now, I told the Lord that I would share this with you if the atmosphere fell open to it, and so I will. There was a season of my ministry where Holly and I were so paralyzed by the nature of public ministry, public criticism in the age of AI, when people can make up things that you said and make it sound like you say it, and make it look like you were standing there with Oscar the Grouch if
they want to. It's no longer to photoshop you into anything. There was a time where I was so consumed with the fear that something in ministry would cause me to fail, or that my best had been behind me and it was only going to get worse from here. So if you're struggling with that in your own way, the fear of failure or the fear of looking like a fool.
Listen to what the Lord gave me. And it really parallels the thought process of David.
Not to compare myself to David, but I do relate to the resistance and the wrestling that he felt. And I thought for many years that the wrestling meant that something was wrong with me. I thought that the fact that I wrestle with this means that I am this. I thought the wrestling meant that something was wrong with me. I need to slow down before I show you what I want to show you. In verse four, he says, my foes will rejoice when I fall.
You see that. And there was a loop in my mind that.
Went on for months and months and months. It's going to end in failure. It's going to end in failure. It's going to end in failure. I couldn't pinpoint why. I did see other things that were happening to other people all around me, and I thought, oh, man, you know, I I'll know how long can I keep preaching and you know, writing songs and doing ministry.
I don't want to do it in the flesh. I want to do it in the spirit. But sometimes you get tired.
Sometimes you get tired too, and you wonder is this going to end in failure?
So one day the Lord gave me a thought and it busted me out of the prison.
That I was in that came from the loop of thinking that I had entertained what if it is in failures? Can infaiures can in failures, can in failure? And the way he gave it to me was something that I could latch onto. And I give it to you exactly as he gave it to me, and I wrote it down. He said, I want you to start confessing this over your life, and I did it out loud every day for a year. It may end in failure, but I
will not live in fear. And I've struggled to hold to that and I've struggled to live it out.
But he gave it to me. It was one line. He gave me, one line to deal with the lie.
Because see, the lie I was in the loop was that if something fails, I'm a failure. But when I realized that he loved me before I started a church. He loved me when y'all got here. He'll love me if you leave, He'll love me if I preach good.
He'll love me if I stand up here in stammer and stutter and ud.
He knows what I'm trying to say, and he'll even take his spirit and interpret and you'll tell me, Pastor, that was awesome when you said this, And I won't even have said that, and you'll have heard that because God wanted to get it to you. So even if it fails, watch this. It may end in failure, but I will not live in fear. And that has done more for me than all of my resistancy. Because you try to wrestle at a certain level, You're like, oh, no, well, I'm gonna study you and I'm gonna do take my
creatine and I'm gonna do you know. But but even that has his limits, So I change the level, change the level. And David can't figure out how to battle his thoughts because this is not something he is fighting that is turning on him on the outside. His own mind is turning on him. We are do when your mind turns on you? And why did David's mind attack him so viciously? Is it possible that the minds that are under the most vicious attack are also carrying the most brilliant potential.
Think about what David went on to do David went on.
To become not only a king, but he became the designer of the temple that was the house of God, for which he gave the plans to his son Solomon. And when he gave him the plans for the temple, he said something very interesting in First Chronicles twenty eight. He said, well, that says he gave him the plans portico, building, storems, upper parts, enterans, place of Atomas. So he had all
that mapped out verse twelve. And he gave him the plans of all that the spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the Temple of the Lord, and all the surrounding rooms, treasuries, Temple of God, treasures of the dedicated things. It goes onto lists in the most specific detail, everything that God put into David's mind.
Now we understand why in Psalm thirteen he was wrestling with his thoughts, because that mind was under attack by the enemy, because it was the place that would conceive something awesome for God, that mind from which the temple would come, where the people would worship. That mind, that beautiful, brilliant mind. It wasn't a broken mind. It was a brilliant mind. The level of your battle tells you something about the level that God is calling you to build.
The level of your battle.
See, when you have an overactive imagine nation, you can build a temple. But if you have an overactive imagination, you can also call Bathsheba to come and sleep with you, even though she's not your wife, and make a plan for her husband to get killed on the front lines of battle.
And that is why it's important.
In this season of your life that you win the battle for your mind, because there is something that God wants to bring forth from your mind. I'm trying to say that the place of the blueprint is always the place of the battle. I'll say it again when God is going to give you a blueprint. Some of you are creating generational change. Some of you are doing it different than your family ever did. Some of you are setting a new direction, a new course for everybody with
your last name or maiden name in the future. And the reason the battle has been so fierce in your mind. There is so much material in your mind. There is so much potential in your mind. David's mind would go on to lead armies. His mind was capable of navigating through the most arid terrain he can find water in places that the troops that were chasing him would not even dare to follow him into that mind. Of course it was under attack. Of course it was a battle
that was the place of a blueprint. Of course you're struggling. Of course you're dealing with issues. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just a real one. You are resisting the enemy. You are wrestling not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness.
And isn't it amazing that the mind that created.
Something so magnificent as the Temple experienced so much misery? And doesn't it give you hope to know that the misery that you've been going through is just a clue to the magnificence.
Let me say it like the Bible says it.
For our light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us a far exceeding weight of glory. It will way everything you've been through when you see what God builds. And I'll prove it to you right now. Psalm thirteen is written by David about a situation that we don't even know what it was, and whatever situation he was going through when he wrote it.
The situation is over, but we're still preaching about what he wrote.
I said, the situation only lasted so long, but the song was longer than the situation.
Because I'm standing.
Up in front of you thousands of years after he wrestled, and I'm reading what he wrote, because he went through what he went through. I came to tell you that what you are going to see on the other side of this will make what you're going through feel like a short.
Time, a little while, just a little while, just a little while.
And it all starts with verse five. I'm wrestling.
How long I'm forgotten, how long I'm forsaken, how long you're hiding, how long I'm losing?
How long?
Verse five comes out of nowhere? But I trust, I trust, But I trust you know how we love the shout in church about but God. Yeah, sometimes it's not but God that you're waiting on is but I Because sometimes when you're asking God how long, he's asking you the same question I see on that Sunday. But the Lord wants you to know I've been wondering the same thing. I've been wondering, how long you.
Gonna let the devil just tell you anything he wants to tell you.
Unchallenged before you rebuke him and plead the.
Blood of Jesus for everything concerning your life.
How long, Oh I love it. I'm happy. Don't think I'm mad. I'm not mad at you. I'm happy for you. Because God said he's about to butt in. God said, you're.
Wrestling with some stuff that's unclean, unfamiliar, unmanageable, overwhelming. But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. Put me in f sharp verse six. I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me.
So watching.
When you have hit your limit, Blessed to the porn spirit, for there's kingdom of heim.
Blessed those who home and thirst that for ushless they feel. When you have hit your limit, Come to the waters, all you who are.
Thirsty and by, come by bread and milk without why without price? You can get it for free if you come on your knees. He said, you need a new loop. You've been in the How long till it gets better?
Loop?
How long till it changes loop? How long am I going to be like this loop? How long are they going to ignore me?
Loop? And I want to get you in a new loop of how good God has already been to you.
Something just shifted in David in verse five. I can tell it he realized, I can't fight this like a lion. I can't fight this like a bear. I can't fight this like my previous fights. I gotta fight this by getting in a new loop, like when I killed the lion and when I killed the bear, and I started thinking to myself, how great my God was, not how big my giant was, but I trust.
And when he said but when God butted in, he ends his song.
Not singing about the struggle, but singing about the goodness of God, for he has.
Been good to me.
And sometimes you get this message, and sometimes you watch these videos, and sometimes you listen to this podcast and you get the lesson.
But you don't get in the loop. You don't get in the loop. You think worship is over because.
You've got to get out to your car, and you think you got to get to your car, because you got to get to your lunch, and you got to get to your lunch, because you've got to get back home and take your nap.
And you got to take your.
Nap so you can still wake up tired and go into another week talking about God.
How long? How long?
David said, I don't know, but not as long as my song, because I'm gonna outsing my struggle.
Hear me, if you can, I am gonna out praise this problem. Let me go deeper.
I'm gonna out trust this trouble. And it's a sign that I can't fight it in my own flesh. I wrestle not against flesh and blood. I'm wrestling against.
A high thing.
But I have a higher thing, So I will sing and praise for he has everybody say he has been good to me, and then then you might even get convinced. You might, you might say he's been so good to me.
January of twenty twenty.
Three, we were having a recording and we got together to write some songs before the recording, and me and Brandon and Chandler wrote a song one night called Ben so Good and the chorus just said, you have been.
So good to me, God, I can't believe how you.
Love me, What a friend you have been.
Wow.
And you see what happened, how you just started singing it again and you almost can't stop singing it.
That's because we wrote it be a loop and here's what that means.
The first line of that chorus, which we ripped off from Song thirteen, verse six, which we got from David, who felt like God had left him, but he sang a song that lasted longer than his trouble.
This trouble is not gonna last as long as my song.
If the devil thinks he's gonna outlast me, he's got another thing called Me and the devil are having a staring contest right now, And I'm looking unto Jesus, and I'm looking I'm taking.
My eyes off the wind in the waves. So I don't know how long this storm is gonna last. For somebody shout, not as long as my song. So is it possible that God doesn't always deliver us from it?
But he calls us to decide in it? David said, But I trust in your unfailing love, and I'll sing. If the trouble lasts seven days, I'm gonna sing eight.
I will sing.
If this illness lasts three months, I'll sing three months and fourteen hours. Because I'm gonna outsing this struggle. I'm going to outsing this doubt. I'm gonna outsing this issue with my prodigal child. I'm going to outphrase that you understand because I'm changing levels.
And the way it works is this. The first line of the chorus leads into the last line of the chorus. I'll show you how you love what a friend you have been? First line?
So to me, God, I can't believe how you love me.
What you have been.
You can't stop singing, can you? You can't stop praising, can you? Because you got in the loop. See see that's the loop.
I want you living in this week, not how hard it's been, but you have been so good to me.
God, I can't.
Stop singing just a second. I got to tell you something.
When we sang the song at the recording, it literally went eighteen minutes in the room and the church had never heard it before.
You don't believe me.
I took a screenshot of the voice memo of the front of house mixed from the night we recorded.
Look at the timestamp on this. I don't know if you can see it.
Eighteen minutes and forty seven second guests of a song that the church had never sang. Why because it took a line and made it a loop. Ye, And that's what needs to happen in your heart. You understand, So you just start thanking him. Now, be careful. The devil will attack your thankfulness. He will attack your gratitude, because if he can keep you down here fighting, he can keep you down here losing and gasping for breath and feeling sorry for yourself.
Because if I start.
Thanking him for the new day, I might start thinking that I'm gonna make it till tomorrow.
And if I start thanking.
Him that I'm gonna make it till tomorrow, I might start thinking that he has a hope in a future for me.
And if I start thanking.
Him that he has a hope in a future for me, I might get some friends and make a plan to move my life for her. And if I start thanking him for the new people he brought in my life, I might start thinking that.
I don't have to do this by myself. And if I start thinking him that.
I'm not in this by myself, I might start praising him. At the midnight hour, Hey Paul, Hey.
Silas, how long you're gonna be in this prison? How long is your sentence?
Silace said, I don't know, but not as long as my song I got a song in midnight.
I gott a song through the age. How why? And singing.
So good?
Oh God? Again? Lift your head here.
You hell.
Job you sing?
Uh huh.
I don't know how long it's gonna last, but sing it again. Not as long. H get that stuck in your head for a minute. See what happens. Say it again.
Yeah. And when the doctor's report doesn't look good. And when you don't think you have what it takes to move on, keep singing. If the storm keeps raging, keep singing.
And when you start.
Thinking, and you start thinking, don't be surprised.
If the enemies you see today you will see.
Them no more.
Because when I praise, when I praise, when I praise, come on bad. I need to sing it one more time. When peace like a river attended my way, When.
Sorry slight sea billows roll, I gotta song, I gotta praise.
Keep singing, can't singing, can't singing.
Fire through the stupe.
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