Permission To Quit

All of those cities were coming. Go right now and check it out, and we will be there soon here at Elevation today. I hope we didn't overwhelm you with new songs. We didn't do a single song that's on Spotify today all new songs because it goes along with my theme for this year. Don't just do you people are around? Do you do the new you? Do the you that God created, Do the you that God is changing.

Do the you that is going to walk into the opportunity that is before you, full of faith, acknowledging your weaknesses, but confident in your strength in Christ. Do the new you? Are you getting this word as I'm preaching it? Come on if you're online, say I'm good this thing. This thing is sinking in for me. We're going right back to Ephesians four, so you might as well sit down and settle in. Right back to our key verse. I'm done arguing with the Lord when he tells me to

preach something. I'm just gonna stop fighting it so he doesn't have to put my hip out of socket. Like Jacob over there in the Old Testament, who I mentioned last week. I'm gonna just go with it in along with our groups doing immeasurably more. I'm preaching from the Book of Ephesians. But the fourth chapter snuck up on me because I always liked Ephesians three twenty Now unto him who is able to do a measure more. Well, then when I got into four, I found out what

more looks like, and then that helped me. Is helping me so much. Man, God is working on me. I'm glad too. I need him to. I'm not there yet. I have not achieved Ephesians four twenty four yet. Tell me, if you have to put on the new self, put it up on the screen, created to be like God. So I'm not there yet. I've reached some goals in my life. I think I've grown, But if that's the goal to be like God, oh man, I'm gonna need Jesus.

I thought I just needed Jesus to get me to heaven when I died, but then I found out I need Him in my habits for everyday life now. A lot of times when we preach about Jesus, we talk about your new home in heaven. You're not going to hell. You're going to Heaven and be with Grandma and Gabriel and God. And then we forget to mention that, Okay, hey, just like we need a new home in heaven, we need new habits in our life. Oh. By the way,

I don't need a single amen today. The Lord told me this sermon was good, So I'm gonna just break it out on you and do whatever you need to do. So let me read this scripture and then I'm going to talk about do you, which I know is kind of so oh man. When you hear people say that, it feels good right, like, hey man, you know, probably a fifty seven year old shouldn't have that haircut, but do you? I mean it's a little tight, probably fits

you better. In a previous season, but I mean, if you feel if you can rock and rocket, do you? And I'm all for that, that uniqueness, you know, I'm all for that. If it's a mohawk that you want, get them all, if your parents say you can get them all. I like your blue hair? Do you? You You know what I mean? But I can't just take that

whole philosophy. Do you if you want blue hair? And then tell you, well, if it's a bottle of pills that helps you escape and the doctor didn't prescribe it and you know you're addicted to it, just do you whatever gets you through the night. So what we're challenging ourselves in is this idea that the true you is the new you. And a lot of times, even if something is nicer when it's new, at first, I don't like it. And growing into our relationship with God looks

like this. Let's go back to verse fourteen and let me break it down. And this sermon today is called permission to quit. Permission to quit. Oh, I know where this is going. You're going to tell me keep trying and march around the walls. And I know how this is man. You just go, oh God, it's gonna be one of those sermons. You're just gonna tell me, you're gonna make fun of me because I joined the gym, and I only went twice, and it's only January, and

tell me I got to get back in there. But stay with me, because I think you might be surprised where the Lord is leading us this week. Ephesians, chapter four,

Verse fourteen. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of cable news and teaching, with the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming, trying every diet, trying every religion, dabbling in this, dabbling in that, doing it six weeks for remembering what you know it used to be like in your old life.

He said, that's not gonna happen anymore. Instead, verse fifteen, speaking the truth and love, we will, my favorite phrase in this whole passage, grow to become. That's so annointed. Say I will say it with conviction and gumption. I will grow to become. I'm gonna grow to become a better man. I'm gonna grow to become a better dad. I'm gonna be a great dad. I'm gonna be a great If I was a great dad last year, wait till you see me this year. I'm gonna be a

greater dad this year. I'm gonna be a better preacher. I'm gonna be a better teacher. I'm gonna be more honest. I'm gonna be more vulnerable, no less powerful. I'm gonna get up in here and say what God gave me to say without the interference of the fear of man. I'm gonna stop pulling back when God gives me something. I'm growing to become. Man. I'm gonna be a good wife. Are you married? Not yet, but I'm growing to become it.

And when I become it, God is going to be sure that I have the experiences that I need to fulfill the calling that He's given me. I'm growing into this. Don't memorize me right now. If you meet me again in a month, I'm going to be more like my maker because That's where I'm headed in this life. Don't take a snapshot of me and then criticize me. You've changed, I hope, so if I ever stopped change and cremate me. I got to do this. I've got to become what God said I was. But now, don't curse me out

because I'm an acorn. I thought you said you were an oak tree. I am. Let me get in the right environment, Let me get the right water, let me get the right time. Come on, I'm growing to become. This helped me because I have a hard time striking a balance between contentment, which I know the Bible says is good, and ambition, which the Bible also instructs me to have grow to become like God. That's a pretty lofty go. And so when I realize, oh, God is calling me to grow to become, not to be all

at once, but to grow to become. Now, this process works its itself out in the following way. Look at verse sixteen. Excuse me, I didn't read all of verse fifteen, did I. We will grow to become in every respect, the mature body of Him who is the head that is Christ from him, the whole body, joined and held together e groups by every supporting ligament. You are out

of joint. You are out of socket when you're not connected with the right people, and He says together, if you're going to do the new, you don't make an idol out of your individuality. One of the ways you're going to grow to become is by getting around others who challenge you, who encourage you. And so then as the body builds itself up in love, each part is doing its work Verse seventeen. So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must

no longer live. You must no longer live as the gentiles do in the futility or vanity of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. This phrase hardening of their hearts calls into mind linguistically when a bone is broken and resets, But the callous that grows is hard. Isn't that what happens to us in our life?

We get broken in relationships, broken through experience, broken through trials, broken through temptations that we can't overcome, And then there is a hardness if it is not reset correctly, that keeps us from receiving from God what he wants to give us, to grow us into who He made us to be. But God's not going to leave you broken. God is not going to leave you with the bone broken and reset so that your heart is harder. He is going to bring you through this brokenness better than

when you went into the brokenness. He is going to bring you through this brokenness. Who receives this word like if it's for you, He's going to bring you through this brokenness. I'm going to be better after I was broken. I'm going to be better after they fired me. I'm

going to learn things from this failed relationship. And when God resets me, the God of resurrection is going to call me forth into a glorious future for the praise of his name, because I'm growing to become so, he says, don't live like these gentiles who, having verse nineteen, lost all sensitivity. They have given themselves over to sensuality, as to indulge in every kind of impurity you'll ever look around and think, just when you think that they can't

invent any new sins, they make a new one. I feel like we are living in you know, they had the industrial Revolution. I feel like we are living right now in this time, in the impurity revolution. We are making new ways to be screwed up. It's all the lust of the flesh, lust of pride, pride lust of flesh, lest eyes, pride of life. But the flavors of it, y'all, we got some creative flavors of sin. I better back to the Bible. Y'all are looking at me strange. Maybe

not in your zip code? Is fine, It's fine. It's just something I've been noticing. He says, they give themselves over to it. Now follow me. When he says they give themselves over to it, that is very different than saying that they get caught up in it. There's a big difference between giving yourself over and getting caught up. Everybody can get caught up. If you haven't seen the person sitting next to you get caught up in sin, you just haven't followed them to the right places yet.

You haven't seen them in the right moments yet. They just hadn't shown you yet. We can all get caught up in different ways, different varieties, different prescriptions. But there's a big difference between getting caught up. Oh God, when I say that, because you're human, there is grace for your humanity. There is grace for the moments. Why did I explode on my wife five minutes after church? You're human, but do not let your humanness I might have made

that word up. Do not let your humanness and the grace that God gives for your humanness become an excuse for your hypocrisy shouting in Houston. Just because I struggle with it doesn't mean I have to surrender to it. There's a big difference. I mean, there's some big guys in this room right now, and I'm sure that many of them if they took me and dragged me off the stage, they can get me off the stage. But that's a big difference than me again on their back, piggyback,

isn't it? Is there a big guy? We should illustrate this. I need somebody bigger than me. I'm about one seventy, so you got to at least have me buy thirty pounds. Come on, I need a big guy. Ah, mate's here? Where's mate? Where's mate? Get made up here? Get made up here. That's a great idea, made the great. Everybody say, mate the great? Now, it's not my fally bench presses five hundred and five pounds. You got that twenty four year old anointy? Are you too injured to do this? Illustration?

I want to hurt you. He just went through an injury. We can't hurt him. But imagine this. I'm not even gonna do the full illustration. I care more about you than my illustration. I'm selfless. But imagine if he wanted to drag me off the stage, he could do it. It would just be a ma or a time. But that's real different than I jump up in his arms. So I just want you to see that. Go back, sit back down. It would have been cool if I could have done it, but I don't want to do it.

I don't want to hurt him. When when you look at what God is doing, and I really haven't read the scripture I want to preach from yet, but that whole thing right there that helps me make a critical distinction in my life as to whether I am still struggling with sin. You know, the writer of Hebrews said you have not yet struggled with sin to the point of shedding your blood. And I guess he's saying, like, when you say I've done all I can do, I

can't change it. Did you do all you could do? Rarely? Rarely? And then grace? When grace comes in, Some people take that grace and they don't really receive it as power. They receive it as permission to keep living in stuff that makes them miserable. So why would you want permission to be miserable? You can who's going to stop you? But this is what the Bible says in verse twenty.

Now we're getting into it real deep here, that, however, the impurity, the greed, the sensuality, the indulgence, that, however, just talking nasty because you felt mad, You talk nasty just because everybody else is so mean to each other. Now you're just mean to Now you're hardened because the bone that was broken didn't reset in the hands of the healer. And Paul says, that is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ. I don't care if everybody else does it. That is not

me now. Used to be yeah, but not now, somebody shout not now. God's done too much for me. Not now. I dropped out of church like for eighteen years, but not now. I used to think that it was more important to wash my car on Sunday than be in the house of God, but not now, because I need God to wash my soul every Sunday so I can go forward into my future uncontaminated. Whoa. There is power in the word of God, and there is permission in the Word of God to do it different. That is

not me. That is what I used to do. That is what all my friends have been doing. That is what I saw growing up. That is what was done to me. But why would I take what was done to me and carry it into the future that God has for me that stays there because this is my Then let me make a sandwich real quick. Verse fourteen says, then everybody shout. Then Verse twenty says that everybody say that.

So Verse fourteen speaks to a point of maturity where you say, I'm no longer just gonna be driven by circumstances. I'm no longer just gonna wake up and see how I feel and act like I feel. I'm no longer just gonna wake up and see what I think and follow my thoughts till they lead me right off the edge of the cliff. I'm no longer just gonna trust everybody who makes me feel good so I can get what I want in the moment. No more beans for birthright,

So God says, when will your then finally come? When will it be enough of you getting the same result from repeating the same behavior. When will your then come the DEI to grow up, the decision to come into communion with God, the decision to say, Lord, I want to put this brokenness in your hands, and then something pretty awesome happens. He said, that is not you. The moment you make a decision, then I'm growing up. Then

that no longer has control over you. That that it would get real uncomfortable if I started listing specific that's in the room, because the categories don't really don't really make you cringe. Impurity, creed lost, Oh yeah, I watched that Bernie Madoff documentary Creed. How about me always wanting more and never giving much? How about me always thinking somebody needs to encourage me? But who am I encouraging?

See how this works? That is not me. And I'm going to do a list next week that I'll give you where I'm gonna teach you the new me is not. And we're gonna list some of the things that you are not anymore if you name the name of Christ, and we're gonna wage war against those things because we've been accepting them too long as normal. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's normal. Watch this, that is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ.

When you heard about Christ. And so faith comes by hearing, right, how many know that scripture. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, but freedom comes by habit. That's why it is possible for you to know more about God than you are bringing into your current experience. That's why it's possible for you to drag around deficiencies and dysfunctions that Christ died to help you deal with, and then start justifying things that Jesus

wants to set you free from. Yeah, we're going to get free in some areas of our life this year. And if you don't want to get free this year, don't come here Furdic preach, because Furdic is trying to get free this year of some childlike behaviors that are coming around in a grown man's body. And I want to be less petty, less prideful. I want to be stable because I don't know what wind and waves has come in my way. So I want to be more a tuned to worship. I want to be more tuned

into the voice of God. I want to be like him say it. I want to be like him. Okay, you were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Y'all remember tricks or for kids from last week? I know you do. I know if you missed last week, you caught the podcast first opportunity, because no way you would miss a

sermon from the Word of God. You wouldn't do that and watch Netflix or Hulu, not you, Verse twenty three. This is the goal to be made new in the attitude of your minds, to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So now I'm looking at my humanity and I'm looking at God's holiness wholeness, changing me who I really am. And I'm making decisions daily about which one to choose.

You know, in this church, I think it can be said that you can bring somebody who is hurting, somebody who is addicted, somebody who is living in a lifestyle that is way far from what the Bible describes, and they will hear and feel that God loves them and that they are welcome, and that they can come back as many times as they want to come back, even if their life never changes. I hope you know that. I hope you know that. Doesn't matter how loud I yell.

I'm not mad at you. I'm not yelling because I'm angry. The thing that I'm angry at more than anything is the devastation that I see in the lives of people that I love because they are loyal to lifestyles that lead them to death. One time, a guy was kind of fussing at me very early in the church, where

he said, we don't preach about sin enough. And he might be right, because, honestly, like, if we really preached about all the sin that's represented in this room, y'all wouldn't make it to work Monday morning, and I could just do my own life and we could get at least a Tuesday. But what he said, now, this is interesting. Listen to this. He goes, I feel like when you preach about acceptance and grace and the love of God, when you do that, it gives people a license to sin.

Now I had heard that before, so I had to come back ready for it. I said, a license to sin. Most of the people that I preach to are doing just fine sinning without a license. I mean, what is sin an eighteen wheeler like you need a license to do it? What is sin? A single engine plane like you need a license? All of a sudden, what is sin? A like sin is hunting like you need a license to do it. You're doing just fine sinning without a license. As a matter of fact, you know what your sin

license was? Your birth certificate. You got here knowing how to be selfish. Everybody who doesn't agree that's your birth certificate is your sin license? Has it had children? Has it even looked at yourself? So what I wanted to say to the man is I appreciate where you're coming from. Understand that God has a standard. But I need people to know that the same God who gives the standard

will also give the strength. As long as I only tell you this is how you're sinning, As long as I only tell you this is how you're missing the mark, As long as I only tell you this is the fifteen ways that you could have been better yesterday. As long as all of our focus is on that, what do we do We continue in what we reinforce a license to sin. I never met a single person yet.

I've pastored all kinds of people, Southern people, northern people, black people, white people, men, women, old people, young people. I never met one that needed a license to be stingy. I mean, come on, like, over half the church doesn't tithe. Where's you're not tithed? Sense? Where do they give those out?

And even if we get past the big behaviors, like you get all these external things and all that, if we get down into the things that people don't see, like how sometimes you use your kids as a backdrop for the image that you want to present rather than raising them according to who they are. That's a sin and you don't need a license for it. In my experience, more often than not, people don't need a license to sin.

They need permission and power to quit. Now you never thought, and I never thought that a message would come from this pulpit called permission to quit. Because there's one thing I believe is you got to keep going. And I was so happy when it was pouring down rain when I came to church today because I was like, this is great the room I'm going to be preaching in the weather will be nice in other parts of the world of efemine that. But the people I'm preaching to

are the people who came anyway. I was so glad. I was like, this is the perfect message for these people because they know you don't just get to like not come to church because you might get wet going out to the car. Oh, that's a shower of blessing. God is bringing. The rain of the word of God is about to hit the seat of my potential. I'm

getting there'll be a seat today. I'm going might clear out all those complacent Christians, so only come once a month, you know, the type, get the get the real ones in here. But I really did I thought that because you hear, because you didn't quit. There was a period in our in our world where you couldn't come physically gather in church and you didn't quit. You watched online. Everybody was screaming in the background. You know, it wasn't a really good experience immersively for you to do it

that way. I mean, if you got to do it, do it. But now here you are sitting here and you don't get to quit because the Bible says, let us not give up the habit of meeting together as some are in the habit of doing so. I don't get to quit, not and live in victory. I don't get to quit. If you have the faith to say it, say I don't get to quit, and now put it right there in the comments. I don't get to quit on what God called me to do. I don't get

to Moses didn't. He didn't get to quit leading to people. Even though he wouldn't get to go in the Promised Land and eat grapes for them, he still had to appoint Joshua as the successor to the bitter end. You don't get to quit. Even if you don't get to do the thing that you thought you were going to get to do. You don't get to quit. You got to help somebody else do it. You don't get to quit. You still got to have Isaac. Even though your body

is as good as dead. The Bible said about Abraham, you still gotta try again, even though it's not what do they say, not as good as I once was, But I'm as good once as I ever was. You gotta go in and try try. You and Sarah got to try this again because God still gave you the seed. You don't get to quit, let me stay in this for a moment because it might be pivotal. You don't get to say, this is as much like Christ as I'm ever gonna be, This is as free as I'm

ever gonna be. You don't get to develop little systems and workarounds for all of the things that you know that God wants to work on in your life. You don't get to quit. What are you gonna do about it? Pastor I don't know, slash your tires, do something. I'm not just gonna stand up here and let you quit. I'm not I'm not gonna let you just quit on joy or I'm just melancholy. I took a personality toast in.

It took three personality tests. So if this your personality versus God's purpose, and God says you're something and you say no, I'm not, God is not wrong. Can we all agree that in the beginning was God, and God said, and it was so? If the God who before you got here said that it is, and that you were, and that you can and that you must. Did you

notice Paul's language that got me excited? He said, you must no longer live this way we never get to the new self because we kept saying, I might, I might. You're gonna join one of those groups. I might, You're gonna do that thing. I might You're gonna get I might, I might, I might, I might. How many mites are you gonna drown in before you get a must in your spirit that says, if none go with me, I still will follow. I must Why because God called me

to it. And if I don't do it, I'll be miserable, and then I'll self sabotage and I'll fall apart, and I'll take it out on people, and I'll spend stupid amounts of money trying to cover the fact that I quit on what God called me to do, and I'll dress up my failures in flesh and I'll call it success. But deep down inside, I'm just struggling with the same stuff with more money. I'm just struggling with the same

stuff in a little bit older body. I'm just struggling with the same stuff with the same friends who struggle with the same stuff. So we all get together and we pass it around and we smoke on it and we suck on it and we talk about it and we comfort each other. But it is not grace, because grace will give you, not only watch this the command to change. Grace will get up inside of you and give you the power to change, so that you can know that what you didn't do before, you could do

it now. Feeling in my spirit, right now you can quit. Wait, I thought you said I couldn't quit. Yeah, I'm saying, if God called you, you don't get to quit. But if it is keeping you from being what God called you as of this moment, somebody shout. Now, I'm not talking about last week. I'm not talking about in three years when it gets easier. I'm not talking about when we see about this recession. I'm not talking about anything

that's going to happen, anything that did happen. But right now, anything that is keeping you from being what God has called you to be, you have permission to quit. Like the neighbor who told joe y'all can't fish in this pond. Don't you see the thing? No fishing allow? But then the other neighbor, he also is on the pond. He said, tell us boys, they can fish anytime in my pond. It's my pond too. They can fish there. So you

can fish there because somebody gave you permission who owned property. Now, if the man the first man said you can't fish here, he was right because it's not your property. But when somebody who does own property adjacent to the pond gives you permission, This is why all of our attempts to change in our human strength are short lived, because we keep trying to do it in a place where we

don't own property. See until I come to Christ and really receive His power in my life and his spirit in my mortal body, I can't do it because I don't own that spot. So I keep trying to step up to it, and I fall short from it, and then I'm stuck in it. But God says, wait a minute, I have a piece of property. You're ready for this. When I went up a hill called cavalry, and when I establish the real estate of salvation in your heart, when I said this is my throne inside of you.

You need to understand that not only did I come to give you my presence, I came to give you permission. And what you couldn't do in the law, what you couldn't do in yourself, what you couldn't do in your past, what you couldn't do under the guard. Are you in the tutelage of the Law of Moses, God said, I'll do it for you. You You can lift your hands in here because I give you permission to praise me. I

give you permission to come boldly before the throne. You feel that God says, you can fish here, you can worship here, you can try again here, you can forgive here, you can move forward with your life. Here. Because I own this spot, you have permission to quit. And yet, the sad reality of the message that I'm preaching today is that most of us are more loyal to our old self than we are excited about our true self.

We really are were We still want to play Nintendo Sega Genesis and the Lawyer's got an Xbox twelve and I'm like, oh, know how to word that controls me? And I'm gonna play this Nintendo Now. The question I really came up here to ask you. I want you to talk about it to somebody today before the day is over. Are you more committed to your limits than you are to your potential? Are you more loyal or committed to your limits than you are to your potential?

Based on the way a lot of us speak and what shows up in our language, because our language will always be a great light detector to see things that we still say and how it affects the way that we think, and it leaks out in our language. So the moment that we begin to basically defend the way we've always been not acknowledge it, I think that's awesome. Hey, here's where I am, here's what it is, here's what

I did, here's what I learned. And there's a lot of healing in that, because, as I mentioned, when the bone is broken, if it grows back callous, then that's going to be worse than the end. So I am not talking about the fact that you don't acknowledge it, but a lot of us go far beyond acknowledging. We actually become advocates of our own weaknesses. I don't mean facing the fact that at five point four and forty seven years old, you're probably not going to play in

the NBA. I think that is a wonderful limitation for you to embrace in your life. I think your family will be happy and you will put food on the table by acknowledging certain limitations. That's why I didn't get on mates back when he came up here because I thought, oh no, I forgot he was hurt. Now, somebody over there was sending you up like a limb to the slaughter, trying to get you reinjured. But I'm your pastor. I care about you in that moment. Oh no, no, no,

this is not this is not wise. That's good. That's good. Every time I preach about permission to quit, somebody goes and gets a divorce. And I'm telling you, if God told you to march around the walls and not say a word, you got to walk around the walls again. If God told you to go check again and there's a cloud up there and you can't see it, you got to keep looking for it. That is not the advocation of a lack of persistence. But what I think happens to us is when it sounds real good, get

rid of the old self. It's much harder than it sounds, because the old self really helped me through a lot. My anger has been a good friend of me in certain situations. So to a bend in my anger and to choose in moments to be a peacemaker is so hot. To say good bye to yes today, let me see if I get a copyright strike. And to me, I know all the parts of that song. I know the feeling, I know the sentiment. I got stuff in my closet that I sing. That too is so hard, three holes

in the sweatshirt to say goodbye, so comfortable. And I don't know why we shadow all so much as we do over say goodbye to the old self. You know how painful that is to make a break with a way of life. In many ways, it feels like a betrayal of yourself to change. And now you're surrounded by a bunch of dummies and bluehorns that say, do you? Your husband doesn't have to know, do you? Do you?

Do you have any idea who you could become if you would make the decision in this moment to receive the permission of the holy ghost that lives inside of you, that was sent to help you and enable you to get up from what you've been staring at. And I read a quote that gripped me. The lady's name was Phipps. I don't know anything about this lady, but she said something so powerful. She said, if you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them who. I'm gonna send phips

an offering once I find out who she is. She's right. If you argue with your limitations, I just have a temper. Then you get to continue to burn through perfectly good relationships and keep the people in your life from loving you like they could because you have a temper. Oh man, I mean I just can't. The money's tight, I can't be generous. Well, the world of the generous gets larger and larger, the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

So you are shrinking yourself with every limitation you defend. Should I do a few more examples? All right, let me see what I can think of. I didn't plan this part out. I'm oh, oh, you know I'm not. I'm not a vocal person, so you know I'm not going to speak up about this. You know I'm not going to say anything about this. So now you're just going to suffer in silence till you eventually just explode. And it's going to be way worse than if you learn how to say, hey, I need help. I love

it when we get creative about defending our deficiencies. If you would reinvest the creativity that you put into the offending what you can't do, and if you would reinvest that you could be the next Walt Disney. As creative as you are, you invent limitations that aren't even there, limitations that might be, limitations that could possibly who might not possibly like you. Well, I would go, but you know there's probably gonna be already somebody there as even happy.

Yet we used to tell my oldest son Elijah all the time something that everybody told me they'd go. You ought to be a lawyer one day. As much as you love to argue, And I have a lot of friends in the church now that are lawyers, and they don't stand in court and argue all day long. So I now know there was a flawed philosophy that if

you like to argue, you should be a lawyer. But you know what, when it comes to the limitations in your life, some of you ought to be a lawyer, because not only will you argue with people when they try to tell you can do better, not only will you argue with the evidence in your life that you can overcome and keep on going back, you will argue with Almighty God about who you are. He will send signs and signals to you that there is more in you, and he will show you things that you can do.

And you get up in the face of God tell me about well I can and I didn't and they didn't. And you are a defense attorney for your limitations. And if you argue for those limitations, you get to live in them. See y'all next week or I'm almost done. You'll help me get this thing home. You'll help me get this thing home, or I'm gonna finish the quote. I don't know how what Phips said next, but I know what I want to say next. From the Bible. You're ready. First part was Phipps. Next part is Verdict

Part one. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them, but if you agree with God about your potential, you get to outgrow them. Come on, it is supposed to be my rainy day crowd that knows how to shout over a good point. If you get with God and say, I see what the situation is trying to say about me. I see what my past has been so far, and I know that the patterns of my past suggest that I will never be more than this. And I know the last January, I was

sitting in church feeling ambitious too. And I know that this has happened so many times in my life that I feel like I'm a slave to it. But now I am making a decision in this moment to take off everything that God did not put on me, to strip it away. Now. I'm not going to just get to do this once. I'm not just gonna get to do this one time. Okay, God old self is God. No, Paul says, every day, Hey, you wake up every time you feel it, come back, every time that limitation squeezes

you. You You know the limitation I'm talking about. You know the thing you think I can't help it. I just always do it. I'm always gonna do it. I can't be that kind of person when that comes. Instead of arguing with God, who says, I've given you my grace, my power, it's more than enough, try just agreeing with them. All right. Maybe you think I do have what it takes and that's why you put me in this situation, or be like the spies and the Book of Numbers.

We can't go in. We're too small. We're like grasshoppers. They're bigger than us and guess what they got. They had a grasshopper self image and they lived in a grasshopper situation for forty years. Because if you argue with your limitations, you challenge them, you get to see what God can do. But if you argue for your limitations, do you do this? Do you ever do this? Do you defend what you cannot become before a God who

has said you already are that. It reminded me when they found a woman in john A, and I didn't know why the scripture came to my mind, but I thought about that man who said, you're giving them a license to sin, and I'm like, oh, lord, man, I don't need a license to sin. I need power to change you feel that way. And I really don't need anybody throwing rocks at me for something that I'm already beating the crap out of myself about while I'm at it.

And Jesus was you can look this up later. He was teaching one day in john A and they dragged this woman to him and they're like, we caught her in the act of adultery. First of all, your creeps, how did you second? Last time I checked adultery. It's two people where is he? And now Jesus has to make a decision because the Law of Moses says stoner and they got their rocks ready. Now, maybe you don't feel like anybody is throwing rocks at you. Maybe you do.

A lot of times we victimize ourselves of other people who are thinking this about us, and they're not thinking about us. They're thinking about lunch. The main thing that set me free in preaching was realizing, no matter how good or bad I do, all you're thinking about is Chipotle five minutes after I'm done. But see, it's not really those people you have to worry about, is it. It's the stones that you throw at yourself. And so now I'm confused because I think this preacher is telling

me do better. I'm gonna God's gonna no, no, no, I didn't say any of that. The people Paul was talking to an Ephesians were already saved, but their situation didn't reflect their new self, so they wanted better for them. And this woman is standing there with her clothes torn, no doubt, and dusty from being dragged through the streets, and very well aware of what she did, with no defense to give. She was caught in the act of adultre So Jesus makes this move that I think reflects

everything I've been trying to talk to you about. Where he starts riding in the dirt, and you know, I kind of think he's going back to where we came from to begin with, to remind us that he knows that we come from the dirt. And whatever he wrote in the dirt, it must have been really, really weird, because the Bible doesn't say, but he made a statement, let the one who is without sin throw the first

rock at this woman, and then he starts writing. Now, it has been suggested, although it cannot be proven, that maybe he was writing their names and listing certain stuff that they did that maybe they don't want to get caught in. And maybe it wasn't the fact that they didn't sind Maybe they just didn't get caught. So now self righteousness has no place, because we got a God who's writing in the dirt with the only hands that never sinned, and he's showing us something about heaven touching

humanity and whatever he wrote. The Bible says that they begin to leave one by one. You ready for this, The oldest one left first. They left in order of how long they had had to screw up their lives. Oh God, he's writing that about her. Got to get out of here right now. How would he even know that? It's like he's God. But whatever he wrote is not what I want to leave you with today. I want to leave you with what he did in verse ten,

this is so beautiful play. Jesus straightened up and asked the woman, because they're all gone now, all the rocks are lying there in the presence of the only righteous one. And he asked her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? And verse eleven touched me because she said, no one, sir, And he said, then, neither do I condemn you. But I do want to change you. That's the gospel. Man. I don't know how to give it to you any plainer than this. I don't condemn you.

There's no rock in my hand, but there is healing there. You want to be different, you can watch this. I know how we read the Bible. We read it in the wrong tone. We read it like this angry God that we were taught about that isn't really who he is. We read it from the wrong mountain, like the mountain mount SINAI. We don't read it from Mount Calvary, where Jesus purchased her life with his blood and said, you can be forgiven, you can be healed, you can be classed,

you can have a future. You can have a new beginning. He said, I don't condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin. They wanted to give her punishment. He wanted to give her permission. Stand to your feet. God sent you this word to give you permission. Go now and leave your life of sin for the sinless one. His name is Jesus has given you a new identity and longs to give you a new beginning. You know what,

you keep saying, But God is too late. Now Are you really going to argue with him when he says I've given you a hope in a future. You think he didn't know how much time it would take for you to get to this point. That God who made you? Are you really going to argue with the God who created you to be like him? Or would you agree with him for a moment that maybe I am who God says I am. Maybe I'm not what I did.

Maybe I'm more than the sum total of my behaviors and my personality traits and my genetics and what I saw model. Maybe I'm wrong and God's not. Maybe all I am is not an alcoholic. Maybe the third relapse wasn't the last time I need to try it. Maybe I'm not always going to suffer from this chronic anxiety. Maybe I'm going to learn a more peaceful way to live. Maybe I'm not going to die alone. Maybe I will

love again. Maybe I will make a difference. Maybe I will set a better example and be there for my son. Whatever he's speaking, I bring you into agreement. Now agree with him. That's the first step, just to agree with God. That's even what the word amen means, y'all. It doesn't mean that's good preaching. It means I agree. So be it. If you see it, so be it. God. If you say it, oh be it. If you call me it, so be it. And if you don't, I'm making a break today, even if it takes me the rest of

my life to live in this freedom. Every day of my life. Just like I put on new socks every day of my life, just like I put on a new shirt every day of my life, just like I put on my shoes, I am committed to follow you in the light of life, for you are the light of the world. Go now and sin no more. Go now and sin no more. It's gonna be different, it's gonna be difficult. But don't give yourself over to a way of life that is leading you to death when

the author of life is calling you to live. Jesus, I bring your people before your feet today, where there is no rocks to throw, Oh, only righteousness to receive. Heads about, eyes close. The spirit of the Lord is working in someone's life in this moment. To give your life to Jesus. You have never really given him your life. You went to church when you were little, you heard the gospel, you know some songs about it. You may have even at one time been in a better place,

but you've never really given him you. Well, this is your moment. This is your permission to stop living for yourself and live for him. Stop trusting in your own righteousness and trust in his. To stop trying to achieve it, and receive it by grace with heads bowed and eyes closed. At every location, if you hear that tender voice of love, that's the voice of Jesus saying where are your accusers? I don't condemn you, but I want to change you. In this moment, you and God is calling you. I

want to lead you in a prayer. This prayer is not a magic trick. It's an expression of your heart to God. For the Bible says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It is by grace. We are saved through faith. It's not of work, so that no one can boast.

It is the gift of God. Right now, if you're ready to give your life to Jesus online at a campus right here at Valentine, I want you to repeat this after me, our church family, repeat this out loud for the benefit of those who are coming to God, Heavenly Father. I am a sinner in need of a savior, and today I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life.

This is my new beginning. If you just pray that on the count of three, shoots your hand up one, two, three, all over the room, all over the room, in the chat right now online our intam come on, lift it up. Don't be a shame, don't be a same. Well, if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple of 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.