Pressure Points

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 you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. I want to continue to look at something from Paul's life this week, and I want to talk to you for a few moments about pressure points. This message is only if you've been experiencing some stress, or maybe a considerable amount of uncertainty about some things, or life has seemed a little too much for you.

That's the only people that's going to bless today. So if you need to.

Leave now because that's not applicable to you.

Feel free.

But the rest of us we're going to go over to Second Corinthians chapter four. I think I want to do verse five. Yeah, I think I gave you verse five. I was trying to decide how much to read. You understand, that's the issue you. Every week is all so good and I want to eat it all, but I know you can only digest so much, and so I want to talk about pressure points. But let's kind of get into it. Here from Tewod Corinthians four or five, where Paul is talking to a church that he has authority

For Jesus's sake.

For God, who said let the light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in.

Jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard press on every side, but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not a band and touch.

Somebody say, I'm not alone. I'm never alone.

So if you want to roll up on me, you need to know before you start anything.

I got angels all around me. I've got a great God down deep.

Get back to the scripture for Nick, where was I Yeah, not abandoned, not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body good un too verse sixteen.

Therefore we do not lose heart.

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. Four our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all. I can tell we're going to have church today because you won't even let me read my scripture.

Look how excited you are.

About the glory of God being revealed in your life.

So last verse I'm going to read for now.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. And you kind of get a different picture here of Paul than you got last week, because last week we were hearing Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts, describe what Paul did. But this is not someone describing what Paul did. This is Paul describing how he felt. And the tour really different.

Need her in my life.

But she just does make it, just makes it look easy. Touch somebody say you make it look too easy. Sometimes I think you don't even need faith because you just got it.

And it makes me feel bad about.

Myself because I look at you and it looks easy. That's why I hate working out with Buck makes it look easy.

And I get under that same weight.

And he got twelve of them and I'm on number two, crushing my sternum. But since you asked me for some parenting advice, let me get some parenting advice. Actually it's kind of life advice. I don't think I ever told you, Holly, what Eric Ferrell told me. Eric Ferrell is pastor in Virginia, and so I have a lot of ministry advice filed away in my mind because I've been preparing for ministry since I was young, because I thought.

This is what I was supposed to do.

So I took a lot of opportunities at a young age to ask people, Hey, tell me one piece of advice. You know, if there's only one thing you could tell me, and so I was kind of trying to get ready for it and prepare for the pressure of ministry. And nothing can really prepare you for it, but you know, maybe somebody can tell you something that you can.

Hold on to. Well.

Eric Ferrell was kind enough he invited me into his church. And this was right around the time that Elevation Church was starting. Elijah was a baby, and I asked him, what do I need to know to make it.

He's been in the same church for thirty years.

I thought he could probably give me a little bit of insight on how to make it for the long term, which.

Is the goal.

He goes, and he's a real fast talker, real fast talker guy.

He goes, pressure.

Management is all pressure management. You gotta manage the pressure, you know, manage the pressure. You go off and you know ruin your life and manage pressure. You managed pressure, And I said, how do you manage He said pressure?

He goes play and I thought I heard him wrong.

Because I heard play, But I thought, sure, he probably said, pray. That's what we tell you to do, you know, just pray about everything makes everything better when you pray. And we're gonna tell you sometimes your mind is so scrambled that you can't even figure out.

What to pray. We don't talk about that. Just pray. But he didn't say pray. He said play. He said play.

You gotta play, he said, especially with your kids. He said, when your kids get a little older. When you get home, he said, this is what saved my life. That's what kept me from having an affair of this is what kept me from running off shooting one.

Of the deacons. He said.

He said, every day when I got home, no matter how bad the day had been, I just got down on that floor and played with my kids. He said, So do that. He said, when you don't feel like I do it. In five minutes into it, you feel like it. And I took his advice. I have I play with my kids. I think that's really my only hobby in life is torture.

I mean playing with say that I love the most recent game that I made up. I'm gonna do this with with you, JT. So I'm gonna just just sit there.

I play games with them that involve pressure and and and Holly. Holly has to leave the room because these games can get aggressive and for different parts of their body. It all started with the calf muscle. And this is now I'm gonna tell you the names of these things. And I won't spend long because I know they came to hear a Bible study. But just so you can respect my creative parenting, it started off with this move

I don't know how. I don't know Alabama Creamshaw.

Then me and the boys were going to Liberty University, so that's in Lynchburg, Virginia. So we've been at the Lynchburg like squeeze. By the way, if you ever think about sitting in the front row at Valentine, you need to know this is like the splash zone.

At Sea World, and you gotta be willing to participate. If you come over here. You fell. That pressure feels good, doesn't it.

We got the h the Pennsylvania poke, the Pittsburgh pinch. WHOA, there's some other ones. I'm not going to do I'm not going to do the Boston, but Chicago shoulder right there, right there feels kind of good. So here's what Grandma always will dude, before I get started, He'll go, He'll go, wait a minute, what level are you going to do this on?

What level? What level of pressure?

Because I need to know before I submit myself. Have you ever wanted to ask God before I do this? Before I trust you on this.

What.

Level of pressure is it going to involve?

And the truth be told, if some of you would have known the level of pressure that came along with parenting, you would have stay celibate, because, hey, you prayed for the baby, but along with the baby came the pressure.

Write this down.

With privilege comes pressure, And sometimes I see people who want certain privileges but don't welcome the pressure that comes with the privilege. When we see Paul and Second Corinthians, we are getting a picture of a minister and a man who is.

At that point.

Have you ever been at that point of pressure where it feels like something is unraveling on the inside of you. I don't necessarily mean it's a clinical breakdown, but Paul is under pressure, he says, from every side let's read it again in verse eight, because I think it describes something that maybe you've experienced, maybe not on Paul's level, because there's levels to it. But one thing that I

Felt so great.

Paul said, we are hard pressed on every side, and that means it was all of the areas at once, all at once.

And I believe that.

The times in our life when we are able to pick our battles and focus our concentration, generally most of us are able to stand up under pressure if it is coming from one directions.

When I can't find any relief.

On any side, Sometimes when I preach, I'll be preaching to one side and and and then I'll turn to another side, and then I'll turn to another side to see is this helping anybody? And if I can't find any love in the middle, on the right, on the left, sometimes I just turn around and look at LJ because.

I pay him to look happy.

But Paul says it was coming at us from every side.

And so Paul did that.

And then when Paul got to the shore, he gets bit by a snake.

Remember did anybody listen to the message?

And watch how cool and calm and collected Paul was on the shore of Malta. The snake didn't even seem to bother him. He didn't rebuke the snake. He didn't cry out to God, he didn't in the name of Jesus plead the blood of Christ the lamb. He just shook it all so cool. Don't you admire people who are like that? By the way, don't you hate people who are like that? By the way, Just people who never get rattled, Just people who nothing bothers them, Just

I was there.

Paul just shook the snake off and in the fire, it was amazing. And they thought he was gonna die, and he didn't die, and he just stood there and they thought he was gonna swell up, but didn't even say anything. And he just stood there. And then he went to Publias's house and he started healing everybody, and it was amazing. And then Paul went to Rome and he lived in a rented house for two years, and and and and Paul says, way, man, women, it wasn't that easy on the inside.

Because what you saw.

Was what I did, But you did not see the doubts that I had.

While I was doing it.

You make it look so easy sometimes that nobody even knows that you need to be encouraged because you just.

You just do that. You just do it.

You just pay the bills, you just smile at people, you just dress well. You just walk strong and walk tall and walk proud. But on the inside, Paul said, I was so pressured. I couldn't find relief on the right, on the left, in the middle, I looked top, I looked down, I looked all around. I couldn't find a companion. I couldn't find a helper. But I didn't die at the pressure. Fore pressure but not crushed. So they have sayings that they put out, sayings that they put out

Some of the things you do under pressure.

Pressure, I don't think. I don't think God wants to prevent pressure in our lives. Though, I think, let's read it again. I think there's a point to the pressure, and maybe today you have come to that point. Paul describes it. He said, in verse ten, we carry around in our body the death of Jesus.

It means that I feel like I'm dying inside. That's the kind of pressure.

That Paul snake shaker, Paul shipwreck survivor Paul, he says earlier.

In his ministry, he says, there was so much pressure, I thought I was dying.

And he says that I was hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. Now, I always heard people shout about that verse, but realize that it's not automatic.

You know.

When I read that.

Verse, some people are like, yeah, hard pressed but not crushed. But that verse suggests that pressure can crush you.

Oh yeah, I've met so many.

People that let the pressure I'm thinking of, Like I had a friend whose family had a recycling plant and you'd see the cans just crushed into these cubes. I have seen people crushed into cubes and melded into a little bit of nothing and sent away, and their dreams deferred and their.

Hope crushed because pressure.

So before you shout I'm pressed, but not crushed, realize that if you don't know what to do with the pressure, it will crush you. If you don't know what to do with the snake, poison will kill you. I'm pressed, Paul said, but I'm not crushed. I'm perplexed. That's mental pressure, but not in despair. I'm persecuted. That's pressure from other people, but not abandoned. I'm struck down, but not destroyed.

Not see a contrast.

It is the contrast between what is pushing on Paul and what is pushing in Paul. Can I preach a little bit. I'm gonna help you today because your pressure is trying to point to something, and so many times in my life, listen, I'll help you. So many times in my life. The reason that I was under pressure is because I was full of pride. He said, we have this power, this treasure in earthen vessels or vessels of clay, an ordinary vessel, and it's an extraordinary power.

I'm just the pot I'm not the power.

And sometimes I get so burdened because I put the weight of the world on my shoulders and carry across that I'm not strong enough to carry that has already been married for me.

So I'm under pressure.

Sometimes because I'm full of pride.

And sometimes not all the time.

Pressure comes into your life not because of what you're handling, but because of how.

You're handling it.

You forgot your.

Source and you lose your strength. Pressure.

Pressure sometimes points to pride in your life.

Thank you so much, God gave it to me.

I can't preach anything God doesn't give to me. And God gave this to me. And you know, and I think that way is so much easier to preach.

I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna help you today. If I don't help.

If I help three people, email me email me three people at Elevation Church dot org.

Three people that I help today.

If you're one of the three it's gonna be email dress three people at Elevation Church dot org. I'm gonna help three people today who are under pressure, because when pressure comes, some of us begin to perform to a standard that we have projected.

That isn't even true to our purpose. I saw it like this.

I can't say it again, Mom, I don't even know what I said.

I hope you wrote it down. My mom says, say it again. I can.

I don't know what I said. It just came out, but maybe I could illustrate. You know, I've been preaching a lot in the last year about the gap. I've been preaching this message really all over the all over the country, all over the world. I guess about the gap, and it's the gap between where I am and where I want to be, where I am and where I.

Used to be. And I've kind of been defining it.

I think I'm going to keep preaching it because it continues to speak to me that there are two gaps in my life. One is for my gratitude and one is for my growth.

Got it.

One is how far I've come. Look back makes me grateful. Can't stay there too long, though, because I got to grower. I die. But this week I was seeing a different gap in my mind, and it's the pressure gap. It's the pressure gap.

Again.

I'm not saying that all pressure is bad, but there is a type of pressure that is rooted in pride and manifest in performance.

And this is it. This is the gap.

Between who I think I need to be and who I believe I really am. Stay right there with me, because when you think you need to be something that you secretly believe you are not, the pressure is crushing.

When you secretly believe.

That you need to have an ability, that you need to have a strength, when you secretly think this is what I do all the time? Okay, therapy session bill me. Holly says, I do it. She says that I got it from my dad. He's not here anymore, so he can't defend himself. So we talk about this genetic stuff all the time.

But my mom is perfect. She's right over there in the front row, she says.

Holly says, you gotta quit drawing thought bubbles on other people. She says, you project expectations on people that they don't even have of you, and you disappoint imaginary expectations that don't even really exist.

Can you believe my wife would talk to me like this. She didn't read.

That verse about submit woman, that Bible verse.

But she's right, it's just right. I do it all the time.

And then guess what I do because of the pressure. I'll start blowing up and exploding at people with frustration because of projection of expectations.

That they didn't even have.

So now I'm mat on the inside and I'm walking around.

With all this combustible pressure. What do you want from me? And people are like nothing.

Man, One time I was getting up to preach and when actually it was when the podium comes up. We have some traditions here at elevation chirts that people come. My little pulpit comes out, like write at a certain moment during a certain song. It's just little things we do because it has to get out here at some time.

So we just put it out there right then.

And they were carrying the pulpit out and I felt this weird pressure to perform. And God spoke to me, when you were sixteen, did I call you to be a performer? And the moment I realized that I was projecting an expectation that was not from the heart of God, the pressure left the building and I was free to preach. But it was right when that pulpit was coming out and they were doing the last song and Chris was hitting the high note, and it was a pressure point.

I didn't show you that one. Pressure points, those points, those those things.

And I'm asking the question today, Could it be that your pressure is trying to point you to a higher power. The enemy will always point to what you don't have, what you can't be, what you can't do. But when he does point back, when pressure points, point back, I want you to point at your neighbor's face, put your finger right in front of their nose, and tell them you need this message. Tell them point back, point back.

Their finger in his face. Who do you think you are.

Preaching that circumcision is of no avail and it is a new creation in Christ's accounts. I see a church pointing their finger in the face of Paul But what's what point Paul does when they're.

Pointing their finger.

You know those you know those things, those those points, you know, those.

Those things the devil uses to.

Make you feel smaller than and less than and not enough for and.

Never enough for and never gonna be. And you never were, and your.

Mama wasn't and your daddy wasn't and you can't be either. When he points point back, I have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency.

Of the power might be proven to me from God and not from me. That's how you turn.

Pressure into power, pressure into power. Pressure whanted somebody say pressure into power, pressure into power. So Paul says, we were pressed but not crushed. Maybe he has in mind here the garden of Getsemone, you know, the place where the Savior knelt down, all alone but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed, headed to the cross, but the joy set before him enabled him to endure it. The

In a place called cat semony. Get semony means olive press. And the world's greatest power.

Came from the Savior's greatest pressure.

And whatever you're going through today, I came with an announcement.

Paul said, we have this treasure, but.

You don't even know what you have until you're under pressure. Pressure points. Pressure points. Pressure comes to call you out and to know do you really trust God? The devil got up in God's station and said, let me put some pressure on job and let's see what's really in him. Because you claim to be an orange, but you might be a lemon, and I won't know to I squeeze you. You might just be painted a certain color. Let me find out what's inside by pressure.

Pressure proves whether you really believe the promise.

So I want to read the scripture again pressure points. Paul has reached that point. Have you ever been at that point? Is Paul the only one? Are you more spiritual than Paul? Where nothing ever pressured you to the point where you wondered would you make it?

So Paul says, the pressure came verse seven to show.

That's what it came for. You put verse seven on the screen, please. The pressure came to show, to reveal, to point out that this power, this all surpassing power, this great power that raised Christ from the grave, can only be proven.

After the pressure is applied. So the pressure shows me that it's not about me.

You know how they say God will never put more on you than you can bear. That's not true. That is a Bible verse, but it's out of context. It's talking about temptation as talking about God is not the author of evil. But they can't fit all that on a bumper sticker, so they just put God won't put on any more on you than you can bear. It sounds thatter on pinterest, but that's not what the verse means.

That was yours all along. You've been under pressure.

Good, The pressure came to show you where your power came from.

No pressure, no pressure, no pressure.

If you're not under pressure, you're only going to have the power that you have.

But the pressure came to show you power.

And provision that you could not have accessed any other way.

How many get some out of this? Make some noise now, he says, therefore.

Verse sixteen, because we know that pressure produces power. Because we know that what is coming at me is not greater than what lives within me.

Because we know that. Somebody say, I already know.

All pressure, all press, press pressure, pre sure, because I am pre sure. God said you gotta fight pressure with pre sure you got You've got to know some things so deeply in your Therefore.

We do not lose heart.

Though outwardly it doesn't look very good we are wasting away.

I'm not crushed.

Yet inwardly I got something on the inside greater than whatever surrounds me on the outside. We are being renewed day by day four our light and momentary pressure troubles, trials, teenagers, bills, aches, pains.

Yes, I'm not gonna lie. Some people here are under horrendous pressure. I'm not minimizing it.

I'm just saying that a certainty of what I'm about to share with you next that Paul. This is what Paul knew that he could only learn under pressure. He said, I've learned because of what I've been through, and I've learned because of what God has done for me. I have learned that my light and momentary troubles are achieving for me an eternal glory.

So the pressure that I'm under right now.

Is pointing to a glory that is going to be so much greater.

How many believe the glory that is on the.

Other side, It's gonna be so much greater.

What God is.

Doing through my life in this season of pressure. I'm gonna be stronger. I'm gonna be stable. I'm gonna be steady.

Next time. I know how to sake it off. Next time, I know how to walk right through it. Next time, I know how to spend.

The night in the fiery furnace and come out.

Without the smell of smoke on my clothes.

Who is this for?

You've been under pressure. The pressure has been pointing to your end. But God says, I'm putting.

A glory for the joy set before him in tore the.

Crow despising his share.

The glory of the Lord is released and the power of God is released through the pressure.

I'm telling you right now, I know what it feels like to feel like there's no way out. I know what it feels like to feel like there's no way of escape. But when you can't find a way out, that's when God makes a way in.

He's coming in to spend the night with you. He's right there with you. In the pressure. I'm pushing to somebody.

And I'm pointing toward glory. I'm pointing toward glory. The enemy will point toward your shame, your failure, your weakness, Paul said, I'm pointing.

To glory. I'm pointing to glory. Come on, let's practice when you get under pressure this week. What you're gonna do, What you're gonna do.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, seeing that what the promise of God and the presence of God does in my life, it does what they learned how to do to the airplane, because if they didn't learn how to pressurize the cabin of the airplane, we couldn't.

Make it to thirty thousand feet.

Because our bodies were designed to breathe at sea level. But our minds conceived something that could fly in an atmosphere that we could not retain consciousness in. And that's why the cabin had to be pressurized. Why I come to the word of God is to pressurize my spirit with the promises of God, because I have this treasure in earth and vessels, and the pressure is too great for me, and my humanity cannot bear the weight of the glory of God, because I'm.

Made of dust, and to the dust I will return.

And I am weak, and I am poor, and I am broken, and without him I can do nothing. But when I get my spirit pressurized, touch somebody say, I'm pressurized when I get into the presence of God, and I am reminded that these light and momentary afflictions are not worthy to be compared with the cool I can go higher. And Paul said, I made it through it because I got above it.

Lift your hands in the presence of the Lawyer on your feet now for everybody who's under pressure.

This message came to you just at this time to reveal to you what the pressure is for, to show that this all surpassing power, power, the raised Christ from the dead, power, this book the world's into existence, power that makes winds.

And waves still with one word. This all surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Are you at the point where you realize.

That you can't carry the weight of your calling.

Are you at the point where you realize that you don't have the wisdom you need to guide your life by your own intuition and decisions? Have you come to that point. We're on the right and on the left, to the north and to the south. All you see is pressure all around you. The word of the Lord this day is that what is within you is greater than what's around you.

And God brought you into his presence this.

Day to pressure eyes your resolve with the promises of God. Lift your hands to heaven. See that that's how we point back. When the enemy is pointing at everything that I'm not, I lift my hands to point to all that God is. Come on in this place, begin to clap your hands and praise God. Praise points back. Praise points back. Praise points back. When you give him the praise, he gives.

You his peace. Praise points back. Come on, give him the praise. If you know the power, the power of God is operative in your situation. Pressure points.

Father, Today, I want to pray very specifically for someone who has never surrendered their life to you, someone who has never made the decision to give you complete control, someone who has been carrying the weight and the shame of their sin and never received your grace. Heads bowed, eyes close. Spirit of the Lord is in this place, and I want to pray a prayer right now for those who are far away from God in your heart today. The truth of the matter is, he's never far from you.

That's it.

Scripture says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

You will be safe.

So I want to give you that opportunity right now.

So I've been living my life on my own terms.

I've been carrying the weight of my life on my own and right now I want to invite God to be the center of my life and receive the mercy of Jesus Christ.

I want to pray with you.

We're gonna pray as a church family out loud for the benefit of those who are coming to God at all of our campuses. Let's pray out loud, Heavenly Father, I come to you a sinner in need of a savior, and today I confess that Jesus Christ is my savior. And Lord, I believe he died to forgive my sin and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life. Come into my heart, make me new. This is my new beginning. Had still vowed, eyes still closed.

One, two, three. I want to celebrate with you. I see you, man, We'll see you guys on every location. God bless you, God bless you. Come on, let's celebrate church. Put those hands together.

Give God some grace for what he's doing in this place, for his great grace, for his awesome love, for his great grace, for his awesome love.

Come on, thank something seeing.

Let's celebrate the precessome don see.

Yes see. Thank you for joining us.

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