Hey, this is Stephen Ferdik.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast and 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.
We are very excited about what God is speaking to us in this new series. The series is called Gates of Change, and we started last week just taking responsibility for our own relationship with God. And we made a decision that we will not be perfect this year, but we will be present.
We will be present, and we will show up.
We will show up for the celebrations and the struggles, and we will take our seat in the gate. And what we're saying is we're going to be where we belong this year. And so touch your neighbors, say I'm back. I am back. I'm really excited to share the scripture with you today that I ended on from Isaiah twenty eight Versus five and six. This is where I stopped last week, and I want to pick up your very
powerful Old Testament prophecy. In that day, the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people. He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. Only two scriptures, so I like to repeat it again, because we have plenty of time in that day. The Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful
wreath for the remnant of his people. He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. Look at your neighbors, say, save your strength. I want to speak to you today about save your strength for the battles that really matter. To have a prioritize life so that you don't waste time chasing down stuff that ought to be running from you.
Just save your energy for your real.
Life instead of your imaginary battles that you may not ever even have to fight, but the devil wants to keep you up all night with so you're sleepy when you go to work the next morning.
Save your strength for.
The relationships that God wants you to invest in, so you don't keep going back to people who'll continue to abuse you in ways that you should have seen coming.
Save your strength, so you don't.
Do in the flesh what can only be done by might, empower and the spirit of the Lord. Save your strength. And some of you are behind. You missed last week, so I told them, catch everybody up.
In ninety seconds.
Sit down, let's go to the movies real quick, and I'll start this second installment. The greatest trouble in David's life came when he became passive, or you might say disengaged. I don't think there's ever been a time in the world where we've been more engaged on the surface and more disengaged in our souls. I'm disengaged, not because I don't care, but just because I'm afraid I don't know if I have what it takes.
David was shaken.
And everything changed for David when he did something so simple.
The King got up, left his chamber and took his seat in the gate.
And with the end of becaus, with his accusations and his excuses. I want you to look him square in the eye before the year even gets started, good and tell him, devil, this seat is taken. This is the place of responsibility. This is the place of owning your story.
But it begins with the decision for you to take your place in the game.
And we're going to start getting intentional about our thoughts so that we win the battle between.
The gates.
I thought i'd started my sermon where I ended it last time, you know, I thought I would take a moment and just illustrate how sometimes where something shows up is not where it started.
At.
This sermon that you here today came from a note that I made last year, And sometimes where something shows up is and where it starts. By the time you hear the sermon, it's already been hopefully in the process of me thinking about it for a long time, because I don't want to just think of something Saturday and say it on Sunday. I even realized that about about
your life, like you. You showed up today and I'll see you, but I don't really see what it took for you to get here, or you know, what is affecting your mind.
As I preach, sometimes people will say that's the best sermon you ever preached. I'll say, that's just the best you ever listened, Wasn't they good? But the sermon starts before it starts.
I always tell the parking team like, hey, help me out when people are coming in. Smile at them, wave at them, put them in a good mood. It'll make my job easier. Because the sermon starts before it starts. It starts before it starts, it starts checking in your kids, or starts. So make sure make sure that you get as good of a start as possible. And this time
of year, we're so focused on new beginnings. But the law longer you live, the less you really believe in new beginnings, and the cliches don't really comfort you in the same way or inspire you at the same level anymore. Knew you No, no, I didn't grow three inches Yeah, see me. You can't really get a new start to your story. What you can do is change the ending. And the only real way for you to affect the ending.
Is to understand the starting place.
It is very important that we understand the scripture that I read in the context of the times, because there would have been an outside gate, the outer wall of the city, with a gate for entrance and inner gate as a line of defense, and then this space between the gate where justice was supposed to be served negotiations happened. People would buy and sell, and that was the space between the gates, where the negotiations of life and the deliberations took place.
Between the gates.
We're talking in this series about that space between the gates, the realm of your decisions, the realm of your thought process, the space between what you see with your eyes and what you do in your life, what you hear with your ears, and how you act when you go home.
That's space. That's where the battle is won and lost.
Now, by the time the battle is one, there has already been significant work done. Nobody wins the Olympics at the race. They won the Olympics in the dark at four thirty. Where their success showed up is not where their success started. And usually if you see an issue in somebody's life, where it showed up is not where it started.
It's the same with victories that it is with defeat.
I told a story last week about my dad, and the reason I like to tell so many stories about my dad is because he's not here to correct them. I can tell him how I want to tell him. The one I told him about him last week him made him sound kind of bad, but I thought I would tell a good one about him. Now, my dad was a good dad, especially if you compare him to the standard that he didn't have a dad to show him how to do it, and he was making it up when he was doing it. He was just kind
of he was winging it. And I have mad respect for that, because it's hard enough to be a dad when you've seen a dad.
But he had to make it up.
And so some of his tactics were not FDA approved. Some of his tactics were kind of street tactics. One time I told my mom I wanted to kill him. Yeah, my finest moment, I'll kill him.
I want to kill him.
And when he picked me up from school that day early dismissed picked me up from school and said he had two guns in the back of the truck. I was going to get one and he was going to get one because he heard I wanted to kill him and if I didn't shoot, he was going to. I mean, that is not necessarily the type of parenting you hear about. I'm focused on the family. But he's done the best
he could and he didn't actually do it. He let me cry for ten minutes and think that he was going to do it, but I never said it again. One of his finest moments, though I don't know where he got the idea to do this, was when he began to talk to me about addiction. He began to talk to me about addiction because his father committed suicide
and had been a very mean drunk. His father's father had been an alcoholic, and somewhere along the line, he made the decision that I can't go back and rewrite how this story started in our bloodline, but I'm going to impart a vision to my son so that he might be the one to write a different ending.
You can't create a new beginning, but you can write a new ending.
That's what I'm trying to say. You can't change who wasn't there for you, but you can write a new ending. And maybe we should start this year not as an expectation of new beginnings, but new endings that from this point forward, I said, From this point forward, Paul said, I pressed toward the mark. This one thing I do forgetting what is behind me. There is no strength in what's behind me.
I stretched toward what's ahead. I saw my dad.
He would pull me aside even from like a really young age, like I was eight years old, and he would pull me aside and start talking to me about the dangers of alcoholism. Eight years old and he would tell me my.
Dad was a drunk, and his dad was a drunk, and his dad was drunk. He said, you could be the first verdict. It wasn't an alcoholic. He put it out there like a challenge to me, like you could go to the moon. You could be the first verdict. I kind of liked that. I was only eight.
I was, hey, I don't know what he thought the kids would bringing to school.
Juice boxes, Like what temptation he thought. I was under. You could be the first verdict. And it got through to me even when I got a little older, I could be the first verdict.
This is not a sermon about don't drink, by the way, Okay, I said, I want you to get all nervous like that, like I'm one of those preachers, because I have noticed a lot of the preachers who preach don't drink or eighty pounds overweight. So apparently they skipped all the verses about gluttony and okay, okay, you didn't come for all that let's get back to the scripture.
Isaiah said that he will be.
Is anybody leaving, I can't see very well back here, I'll still there, okay, okay, a source of strength to him who turns back the battle at the gate. In other words, God will strengthen the will of the one who makes the decision.
It stops here.
I'm taking my place in the gate to say that I cannot affect how the story started. But my dad said, if you really want to be the first verdict to beat this, you got to beat it in your blood because if you taste it, you're gonna like it. So I want to challenge you, just don't ever fight it. He was trying to get me to see that sometimes the best place to fight the battle is before it ever begins. To draw a line and say, I'm not
even going there. I'm not even playing with this. This is not going to be a part of my children's legacy. I can't control what it's been until now, but from this stay forward. By the grace of God. I am a new creation in Christ and I'm gonna beat it in the bloodline. I'm gonna make a stand for the next generation. There are going to be some changes at the gate. The place to beat it it's before it begins, because if you let it in, you've.
Already let it win. It's like this in marriage.
By the time you let resentment in, you've already let bitterness. When it's like this in our thought process, by the time we let worry in, we've already let anxiety win. And this is the year we no longer fight the devil on his level, because Isaiah said, there is a strategy you can turn back the battle at the gate. It's a powerful thought. Sometimes people make fun of me and we go out to eat. They say, oh, yeah, I forgot you don't drink fine judging. You drink what
you want to drink. I drink fourteen diet mountain dews today. I got no judgment for your liquid consumption. I's got a different drug. What I'm saying is, this is a decision I made.
Is a standard that I have said.
And the problem in Isaiah is they is that the leaders who should have been setting the standard for the people have lowered the standard and let the people vulnerable. This has no relevance to our modern day. Of course, the Bible is an ancient book. In fact, Isaiah says, he gives a picture of it. He says that the leaders who are supposed to be sitting in their seat of judgment, rendering decisions of virtue and justice.
Verse seven.
He says, they stagger from wine and reel from beer, the priest and the prophets.
Wouldn't this make church more interesting?
The priests and the prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine. Y'all, I have a heart enough time making sense when I'm up here sober. Can you imagine what I would sound like if I had of you?
He said.
They stagger when seeing visions. They cannot see correctly, so how can they lead correctly? They stumble when rendering decisions.
They are the ones who.
Are supposed to calibrate the calling of.
The nation, and yet they.
Are so drunk. Maybe it's a metaphor. Maybe it's not just that they're drunk on alcohol. Maybe they're drunk on pride. Maybe they're intoxicated with power, maybe a self aggrandizement that has caused the leaders of this day to begin to weigh self interest in a different scale than the best interests of the people. And yet Isaiah says something that rings true today that God will will be a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at
the gate. Notice he says that no matter who sits in the gate, God is still the source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
It would be.
Worth answering the question who is the source of your strength? If you haven't decided that by now, you need to decide it really quickly, because if the source of your strength is who you're sitting beside, you will live a
very disappointed life. If the source of your strength is a number at the bottom of your balance sheet, something will hit your life so hard that you can't buy your way out of it, and you will find out really quickly that net worth is a terrible place to put your sense of self value.
If the source of your strength is.
How people look at you, or treat you, or think about you. If the source of your strength on any given day is the condition of your health, you will always be susceptible to them.
And so Isaiah says he.
Will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment and the source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. To make God the source of your strength means that you depend on Him. As one Psalmas said, you lift your eyes to the hills. From whence cometh your help. Your help cometh from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And he will not suffer your foot to be moved. The Lord which keepeth thee will not slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade
upon your right hand. And that someone not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
He will preserve your soul even forevermore.
To know that all your help comes from God, that all your hope is in Jesus, That all of your help comes not from the right, not from the left, not from the north, not from the south, not from the economy, not from the job touch. Somebody say not you, God is my source. Now, go ahead and clap right now. If you know God's got your back. In fact, stand up on your feet and shout about it.
If God is.
Your source in every of your life, ain't every famine.
I have a friend named Jesus. He is my source.
I am so tempted to preach on this part of the verse that.
I almost forgot what came before it.
Isaiah said in that day, the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people.
Now, what is a wreath and what is a remnant besides a Christmas decoration.
A wreath symbolizes victory, and he is preaching victory to people who are about to experience defeat. He's preaching, of course, about the impending Assyrian evasion to the to the northern territory of Samaria, the crown jewel of the Northern Kingdom of Israel set on a Ferraile valley.
He's speaking to them about their their potential, and.
He's telling them how their protection is gone, and so now they're.
Going to face a season of defeat. And in the.
Same breath that he promises to be a source of strength, he warns them of a coming defeat. But yet he speaks about victory in the context of defeat. He says, in that day, the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people. God said he will be a wreath for the remnant. The wreath symbolizes victory. The remnant represents what's left. God always has a remnant, no matter what you've lost in your life or who walked away from you, God always leaves
a remnant. No matter how wicked this world gets or how dark the times that we live in may seem to be. God always has a remnant in every office. God has a remnant in every church. God has a remnant in every city, and every generation. God has a remnant. God always has a remnant. There's always a little bit of oil in the house, even if you feel like you're starving to death. God always has a remnant. There's always a little boy with a lunch. If you call him for it and put it in the hands of
the Master, it will multiply. Because God always has a remnant. No matter how many leave Gideon, there will always be three hundred, and God is able to win with the remnant. God said, I'm gonna bless what's left. I will not be limited by what you lost. I will be a wreath for the remnant. I'm gonna bless what's left. I'm gonna bless what's left. Stop weeping over what's lost. I'm gonna bless what's left. I want you to shout right now over what you've gotten left.
I want you to shout right now over.
The gift you have, the strength you have, the friends you have, the opportunities you have, the time you have. God said, I'm gonna bless what you got left. If you will not stay stuck in what walked away, I'm gonna bless what you got left. You can win with what you got left.
Feel like preaching. I feel like preaching to the remnant.
Where's the remnant at where are the ones who went through the.
Fire and came out of bound And to bless what's left.
No matter what happens at the leadership level, I'm looking for someone who will turn back the battle at the gate. And in that day the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown of beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people. And then he mentions two different spirits. Watch this in verse six. Can we study the Bible. He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment, that's the first one, and a source of strength to
those who turned back the battle at the gate. So you've got the spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment and the source of strength to those who turned back the battle at the gate. Study that text all week, and I thought I was talking about two different things. But the more I read it, the more I realized that this is two functions of the same spirit.
He will be a spirit of justice.
To the one who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. The first part of the verse is about standards. He will be a spirit of justice. He will decide what is wrong and right to the one who sits in judgment. He will be a spirit of justice and a source of strength to the one who turns back the battle at the gate. So the same God that is the source of our strength is to also be the source of our standards. And here's the question that I came
to ask today. How can I expect God's strength if I do not embrace God's standards.
I'm about to throw this my brother. See how can I How can I call God.
The source of my strength if I have not made him the source of my standards.
He will be a.
Spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment. Now, if I have let that seat open, and I have left culture to tell me what's right and wrong, how can I look to culture for my standards and.
Then look to God for my strength.
How can I look for the world to tell me how to live and then expect God to give me strength for a standard.
That was not his?
How can I call God the source of my strength if he is not the source of my standards? How can I expect his strength and resist his standards?
It's good right. That's why I feel weak.
Sometimes because I'm asking God to strengthen me. But I have given away my strength because I have lowered my standard. And then the enemy comes in like a flood, but I don't have a standard. Then I ask God to give me joy, you know, and your present folds the joy.
Joy.
The Lord is my strength, and I want his strength. I want his joy. But if I have not applied his standard to my thought life, and I let my mind think whatever it wants to think, and I go to God for strength, but I did not go to him for standards. I am asking him to violate the very nature of our relationship. How can he be the source of my strength if I won't let him be the source of my standards?
Who set your standards? Who set your standards? Was it was.
It God that set your standards? I was talking to one guy the other day. It became very apparent to me pretty quickly that he sets his own standards for right and wrong. And I admire him for that because I don't trust myself that much. I mean, he must be really perfect to have his own standard for right and wrong.
See, I need a God.
I need a God who's bigger than me, wiser than me, who's been around longer than me. I need a God who can see around the next corner and know how this decision is going to affect my destiny.
I don't want to occupy that seat. I need a God.
And sometimes we're so crazy as Christians.
We will allow the world to set.
Our standards as a church and tell us what the church ought to be and not be, and put us in a box and call us by a denomination. But I will not be standardized by a dysfunctional world.
I have a higher standard. We are chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, to declare.
The prices of Him who called us out of darkness. Well like preaching, I'm preaching like this might.
Be my last time. Why you preached so hard? One of my friends said, you know you preach too hard. He said, it hollered too much.
And then he said, you know, you could take a little bit extra time and for yourself and not prepare so hard, and people wouldn't even know the difference. I shouldn't tell you. He was a pastor to see what happens when leaders lower the standard. Because, to be honest with you, I don't preach to your standard. The only question I had when I get done with this sermon is God, did I get it right? And if I got it right, I don't care how many likes, clicks, shares, downloads.
I don't care who gets up and walks out in the middle of it because I made them uncomfortable or they.
Wanted to watch a football game. I don't care if they laugh, stand up and clap. I'm not preaching for the.
One preacher one time said, I don't preach for the praise of men.
Amen. Amen, Who set your standard? Have you even thought about it? Or do you just inherited?
Who set your standard? You look into celebrit for your standard? Really them the ones who are so miserable they can only be happy when they have attention.
Really, that's your standard. Who set your standard?
Who set your standard of what you will and will not listen to.
Who set your standard?
Oh you think you're better than us, That's what they'll say when you start living with standards.
Oh you think you're better than us.
No, it's just that I know how much I need a source that is not me, because I.
Am weak without him. In fact, I'm nothing without him. So excuse me.
But the battle that I'm in is too real for me to play around and live my life with exposed.
Places and low standards. So I gotta get this right this year. I like that. I like that boy right there.
He looks like a teenager with standards, right sitting there, leaning in in church. Some kids would be texting in church, but not you. You look like you want something from God. Boy, you look like you got a mission. You look like God might use you. Don't you lift down to the level of your friends. Your friends don't know anything yet God has taking you places. Stand up on your feet right now, Yeah, you stand up right now. Raise the standard, don't lower it. We you'll show up at school. God
walks through the halls. We you'll show up at school.
The pleasures of God moved. Raise the standard.
You're really gonna let your unmarried friends tell you how to do your marriage.
I tell you I had a wife, I wouldn't. Uh huh, you said. All I needed to hear in that.
If I had a wife hard, if I wanted what you had, i'd do what you're doing.
But I want something better.
It's your standard. Sometimes our standards need to be lowered. Yeah, yeah, no, sometimes they do because sometimes it takes too much to make us happy. Who set the standard for what it takes to make you happy? Who set the standard for what it takes to have a good day. I'm bad about this one bad meeting and I had a bad day.
No, no, no, It's like that old man told me that time. I said how you doing? He said, I'm alive.
I thought, well, you didn't answer me, and then I realized, yes he did, because for him.
To be alive, he woke up. It's a good day. He woke up, it's a good day. We'll set your standards.
I mean, when did we come to the point when kids had to watch a movie in the car.
Trip to Target.
I used to have to dry ride four hours with a crayon and a book, and now you need alsa to get the Harris Theater.
Don't set their standard. Do we all to mine?
Do?
What time I was complaining? I preached on a Saturday night. My friend came. He's on staff at another church, and I.
Was apologizing to him because the crowd was a little down because I was used to being packed out an elevation on Saturday night. I said, I'm sorry, man, it was kind of it was kind of down today.
He said, your down day would be my revival.
I needed that because sometimes you let your standard get out of control. Sometimes as the church, we want to put a standard on the world that we ourselves don't even exemplify. We can't even figure out racial reconciliation within the context of the community of faith, but then we want to judge it when it's in the world.
But God's got a remnant. God always has a remnant.
I believe God is raising up Elevation Church as a remnant in this day to raise the standard of what church can be and how broad this message really is. We're here to raise the standard. I wonder who set your standards? See, how can you expect God to be your strength if he didn't set your standards? How can I expect success if I don't have a standard of excellence.
If I have not established a standard of excellence in my life.
Why would I expect God to bless my blemished offerings. You could take a little time off your sermons, you know nobody would notice. But why would I ask God to bless something that my whole heart wasn't in. It's hard to preach this in church because in church people think that if it's for God, it doesn't have to be good. Church can become a place where we just
bring God any old thing. We show up on time for something we buy a ticket for, but we thirty five minutes late to get to church, and it doesn't matter because it's like the preliminary stuff or something like that. Just bring God any old thing and listen. I am not talking about God's standards so that you'll earn his love. This is not about keeping rules so that God will love you.
It's because living right, because He does.
Not living up to a standard, but living out of a standard. Christ in you the Hope of Glory, or as Romans says, that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who.
Walk not after the flesh but the spirit.
For years, I read it that the righteous requirements of the.
Law might be met by us.
Now I realize it's not something God wants from me, as something that he wants for me. He has given me a standard. He has called me his child, and to live beneath that is to be like Eve and to speak to something that you should be stepping on. But a lot of times we have an expectation with no standard. A standard of excellence means doing the best with what you have. And until I've done the best with what I have, I don't feel like I should ask God to do what he can do if I
haven't done what I can do. And you run into all kinds of problems with this, you know, even from early in the church. Early in the church, I wanted to have a standard, you know, and we didn't have money, but I wanted a standard. And we didn't have equipment, but I wanted a standard. So I was the worship leader when we started. The standard was way lower than it is now.
I got in at a good time. Okay, I was the only one available, and.
So so I had to organize the band, and I bought in this guitar player for one of our first rehearsals, and he came in and he didn't practice.
He said, I got busy this week. I didn't practice this week. But I'm good, so I let him practice with us.
Then after practice I pulled him aside because I didn't want embarrassing. I said, hey, man, we won't be needing you Sunday because you didn't practice.
He said, really, He said.
You're going to kick me out the church because I didn't practice.
I said, no, you can come to church.
You just can't come with a guitar on and standing on the stage.
You come to church all you want.
I said, you see the chant playing, and I gave him a fifty dollars gas card. I said, here you go, man, and but but you're not playing. He said, your standards are too high. Nobody. He said, nobody's going to want to be a part of this ministry because the standards are too high. And he was right, nobody. This whole thing just I heard a story. Listen. I heard a story last night from an e group in our church. The couple that came a couple of years ago. They
were sharing their story how they got here. They said, we hated it when we first came, and I was waiting for the for the twist, you know, because you're here now and you came years ago, they said. We came in and somebody at the door said we couldn't bring our Starbucks in church, and we had just spent five dollars each on our Starbucks. And I sat through the first part of the sermon all mad about my Starbucks. But then in the middle of the sermon, I started crying.
And then when we left the church, we were getting in our car and somebody chased us down. The same person that told us we couldn't have our Starbucks in church said, while you were in service, we went and got you a Starbucks gift card and chased them down with a Starbucks gift card. And it wasn't even my sermon that wanted to Christ. It was Starbucks. But it
was a standard. See, because I feel like, why should I ask people to tithe to this ministry and then have lazy staff members who don't even want to practice. Why should I expect you to invite your friends to church and not have a standard of excellence on this stage. Why should I expect God to bless something that I am not invested in? Why should we expect God to bless our lives with success when we have not established
a standard of excellence. This is my year to bring my best to God, to bring him a worthy offering. I will not offer the Lord that which cost me nothing.
How can I.
Expect God to bless me with success when I have no standard of excellence? How can I expect God to bless me with abundance when I have no standard of stewardship. The standard comes before the strength. He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment, and a source of strength to him who turns back to battle at the gate. The standard, then the strength, The standard then the strength. So if I want God to be my provider, I have to make a plan.
Why would God give me prove if I don't have a plan for it? Why would God bless me with more when I'm not even generous with what I have? Why would he pour out of his resources into closed hands. I need a standard. That's why I give the first ten percent to God. That's my standard. He's first. This is off limits. It's not for negotiation. This is my standard. God comes first. Your children shouldn't even have to ask you are we going to church this week? Unless you
got the flu. Of course we're going to church. It's our standard. I don't care who's playing. It's our standard. I don't care who's preaching. It's our standard. I don't care how bad the parking lot is. It's our standard. That God is working, I'll sit in traffic.
He's God. I got standards.
I got standards, see, and that's where my.
Strength comes from. My standards.
I don't have to waste time making decisions about standards that I should have said a long time ago. I don't have to negotiate between the gates. I have standards. How can I expect God to give me stability if I don't have a standard of integrity. A lot of times we ask God to help us feel better. Sometimes we're not going to feel better until we do better.
And when you're managing secrets that you won't bring before God and confess to him so that he can begin the process of healing, you will always feel off inside. God can't be the source of your strength if he's not the source of your standards. How can I expect God to give me influence if I will not embrace the standard of sacrifice that influence for I want the influence, not the sacrifice. I want the resurrection, but not the crucifixion.
We'll sell your standards.
How can I expect to live in freedom if I do not embrace God's standard of forgiveness. If I hold on to every offense and let it all in the gate, don't turn back to battle. If I'm looking for reasons to be offended, looking for reasons to be angry, I should not be surprised when I find myself in a low emotional state. How can I be free from what I let walk right through my front door? How can I expect to walk in freedom if I have not
chosen to walk in forgiveness. It is the standard of forgiveness that enables me to live in freedom.
I don't forget you for you. I forgive you because I want to be free.
How can I expect God's peace in my life if I don't control my meditation? How can I receive strength that God is trying to give me?
If I just let any thought in?
How can I expect to live in a state of joyful celebration of my progress If I allow myself to constantly complain, and sometimes I'm complaining or criticizing, I can be real critical because I got that excellence thing. And the flip side of excellence is judgmental when I try to put my standard on you, which is always wrong, which is always wrong. And so now I've opened my mouth, and I thought I was complaining or I thought I was criticizing, and I told myself, I'm just letting it out. No,
I'm letting it in. I left my gate wide open to the enemy because I have no standard. But when I set a standard for my speech and my thoughts, I turned back the battle at the gate. And now I'm not in the stranglehold of a system of thought that I allowed myself to flirt with. And now I'm living in a state of joy, and I'm living at a level above the serpent, and he's under my feet. And I am not negotiating with what God called me
to trample on. I said, I'm not going to conversate with what God has given me the ability to crush.
I'm taking my stand and I'm setting my standard.
How can I expect God's strength if I do not embrace God's standard? How can we expect God to give our nation unity if we do not embrace his standard of equality? He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment. And when we allow inequality and prejudice and stereotypes and oppression to go unchecked and then ask God to make us one, we are
violating the very principle that will create unity. And then we come up on a weekend and we celebrate Doctor King rightfully, but we celebrate him at the wrong level because we celebrate his speeches. The Doctor King's life was not about speeches.
It was about standards.
And I'm so afraid that we want God.
We want God to be our mascot.
We want God to be like one of those little you know, those little stuffed animals, the ones that talk when you pull the string. And we got our little Jesus doll that we pull out, and we pull the string, and Jesus has about three little things that he says, you know, love your neighbor and love your enemies, and we pull the string, we pull the string, and he just says these little sayings. And we don't want his standards. We just want his sayings. And we'll listen to speeches.
We'll listen to I have a dream, but a dream without action, and a dream without process, and a dream without justice is a delusion. So we got to raise the standard and declare that some things are not all right. There has to be a standard. We are the people of God. Where is our standard? We can't wait for anybody else to set our standard. We are the Church, We are the light of the world.
We are the ones in the cave. It's us.
He cannot be the source of our strength if he is not the source of our standards. We cannot poison the well and then complain about the water. Do you hear what I'm trying to say. We've got to stop it at the source, to draw a bloodline in the name of Jesus and say this stuffs here. These are my standards. I will not apologize. I will not always live up to them, but I am pressing toward the.
Mark for the prize of the high calling. I got a high calling, and I will not live with low standards.
God is looking for somebody to turn back the battle at the gate. At the gate at the very beginning of the year. You know, most people want to get out of the gate strong. We want to get in the gate strong, take ownership and responsibility for our attitudes, and.
He will be.
Spirited justice to the one who sits in judgment, source of strength to the one who turns back the battle at the gate. If you want to be one of those that he speaks about who will turn back the battle at the gate, I want you to stand to your feet right now on every campus because I believe God has given us an opportunity. The gates of change start with our standards. I kind of wish we could sit down after this kind of wish we could take a moment and look at areas of your life where
you're feeling weak and you need strength. Because in the area where you need strength, that's where you need standards. I'm not talking about twenty rules for you to keep that you tried to keep last year. I'm not talking about that kind of religious spirit that builds a ladder for you to climb to God. I'm talking about a ladder that came down to you. And the first stout of these changes is standards.
Standards. What are your standards? Who set them?
Who set the standard for you of what it means to be a man? Who set the standard for you of what it means to be a Christian? Just to pray a prayer one time, show up to church when it's convenient. Try not to cuss too much. The devil is a liar. There's a higher standard. This thing is meant to consume all of my life. It changes the way I see, the way I speak, the way I think, the way I treat my brother, the way I treat
my sister. I got a new standard here, and God is looking for people at the beginning of this year who will raise the standard. Beautiful thing about it is that He is not going to cause you to have to reach the standard. He's only calling you to raise it, and he will give you the grace to draw a line and say it stops here. Are there some things in your life today that you need.
To say stops here. I'm not going to talk that way, think that way, live that way.
I'm not going to just allow unrestricted access to everything that wants to come into my space or my spirit to dominate my life and sabotage my sil This year, I'm raising the standard, and when the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will raise a standard against him. He will be a spirit of justice, a wreath for the remnant to him who turns back
the battle at the gate. Lift your hands. Father, We lift our hands to let the enemy know that he can only go so far, and in our lives, whatever is left we offer it to you right now as a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to you.
It is a reasonable act of worship.
Father, I thank you for your holy spirit that lives in us and calls us to a higher standard this week in our lives. Help us to identify those places where we have negotiated with what you have spoken and have allowed access to the enemy.
We draw a line right here.
We declare that the blood of Jesus is against everything that has opposed our lives, and has opposed our families, and has opposed our communities. And we are here today to be your remnant, to be crowned with your strength and enabled by your spirit to do exploits for your kingdom. Your kingdom Come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Bless your people.
Lord, Thank you for joining us.
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