Your Label Is Lying

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today.

Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.

Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving.

In your life.

Enjoy the message.

But if you've been redeemed and you know it. If he dacked you out of the pit, then you know it.

If He brought you this farm, then you know it. Sank Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Thank you.

We can sing it all day, we will sing it all night, but we gotta stup cause it breathes it time.

The Word of the Lord is coming your way, whether you're in this room or whether you're watching this later, whether you're listening in a car. I hope you're not watching in a car unless you're a passenger.

Just listen and watch the road.

The Lord has something he wants to show you today in his word. This is the final message in the greatest series in the history of our church.

Y'all don't like it.

My favorite series in the history of our church, because it's the one that I needed the most. Because it's called same lies, new loops, same lies, new loops. And the Lord is giving you some new ways of thinking, some new ways of being, some new ways of talking, some new ways of seeing, new loops. It's going to be a maze today because we're going to see a picture of somebody who had believed a lie for so long that to him.

It was true.

And when you have believed a lie long enough, is true to you even though everybody else can see that it's not. Today, God wants to show you something about the way that he sees you. Go ahead and put your name in the comments. And since you can't do that live, tell the person next to you your name. Tell them your full name, the one on your driver's license. Gohead, give me your name real quick. Give me your driver's license name. We're going to be spending a few moments today.

Of what it means.

To leave the lies behind. To leave the lies behind, that's what we come to church for. Right we want to come to church and hear truth and just take lies home with us like we didn't hear the truth. We want to come to church, receive the truth of God's word, and take it forward into the world that He's called us to change. John chapter five, verse one. I may just read all sixteen verses. I wasn't going to stop around verse six seven, but I thought I would go on down and read the whole thing. Now,

It's the number of grace. So this is supposed to be a place.

Of grace, you know, can I say that about our church? This is supposed to be a place of grace where anybody can come like they are and not leave that way. It was surrounded by five covered colonnades, and here are a great number of disabled people used to li the blind the lane. The paralyzed one who was there had been an invalid for thirty eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him.

Do you want to get well? Sir?

The invalid reply, I have no one to help me into the pool.

When the water is stirred.

While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.

Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick.

Up your mat and walk at Once the man was cure.

He picked up his map and walked. But that's not the end of the verse.

Is it. The day on which this took place was a sabbath. And so the Jewish leader said to the man who had been healed, it is the.

Sabbath the law forbids you to carry your mat. But he replied, well, I love this Bible verse right here.

The man who made me well said to me, I hear what you're saying to me. But the one who walked by me and told me I could walk to told me to do this. The man who made me well said to me, pick up your mat and walk. I got good news for you today. Church. The title of my messages the word says otherwise. The word says otherwise.

Tell your neighbor.

I know you feel kind of depressed. I know it looks like it's over. But the word says otherwise. Put it in all caps in the chat, put it in your language, put it in your native tongue, put it in a mulojis.

I don't care. The word says otherwise. And we're gonna give this message a subtitle. Also, we're gonna call it hmm.

See if I can explain this, your label is lying. Your label is lying. You know how that thing said it was it was a healthy food.

Your label is lying.

You know how that guy said he was a Christian guy. You're labeled, and he wore a Christian shirt.

You're label is lying.

You know how people say when you come to Christ, everything will just be better all at once. Your label is lying. But God's word is true. Father, Thank you for your word. In Jesus name, Amen be seated. Your label is lying. I'll share by way of anecdote what I mean by this statement, but first write the statement down. Don't label it until later. Don't label it until later. Now you're gonna write that down. You don't even know

Starts like really really worshipful.

And the next thing you know, you're dancing on a table and you don't know what happened. So the key to this is to be patient. Be patient, let the song tell you what it wants to be. Let the spirit of God have his way. If you're writing a worship song and we were just starting to write a song and the producer who was recording the session and needed to save the song on his computer, stopped and asked a question.

He said, what is this song called?

Well? I look back at him, and I knew that he needed to save the file so he could access it and be organized. But I looked at him and said, I can't name it. We haven't even made it yet. We need to make it before we name it. If we name it before we make it, there may be something else that the song wants to be that we don't allow it to become because we already gave it

If I give a child a label.

Before that child has even had the chance to develop beyond those developmental limitations, I may limit what the child thinks that the child can be because I gave the child a label too soon that limited their potential mentally, even though their potential in God was unlimited.

Label it later.

And I'm not talking about not going to doctors and specialists, you understand.

I'm using this.

As a way to get you to see that sometimes you are trying to label your life as you are living your life, and it is causing you to misdiagnose some of the things about you that only God can reveal in time.

It is causing you.

To name things and save things to the hard drive of your mind, and you call yourself things, and you call situations things that they really aren't because you are trying to label.

It before you have even lived it.

So you say things like this is the worst season of my life. How do you know that? Yet the seed hasn't even given the harvest for it.

You have no idea.

As a matter of fact, I would imagine that anytime the dirt is being plowed, it is hard for the dirt. But we understand that this is the part of the process that is absolutely necessary for anything good to be cultivated. And so it is true in your heart that some of the hardest seasons you will go through, some of the heartbreak seasons that you will go through, some of the things that you would wish away if God came down and asked you would.

You like to skip?

Those stages will be the very stages that later you will look back and label it and you will say, that was the season where God taught me the most. That was the season, am I right, where God.

Got me out of that.

Relationship, and I'm so glad that he did. That was the season where God set me free from something I thought I needed. And if He would have kept giving me what I wanted, I would have never gotten what I needed. And when I label my situation while I'm still in it, I limit my situation to how I see it. And the problem with me is I can't

Who are you the one he loves? Not one of the one he loves? V One he loves. John did not write his.

Gospel as the ministry of Jesus was happening, though he wrote it somewhere around fifty years after the events transpire.

Now there's a reason I'm telling you this.

Sometimes I think we read these stories in the Bible like they're coming from the journal of one of the disciples, and so we read a story like this and it's wonderful.

There was a man who couldn't move, and he got up and he was healed, and it was amazed.

And even the titles that are in the Bible, like over John chapter five, it says the healing at the pool, that's what this story is called in retrospect. But in real time, this was not a healing at the pool. In real time, this was a confrontation with the authorities. I'll explain that later, y'all see what I'm doing. I'm gonna say it now, I'm gonna explain it later. Jesus a lot of times, as he was doing things in his ministry, would not explain to his disciples.

He would just do it, and as he would do it, they might think about it. Boy, that was a really bad move.

I mean, Jesus should have waited until Tuesday to heal this guy. Did you see it in the Texas said he healed him on a bad day.

Now, let me ask you a question.

If you haven't walked for thirty eight years and you have the opportunity to walk, is it ever a bad time to do a good thing for somebody? And yet that's what the religious leader said. They said he should have done it on a different day.

And Jesus knew that.

But when John is writing the gospel, he's not writing it later that night.

He's not taking what he saw happen.

And John's gospel was a little different because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all written somewhat differently. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic gospel. It means, see with they kind of used the same source material, They refer to the same events, and they just take them from different angles.

John's gospel is wild.

He just shows you stuff from the bonus footage from the cutting room that none of the other disciples showed you. Maybe it was the special way he felt about his relationship with Jesus that he includes things that the others don't. And this miracle is only included in John's gospel. That's

Lot of trouble.

Jesus is about to get in. Man, Jesus really is wasting time. I mean, imagine this. They're setting out.

To go to the festival. They're on their way.

The Bible doesn't mention which of the three festivals, but it's one of the major ones. And they get to Jerusalem, and Jesus stops by this porch where look at verse three. These these kinds of people are lying, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Please circle those three words justin if you can. Verse three. The blind, the lame, the paralyze, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Jesus is stopping by to see somebody. He is the most important figure in human history. He

Been able to move.

And there are some of you listening to me preached today who have been labeled so long by what you can't do, that you forgot your name. You have been labeled so long by what you don't have, that you have forgotten your true nature. You have been labeled so long by what life didn't give you that you have forgotten your blessings. But the devil is a liar, I said, the devil is a liar.

I'll preach this another ten weeks if I need to.

He's telling the same lies over and over and over and over again.

And what he wants to get you to do.

If he's effective at his job, and the devil is really sneaky at it, because he will try to.

Convince you that your issue is you.

But I found out.

That God is masterful at using situations that we would not wish to accomplish purposes for which we don't even know to pray.

I'll give you an example.

I can tell I'm kind of overwhelming you with information today. About five is the number of grace, and Bethesda means house of Mercy and Synoptic Gospels.

And all this.

So let me just break it down like this. When Holly gives gifts at our house, I.

Will say that she is the best gift giver that I have ever known in my life.

I also say she is the greatest gift that I have ever known in my life other than.

You, Lord, Amen. And I'll also say that I'm not even saying that just so you'll clap for it. I really feel that way.

But she used to do something when she would give gifts that was so disappointing, and we finally got her to stop a few years ago. But let me tell what you're doing. I don't use this intentionally. I don't know if it was just something she did out of efficiency.

I don't know what's you doing, Okay, al, I told you she gives great gifts.

But let's say Christmas will roll around, right, and there's several gifts for each person.

That Holly bought. Right, so she wraps some They're beautiful and all that.

You take the wrapping paper off, and then there would be a box that she would put the gift in.

But the box was absolutely no indication.

Of the value of the gift. And here's what I mean by that. She would take the box from the nicest store. You can imagine, like picture your favorite store, your favorite brand, right, like the fanciest, nicest box. So you peel the paperback and you'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, this is.

Gonna be good. This is about to be good.

And then when you would take the lid off the box she had put the worst gifts. The box would say Nordstrom and the gift would say Dollar Tree, and you'd be looking at the You'd be looking at the gift about what is this? Because she would put the worst gift in the best box. God does just the opposite. I'm sorry, Holly, but this is one time where you are nothing like God. Because God will take the worst box, the worst situation, the worst hell you've ever been through, the worst insult.

The worst persecution.

God will hand you a box, and the box will be so beat up, and the box will look so small, and the box will look like it's been rained on, and the box will look like the dog shoot it up, and the box will look like betrayal, and the box will look like God, I don't know what to do, and the box will look like there's no way out of this. But if you open that box and trust in God, not the box, I said, trust God, not the box, because my God is out the box and

With what you feel.

Called to, and it doesn't line.

Up with your expectations.

But over that box, because God has a way of putting the best blessings in the ugliest boxes, so the box doesn't have to be beautiful for the gift to feed from him. I find somebody say open the box, open the box, open the box. God can do what he wants to open the box. Let God out the box. You got your little puny way of labeling what God can do and who God can do it through. But open the box. You're not even in church today, but

But your label is lying.

I wish I could draw this, but I didn't bring my screen out this week, and I'm not gonna slow down the momentum of this message for technology. Just imagine boom boop blop. Right, you've seen it, and imagine one of the loops says.

You can't do that. That's the lie. Right.

But when everything that's around you looks like sickness long enough, you begin to believe the box. When everything that your eyes can see, when everything that your emotions feel tell you, well, I guess alcoholism is just a genetic thing. And there's no amount of therapy or recovery that can break those chains off of you.

And there's not even enough prayers for it, because didn't you pray about this last year? Thirty eight years?

Man, that's a long that's a long time to circle the situation. It brings me all the way back to the first story I shared in this series, when the Israelites wandered in the same loop for forty years. You know, technically it was thirty eight. Yeah, it was thirty eight because one year they spent getting out of Egypt, one year they spent getting into the Promised Land. Those years aren't counted in the forty it was thirty eight years.

So please do this.

When you're sharing your testimony with somebody, be honest with them. Don't make your label a lie. Don't tell them. And the Lord just set me free from anxiety. I had somebody tell me that one time, and the Lord set me free from anxiety. Now, I said, I believe that he does that, and I believe that he did that for you, and I praise him for it. But what exactly do you mean he set you free from anxiety? Because when they said it, they said the Lord set

Yeah, what did you do? Swallow the key? The Lord sets you free? You swallowed the key or the Lord swallowed the key? Like what happened?

And as they began to share in more detail, it was actually more powerful to hear about their process than it was to hear about their product, because what they meant by it when they labeled it the Lord set me free was they meant he began to show me ways to deal with it that were not harmful and

Isn't that more powerful?

Come on, isn't that more powerful to hear that than to hear somebody say, well, the Lord just set me free, And then you're like, well, I guess he doesn't love me. He must not love me like that, or I must be doing something wrong. Maybe they're just not describing freedom fully to know that freedom involves a journey of thirty eight years.

This is powerful.

Man.

I even feel it as I'm preaching right now.

I feel the Lord telling me to slow down and tell you what it really means that this man got up and walked.

It doesn't say that he knew where to go. It doesn't say that his life was problem free.

In fact, Jesus finds him a few verses later and tells him stop sinning or something worse is going to happen. He's not even finished with his issue yet. But the powerful thing about Jesus when I get to the part of my sermon where I know this is the word of the Lord, because there is a moment in a sera where the word of the Lord comes. It's all the word of the Lord. This whole passage is the word of the Lord. But there is a moment where the word of the Lord comes to you. And what

Get up, take your mat, and walk.

Sometimes God will give you a command that makes no sense in the face of your condition. Sometimes God will tell you as a teenager, I don't care what all your friends do.

I don't care what they say you're weird about. I don't care what they call you for it. You be pure. I don't care what.

A thousand people do over here, a thousand people, just like your parents used to say. I don't care if everybody else is doing it, if everybody else was jumping off a bridge, and you'd be like shut out. But see, I say, with everybody else was jumping off a bridge, I just want to tell you what Jesus did. Everybody else didn't die on the cross for you. Everybody else can't rise from the grave. Everybody else didn't going to be there for you in the midnight hour. Everybody else

And I'm concerned.

With a God whose name is greater than any other name. And That's what I'm concerned about in this season of my life, not what they label me. I don't care what they say about me. I don't care what they say about my preaching. I care when I close this Bible today? Did I say the word of the Lord? Did I speak the word of the Lord? Did I say what God gave me to say the best I could say it with a stammering tongue and a limited vocabulary and a monkst corner South Carolina accent.

Did I say the word of the Lord?

Not how somebody else said it, not how I should say it, not how I would say it if.

I was smarter.

Did I say it to the limit of my IQ? Did I speak the words of God? And when the word of the Lord came to this man, it was so personal. The Bible says something that I think you need to see before you hear what Jesus said to him. I want to show you something. In John chapter five, verse five, This is the part that made me cry when it says when Jesus saw him, excuse me, that's verse six. That's verse six, when Jesus saw him. Go back to verse five. Though one was lying there now

The word him.

Now contrasts that when Jesus walked by. There's a blind person. There's a person who can't move. There's another person I'm not sure of their condition. There's somebody who's only been at the pool two weeks. Here's somebody who's been here two years. Here's someone who has been here thirty eight years. I'm speaking to somebody today, and this is not your first day in this situation.

This is not your first frustration.

That's all right, because the Bible says that Jesus saw him.

I still got to show you what I mean.

It says that Jesus saw him lying there. Now, if you fast forward, when the man gets up, the religious leaders see the man, but they see him a little differently.

They label him differently.

They label him according to his condition, and they label him according to their expectation. The Sabbath was supposed to be a day of no work, but they see him carrying a mat. The Sabbath was not a day where you can't make up your bed. The Sabbath was a day where you couldn't do commerce in the city. But they've twisted it, they have labeled it. Their label has

God is not disappointed in you.

How can he be disappointed in what he appointed? If he called you, that means he knew you would be in this situation before you were in this situation. You think you can surprise God. You think God's like I wish I would have done a scouting report on them. You think God is somehow mesmerized by your weakness? Now people are People are very different the religious leaders in verse ten, they have their focus somewhere completely different.

The Bible says that the.

Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath, the law forbids.

You to carry your mat. Now, ho on, I'm confused.

They are looking at a man and they are talking about a mat. How can they only see the mat and not the man? No, no, no, I'm honestly asking how can they see a man who has never walked before?

If he's thirty eight years old. Maybe he did walk a.

Little while before those thirty eight years, we don't know. But for almost forty years he hasn't been able to walk.

And he's walking and they.

Walk up to him and say, hey, you can't do that, and.

He's like, I know. I didn't think I could either.

But I met a man had he walked by me that he stopped for me.

Keeddy talked to me.

Eddy told me that get up God, take it up and walk. He I'm walking in the power of his words.

And I'm walking in the potential of a brighter tomorrow and I'm living in the life.

Of a new day.

I'm just speculating.

I think this man started singing at this point. I think he started singing, look at what the Lord has done.

I'm never going back to the way.

That's why I got my mat, because I'm not going back saying, not going back, saying, not going back.

Give on my spot cause.

I'm cause I'm take my man because I'm all right.

We need to work on y'all's rhythm and call it the spot.

My man is walking, and you're talking about a math. I'm a practice. You're talking about a mac. I'm a man.

You can't see the man for the math. And it makes me wonder, what's your mat that I can't see? That's got you magnifying mind? This man has to be singing.

Carrying a mat.

He's not going back to the place he's been for thirty eight years.

That isn't working anymore. Man, he's happy too.

He's happy carrying that man because he's holding something that's been holding him his whole life.

Boy, he's happy. He turns around. Goodbye.

Yes today five covered colonades. Goodbye colonades, y'all missed it.

I'm living in the line of a new day.

I won't waste another then in on my oldways.

Praise the Lord.

He's not even saved yet, not even born again. He don't even know it is Jesus yet. He doesn't find that out until later.

See.

Sometimes God does it now, but you pray.

Later because you didn't even know he was doing it.

That's the tide I feel God saying, praise.

Me now and I'll explain it later.

My man is walking talking about I'm dancing on the I'm carry and the mat that I want Slade on Carrie and the mat that I want Slade carry and the mat that I want.

Slade or carrying the mat.

I mean this man ain't heavy.

Carrie in the batter carry.

Yeah, you can't do that. You can't do that, Yes I can.

We're not doing the stairs. Get up, and here's the pharisee.

He's like, carrying the mat, you can't do that. No, you're doing it wrong, carrying that I want.

You can't do that.

No, you're doing it wrong, carrying the men where I.

Used to like, you can't do that because this is the wrong day.

No, we got confrontation.

Y'all don't know how to act in church?

What kind of churches? What kind of churches?

This this is the house my mercy.

This is a place stark gray. This is a place where I am not what I did.

I am not what I was.

I am who fled.

Said by, can't do that, can't do that, just no way, can't do that new loop.

I listen to that.

Man said, I'm making this up on the car, off the cough. I don't know if it's any good. But they said, the law says you can't. The man said, the word says.

Otherwise. Somebody shout otherwise otherwise.

And the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he took me down to the valley, and the valley was full of bones, and they were very dried. And the bones said death, and the bones said over. But the word said otherwise, And God said, proph aside to the poems, prophosy to the marriage, prophesie to the bankruptcy, prophosy to the depression, proph aside to the blindness, proph aside to the lameness, A prophesie to your legs. I

Shame said died, But God said.

Bo, I'm dancing on the grind. I'm dancing on the grasd I'm dancing on the grass.

You can't do that. You can't dance in church. You can't be happy you're going through hell.

I might be in it, but it is not in me. I'm not my mad. I'm not my mad. I'm not my bad decision. I'm not my shame. I'm not see abuse.

I'm not my past.

I'm not myself.

I am.

No what he loves.

I'm for what he stopped five for. And I'm dass then on the grad.

I'm dascing on the grave.

I'm bassing.

You can't death, you got moves.

Show me your church dass yet, I'm on your feet and pray for shut up in hot.

You can't do that. You can't dance on a grave. You can't get beauty for ashes.

You can't be grateful when you still got a kid who's far away from God.

You can't keep worshiping through tears.

You can't keep trusting that God is good through cancer.

You can't do that.

But the word.

Says otherwise.

I said, no words set otherwise, the stone set dead, but no word says right.

Get up, get up, get up, get out of gray, get up, get up, get get up, get up, get up, get.

Up, see awesome.

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