The Ugly Side of Elevation

Welcome to the official podcast of Rock Hill Baptist Church 2

where we are focused on glorifying God, spreading the

gospel, and making disciples of Jesus Christ right here in the

heart of Greenville, SC. Each week we bring you a life

changing word from our Senior Pastor, Pastor Matthew D Long

Junior, or one of our anointed guest speakers.

We pray this message strengthens your faith, deepens your

understanding, and empowers you to elevate in every area of your

life. Let's join the service already

in progress. Say neighbor, the ugly side of

elevation. Wow, the ugly side of elevation.

Honestly, it had happened so suddenly, and their brothers and

sisters. The smoke still hung in the air.

The smell of fire clung to everything that used to feel

like home. What was laughter yesterday has

become lament today. A city silent, a camp charred,

and a people crushed. David and his men returned from

the battlefield, but the real battle was waiting at home.

They didn't walk into victory. They walked into vacancy.

Every tent still standing was empty.

Every dream was on fire. And there in the ashes, as seen

behind me. There lies ziglag.

The story takes a turn. Before we rush to shout about

elevation, we need to remember that sometimes the road up runs

straight through but burns down. This isn't a mountaintop text.

It's a valley like scene, a low place for a highly anointed man,

a man with oil on his head and. Ashes at his feet.

It ain't too hot in here for you, is it?

A leader. A leader who's about to discover

that elevation isn't just about rising, it's about balancing.

But everything around you falls, falls apart.

You can almost feel the tension of this text in our own time.

Just this week, matter of fact, almost the 1st of October, in

Chicago, a neighborhood not far from where families played and

worked, children had slept. Federal agents stormed an

apartment building. Doors shattered, children

screaming, mothers trembling black and brown bodies.

Families, some of them U.S. citizens, were zip tied in their

own living rooms. And according to one man and the

Chicago Sun Times, he said, I feel defeated.

If you close your eyes long enough, that sounds a lot like

ziglag. Because broken homes burn dreams

and displaced people aren't just Bible studies, Deacon Glen.

They're breaking news. And the question that lingers in

the smoke is what? Do you do when you come back to

nothing? What do you do when the people

who counted on you are crying because of you?

What do you do when the anointing you carry can't keep

your world from Catching Fire? And that's where David stands

between calling and collapse. It's there that we find the ugly

side of elevation. Matter of fact, that's where we

find ourselves in between the black and white pages of the

book before you are the electronic device from which she

may be reading from standing shoulder to shoulder.

Brother Greg with David peering into the ashes of ziglag.

Now as we walk through this passage together, we will watch

David try to study himself and four movements.

If I can do this, I may do it in three.

Let's see your Bible says in first Samuel chapter 30 I got

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

nothing. The Bible for you.

Verse #1 And and it came to pass, when David and his men

were come to Ziglag on the third day, that the Amalekites had

invaded the South, and Ziglag and smitten Ziglag, and burned

it with fivers too, and had taken the women captives that

were therein. They slew not any either great

or small, but carried them away and went on their way.

Verse 3. So David and his men came to the

city, and behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and

their sons and their daughters were taken captives.

The very first movement of this touch I think we should all

explore is the fire that throws you off balance.

When we meet David, my dear brothers and sisters in verse #1

he's not in the palace, Sister Chris.

He's actually in the field. He's not wearing the crown that

is soon to be placed on his head.

But Mother Gordine, he's wearing the dust of duty.

And your Bible says it comes to pass.

David and his men were now in ziglag before we turned about.

Before we talk about what you see behind me as being burned,

we need to talk about really who burned the fire.

Because the text says in verse one, the Amalekites had invaded.

And that name alone ought to make every Bible reader from

Sunday school to VBS sit up, sit up real good and straight.

Because they're Malachites. They were not just enemies of

Israel. They were enemies of identity.

I. Better work right through here.

They're Malachites. They represent the ancient

spirit that hates anything connected to covenants.

And the first time we meet them is in Exodus chapter 17.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

You remember your Bible? Why?

You remember that one? That's when the Israelites had

just crossed the Red Sea. And here, as they're on the

other side going through a wilderness, the Malachites do

not attack Egypt. Instead they attack the weak.

They didn't fight the front lines.

They crept up from behind and and bushed and tried this.

This fragile, weary, fighting, little faith testing, God

forgotten people. That's really the Malachite way.

They look for what's weary, and even the moment the question

populates, is the Lord among us or not?

The Malachites always come for you when you're tired.

They are opportunistic enemies that show up when your guard is

down, when your rhythm is off, and even when your energy is

divided. They are proof that some battles

don't wait until you're ready. Because by the time we reach

First Samuel Chapter 30, the Malachite should have been

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

extinct. I think your neighbor's trying

to go to sleep on me. So help me out.

Nudge your neighbor and say, neighbor, this devil ought to be

dead by now. God told Saul in First Samuel

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

chapter 15 to wipe the Amalekites out completely.

But as you would know in the text, Saul spared which should

have been slain. He let what should have die live

and anything you don't kill in one season will come back to

taunt you him the next. And that's how Ziglag ziglag

caught fire. This isn't just a random raid.

This is a residual rebellion. The unfinished, the unfinished

obedience of one king becomes the unwanted rarefare or

warfare. Excuse me of another Monday,

brothers and sisters, I think I better get and drop this

notification on you real quick that sometimes you're fighting

fires that started and someone else's disobedience.

The Amalekites. The Amalekites are what happened

when yesterday's compromise meets today's calling.

And before David can be elevated, he has to confront.

But another man refused to conquer.

So when the touch says they burned it with fire, it's not

just about the flame. It's about unfinished business

catching up. It's about what happens when old

enemies find new openings. And my dear brothers and sisters

don't rush past that. That phrase, they burned it with

fire because it's not symbolic heats, but flames.

Real smoke, real laws. The Malachites didn't just burn

buildings, sister house. They burned balance.

Help me out. Turn to neighbors and neighbor

balance. They struck David in the one

place he called safe. Thank you, Lord.

While he was fighting 1 battle on the field, another battle

started at home. And that's what the enemy aims

for. He aims for your equilibrium.

The word means your balance. It's it's when your mind and

your heart and your faith are all trying to stay steady at the

same time. You can't worship when your

world is wobbly. You can't even.

Think straight when life keeps tipping nuts what the enemy

wants not just to steal your stuff, but to shake your

stability, are you still in the room?

Because when you lose your equilibrium, even small things

start to feel like big ones. You forget what you still have

because you can't stop staring at what's been burned.

And that's that's how the Amalekites fight.

Not just to destroy your possessions, but to disturb your

position. My mother, Mother Gordine, the

devil can't defeat you. So he'll obviously try to

disorient you. And that's where some of us are

right now. Trying to walk in the will of

God while the ground underneath us won't stop moving.

Trying to stay strong in public while you're shaking in private.

Shaking and private in US all. That's not just life.

That's a battle for balance. Monday, brothers and sisters,

that's how the enemy works. He'll wait until your back is

turned, until your attention is on advancement.

Then he'll light a match under what matters most.

Look, look, look, look, look at what David and his men had come

home to. Look at it.

Look at it. They had just came from a three

day journey of being dismissed from service.

They are technically displaced and the place they have set up

shop they've they've gotten comfortable in is now burned but

was a symbol of stability and unstable times is burned.

Everything that once said you're secure here is now a smoking

shell of what used to be the air.

The air. The air smells like

disappointment and the ground beneath them feels unsure.

The men can still see the outline of what used to hold

them, but not enough to hold on to.

And that's where the balancing act begins.

Because fire disorients it. It throws your faith into

Vertigo. Some of y'all know about that by

throwing off your reference points.

When what you built in permission burns, often times

your mind starts spinning. Sister Chris spinning with

questions like did I miss God? Did I?

Did I mess up Sister Sherry? Did I move too soon?

Sister Retta and And that's how the enemy tries to unbalance.

I'm balance you not with the blades itself, but with the

questions it raises from the fire.

My dear brothers and sister, the text teaches us that God

sometimes allows the fire not to punish you, but to purify what's

holding you back. Please remember that ziglag,

ziglag ziglag was a Philistine territory.

It was a gift from a foreign king who was a known enemy of

the Israelites. And David had accepted comfort

and a compromised space. He's been living under borrowed

favor, but God is ready to give him divine favor.

So God, let's fire touch what have been outgrown in his life.

He burns. He burns what's been borrowed so

that they can stop depending on what doesn't belong to them.

And my dear brother and sister, sometimes that means the job you

love stops loving you back. Sometimes the relationship you

pray to keep becomes the one God uses to teach you to release.

Sometimes the plan that once you worked doesn't work anymore.

Not because you failed, but because you finished.

Then come here, I got more. Sometimes it's like a child

who's sad they can't fit their favorite shoes anymore, not

realizing they've outgrown, overgrown what once carried them

and protected. Them.

I think I better give you this download real quick.

God won't let you build permanence on what was meant to

be provisional, and I feel a strong need to pull out of this

text the reality that Ziglad had to burn.

I'm going to say it again. Ziglad had to burn.

I'm going to say it a third time.

Ziglad had to burn because the next level couldn't be built on

Philistine property and now now look my dear brothers and

sisters more closely that David doesn't just lose things, he

loses people. Verse 2, verse two of first

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

Samuel chapter 30 says and have taken the women captives that

were therein. They slew not any either great

or small, but carried them away. He went on went on, went on the

way family. You can replace furniture.

Yeah, yeah, you you can be build some tents.

You you can even replace clothes, cars, cash, cribs.

But what do you do when what you've lost has your last name

attached to it? What do you do?

What do you do when what you've lost carries your life in it?

This isn't about possessions. This is about people who carry

David's promise. It's about losing what you love

most and still having to lead what's left.

But. Here here.

Here's where. It gets real revelatory, sister

Chris, because what they thought was gone come here was only

taken No, I thought y'all were shot right there.

I I really I thought you would just be like I got it.

I I said what they thought was gone was only it was only taken.

They weren't killed, they were carried.

They weren't destroyed, they were detained.

And sometimes God will let something be taken just long

enough to prove. That it still.

Belongs to you. I better say this for the cyber

campus Sir, for those on Twitch or Twitter today.

That the enemy can take it, but he can't keep it because what's

Covenant connected can't stay in captivity forever.

And I'm afraid, my dear brothers and sisters, that we've got too

many looking around. Well, people are being carried

off. Too many distracted leaders and

too many detached Saints watching people get snatched by

life and not moving to recover them.

But that's. That's the real.

Ugly side of elevation when your hands are full of one fight and

your heart. Can't.

See the one happening behind you?

I'm going to work by myself. But wow, wow, wow.

We're fighting in one field, somebody's family is being

carried off in another. And that's what makes this tech

so sobering. Because David's men weren't

lazy. They, they were actually loyal.

They, they were not negligence. They were needed.

But check this out didn't Glenn. They were needed elsewhere.

They were out serving, they were out fighting.

They were out doing what was right.

And yet while they were defending one assignment, the

enemy attacked another one. Can I clue you in real quick?

Sometimes you can be an obedient sneaking nauser and still be

blindsided. That's not your responsibility.

That's the reality of leadership that sometimes elevation

stretches you so far in One Direction that you lose sight of

with slipping away in another. If you listen close enough, that

same cry, that same cry still echoes in our world today, from

cities like Chicago to Memphis, from Los Angeles to little towns

like Folly, Alabama. You can hear it in the trembling

voice of a mother saying, they took my babies.

You can hear it in the father's cracked whisper, I feel

defeated. You.

You can still see it in black and brown family, citizens of

this country, watching the safety of their homes turn into

the scenes of chaos. Doors broken in, children

terrified, lives disrupted. That's what Ziglag looks like in

modern form. A world on fire and a people off

balance. Maybe someone here, someone

here, knows that feeling too well.

Because you too didn't ask for this fire.

You too were living wrong. You too were just trying to

serve God faithfully. Leave your family, stay focused.

And suddenly the ground gave way.

But, but here's the tension of the test for my Bible scholars.

David's greatest test didn't happen.

And The Cave of a Dulum when he was trying to run and hide.

But it's actually right here, right here in the ashes of Zig

Lab. Because sometimes the fire isn't

meant to test your platform. It's meant to test your poise.

OK, come here since I'm in in this little world history thing.

You remember in 1956, Doctor King by he was preaching peace

in Montgomery, AL, a bomb tore through his home.

His wife and seven week old daughter Yolanda were inside

house shaking but the man stood still.

He walked through the smoke and you know the words he said we

must meet hate with love. He showed the world.

But it means to keep your balance when your house is

burning. And that's what David is

teaching Garcia. That before God can elevate you

up, he first has to see if you can balance by everything around

you burns down. And that's what David is

teaching Sister Shirley, that before God can elevate you up,

he wants to see, wants to see what you're going to do in

between here. Because this is the part of

elevation that they don't put in in the brochure.

This is the part, the part that does not get on somebodies

Facebook reels. This is this is the part that

nobody likes to talk about when the air gets thin and the climb

gets costly. This is the side of elevation

that doesn't shine. It actually scars.

It's the ugly side when what was supposed to lift you up, Brother

Paul actually leaves you looking around, wondering who's still

with me. And right here and the smoke of

zig lag, David learns what it feels like to be called higher

by life, drags you down lower. I guess I better move on so I

don't bore you. And the second movement of this

text is found in the fourth verse, the first Samuel chapter

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

30. Read it with me, it says.

Then David and the come on, read it with me.

Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their

voice and wept until they had no more power to weep.

The second movement of the text is the tears that threaten your

balance. There's there's something

haunting about this scripture right here.

First Samuel, chapter 30, verse 4.

1 Samuel 30:4

It's not just describing a scene, Deacon Davis.

It's really revealing a season because the hardest sound

sometimes in Scripture is not Thunder, Sister Hauser, neither

is it war. But it's really mother weeping.

You can almost hear the exhaustion in that voice.

These are warriors, not weak men.

Men who had outrun song, men who had outlasted scarcity, men who

had out worshipped their wounds. They have survived swords,

survived exile, survived betrayal.

And in this moment, the moment breaks them.

This time the tears outnumber their triumphs, because grief

would do what giants could. Sorrow can break, but Spears

could never Pierce. And when they stood before

giants, they were swinging swords.

But when they stood before loss, they just dropped to their knees

because disappointment would drain.

But distance never did and the text says they wept.

Sometimes we like to skip over a scripture so fast and get to the

good beautiful parts. And he recovered all.

But the truth of the matter is, this is real life, that here

they are not whispering, nor are they sighing, but they are

weeping out loud until their tears take their strength.

I've got to admit to you, minding brothers and sisters

online and in person, that you can survive battle after battle,

at the battle, at the battle, at the battle, at the battle, and

still go home and break down. That's the tough part of this

lesson, that elevation doesn't exhibit you from emotion.

My dear friend, I want to let you know that you can be chosen

and still cry. You can be anointed and still

ache. You can be next in line and

still feel like you're running out of faith.

And I believe if you got your Bible open, you'll see for

yourself that the text says that they lifted up their voice and

wept, lifted up their voice. And Hebrew means to cry aloud

together in unity that this wasn't just one man moaning,

Mother Thelma. It was a chorus of grief.

For the first time in the touch, David does not sound like a

commander. He actually sounds like a

companion in pain. Because elevation doesn't just

stretch your faith. Come here, it stretches your

feelings. Elevation isn't about titles,

tiaras, or Thrones. Elevation is about assignment.

I guess I better give it to you one more time because this whole

year, this whole year, you might have just missed that one piece.

That was that. That was a nugget right there.

The elevation is not about titles and tiaras and Thrones.

Elevation is about assignment. David is living in between the

conundrum of anointment and appointment.

And I've got a humbly submit that tears don't cancel your

anointing. They confirm your humanity.

And just like God wrapped himself in humanity to save the

world, God is not intimidated by your emotion.

Come here. Matter of fact, Sister Shirley,

God wants to be invited into your emotions.

David tears. David's tears didn't make him

less chosen, they make him more connected.

Some of us have mistaken composure for faith.

I'm going to say it again for you.

Some of us have mistaken composure for faith.

But faith isn't pretending not to feel.

But faith is trusting. Wow, you feel everything.

That's why you shouldn't care how loud someone praise the Lord

or how long they rolled on the floor, because you don't know.

But they had to survive to steal.

Have a sound. You don't know what they had to

endure just to steal. Have energy to exhale.

You don't know what they had to endure.

You don't know what kind of Ziglar they had to walk out of

just to steal. Worship, and that's why the same

David would later write in Psalm 126 and five, they that sow in

tears shall reap in joy, I believe because he learned that

sometimes your praise is born in pain and your worship is watered

by worship. Worship through reaping.

Let me add that for you. I'm going to say it again, that

they that sow in tears reaping joy.

So we must now learn that sometimes your praise is born in

pain and your worship it's watered by weeping.

But your Bible, your Bible, your Bible says in first Samuel

1 Samuel 30:4

chapter 30, verse 4. Then David and the people that

were with them lifted up their voice and repped check this out

until they had no more power to weep.

That word power in Hebrew is clock, which doesn't just mean

strength, Deacon Davis. It needs capacity, endurance,

Braylon energy to continue. They didn't just run out of

tears, but Paul, they. Ran out of try.

Because there comes a moment in life when your tears clock out

before your task does. They had cried so hard that

their bodies had betrayed them. Sister Jackie.

The throats were raw, the eyes swollen, the energy gone.

And this was not just emotion. This was exhaustion.

I think I better give you a quick homological highlight real

quick. But when tears drain your

strength, trust becomes your stamina.

I'm going to say it one more time.

When tears drain your strength, trust becomes your stamina.

There's a fatigue that comes from fighting, but but there's

another fatigue that comes from feeling.

And many people don't burnout Mother Gordy from battle.

They bleed out from the burden. They run out of emotional energy

since the bird before they ever run out of calling.

That's why some of us feel heavy even when nothing's wrong,

because you're caring too much emotionally for where you are

spiritually. And before God recharges your

mission, He has to release your mourning.

Ziglag is where God drains you to develop you.

I got to move on to this next movement.

But ziglag is the kind of place that teaches you the difference

between breakdown and a breakthrough.

And sometimes the only thing separating the 2 is what you do

next. Look at the text.

Look at the text first Samuel chapter 5 says and David's two

1 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

wives were taken captives. He know him the Jeselitis and

Abigail the rival Nabel the Carmelite verse 6.

And David was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning

him. I got to stop that.

I can't even go all the way. The third movement of this text

is the breaking point of the balance, the breaking point of

the balanced. Look at this mother, brothers

and sisters. We moved from they to he.

Previously they were crying together.

Previously they were weeping together.

Previously they were wailing together.

But now your text, your Bible, my Bible, shows us moving from

they to He right. The communal cry of verse 4 has

now quieted down and now the weight rests currently on David.

Matter of fact, verse 5 shows us that the loss wasn't just

public, it was personal. That the right of this text

slows down to name the two women, the two wives of David,

because the text wants us to feel the ink behind the ashes.

They weren't just wives, they were witnesses that they had

seen David at his lowest and loved them still, that they had

walked with him through rejection and rebuilding.

It's it's one thing, it's one thing.

It's one thing to to lose your soldiers, but it's another thing

to lose your support system. One thing, one thing to lose the

crowd, but it's another to lose the comfort of those who knew

your heart. Because sometimes elevation cost

you the people who helped hold you together.

And he's no longer surrounded by comfort, but he's surrounded by

conflict. But the same crowd, Lord, I hear

you. The same crowd that once cried

with him now contemplates stoning him.

Deacon Davis, The same hands that had helped him fight on,

now ready to harm him. The same voices that shouted

David, our leader, are now whispering.

David, our liability. And that's the ugly side of

elevation when the same people who once held you up now hold

stones, when the ones who said I got you now say I blame you,

elevation will expose what emotion can't sustain.

Look at this the Texas David was greatly distressed.

The word in Hebrew is Yahtzee are which means to be pressed or

y'all like going to the fair, right?

They're not the fair. They have squeezed lemonade.

That word Yahtzee means to be squeezed.

Or check this out. To be him then.

So phrase the old folks used to say, confined by pressure on

every side. It is not just external, but

it's internal compression. David is hemmed in between grief

and blame, between calling and criticism, between pain and

purpose. He's pressed between leadership

and loneliness, squeezed between memory and mission, pulled

between what he was known for to them and now, who he must be for

God. And that's where some of us

live. I'm sorry.

I feel them coming. We live in the tension between

what we feel and what we must still fulfill.

Trying to lead while leaking. Trying to walk and divine

purpose while waiting through personal pains.

Because being a child of God, Sister Hauser, isn't the absence

of pressure, it's learning how to breathe under it.

David is experiencing what I call the pressure of proximity.

Because the closer people are to you, the heavier the

expectations become. And the same closest that was

once comforted, yes, God comforting him now confines him.

Now watch how the crowd, how the crowd changes.

They cried with David for a while.

But but grief has a way. It has a way.

It has a way of turning company into conflict.

Wow, that's good. They all lifted up their voice

together, but not all of them knew what to do next.

And mess around and have a family member die.

I promise you, you'll see for yourself.

Because tears bring people together, but trauma can tear

them apart. Elevation will reveal who can

fight with you and who can feel with you.

And after all of that, it's the separation that brings shock to

you. Look at the text they had

wrapped together. But David's name is the only one

God mentions next. Because Elevation exposes who

can cry with you and who can stay still with you after you

cry. When people can't process pain,

they need someone to blame. They, they, they can't strike.

They can't strike their malachite, so they strike their

leader. They they, they can't manage the

loss, so they misplaced the anger.

And that's. The ugly sign, the ugly side of

elevation, that when you become the face of someone else's

frustration, you find that they're crying.

But here in the text, David's balancing that they're weeping,

but David's watching. David's, they're falling apart,

but David's holding together with little he has left in the

most. And if I can leave you with some

wisdom for the journey, please know, my dear brothers and

sisters, that leadership is crying enough to stay human, but

standing enough to stay holy. Come here, come here.

Don't, don't, don't that like that you play so hard to get

sometimes. Have you ever?

Have you ever had to find yourself smiling in public while

silently screaming in private? Have you ever found yourself

walking the floor all night trying to figure out how you

won't get that bill paid? Have you ever found yourself

trying to hold a house together when you were falling apart

yourself? Have you ever found yourself

going to work with a broken heart, trying to lead with

excellence while living on empty?

OK, come here. Maybe you going to school?

Have you ever tried to study hard, do yourself your best, but

still feel unseen, unheard, uncelebrated, doing your

homework in tears, Trying to believe that hard work still

matters? Because sometimes faith requires

functioning about. Frustrated.

That's where David is, holding his tears in one hand and his

task in another, and here he is. He can't quit.

He can't crumble, he can't call time out because too much is

depending on him and somebody in the room knows what that feels

like. To be chosen but feel like

you're crushed, Crushed by life. To be elevated and to also be

exhausted, to have oil on your head and ashes at your feet.

And this man and brothers and sisters, is the breaking point

of the balance, that fragile intersection where your faith is

fighting fatigue and your calling is clashing with their

capacity. David is anointed but anxious.

He's crowned and promised but crushed and pressure, and he's

too called to quit. But he's too tired to keep

pretending he's OK. And I will let you know that

sometimes the hardest miracle is maintaining your balance by

everything around you is breaking.

And for those in the room, as I get on in the sky, we'll let you

know that that's the place where God does His deepest work.

Not in your comfort, but in your compression.

Even those compression socks you may have on because the oil that

anoints you can't flow into the olive gets crushed and squeezed.

You'll never know what kind of oil is on you until life

squeezes it out of you. And maybe, just maybe, God had

allowed Ziglag to press David, not to punish him, but to.

Prove. Him and to show that the same

hands that once held a harm can still handle the heat.

I think I better go in the sky and get y'all home.

Now this text shows us him that David really is being revealed

of what's inside of him. It's stronger than what's

surrounding him. And it's here in the young Bible

for Samuel, chapter 30, verse #6 at the sea clause, the sea

clause of it all. It says, but David encouraged

himself in the Lord. That's not survival talk,

Mother. That spiritual ignition.

He. Didn't have a crier.

With him, No, no, no, no, no, no.

He didn't even have a worship team there, but he became the

worship leader for his own self, and he became his own crier.

He. Didn't even have a crowd all

around him. All he had was a covenant.

He didn't even have someone to applause him, but all he had was

assurance. Because sometimes God will strip

your support so you discover your sores and it's right there

in the ashes. David preaches his own revival.

He said. I may have lost my city, but I

didn't lose my Savior. I may have lost my help.

Yeah, but I did not lose my hope, he says.

I may have lost my people, but I didn't even lose my power.

Because when they can't find strength, yes, Lord, strength

all around you, you've got to find it, find it within you.

And when you can't hear a word from them around you, you're

going to have to recall a word from him who's in you.

And when life takes your melody. You're going to have to make

music out of all of those memories.

That's when it means. That's what it.

Means. That's what it means when.

The text says David encouraged himself.

Yeah, that word encouraged. Now it means to seize hold of

what God said with nothing else seems to stick.

The Hebrew word here means to strengthen yourself by grip.

David had to reach back and grab ahold of grace.

He had tied his trembling faith to a trustworthy God.

And I can hear him say now the Lord is my light and my

salvation. Whom?

Shall I fear the Lord? Is the strength.

Of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

Maybe he even said, I will bless the Lord at all times, and His

praise shall continually shall continually shall continually be

in my mouth. Maybe he didn't have.

Those words then, and he just told himself.

I still believe. Because.

Faith doesn't stop the fire, but Faith makes it flame proof.

And the text shows us that he encouraged himself while others

are talking around him, encourage themselves by the

planning to stone him. Encourage themselves even though

we didn't change around him, he got himself up.

Yes, Lord wiped his face, straighten his back up and

started to pursue again. Because Zig line teaches you how

to recover without revenge, Singling teaches you how to

worship without a cry or praise. Team.

Singling God teaches you how to lead when you're losing and how

the praise even while they're still burning around you, not

their brothers and sisters. This is the ugly side of

elevation, but it's also the holy side, the holy side of

endurance, because life will burn down some places in your

life all the way down to the ashes.

Vanguard, I'm sorry y'all, I got happy.

I said God can still raise, raise you up from what remains.

And when people walk away, God, he walks right in.

It's something about the fire God doesn't stay away from.

I've got to go for real now. But when the fire takes

everything great, still gives you something, I've got to go

for real. But I've learned that the same

God who lets you weep in one season is the same God who will

let you win in the next season. The same God who let you burn

down is the same God. The same God who will help you

build, build it back again. I'm sorry, I'm over my time.

I really want us to go home for real.

I want to eat some fried chicken.

How about you? But I'm so glad that the text,

that text is telling the teachers that the same God who

watched you cry in verse 4 is the same God, God who will make

you shout in verses because the power of sick laggy is you can

lose everything, surely, and still have enough love to get it

all back again. I can't help but think about I'm

not the son of David who also stood surrounded, surrounded by

sorrow, betrayed by those he blessed, pressed between heaven

and earth. Yeah, they thought his story was

over, too. They mocked him all night long.

They whipped him all night long. Put him on this balance beam

between cross and arrows. They made sure they beat him

long enough. They made sure they pierced him

deep enough. They made sure they lifted him

high enough. And the crime that cried Hosanna

one week, cried crucified the next week.

And that's the ugly side of elevation, because even Jesus

had to be lifted up before he can lift us up.

But I'm so glad he died. Y'all ain't Baptist for real.

I said he died side of that old rugged cross.

Golly for real. He died until the moon shook the

blood side. Until.

The arrows of heaven begin to collide with the men of the

earth. He died.

Until they had. To find a borrowed place for

him. But I'm so glad that early

Sunday morning, the same God who watched him hang.

It's the same God who raised him higher.

Raise him higher. Raise him higher.

Raise him higher than the ashes he was in.

Raise him higher than the pain he was in.

Come on, help me. Let's have church here.

Raise him higher. Higher than what he's surrounded

with. But I'm so glad that when he was

raised higher, he got up higher with all power in his hands.

Power to repeal what was ruined power.

Yeah. To restore what was lost power.

To redeem what was broken. Because Calvary proves that zig

lag may be a place of everything burning up, but God has a plan

to build back better. That's all I came to tell you.

Build back better. That's all I came to remind you.

Build back better. And if God can do it for his Son

Jesus, I need you to be reminded that this is not how your story

is. This is not how your story is.

This is not how your story is. This is not how your story is.

This is not how your story is. This is not how your story is.

This is not how your story is. This is not how your story is.

This is not how your story is. Cry but it ain't over yet.

Weep, but it ain't over yet. Well, but it ain't over yet.

But after you do all of that, encourage yourself and the Lord.

I will trust in the Lord with all, all my heart.

I wanna lead to my own understanding.

But in All in all you know Him on my lace.

Y'all don't want to have no church Him on the ways I'll

acknowledge I'm sorry. I feel glory.

I'll acknowledge him because the Lord's not under me.

This is not how my story is. I ain't ending with broken

bones. I ain't ending in defeat and

delay. I ain't in think in despair and

grief. I ain't nothing and sorrow and

small, but I'm mending help. God says I'm the head, I got to

stop, not the tail. I'm a bell and I'm not beneath.

I'm the lift up and not the borrower.

That's why you got to go. Go get some brother.

That's right there. I just thought I forgot.

Got to get it's your sister, you got to kill them because the

story ain't over. You might be stoic, but it ain't

no. Y'all don't want this word?

It's all right. It ain't over, Hallelujah, It

ain't over Hallelujah. It ain't over.

Hallelujah the sad. Part is 600 men who had who had

been with David from a place of debt, desolation and distrust

give up at Zig Lab and there are some of us in person and online

that to find themselves in this. Ugly.

Side of elevation. And instead of being David,

you're one of them once. Who are stuck in your feelings

and God just wants to know, can I get in your feelings?

I want to use your feelings. I'm going to use that too.

The more I I studied this text, I didn't know all this was

there. No lie.

I don't know how it gave me probably 27 pages of notes.

I know that's that's ambiguous, but I gave you that because I

want you to realize that elevation is about assignment.

It's not about a promotion, not about getting the title.

It's not about a, a new car, new discount prescription car.

What you say to Chris, not not in the AARP, but that's inside

elevation is about assignment. And before David can get his

second anointing, Deacon David, she might enjoy this.

David has only had one anointing when he was at his daddy's

house. Nobody knows publicly, other

than the chatter of who this David is.

Because everybody knows how the rumor mirror goes.

It spreads all around. David is living in between

anointment and appointment, and the crazy part is some Lord, I'm

sorry we got to get out here, but some of us have learned how

to live in the ruins of Zig Lag instead of crying in Zig Lag

bearing but need to be buried but moving on because there's a

headburn on the way. I know, I know, it's hard to

clap right there. I get it.

Because you want to get the second Samuel chapter 1 when

2 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

Saul has died and now David is to ascend to this seat.

We want to get there to to where we get the big chair, where we

get the house, get the car to Boo and we get the five bank

accounts. But sometimes God will sit us

right in between zig lag. To purge and prune.

US. And it's how you manage here.

Rather you rather you will breakdown or you will

breakthrough. Today I invite you to to get to

know Jesus for yourself and the free part of your sins.

He died on the cross for you and I.

He's already Lord and Savior. He just simply wants you to

acknowledge Him. He just wants you to accept them

to your heart and confess at your mouth and believe that's

all. I believe that he died and rose

from the grave. And Paul tells us if you do

that, you are saved. The man on the cross simply

said, Lord, Remember Me and he was saved on the cross.

We we say this prayer together, not because you can't pray, but

to help our our brothers and sisters in case you need words

to pray. So repeat this prayer to me if

you want to be saved, say Lord Jesus, come into my heart, save

me. I want to be saved.

Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross of me.

Lord Jesus, thank you for soon coming again for me.

Lord Jesus, thank you, in Jesus name, Amen.

Come on, put those hands. Together in my faith.

That someone just. Received Jesus.

Come on for real, clap those hands.

Someone just received Jesus into the heart.

Thank you for tuning in to the Rock Hill Baptist Church 2

Podcast. We pray today's message planted

something in your spirit and gave you the strength to keep

growing here at the Rock Hill Baptist Church 2.

We're a growing church, and growth starts with one step.

If you're ready to go deeper, visit us online at

www.myrockhill2.org and click Next Steps to get connected,

join a ministry, or give your life to Christ.

Be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss a message and

share this episode with someone you know is ready to grow too.

And remember, no matter what comes your way, you were built

to elevate. Until next time, walk in

purpose, live in power, and grow in grace.