ABIDE Through Transition

Amen. Amen. Well, the Holy Spirit has certainly been weaving

things, threading things together all through from last night

to this morning sessions through the workshops. I have seen

just the steady hand of the Lord, and I believe that tonight is going to

be no different. I believe that we're in for a treat, not because

Barbie's special, though you are. But the Holy Spirit of

God is in this place, and He wants to minister through just

one of the most phenomenal people on the planet. Do you guys agree? Would you

guys please welcome Pastor Barbie Laughlin as she brings the Word.

You know what would have been really awkward? When you said the most phenomenal person

and I stand up, and it would be Pastor

Justin. And then I would have had to go back and sit down.

That's okay. The Lord's working humility in all of us, isn't He?

I am so excited! Guys, I'm so glad you came back!

I'm so glad in so many levels, you know, it's like, you

came back, your leaders came back. You never

really know when they take off, but I'm so glad you're back. I

want you to know you add so much

to this environment with your worship, with your praise, and the way that you

all come in and just abandon yourself in worship.

We We miss you when you're gone. We so miss you. So thank you

for coming back, and I pray that the Lord has done something amazing in your

life. Guys, has it not been rich today? I'm telling you

the truth. The Ondas this morning both just—

the Ondas knocked it out of the

park. You cannot even find the park. I'm just telling you this.

If you were not here this morning, you need to go back and just look

up Ondas— no, don't. Look up this morning's

sessions. You need to hear them. I'm telling you,

these two women,

powerhouses in the Spirit. I had to go home and

study after listening to them. I had to look up words and all

kinds of things. So,

there's the challenge in that, but I'm In all seriousness,

Pastor Kevin and I were talking this morning after the first session,

we were like, "We could just go on home now, 'cause you know, you just

gotta go home and ponder." But you don't get to go home yet. We're gonna

wake up, we're gonna have a dance session in just a minute, and—

You're not even listening! Don't

make me start calling out volunteers!

Jim Caldwell, you're first. The

man behind the camera. God has something for us tonight, and I'm

so excited about how He truly has been

weaving this together. And tonight, I'm gonna take

it in a direction of abiding when your world is in

transition. When everything is changing,

everything is changing. And guys, it's nothing new.

It's always been changing. We just seem to be a little bit more aware

of it right now. And I was so moved, I'm telling

you, this the truth. From Pastor Jonathan last night when he began to paint

the picture, or work on this tapestry of

worship and abiding in worship, and I love the way

he does that. And I'm so tickled to know his proposal

story and everything else. He's just so

rich in this area. And then to listen to

Vonda, oh my goodness!

That woman, I'm telling you what, the way that she paints this

picture of the vine and abiding and

all of the distractions and the ground clutter and just

beautiful as an educator. And then Rhonda, oh

my goodness, I want to know where she gets all of her

resources. I need a list and I'm going to have

to take a speed speech thing so that I

can just, I That, I'm— when I

listen to an anointed teacher, I just find myself going,

"How did they get that? And God, why didn't you give it to me

first?" But that's

okay. I forgive— never mind. So,

we've painted this, we've began to weave this tapestry of

the vine and abiding, and each of us have continued

with the same passages of scripture. And

so, I would just like to share with you my contribution to the

tapestry.

I am that squirrel, okay? We

are going to talk about a Bible— is he not cute?

There was another photo and he was laying on his back and his stomach

was really full, and I thought that's a pretty good one too, and probably pretty

accurate after the day we've had. But I thought this one was good

because we're because what I feel like the Lord is going to have me do

tonight, that I feel like He wants me to share with you, is

a different slant on

abiding. Abiding when the world is

crazy, and your home life is crazy, and your

school is chaotic, and your church, they're changing things there

without asking your permission, and all of a sudden you start

to feel this unrest. And you're

not really sure how to get back to center with

Him, right? So I thought I would help you guys get back to

center with Him as we take a journey. And

I might have missed the memo. Were we supposed to all use

the same scripture?

Yay! All right then, I'm not in trouble because not only am I

going to share a different scripture with you, it's King James!

So, is that a no?

The reason I want to share it with you in the King James is because

this is a passage of scripture that my mom used to use with me

all the time when my world was changing,

when things were chaotic, and I didn't really know how

to find my place in him

long enough to learn to abide. I

was grasping at ankles. I was trying to

find Jesus. I was trying to find hope. I was trying

to find answers. And I didn't know how

to get in and just find my place with Him long enough to

abide. And my mom—

short story— 2 times as a child,

our home burned down. And so, even as I— the

first time I was very small, but I still remember the home.

The second time, I was probably about 7 years old, and we lived in a

mobile home. And we had been gone for the night, and we got a phone

call that our home was on fire. And we came home, and here's the

thing about that. When you are 7 years old, and most of your possessions

are stuffed animals, and you're watching them die in a

fiery death, as you stand in the road,

it does something to you, I'm just saying. And so, what it did was

it developed in me a fear when I would go to bed at night,

because this happened at nighttime. And so, I would be afraid at

night, and because I was afraid something was gonna catch on

fire and all that. And so, my mom would come, and

she would sit on the bed next to me, and she would begin

to share this with me. "He that

dwelleth," Barbie, "in the secret place

of the Most High shall abide under the

shadow of the Almighty." She said, "You can say of

the Lord that He's your refuge, and He's your fortress, and

He's your God, and Barbie, you can trust Him.

Surely He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler,

and from the noisome pestilence," which I thought was my younger sister,

and He shall cover

thee with His feathers, and under His

wings shalt thou trust. His truth

shall be thy shield and thy buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid of

the terror by night. Barbie, baby, you don't have to

be afraid of the terror by night,

because I was. Nor of the arrow that flyeth by day,

nor for the pestilence that— oops, what's that say?

Oh wait, y'all can read it too?

Read the last parts with me. "Nor of the pestilence that

walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that

wasteth at noonday." And louder. "A thousand

shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at

thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh

thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou

behold, and see the reward of the wicked."

because thou hast made the Lord, which is

my refuge, even the Most High,

thy habitation. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

We have made the Lord Most High what? Our

habitation. There shall no evil befall thee,

neither any plague come nigh thy dwelling, for he shall

give his angels charge over thee to keep

thee in all of thy ways. I'm going to skip this next one.

Guys, when we— no, I'm not. Yeah.

"They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy

foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the serpents,"

oops, "upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon."

There be dragons! "Shalt

thou trample underfoot." This

was my abiding scripture. This was my

abiding scripture because I was afraid of

the terror in the night. I I was afraid when I would

see anything. I was just a frightened child.

I walked in a lot of fear. And Mama would go,

"Baby, you just gotta abide. You just gotta

picture yourself," she'd say, "I want you to just tuck in there.

I want you to just tuck in there." And today, you know,

you hear people who's like, "You're tucked in snugger than a

bug in a rug."

No. When I was tucked in, I was under the

shadow of the wing of the

Almighty God, and I could see it in

my spirit. I could see it. And when she would say, "Tuck

in," I knew that she meant, "Get in there and don't come out.

Just tuck in there. You let Him cover you." And you let all

of those things earlier when we talked about all of the fruit of

abiding, Do you understand that being protected

and being covered and having all of these things

are things that happen when you begin to learn

to abide under the shadow

of the Almighty? Did you even know

that there is such a thing?

Oh, go back. "He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High

shall abide under the shadow

of the Almighty." Shall abide.

Shall stay under the shadow

of the Almighty. It says here if

we dwell, we dwell, we dwell. That word is yasaab.

It literally means to sit down.

Sit down in the middle of that place with Him and abide

and stay. Sit down in it. Sit down

in that moment with Him. Sit down in that place with

Him and continue. Just be still. Inhabit.

To make it one's home.

You can abide. You can make your

home in under the shadow

of the Almighty God. The Almighty God.

Not only that, it's a secret place. It's a

secret place in Him. It is a place, you know

what? When I go into His presence, that place that He

has for me, when the world is crazy and

I don't know what is going on, there's this place that each of

us place can go in Him. I want you to

know that when you pursue Him, and when you decide that

you really want to follow Him, and you want to find a place in Him,

that place that He has for you isn't going to look exactly like the place

that He has for me. It's going to be different because it's special,

and it's secret, and it's a covering, and He covers what you

need covered. And when I'm in that secret place, He what I

need covered, and He protects me from the

things that I need protection from. So guys, when you

go into this place with Him, and you sit

down in His presence, and, and literally

visualize the shadow of His wing coming around

you, the intimacy of that moment, and you make a decision

to stay there, you can expect

I don't even have to put a dot, dot, dot. You can

expect. It says here, "Most

High." What? Most High? El

Elyon. The elevated one. The supreme of all rulers,

monarchs, or angel princes. It highlights God's absolute

supremacy, sovereignty, and role as the Creator and

Possessor of heaven and and earth. It is

used to indicate God's superiority over all other gods,

all earthly powers and spiritual realms. That's

where you're going. That's where you're going when you make

a decision to come in and tuck in close

to Him and learn to abide in His presence.

That's who He is. El Elyon. The

Supreme One. The Creator and

Possessor of heaven and earth, and abide. You know

what? There's something I like about this. You loon! Anyway,

you know what's precious about this? I didn't know this, and I know,

I know that my mom didn't know this, but you know,

today the Amdas were talking about abiding

during the day, and God and Rhonda was talking

about day after day after day after

day in abiding in that vine and and what God is

doing. And I kept thinking, "I used to

pass the night with Him." So not only is

He covering me in the day, and I'm

abiding in this vine by day, at night,

to pass the night, to lodge, to stop and

dwell, to stay and continue to tarry, to remain through the

night. That's what He gave me as a child, and that's something

I still have today. I still tuck in. And when I

talk I tuck Rowan and Nora in bed at night and I'm tucking those

covers in behind them, all I can see

is the shadow of the wing of

the Almighty God just tucking them in

tight and covering them up.

And that would be my prayer when you're tucking your babies

in at night, that you would see that it's not

just about tightening those covers. It's about

tightening the COVID It is about

allowing God to be God and sovereign in the middle of the

night. What does this have to do with transition?

Everything! Everything!

Because when everything's changing, if I like it,

it's okay. But what if things are changing and you don't

like the way things are going? We have choices

in those moments of where we're going to stand, whether we're going to— one of

my favorite one of my favorite, favorite songs Pastor Wayne ever

did. And he's got like a million and a half songs that

he's written. Such an amazing artist,

psalmist. But he stood up here and he sang a

song called, "I Will Not Run."

I will not run. And I can't tell you

how that impacted me as a child of

people who ran. It impacted me to

go, "There are people who do not run." And guys, we are not supposed

to be a people who run. We are supposed to be

a people that tuck in and abide

in the presence and the shadow of the Almighty God.

Shadow. I liked this part just

because it made me think about the branches outspread

a permanent place to shelter. Through what?

The transitoriness of life. When everything's

changing, everything's changing, and you just want

to tuck in and hide somewhere, that's His

shadow. Now what about this? Under the shadow of who?

Of who? The Almighty. This is

Shaddai. This is Shaddai. This is the

all-sufficient one. And guys, it's

so important, and we gloss over this, El Shaddai is the God

of the mountain. The God of the mountain, and I want

to share with you what that means. But

before I go there, I was so impacted

when Rhonda— I'm sorry, when Vonda was sharing this morning, and she was talking

about— well, actually Rhonda shared part of it as well.

They were talking about what it looks like

to abide, and their definitions, just every

single one of them, I'm like, "God, I want that!

I want to know that!" But

I have a place that I abide

when I'm trying to get back to center, and when I'm trying to find

my place back under His wing, And if I

can, I'm gonna take you there with me and kind of show you what that

looks like in my world, in my life.

Because what I do when I'm trying

to find that place

in the night watches, in the day,

I'll sit down at my piano

and I just shut everything else out

and I just kind of see myself in that

place with Him, just Him covering me

and lifting my voice and just talking to him.

And when we began to talk about abiding,

I just sat at the piano.

That's how I took it. That's how I

lean in. And I

know, I know that you have

a song that is just yours and just his

and a place where you can lean in under the

shadow of the Almighty. That's the invitation.

Whoops, I gotta finish.

You can't just leave it hanging out there like that. You know, people, all the

musicians in the room are going,

"Oh wait, I should have left it that way, shouldn't I? That would have been

fun." Anyway, wanted to wake people up, that would have been the way to do

it. So, why am I telling you this?

Sometimes you need a tool. Sometimes we can talk

all day about what it's like to abide in the vine, but I want you

to see what it's like to crawl up into the vine. That little

squirrel up there, that feels like me a lot of times. Like, "Lord, I know

I'm attached here somewhere, but Lord, I'm going to walk this

vine just a little bit until I find the place where I can sit down

and rest because God, I need

you. God, I need you."

As the world around us changes and transitions, the temporary

winding toward the permanent. We have the

invitation to tuck in and to be covered by His

wings. To abide. When my

mom was telling me that I could abide and that He would

cover me under His feathers, she had no idea

that it was literally talking about nighttime.

We sit down, we still ourselves, we inhabit His

secret covering, sheltered by El Elyon, passing through

night watches in the The permanent shadow of

the all-sufficient One. The permanent

shadow. See, He doesn't change. He does

not change. That invitation, guys, when

Pastor Kevin came to us last year and he said, "I really feel like the

Lord is leading us toward abiding," the first thing

I saw was those wings. The first

thing I saw. It's like, Lord, I don't know everything about

abiding, but I don't know all of it, but God, I know how to hide

there. God, I know when I need to be restored, when

I need to be covered, when my family is shaking, when

my work is shaking, when I turn on the news, Lord

forbid, and you see everything else that's happening. Guys, that's just chess

pieces. That's just chess pieces.

That is the

temporary moving toward the eternal. That's

all it is. Don't get caught there. Don't get

caught up there. We sit down, we still ourselves, and inhabit.

"He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His

wings shalt thou trust." I so wanted feathers.

Not attached, but

I really wanted like a bunch of feathers, but then I could just see

Pastor Jonathan picking them out of his guitar strings, and I thought that probably wouldn't

be a good thing. He shall cover you. Our lives

are hidden. Listen, our lives are hidden in

wings and prayers. Bon Jovi

didn't write that.

Well, maybe they wrote their version of it. Guys,

I knew my mom's prayers, the 91st

Psalm, and the way that He covered me.

There's an abiding place for

you. Which of you by worrying

can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot

do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Consider how the wildflowers grow. They do not

labor or spin, yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all

of his splendor was dressed like one of these. If

that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which

is here today and tomorrow is if one of them is thrown into the fire,

how much more will He clothe you,

you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what

you will eat or drink. Do not worry about it, for the pagan

would run after such things, and your Father knows

that you need them. But seek His kingdom, and

these things will be given to you.

Put Him first. Put Him first! Go after

Him first! Guys, I was listening to

a doctor/theologian/minister/psychologist.

Okay, let's just say he had a lot of certificates.

He was an older gentleman, and I was listening to him,

and he said, "You know what I see all the time? There's so much

anxiety. There's panic attacks in

epidemic. There is fear, and there is restlessness. I'm

seeing this in my office, And he said, "The thing about it is—"

And he gave the science behind everything that's released,

the flight and fight mentality, all of that. But then he

slid right into pastor mode. He said, "Guys,

God did not design you to worry about poverty in

Bangladesh. He did not design you to

be concerned and fearful over everything that you're seeing,

things that you can't touch and change." I'm not talking about missionaries that

God sends. I'm talking about the day-to-day, you you and me who turn

on the news and look at things and, and feel overwhelmed. He said, "Your

physical systems were not designed for that, and your

spiritual systems are not built up enough that they know

how to combat it." So what we're doing is we're medicating it, and

thank God for medicines that will help people in those

situations. But what he said was, you were

designed by our Creator

for small community. I can grieve with Kevin.

I can rejoice with you. I can

handle grief within a small area as we

minister to one another, but what the enemy has done is try to make us

all feel responsible for everything that is happening in the world, but as

they said this morning, and as Pastor Kevin said last night, we

can't fix it! We can't add one inch to

our height. We can't.

Let me tell you how Jesus did this, because I'm looking at how

He abided, because He abided. It wasn't just

us abiding. He stayed. Jesus

stayed with the 5,000. When you look at the world, when you

see the masses, and you're going, "How do I do this?" You

abide in compassion. You abide in compassion.

It said, "And seeing the multitudes," He went up on a

mountain and He did what? He sat down.

You know what that word means? He abided.

He went in, kathizo, continue in one place,

abide, and settle in. When you don't know what to

do with everything you're seeing and everything you're hearing, move in

compassion, pray, sit down,

settle in for a minute, and go, "God, I see it and I know that

I can't change it, but God, I can't, you can. And you are

a God who stays. He went from the 5,000

and then with the 12. With the 12, you know how He abided?

God will put people in your life that you can abide with, that you can

walk with. Jesus abided in discipleship

with the 12, and they abided with Him,

and they learned, and they gleaned, and they went with

Him. I love this right here. I hope they put this scripture up.

"Again Jesus went up on a mountainside and called

to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. And He appointed 12

that," what? "They might be with Him."

What? "That they might abide with Him.

Sitting down," kathizo, sitting in the middle and waiting,

"Jesus called the 12 and said, 'Anyone who wants to be first,

must be the very last and the servant of all,

abiding the opportunity to come and be in.

Then there were the three. See, you can have compassion for the

masses, and you can abide in compassion for the

masses, and then you abide in discipleship with those that God

puts into your life and brings into your realm of influence, and

you pour into them and you sow as the best that you can. And then

there are the three. Then there are those intimate companions. There are

those that share your life with you on a daily basis.

With the three, Peter, James, and John, Jesus stayed.

He abided. How did He abide? In revelation

and relationship. You can sow into those close

relationships and you can reveal your heart in

those relationships as you abide and you stay

in those places. With Him,

all of those things change. The 5,000 changes.

The 12 will change. At this point in my life, I can tell you my

12 has changed over the years, but the

calling to those in that area has not stopped and has

not changed. With the 3, I have been so blessed to have the

most amazing friends in my life, and God has sent to me what I needed

me in those seasons exactly what I needed.

I'm going to skip. In scripture, I

want you to pay attention, guys. All three of those things I just told

you, whether it was God in the thousands, He went up on

a mountainside and He sat down and abided with

the twelve. He went up on a mountainside and He began

to call the twelve. And then with the three, He took the two

and And they went up on a mountainside and the revelation

of God came to them. What did I just call El

Elyon? What did I just call El Shaddai? The

God of the mountain. The God of the mountain

that meets us there. Mountains

are places of revelation. Not a lot grows there,

but revelation does come. My granny used to have

me sit down and sing In the valley he

restores my soul. And there's a line in it that says, nothing grows

high on a mountain, so

he picked out a valley for me. I

have told you these things so that in me you may

have peace. In this world, this has already been shared today, you

will have trouble, but Do what? Take

heart! Take heart! I have overcome

the world. You can abide there. You

can stay there. You can grab hold of that and

rest. Now let me tell you something, abiding does not just

happen. It does not just happen. It's something, it

is a decision. You decide,

God, I want to Abide.

I want to abide in the vine. I want to

be attached to everything you're doing. I'm so grateful for

the roots. When Rhonda was talking this morning about the roots, and that's

where our water comes from. I am so grateful that, but

in order, it's a decision to stay, and a

decision, it's a practice. We don't learn it overnight.

We don't wake up, just like the plants don't grow overnight, and

as Pastor Shari shared today talking about the tree appearing

in her front yard just overnight, and it doesn't happen

that way. But if we will practice, if we

will practice, and we will allow the Lord to show us what

abiding looks like in our life. It is a

posture. It is a place in

Him. Worship guys— oh, I'm sorry, you

prefer worship dudes. I'm sorry. Worship

team. Oh no, actually the correct

term is Levites. You

do understand, and you do understand that

you are a priesthood, Levitical priesthood.

There's a lot that, that is behind their

abiding. So what we're going to do is we're going to

give you just one more opportunity before

you go home and dread that hour that you're losing. Before

you go home, we're going to make a conscious decision and we're going to

do this. He who dwells in the secret place

of the Most High will abide under

the shadowy wings of the Almighty. Guys,

if you have capacity And if you are able, young people,

lead us. Lead us. Those

of you who were up here kneeling, take just

a moment if you would. And I want you this time,

when you settle into worship— grown-ups too,

I don't mean to negate you, but

I also know what your knees are like. And If

you have it in your heart, this time when they lead us in this

song, I want you to just close your eyes for a minute. If you're kneeling

or if you're standing, and I want you to take just a moment

and press into that place, and

I want you to see it in your spirit, the invitation to

just tuck in and abide under

the shadow of the Almighty. Go

ahead, guys.