On Perspective

Amen. Amen. Uh. We we're not starting a new series today.

We ended the Great House series last week and we're

going to start Full House next Sunday. So today, uh,

I kind of we we kind of feel like this

is uh this is one of those freebie Sundays where

I can just kind of like give you any message

that's on my heart.

And I like sundays like this.

I know that it helps you grow spiritually though, when

we have a very organized way that we preach. But uh,

I wanna I want to talk to you today. I

guess if you have to give this thing a title,

just call it perspective. Perspective. Let's pray together. Father, I

thank you for your word. It's the only change agent

on the face of the planet, and I pray that

today you change us at the very fabric of our being.

Lord, bring a.

Revelation of something that we know, but allow us to

see it the way you intend for us to see it.

In Jesus' name. Amen, Amen, and Amen.

I want to show you guys a couple of pictures.

Put that first picture up there for me, and I

want you to see that's that's a pretty place, isn't it.

I want you all to see where I'm going on vacation. No,

I'm just kidding, I'm not that's not That's not where

I'm going. Uh, but show that next picture.

I mean, that's just an absolute beautiful picture. And I

think that some people in here may be surprised to

find out that that those are actually images of the

Red Sea.

Right now, there are tens.

Of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people gathered

on the shores of the Red Sea, vacationing and having

a just a wonderful time.

You know.

I think a lot of times when we read scripture,

we don't really have a clear picture of what we're reading.

But you know, until I looked up the images, I

did not know the Red Sea look like that. As

a matter of fact, in my mind, it was a dark, dreary,

kind of lonely looking place. But that is an image

of the Red Sea. So let's just put that in

perspective for a second. So when Israel left Egypt and

they headed down out of Egypt and they headed down

to the banks of the Red Sea, that's what they

saw as they were standing there on the beach. That's

what they saw. And I would imagine in those initial moments,

it probably felt like vacation.

They had come.

Out of slavery. They were worn out and tired and

exhausted operating under the hard hand of the taskmaster. And

then they show up to a beach vacation. Come on, somebody,

everybody loves a beach vacation. Raiser Anne, If you love

a beach vacation, raisera anne, if you think you need

one right now, y'all's hands were like And then when

I said you need one right now, they went a

little higher. There's just something about that scene that feels relaxing,

that feels comforting. It takes us away from the pressure

that we feel in our lives, from the monotony of

the day to day and the ordinary. Let's read starting

in Exodus chapter fourteen, verse ten. You can just leave

that picture up there, just for context. Just leave that

up there for context. Exodus chapter fourteen, starting in verse ten.

And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted

their eyes and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So

they were afraid. The children of Israel cried out to

the Lord. Then they said to Moses, because there were

no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to.

Die in the wilderness?

Why have you so dealt with us to bring us

up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that

we told you you in Egypt, saying let us alone,

that we may serve the Egyptians, For it would have

been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that

we should die in the wilderness. Let me let me

give you the backstory. Here Israel had been had been

taken captive. They were living in bondage to the Egyptians.

The Egyptians were doing the work of slaves. They were beaten,

they were mistreated, they were starved, They they were in

a condition beyond anything that most of us could ever imagine.

And Moses shows up to set them free. But they

had become so comfortable with their circumstance and their situation

that they just felt that it was better there than

it was here. I want you to think about that,

for just a moment, it was better. It was better

working in the sand of Egypt than it was standing

on the banks of the ocean. Now, no doubt, when

they got there they took great solace and great comfort,

and they were excited.

But the moment they saw the dust from the Egyptian army.

The situation changed, not because it changed, but because pressure

brought a different perspective. Their situation didn't change, Their location

didn't change. It was still the beauty that you see

on the screen. It was still that beach front location.

But now the dust of Pharaoh's army has stirred fear

in their heart, and they find themselves in a place where,

even though nothing has actually changed, come on, somebody. Perspective

manipulated by pressure makes it feel like everything has changed.

Us jump just a.

Little bit further in that same chapter, so they go

from vacation to tomb. So the same place that looked

like a vacation now suddenly appears like a tomb. And

in verse twenty six of action this chapter fourteen, it says,

then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand

over the sea, that the waters may come back upon

the Egyptians on their chariots, on their horsemen. And Moses

stretched out his hand over the sea. And when the

morning appeared, the sun returned to the sea, returned to

its full depth, while the Egyptians were fleeing into it.

So the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of

the sea. So God's people march through. God calls the

waters of the Red Sea topart dry ground.

Israel marches through there.

On the other side, the Egyptians have chased after him.

There in the midst of the sea, Moses stretches out

his hand. God slams the water over the top of

the Egyptian army, and the place that was vacation, and

then a tomb becomes salvation, the same place. Nothing's changed

other than perspective. God was there when they got there.

God was there when Pharaoh's army was coming after them,

and God was there to ultimately seal their salvation. They

never had to worry about Egypt again because God drowned

them in the same place that they thought was so

beautiful then so terrifying. I wonder if we applied that

to our own lives, if we could get a little

bit different view and understand that even though things happen,

nothing really changes. It's the pressure that manipulates our perspective

to make us see things from a different point of view.

That it's the same job that we've always had, but

the pressure that we feel now makes it feel different

than when we first got it. As a matter of fact,

it seemed like the greatest job. Come on somebody. And

then it seemed like our salvation because it was paying

our bills. And now, all of a sudden, because we

showed up late and the ball said something to us,

it feels like our tomb. Or maybe it's a relationship

in your life that felt so good in the beginning

and then it's changed, and as the pressure has attacked

your life. There's nothing changed in the relationship, but something

has changed on the outside, and the pressure that's pushing

against you has changed. And now it has changed your perspective

about a relationship, has changed your perspective about whatever that

you're facing. And now suddenly you begin to look at

things differently, and you can't perceive God in the middle

of it because things are moving, but the situation is

the same, and now my eyes see it differently than

I did before. Pressure changes things. Pressure on our lives

makes us see things differently. You wake up and you're

in a good mood, and then you check your bank

account around lunch and you realize that there's forty two

cents left in it. Come on, somebody, and that great

day that you had suddenly spirals into oh no, how

am I going to make it? Or you send that

text and listen, I've probably done this to you. I'm

a short texter, Come on, somebody. My fingers are fat

and the buttons are little amen, and it's a challenge

to text. If you get stuff from me that doesn't

make sense, that means I didn't hit the right letter.

But Pastor Clay, especially when he first started working, he

would text me this big, long thing and my res

boss would be yes, no exclamation point, no period, no punctuation,

just yes or no.

And he would spend the rest of the day thinking.

About whether I was mad or upset at him because

he sent me something and asked me a question. But

that's just the way I text. Nothing changed, but perspective

changed because of pressure that may not have even actually been.

Pressure. The enemy is.

Good at what he does. He is practiced for thousands

of years, and he can take one person walking by

you and not speaking to you, or one person saying

something and that thing is taken out of context to

mean a completely different thing, and turn your world upside that.

You know, I remember back when we found out that

that we were pregnant with Madison. Oh, and she she

already knows the story on telling she's pressure, she's already

changed perspective. Do you see that she just went from

loving me to not sure yet she's going away and

say how this story goes? But uh, Angie, Angie took

a pregnancy test, and you know I was, I was.

I remember I was standing by the bed in the bedroom.

Now we've been married for three years, for three years,

and she comes out and she's just like squalling, just

like uncontrollably squaling, and and and she just I mean

upset and just just crying.

And I'm like, baby, what is wrong? Baby?

And I said, that's amazing, that's so awesome.

And this is what she said, What are we gonna

tell my parents? Now? This is the first thing that

popped into my head. And y'all know me.

I try to like every moment with humor. It's my mechanism.

It's what I do.

The joy of the Lord is my strength, and I

think it should be yours. Two.

So she looked at me and I said, maybe we're married.

Your parents know we do grown up things together. They

know that, they know that they're comfortable with that.

It's okay.

I'm sure that they know that. But in that moment,

she went through the gamut of emotions, right, And of

course now we know it was a blessing. We know

it was a great thing, and what an amazing child

and children that I have. I believe that God's using

to change the world and turn the world upside down.

But it's how the enemy gets involved in a moment

and uses pressure to change our perspective that makes us

see things differently than they really are, that will make

us see a tomb or salvation or a vacation, depending

on what's happening around us. But the reality is God

is there in every phase and in every situation.

Philippians chapter four, verse six says, this, be anxious for nothing.

Now listen, I.

Could preach four years right just before the comma, and

here's the thing.

Somebody would still come in next week.

Anxious, Amen, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by

prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, Let your requests be made

known to God. And the peace of God, which passes

all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. See,

the peace of God is that equalizer, the peace of

God is what presses outward on the pressure at the

exact same level that it's pressing in, and it keeps

you at an even kilter that things can look like

they're falling apart, or come on, somebody, let me just

have just a little hand right there at line and

say me, me, me, me, if you feel a little

pressure right now, if you're going through something that you

can feel pressure, And.

Here's the thing.

It may be real or it may be perceived, but

the reality is the peace of God presses back at

that same level. So I can continue to walk, and

I continue to function, and I can continue.

To be who God wants me to be.

You don't have to be off the chart, laughing and

smiling and happy for your life to be a testimony

when people see what you're walking through. When you have

the peace of God, it changes everything and you're like, well,

great pastor how do I get it? Thanksgiving when we

live our lives in a state of thanksgiving, when we

can come to the beach and thank God that we're there,

but then we look and we see Pharaoh's army coming,

and we can still give thanksgiving to God because of

the opportunity we have to be delivered. And then we

get out in the middle of the red sea after

he parts the water and he drives the ground, and

we can give him thanksgiving because we've been somewhere nobody

else has ever been. Come on, somebody, you may be

walking where nobody else has ever been. And what that

makes you as a world changer? It makes you a pioneer.

It doesn't make you a victim. Somebody should have shouted

a little harder right there, because we think we're a victim,

but God calls us a pioneer. We think everything's against us,

but God is giving us the opportunity to walk on water,

and nobody's walked there before. And thanksgiving and the heart

of everything in the midst of our sensuation and circumstance

triggers the peace of God in our lives. So we

step back and instead of saying God, why is everything

so hard? Why does everything feel so wrong?

Why?

Me?

Why us? Why this?

Why that? Come on, somebody? You say, God, I'm standing

here and things don't look like the way I want

them to look. But I know you've got a plan.

I don't see. I know you're up to something that

I can't quite fathom. That I can't wrap my mind

around it. I just can't perceive it. But I thank

you God that you're working on my behalf. I thank

you God that you're in the middle of it with me.

And it feels bad, it feels terrible, it feels uncomfortable.

As a matter of fact, I'm not happy about it.

But thank you God that you've trusted me to be

where I am so that you can get glory out

of my life. Because I'm just going to be honest

with you. Even if things don't go our way, we

get a promotion.

You know, most of.

Us, instead of chasing God's plan, we chase the American dream,

and we project what's happening to us against the backdrop

of the way we think things should be in an

ideal world. But God never promised us an ideal world.

God promised that he would bless us and he would

bring us through, and that he would be our comfort,

and he would walk beside us, and he would never

leave us, and he would never sleep, he would never slumber,

that he would always be there, and we would experience

him and growing him, and we would know new dimensions

of his character and his power, and all of those

things and they would be displayed in us and through us.

And that's how we know that we're winning and the

kingdom is that God is working through us and people

can see God God working through us even when things

are uncomfortable. That's where the peace of God comes from.

You know, since my dad passed away, the most normal

place I feel is right here. It's right here because

God created me to do this. God created me to

do this. It's when my wife is not saying, baby,

are you okay, but when she's saying go wash them dirty.

Dishes, I feel normal. I don't like it.

Nasty dishes that I let stack up and they're all gross.

And then I had to spend half an hour cleaning

the sink because the dishes sit there so long. But

it's in those moments where I'm activated and I'm doing

what God has called me to do and I'm allowing

Him to work in me and through me, that I

feel normal. That it's that equilibrium that presses against the

pressure from the outside.

It's how we.

Learn to look like Him and move like him and

keep my perspective. In Psalm chapter one twenty one, starting

in verse one, it says I will lift up my

eyes to the hills.

From whence comes my help.

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow your foot to be moved. He

who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps

Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper.

The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The

sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon

by night. The Lord shall present irve you from all evil.

He shall preserve your soul. He shall preserve the part

where he manifests himself and touches other people.

He shall preserve the part. He didn't say the rest

of it was gonna be easy, But he says.

Only inside that inside man, that place where where I reside,

that place where I dwell, where we have communion, where

we talk day.

And night and I'm speaking.

I'm gonna keep that, and I'm gonna preserve that, and

everything is gonna be okay, because one day that part

of you is going to meet the totality and the

reality of who I am, and we're going to meet

together in eternity, and you're going to experience joy and

fullness of joy and liberty and complete liberty and in

that day, you're going to realize that everything we walk

through and everything we went through was a testimony for

others to get them to this place. Whoo, I gotta

go back to the gym that took the breath out

on me. Pastor Clay, you guys can come and get ready.

In Ephesians chapter six, verse eleven, it says, put on

the whole armor of God, that you may be able

to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we

wrestle not against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of

the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness

in the heavenly places. We don't wrestle against situation and circumstance.

We don't wrestle. We don't wrestle against the beach. We

wrestle against the forces that are trying to change our

perception through the pressures placed by the enemy.

Our life is but a vapor, but our inner man

is eternal.

The American dream is an amazing thing, but it's mostly

only Americans that get to live it. There's a whole

host of people in other parts of the world that

don't get the creature comforts that we get.

And all of the trappings and nice trimmings.

That we get, but yet they experience God and they

find peace in God. And when we lift our eyes

to the hills from where our help comes, because it

comes from the Lord, not situations, not circumstances, but from

the Lord.

And we can reside in.

That and sit back in that and lean into Him

in the midst of all of the chaos and the

calamity around us.

When we can do that, I'm impervious to attacks.

From the enemy. We sit in Him and we say, hey,

you know what. Some days I wake up and it's

the beach, and some days I wake up and it

looks like the tomb, and some days it looks like

my salvation. But it doesn't matter because I'm in the

same spot with the same God who rescued my soul

and lifted me up and put my feet on solid ground. Church,

my prayer for you is always the same. God, give

your best to your people. God, give your best to

your people. And I know it seems contrary to who

I were thinking, But God works and moves in our lives,

and it's painful and it's hard, and sometimes it breaks

our hearts. Sometimes it breaks our will sometimes it builds

us up. But it's the same God working in all

of those situations, fighting against the pressure of the enemy,

pushing back and saying, come to me. Come to me,

all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I.

Will give you rest.

Because He doesn't just turn a beach into a tomb.

He can turn a tomb into a beach. He can

turn a tomb into the point of salvation. He can

work and move and bring your perspective into alignment with his,

and we can walk through any attack that the enemy

throws at us because God is our keeper and our fortress.

Everybody's standing with me all over the building. I want

you to know I didn't preach this message to diminish

what you feel or what you're going through, and it

matters because you feel it and you're going through it.

Preach this message to let you know that God hasn't

given up, that he's not finished, and he's right there

in the midst of it with you, and without anything

changing around you, you can experience the fullness of who

He is, and you can see this moment pregnant with

God's presence, filled with his mercies and graces, filled with

his provision and his miracles, and all you need to

do is reach out to him. You know, you may

be here today and you've never asked Jesus to forgive

you of your sins. You've never repented it, ask God

to move into your life. You know, if you've never

done that, you can keep looking at the hills from

where your help comes. And he's not obligated to come

because you're not his. We asked that question all the time.

If God is God, why does evil happen? Because not

everyone is his? But if you're here and you want

to know that you can rest in him, that you

can lean into him, all you need to do is

trust him today, and He's made it very simple, every

head bowed and every eye closed. If you're here today

and you've never asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins,

but to be the lord of your life today, you

want to say, Jesus, I'm turning my life over to you.

Have your way, bring me peace. If that's you, just

slip up your hand and say that's my pastor. I

want to trust Jesus. I want to give him my

life today. Just put your hand up quickly and put

it right back down wherever.

You are.

Going to wait just a moment, slip it up in

the air and put it right back down. Jesus, I

want to trust you. I want to come to you today.

Amen. Amen.

Amen, Now if you're here, they to say, I'm facing

some tough things.

I know the enemies.

Pressurized my situation, that he's pressing in against me on

all sides. And I feel the pressure and I don't

want it to alter my perspective. I need the Lord

to show up in my situation and my circumstance. If

that's you, slipper head and say that's my pastor, I

need God to just show up.

Amen. Need God, Amen, I need God. Amen.

I need God to work on me. I need God

to do something for me. I need God to help

me see Him in the midst of this. I need

his peace. I need his comfort.

Amen.

Amen, every eye open, every head looking around. I'm gonna

count to three. And when I get to three, if

you raise your hand, I want you to step out,

and I want you to come.

Listen.

Addie came to me in just a little while ago,

and she said, Pastin, can you just have people come

and pray for me? I just need people to come

and pray for me. I just feel the pressure of

life and listen, she's fixing to come, and I want

some people just to get around her and love on

her and pray for her. On the count of three,

if you raised your hand, I want you to come.

People are gonna meet you here. They're gonna surround you,

they're gonna pray for you, lift you up, and God's

gonna show up and he's going to equalize your pressure.

On the count of three, step out and move one, two.

Three, step out and move right now.

Come on, if that was you, if you lifted your hand,

come on, step out and move Come on, don't wait,

don't wait, don't wait, come on, come on. God will

meet you right here at your point of need.

Where are you? Come on? Come on, come on.

Amen Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen. Give me some people right here. Amen,

give me some people right here. Come on, come on,

get out of your chair and come down here and pray.

You don't get this chance very often.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Pray for one another. Pray for one another. Pray for

one another, Pray for one another, Pray for one another.

Amen. Amen.

Amen, Thank you, Jesus, Thank you, Jesus. I need some

people over here pray. And I need some people over

here pray and come on some other people. Get out

of your seat, say come over here and pray. Come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on, come back,

come back, come back back, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on.

Thank you, Jem, thank you. K m hm