Empowered by Grace

Welcome to the New Life Church Podcast where we dive deep into

the timeless truths of the Bible.

My name is Jake and I'm absolutely thrilled to be your host.

In each of these episodes we'll unpack the richness of the Scriptures, exploring

how It's teachings can bring New Life and Meaning to our everyday existence.

Get ready to be Inspired, Challenged and Uplifted as we navigate the

profound wisdom of the Bible together.

This is a place where Faith meets daily life.

This is New Life Church.

So let me read you this passage from 1st Kings 19 and Ahab told

Jezebel all that Elijah had done.

Also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying so let the gods do to

me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of

them by tomorrow about this time.

Jezebel has just set a time limit on the man of God's life.

Now the enemy loves to do that.

The enemy will lie to us and will speak with more authority

than what they, what he carries.

Here we are, we're accepting authority that the enemy doesn't have, and we're

denying authority from God that he does.

That, that, that is a trap.

That is a problem.

And that's an area that we can, in our doubt, in our weakness, in our

struggle, that we are accepting truth from the enemy that's not true, and

we're denying truth from God that is.

It's, it's really wild what, what we can get ourselves into the frame of believing.

And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life and went

to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat

down under a broom tree, and he prayed that he might die, saying, It is enough.

Anybody ever felt like that?

It's enough.

I've had enough.

Don't raise your hand.

Wink at me.

Have you said, I've had enough this week?

He said, Now, Lord, take my life, for I'm no better than my father's.

And as he lay and slept under the broom tree, suddenly an angel touched

him and said to him, Arise and eat.

And he looked, and there was by his head a cake baked on coals and a jar of water.

So he ate and drank and lay down again.

And the angel of the Lord came back a second time, touched him

and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.

So he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food

forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.

Amen.

Now, Elijah, for those of you who don't really, haven't put all the

pieces together, has just experienced one of the greatest spiritual

victories, and honestly, one of the most poignant in the entire Bible.

It would be very, very hard.

There's like a handful on my short list of seeing God prove himself with

the might, the power, the clarity, and just overwhelming Presence

that he does in this situation.

I love to see God move, but man, this is a really wild one.

I would say, um, the walls of Jericho offhand falling down that one.

You know, that's pretty wild, right?

The parting of the Red Sea.

That's pretty incredible.

Um, these are things that are just like highlight reels of God's faithfulness.

But as far as I'm concerned, this is a really wild narrative.

That these, the prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth, there's hundreds of them,

and they have been circumventing and pulling the hearts of the Israelites

away from God for years and generations.

And they are, they are telling lies about God.

And they have gotten great influence thanks to Jezebel

and her weak husband Ahab.

They are trying to steal the hearts of God's people away with

doubt and with sin and wickedness.

And God has had enough.

You know, the good guys are being persecuted.

They're having to hide so they don't get killed.

And then in one of the greatest role reversals ever, spiritually

speaking, Elijah, number one, takes him to the mountain.

Now the mountain.

It's not just any old place.

It's a place of high visual content, right?

It's a place where we're looking and saying, this is meant to be seen.

God means to be seen on Mount Carmel.

God is not afraid of the tests.

God is not afraid to stand toe to toe with anything or with anyone.

We need to know that about God.

We may not always understand what He's doing, but He is not intimidated

by any false god, by any false problem, or any lie from the enemy.

Somebody said, Amen.

God is not intimidated by your problem.

I'm going to come back to it again.

God is not intimidated by your problem.

You may be.

You may have your, your, your lens off a little bit, not understanding.

You see that in the Bible sometimes when the spies come back.

What's their report?

They said, um, you know, there's giants in the land.

They're huge and, and we are like grasshoppers in their eyes and in ours.

So we have two different synoptic components there.

We have, uh, he said, we're, we're real little.

In their eyes and in our own eyes, you know who they did not count on, you know,

whose eyes they didn't check, you know, whose truth they weren't walking in.

They never stopped to ask, what do you see these giants as?

Now, because when we start to look at that and say, Oh God,

what do you see in this situation?

I know what the enemy's lying about.

I know what I see in this situation.

But if we forget to add in that third lens of what God can do,

what he will do and what he says, allow God to inform your situation.

Stop letting your doubts inform your situation.

Stop letting your fear, stop letting your past inform your life.

Stop walking in what other people are saying, and get a hold

of what God is saying to you.

What does God say about this situation?

What does He say about your life?

What does He see in this?

And how might He receive His glory?

I am done with the reports of the enemy.

I am done with contradictory reports from what God has promised me for my life.

I don't have time for it.

I don't want to hear it.

I don't even entertain it anymore.

I shut it down.

I unplug it.

I unplug from it.

Oh, I'm telling you what, I was, I, you don't get to a lot of places

where you have zero cell service.

But we were up in Highland County, up in the mountains in Virginia, away from,

from everything but, but God and beasts.

And so we're up there with all these old guys, these hunters.

And I was up there and I was, I was feeling a little

unplugged from civilization.

I got a little nervous, kept checking my phone, and one of those old codgers looked

at me and said, it ain't going to change.

But boy, I wish that we would unplug from every word and

every view and every promise.

But what God has said, get alone.

You know what did work up there?

My Bible.

Whoo.

You know what I didn't have to plug into?

What I didn't have to find the bars.

I had, I had my Bible and I could hear from God.

Oh God, take us to a place Lord.

Take us to a mountain.

Take us to a wilderness if you have to.

To where all that we're hearing is a word from God in season.

Get all the other stuff out.

Get the doubts out.

Get the fears out.

Get everyone else's prognosis of my situation.

Get it out.

I need to hear from God.

Somebody say Amen.

Because God is faithful.

Yes, Elijah has seen the power of God.

God answered by fire and consume the sacrifice, right?

And we remember this, you know, what's the bummer though?

Didn't change anything.

So it seemed it didn't change anything.

You ever been there prayed and bless God and this, this,

and this, and it was great.

But in the end, the situation was still there.

You're still looking at your giant, you know, that giant that David, it was still

breathing even after he knocked it down.

Let me teach you this.

Sometimes the thing dies in a different moment than it gets toppled.

And all that really changed is David's view of him until the head is cut off.

So we like to think, you know, but the thing didn't die right then.

He had to finish it.

It was a different action.

It was a different moment that he cut off the head of the giant and slew him.

That provides a little bit of context for us to understand that whenever we

sometimes you come to an altar of prayer, you receive a word from God, you pray

through and then things don't immediately.

Everything just miraculously sent to existence the way you thought

that it would, but it doesn't mean that the work hasn't been done.

It means that you exist in a dot of time and space, and you're trying to have a

conversation of faith with the God who doesn't With a God who's not bound by

that, who's operating in truth beyond what we're able to see or understand.

But it's tough when it seems like everything, every step

forward, every decision you make doesn't really change anything.

Pastor Alika Holt, um, gave me, uh, what I felt like some

really good, interesting advice.

So, think about this.

We're going into a, a awesome building project here at church.

God's doing amazing and great things, but that's not gonna, it's not that

it's not gonna be hard sometimes.

It's gonna be a very stretching season.

Anytime you try and step out, even spiritually alone, the pushback that

you're gonna get from the enemy and people who come into agreement with

the enemy is always, oh, try and build the wall in Jerusalem, Nehemiah.

See, see how many Tobias and Sam ballots you're gonna have come and

throw rocks and mock and try to cause discouragement and distraction, all that.

Oh, well, it'll happen.

It always does.

But God is building the house.

Pastor Leakey, he's been through some of those and I saw a startling statistic.

An overwhelming majority of pastors resigned their churches within

two years of a building project.

Don't worry.

I'm good.

I ain't going nowhere yet.

It's going to take the National Guard to get me out of here.

I love it.

And I love you people.

I love our church.

But that is the statistic, like the, just the stress or

like the, and different things.

So I was like, what's the real problem?

Like, you know, cause he's been through that.

And the pastor he was working with as an associate at the time.

You know, two years later, he did as well, after it all got

finished, and it was beautiful, and awesome, and paid for, and great.

Within a couple years, he, you know, he was gone.

And I said, what's the deal?

I was like, because we have a general contractor, so he's going

to handle, like, most of the stress, and we've got a good team.

What is the component that I'm missing here?

Because it seems like you'd be super excited.

Um, he said, many pastors quit because they have it in their head

that growth, revival, and spiritual renewal will happen at the end of that

stretching and time stamped season.

At the end of it, they're expecting to get through all the stress and

all the stretching and all the work and everything and then it's done and

then like magic things are, you know, better like you've built it up to

be like, okay, right away, all these things are going to happen right away.

There's going to be success right away.

Um, these ministries are going to go for right away.

God's going to just fill up the, you know, the tank and it's going to be awesome.

We're just going to go off like a house on fire.

It's going to be revival and all the dreams are going to come true.

There's not gonna be any pushback, no problems.

It's going to be glorious.

Yes.

But that's not the way spiritual work ever is accomplished, right?

It is, it is a deep rooted faithfulness, even intergenerationally.

There's a great, great quote, and it said, A society becomes great when

older men and women plant trees whose shade they will never sit under.

And so I, I, I speak to you, I bless you, and I prophesy this to you.

Especially to our generation who is faithful, who is older, who is, who

has provided what we have and enjoy.

I bless you.

And I thank God for you.

A church becomes great.

Raise that little boy up and show him.

That is what we're trying to set up for the greatest revival ever.

It may not be me.

Hey, it may not, Sister Phillips, it may not be us.

For the client, it may not be us.

We might not actually see the wholeness of the harvest.

What if he does?

That's what we're trying to accomplish.

Amen.

Praise God.

I, I, I'll never stop being this way.

You go call the National Guard because I don't care.

I will prophesy to, to the goodness of God.

I will declare His goodness and His faithfulness that I have seen in the

land of the living and I will cast vision and I will fail and I will

be embarrassed sometimes and I will have to go back to the drawing board

sometimes and it won't always look the way that I had thought that it would

look but I will keep believing for God.

God's goodness over our church.

I will keep believing for the lost souls to be saved.

I'll keep believing in life no matter what people vote for, no matter

what kind of legislation passes.

I will not stop believing in faith for the things that God

has promised and he will do it.

I don't care.

I will always believe God for greater things.

To whom shall we go?

What else are we going to believe and what else is going to tether us to any

kind of meaning or purpose in life?

Save.

The call of Christ going back to the sermon that I had thought to preach.

We are many times most spiritually sensitive after a time of great pouring

out of ourselves before the Lord.

That's when we're weak is when we accomplish a lot.

And that's interesting that that goes spiritually.

That goes emotionally, mentally, physically.

Right.

They say, Pastor, don't resign on a Monday.

Because whenever you pour everything out, everything that you've got, and

you, and you wring out the bottom, right?

Then that's kind of when you're weakest, and you're waiting

to be filled back up, right?

And it doesn't always happen just with a prayer, and so you have to protect

yourself and be spiritually mature, right?

But you have to be careful, too, whenever you, whenever you pour out,

whenever you do something really special, when you do something that,

that stretches you, that's meaningful.

The enemy likes to come in and then kind of, you know, flank you, and

then make you discouraged, right?

Um, in nature, what's after a female got created, the male and female,

somebody said, Amen, has given birth.

That's when she is most vulnerable.

That's when predators will try to come because they'll come for her in a weakened

state whenever she can't run away, really.

And she's also, she's lost blood.

She's lost everything that she's feeding is going to the baby right then.

Right?

So she's, she's at a, a nutritionally depleted state and they'll come after the

young and they'll come after the mother.

That's what predators do.

That's whenever in nature, we see that, right?

We see that spiritually as well.

When do you think the critics are going to come?

When do you, when do you think the people who are going to come in and cast doubt?

I am preaching my head off right now at a very small voice and you, I would that

you would hear the Word of the Lord.

Hear me, man of God.

Hear me, woman of God.

When do you think the enemy will come after you?

When do you think people who are, well, they're bullies, and they're critical,

and they're hateful, and they're not in agreement with God, when do you think

you'll hear from them whenever you're trying to birth something that matters?

When you're trying to do something for God that matters whenever you're

trying to take what he's given you and bring it forth into Something

that can actually replicate itself.

It's not just a one time thing.

It's not just an emotional thing You're trying to build something that matters

that will sustain that will change hearts and lives and eternal Destinies

whenever a church is trying to birth that and bring that forth forward and

obey God and be what we're called to be.

That is when we're most vulnerable.

That's when you're going to see divisions, try to crop up, try to see the enemy.

So things against friend and family and brother and sister and husband

and wife and Children and father.

That is when the enemy will work most against the body of Christ when it's

trying to do what is created to do what has been called to do what has been

commissioned to do whenever we are doing.

I wish somebody would hear what I'm preaching today whenever we

are who we're supposed to be.

We have to trust God, but we also have to protect division.

We got to protect the baby.

We got to protect what's young and what can't protect itself.

Elijah feels like a failure.

He's at his weakest.

Not because he lacked a huge supernatural breakthrough or

miracles, but because nothing changed in his eyes when it happened.

He says, Why do I keep trying?

Why do I return to the altar every time, again and again when nothing changes?

Sister Evelyn is my friend and been with me for years.

And so I have the liberty to use some of her story, her journey to glorify God.

But how many times did you go to that altar before the

breakthrough really happened?

Years.

And you had every reason to give up and to say, well, it's just not for

me or it's just not ever going to happen is I'll never receive true

healing to where what I've been through and what I'm talking about.

It no longer hurts me, right?

It's not that we don't remember.

It's not that it didn't happen, but it has no longer the

ability to destroy me anymore.

There's a difference between a wound and a scar.

I'm talking to maybe somebody today with, with a wound where

you're acting like it's a scar.

And the problem with that wound is it never did close up.

It was still weeping.

It was still, uh, it was still bleeding.

It was still infected.

It was still dangerous to the rest of the body, to the rest of his body.

It could kill.

Scars, they're different.

Scars, you know, they're there.

But wounds, no matter how long, if it's still a wound, it can still kill you.

And some of you come in today with wounds, not just scars.

You're wounded.

I wish somebody knew what I was talking about.

The day my wound became a scar and God healed it and I let it go, and yes, it

was still there, but no longer was it able to kill me or control me anymore.

Amen.

So, Elijah allowed God to minister to his confused mind, his weary

body, and his disappointed soul.

I said, God ministered to his confused mind.

to his weary body and his disappointed soul.

And we believe that God is a tripartite being.

He exists in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

These three are one.

We believe in the triune Godhead.

We also believe that we're created in His image, which means that we

exist in a shadow, in a type of Him.

And so we have our mind, we have our soul, right?

We have our body.

And these three different parts, right?

Because the body's not the soul.

And the soul's not the mind.

Now these things are interwoven and it's complex, but I see

God in this ministering.

God gives him nourishment for his body.

Don't discount the fact that you need to take care of your body.

So some of you all in the prayer closet pray and weeping, screaming,

you know, yelling for God to move.

And while that's good, a nice walk in the sunshine would help you too.

Right?

Amen.

Taking care of your body.

Now Jordan Peterson has a really interesting point in his

book, Twelve Rules for Life.

And he said, Statistically, people are more likely to fill the prescription

and then be faithful in giving it to their dog or cat than they

are to take care of themselves.

Isn't that interesting?

I know a lot of people like that.

You know, they're sick and they need to take their stuff.

But there's, there's this diminished value, I guess, that they have on

themselves or this lack of, and so they're more likely to give the medicine

needed to keep their animal alive than they are to take care of their own self.

And so, one of his rules is, Treat yourself like someone you're

responsible for helping God does that God cares about the physical aspect.

Like he's not just only a God who cares about the spiritual

and like the rhetorical.

He cares about the physical needs of his people.

Amen.

So God gives him nourishment for his body.

He brings food, bakes the bread.

And brings me to make sure that he has water to drink and nourishes his body.

Secondly, God gives him hope for his soul.

We need hope of all things.

I'm telling you, people need hope.

You can be strong.

You can have money.

You can, you, you can be well able to keep going physically.

But I've seen people who have no hope anymore.

And the whole thing just caved in on itself like a dying star.

Whenever people lose hope that it can be better, everything else wilts.

When people lose hope in a marriage, there's no amount of money that can, or

lack thereof, that can kill a marriage.

There's no amount of distance.

There's no amount of, of problems.

There's no amount of, of, of hardship.

But whenever hope begins to die, and one or both parties begin to be convinced

that it can never be okay, then the will for that thing to live begins to wilt.

And God restores hope whenever we do not see how God's going to work and we have

no longer the ability to have faith, then we're cut off from the supernatural.

So what God gives him is hope.

He begins to have a dialogue with him and says, I know it feels like

and it looks like, and it seems like you're all by yourself in this.

I've got a lot of guys who have not bowed their knee to bail.

You're not alone.

God gives him purpose and reason to hope.

He said, no, no, this, you're in your head too much.

You're in your heart too much, right?

So he says, let me, let me teach you.

There's other people.

And he said, really, there's others?

I thought it was just me.

I thought it was over.

I thought, I thought I was the last one.

I thought that if I died, the whole system collapsed.

He said, no, no, you're fine.

Like, I appreciate, you know, you're, you're being faithful.

That's good.

But there are lots other than you that are going through, and

they haven't cracked either.

So you can make it.

And he said, you know what?

You're right.

I thought it was just me.

But in that moment, now that I realized that it's bigger than me and that it's

gonna, it is going to be, Oh, you're right, God, it is going to be okay.

And it begins to feel, it begins to believe and hope is restored.

Lastly, he gives him clarity for his mind.

And so I'm going to close with this and ask you which one is most vital.

Like I said, he gives nourishment for the body, hope for the soul and clarity

for the mind, which is most vital today.

Second Corinthians 12, eight through 10, Paul.

Answers this question.

Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times

that it might depart from me.

And we don't know exactly what it was.

Um, it's a thorn in the flesh.

It's a problem.

I don't know what it was, but three times, will you do this?

Will you please?

And three is very typical whenever it comes to, uh, you

know, to the Bible, right?

Three times, you know, it's, it's a number of completion, of totality, of fullness.

So he's, he's saying that in a way that Hebrews will understand and say, I, I

ask again and again and again and again.

I've completely exhausted my ability to even believe on this,

and he didn't seem to fix it.

Three times that it might depart from me.

And he said to me, what did he say?

My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in weakness.

That's what he said to me.

Now, Paul says this.

Therefore, because I've heard what I've heard, and I see what I see,

and I know what I know, most gladly I will rather infirmities that the

power of Christ may rest upon me.

Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions

and distresses for Christ's sake.

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So Paul gives clarity to my earlier question of the faithfulness

of God, which is most vital.

I said, God gives nourishment for the body, hope for the

soul and clarity for the mind.

But which is most vital?

Well, according to second Corinthians 12, Paul realized that.

He could endure what he felt physically weakness, infirmities, persecutions and

needs and what he suffered emotionally.

He could overcome reproaches, distresses, insults, shame.

He could overcome all these things because of what he knew in his mind.

That's the most important thing.

That's where I want to end today.

I want to challenge you.

How you're going to overcome what you feel physically, emotionally,

or what you're walking through in the actual physical body.

How do you overcome that?

By what you know.

Now, what do you know?

What do you know about God?

What do you know about his faithfulness?

What do you believe about God?