Rise and Eat || Fathers of the Faith Pt.4 || Pastor Adam Mesa

Welcome to the Lesse Podcast. Here at Lesse, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. I'm excited for the Word of God today because we are

concluding a series that we've been doing for the past eight weeks called Women of

Wonder and Fathers of our Faith. We've been talking Women of Wonder things about

women in the Bible, things that we can see that inspire us. A

woman's love, a woman's boldness, a woman's ability to be able to really

discern their times and be able to be able to speak forth and have influence

in their community and in their homes. And in this month, since it's

the month of Father's Day in June, we have been doing Fathers of our

Faith, looking at the integrity of men in the Bible, looking at the

winds and the losses of men of the Bible. I think so many times

we think the Bible is full of perfect people. But no, the Bible

is only full of one perfect person. His name is Jesus. Everyone else

in the Bible is completely imperfect, and so therefore it's important to read the

Bible and realize God does not call you to perfection. Read the people in

the Bible, they are not perfect people. What God calls us to is

a pursuit of Christ, is a pursuit of His perfection, in pursuit of

what the Spirit of God can do through you, as you are perfected in

Christ. And so we have looked at many individuals who have not had perfect

lives, but yet God moved and breathed and spoke through them. Today is

one instance of that, as we're going to talk about a father of the

faith by the name of Elijah, a prophet of God, a man that

was a messenger of God. And in their day, in biblical days,

in the days of Israel, the Kingdom, God would use prophets in the

form of messengers, spoke persons of God's heart, of God's desire, and

so prophets would come with a particular message for the people. In that day.

Christ had not come yet, and so therefore the spirit of the Living

God was not living inside every person. And so God would speak to one

messenger in a generation, and he would commune with God and speak to God,

and God would send him out to speak on behalf. Many of times,

like today, we believe here at our church in the Fiveful ministry,

people who operate in the prophetic are messengers. They bring a message concerning something,

and so that's what we see in the life of Elijah. But there

are some things that we're going to see in the life of Elijah that he

did struggle with. By no means was he a perfect man. So if

you have your Bibles, would you turn to First Kings chapter nineteen, First

Kings Chapter nineteen. I'll recap it in a moment. Many of us know,

and we preached it before. One of Elijah's most famous passages, which

is the past in which he goes up against four hundred and fifty prophets of

ball on the top of Mount Carmel, and he brings down and reigns down

the fire of God. Which will recap that in the moment. This is

the story or the circumstance that directly follows that great miracle and that great demonstration

of God. And so First Corinthians, chapter nineteen, starting in verse one,

if you have it, and as you have it, would you stand

in the honor of reading God's word as we read from our passage of scripture

today, we'll read eight verses here today and then we'll pray, so it

says in First Corinthians chapter nineteen. We'll have it on the screen as well,

starting in verse one. What's that? What did I say? Okay,

you guys know what I mean. There we go. I saw a

lot of like talking going on. I'm like, what just went wrong?

Right now? All right? First King chapter nineteen, hopefully on for Pomona.

I didn't say that yesterday, but we'll see it, says starting in

verse one. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he

had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to

Elijah, saying, so may the gods do to me, and more also,

if I do not make your life as the life of one of them

by this time tomorrow. Then he was afraid, and he rose, and

he ran for his life, and came 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 asked

that he might die, saying, it is enough now, o Lord,

take away my life for I am no better than my father's. And he

laid down and slept under the broom tree, and behold, an angel touched

him and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked, and

behold there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones, and a

are of water. And he ate, and he drank, and he laid

down, and the Angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched

him and has said, arise and eat, for the journey is too great

for you. And he rose, and he ate, and he drank,

and he went in strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to

horeb the mount of God. Let's pray this morning, God, as we

come before you today, Lord, I pray that your living word begins to

speak forth to us. Lord, I pray that, as we came here

today not to hear the opinions of man, philosophies of man, or doctored

a man, we came today to hear from you, Lord. So as

your word goes forth, may it penetrate our hearts, may transform our thinking,

and may we leave this place different than we came in Jesus name.

Amen, and amen, you may be seated thank you so much. So

we'll get into a moment right now what we just read, which this is

a moment of Elijah, and Elijah is not early in the game. Elijah

is not a young man in this passage. He's an older man in this

passage. So he's lived life, he's seen life, he's seen God,

he's lived with God before. He's seen God through the good times and the

bad times. And what this passage that we just read follows up, follows

up one of the greatest moments that we see in all biblical history. It's

one that we tell all the time as a great sermon of God's power and

his demonstration. You see, at this time, Israel was divided into two

kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom in the Southern kingdom. The southern kingdom was Judah,

and the northern kingdom was the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And so there

was a man who was the king of the North, named King Ahab,

who was not very a righteous king. He was not really a king after

God's heart. He was a wicked king. He ended up marrying a woman

of a neighboring country who was a pagan. She worshiped a false God.

Imaginary god named Ball, and it'd be similar today as if you married someone

that was an outright Satanist. That that's who Ball was. In their day,

it was not a god that you that that particularly in the culture,

was more of a positive inclinated god. It was it was it was a

god that you worshiped more so out of fear, and you would do things

and sacrifices, whether it was sexual sacrifices or killing sacrifices, to try to

get that God's attention to do something for you. And so he marries a

woman who's a daughter of a king, and she comes in and she worships

Ball. And when she marries King Ahab, who reminds you is supposed to

be a godly king. He's supposed to be a righteous king. He's supposed

to lead Israel in the ways of the Lord. He allows his new wife

to come and bring four hundred and fifty religious leaders of her religion into the

country. She begins to force the country to worship but all to build wooden

graves and images towards all. By this time, Moses has already been around.

King David has already been around Israel. Knew that this was not part

of God's plan. Also, Israel knew that God would discipline Israel if they

took false gods, but they did it regardless, and because if they didn't

want to do it, Jezebel and her four hundred and fifty priests would intimidate

them, would beat them, and would often kill them if they didn't worship

this God. And so now you have four hundred and fifty priests in the

land who are doing sacrifices to Ball, teachings about Ball. And here comes

Elijah. He steps in with the boldness of the Lord as a prophet of

God, and he challenges these four hundred and fifty prophets and priests to somewhat

of a religious duel. And what he says is, he says, let

us go to the top of Mount Karma. Will build a fire and not

light it. You will build a fire and not light it. We will

call upon our gods, and whichever one quenches the fire, that will be

the true God. And so all four hundred and fifty prophets circle and they

build this little fire pit, and they start calling upon Ball to consume this

wood to consume. They put water around the wood to consume the water around

the wood, and they did it for hours upon hours. They were tearing

their clothes, cutting their hands, they were doing every sacrifice in the book

to try to get his attention. At what point Elijah jokes and he says,

is all by chance in the restroom today, And so he's just trolling

them left and right as he stands at attention to wait for this fire to

be consumed. And guess what, because by all is not a real God.

The teachings of all were demonic teachings that Satan would teach and infiltrate.

And so what happens is is then Elijah calls upon God in the late evening,

and then God shows up and he fire from heaven comes down. It

quenches the wood, it quenches the water. All of Israel celebrates because they

see that truly, this is Yahweh and he is the one true God.

And Elijah's response in this moment, his response of God's great demonstration. God

shows off in this moment and he demonstrates his power, He demonstrates his ability

to be Israel's God. And then Elijah kills all of the four hundred and

fifty prophets that came from another country and have been forcing them to worship those

gods. He kills all of Jezebel's prophets. He takes Ahab to the top

amount Carmel because at this time people were dying of a famine. Because God

made it clear, you worship the false god's famine will come. Well,

famine came. Instead of worshiping God, they doubled down and they worshiped them

all. And so in this moment, because they defeated all of the false

priests, they defeated the people through this demonstration of God. He takes him

to the top of the mountain. He says, look, rain is coming,

the famine is no more. You want to know what Ahab does in

this moment. He may say a few nice pleasantries, but when he comes

home, he tells his wife, Jezebel, what happened. Do you know

that today Elijah killed all of your prophets that you brought from your hometown.

Jezebel is furious. Furious, she was embarrassed. Today, she was sold.

She was shown to be a false queen and a false teacher of the

people. So, in her furiousness, she sends a message to Elijah,

and she says, I'm on my way to kill you. And you would

think, just moments earlier, hours earlier, you would think that Elijah would

say, come in the same way that God demonstrated his fire yesterday, he

will demonstrate my salvation today. You would think he would say that. But

no, Instead, he becomes fearful and scared. Because Jezebel represents a spirit

of intimidation, Jezebel represents a spirit of destruction. And so what happens is

is Elijah becomes intimidated. Elijah becomes fearful of the destruction. So what does

he do? He runs away. Something we're all very good at and very

inclined to is when something is scary, when we are intimidated, when we

are fearful, what do we do? We run away, We leave.

And so what happens is is Elijah finds himself to a broom tree and it

says for a moment, he sits there and he says, Lord, kill

me. I don't want to give her the satisfaction of putting me to death,

but since I'm gonna die anyway, why don't you just do it?

Lord? This is coming from a guy who twenty four hours earlier saw God

do one of the greatest demonstrations of his power in biblical history. That means

that there is a problem with something in Elijah where he desires God's demonstrations without

God's deliverance. And isn't that true. We pray for God's demonstrations all the

time. God, reign your spirit out, God show yourself. God,

get me the job. God, get me the promotion. God get me

the girl or the boy. But the moment you face some friction, the

moment something really scares you, the moment something really intimidates you with the Jezebel

spirit all of a sudden, we don't think God can deliver us. We

don't think God can do what he's done in the Bible. We don't think

that in the same way God parted the Red Sea and delivered the children of

Israel. For some reason, God can't do that with me. So God

can demonstrate all day. That's what we pray for it. We pray for

God's demonstrations. Elijah saw a great demonstration of God. But Elijah thought that

God would do that for Israel. He didn't believe that God would do that

for him. He said, God, you've demonstrated yourself to Israel to believe.

But I believe in you. I still believe Jezebel's gonna kill me.

So therefore, why don't you do it not? Why don't you deliver me?

Not? Why don't you minister to me? Now? Why don't you

do some spiritual surgery on me? God kill me? Now? Elijah not

only wants to commit spiritual suicide, he wants to commit earthly suicide, something

we find ourselves doing all the time. I meet people all the time who

are just believing God for the demonstration of the Lord God. Just do that

thing that you do, that trick, Just do the thing. But deliverance,

because deliverance takes work, Deliverance takes action, Deliverance takes faith, Deliverance

takes trust. I could believe for a demonstration all day, and if a

demonstration doesn't happen, I get just say, oh, well, it wasn't

the Lord's will today, That's why the demonstration didn't happen. But deliverance,

deliverance is for everybody. The deliverance is there. God can break a yoke,

God can heal, God can deliver, God can change a broken heart,

God can restore a marriage. God can deliver your children. God can

open up doors, God can close doors. God can do these things all

day. I don't think that's my microphone. God can do these things all

day. But do we trust him? If you're taking notes today? The

first thing I want to talk about is when when the intimidation tries to destroy

you. Here's some things we have to destroy, and God takes Elijah through

a process. First thing we have to do is we have to destroy distraction.

You're distracted. What is Elijah distracted with? He's distracted with Jezebel.

He can't see the demonstration that God did twenty four hours earlier because the distraction

is so great in front of his eyes that he can't see past God's deliverance.

How do I know we have to believe God for deliverance because this is

what it takes. God's demonstration is one thing, but without God's demonstration,

there's a second thing that we need along with God's demonstration for deliverance. First

Corinthian Chapter two, verse two to five says this, This is the apostle

Paul speaking for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him

crucified, and I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in

much trembling. So Paul's been there, But why didn't Paul give up?

Why didn't Paul run away? Verse four? And my speech and my message

were not plausible words of wisdom. But I came in demonstration of the spirit

and of power. Whose power God's power, so that your faith may not

rest in wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So a

demonstration of God without God's Spirit in you and his power in you will merely

lead towards destruction. You can't believe God for God's demonstrations without his deliverance,

which comes in power and in his spirit. So we cannot operate in the

ways of God with just God's demonstrations, because God's demonstrations in your life will

run flat tomorrow. So if you just want to come to church and you

want one praise and worship song that get you there, great, But tomorrow

you don't have that song. You want to be in a winning, a

healing service with Pastor Diego on Wednesday like he did, where nine hundred people

showed up and hundreds of people prayed for hundreds of people saw God's God's power

and God demonstrate himself. But the next move is is then Thursday came and

Friday came, and if you didn't move in God's power and his spirit and

his deliverance and the demonstration of God was done, then we miss out.

You know, many years ago, about eight years ago, I knew a

pastor. We are good friends. He was up in northern California, and

I'd go up there from time and time again. And one day I went

up there and he told me, go, Adam, check this out,

because I guess when you're part of Fortune five hundred companies, you know,

you gotta be pretty good at talking. You gotta be pretty good at delivering.

And Northern California and San Francisco has a lot of wealthy people out there.

And so what's very common in the corporate world with CEOs is they'll go

through they'll go through coaching on how to do presentations, how to share ideas

and concepts, and so you look at everybody makes fun of but you look

at what Apple every year when they do their presentations, and you'll see everyone

does their hands and they do things. It's all psychological things. And so

they're all doing stuff and literally companies will spend millions of dollars to have their

CEOs coached on how to communicate. And so what happened is he's a pastor

and someone in his church was really healthy and really wealthy, and he said,

Hey, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pay for you

to go through that coaching that CEOs go through, and what it is for

this particular course. It's a four week course and it costs twenty five thousand

dollars. I'm gonna pay for you to go. So this guy knew he

went to it, and so he goes to this twenty five thousand dollars course

and he gets all these books and these resources, and over the course about

a year and a half, whenever we would hang out he's hanging out with

other pastors or leaders, at some point he would bring up, you know,

I started getting better in my communication, started getting in my preaching,

started getting people more connected to my messages, and I started getting more invites

to speak. When that person came and spent twenty five thousand dollars and I

went through that course, and he'll pull out papers and he'll say, you

know, they taught me this, and you gotta intro and you gotta have

the hook, and then here you gotta do this, and then you gotta

have an appeal. And then you know he'd had this paper and he had

he had communication and preaching down to a science. You'd share it all the

time. But just a few years later he would be disqualified for ministry because

he was an adulterous relationship and he had a drug addiction. So today he's

not in ministry. And so it always led me to believe that you can

have demonstration figured out all day. You could go get the art of speaking,

the art of preaching, the art of raising money. You can go

and do the art of sales and the art of real ator, and you

could get this art and that art and that art. But if you do

not have the power of God in your life, if you do not have

the deliverance of God in your life, if the Spirit of God is not

in you and moving through you, and you do not have the confidence of

God, not your power, not your might, not your wisdom, not

your talent, but of the Living God that is in you, then destruction

will come. It can come. You can have an Elijah moment just like

anybody else, because demonstration means nothing without deliverance. And if you're distracted by

the skills that God can give all of us, all you need is one

Jezebel to come in your life, and you will run in a hole.

And there are a lot of men today in particular, who are distracted.

We are distracted. There's a reason why we hang out with our friends and

be bold. We could go and ride a motorcycle at one hundred and twenty

miles an hour. We could go jump out of an airplane and sky dog.

But oh, God forbid, you have to have a conversation with your

wife. We're distracted. Oh I have to talk to her. I'll just

go one fifty on my motorcycle instead, because we get distracted. And so

hear what happens is is then Elijah goes and he sits under a tree,

and it says as he's sitting he's wallowing. He's just defeated. He's like,

God, I just wish you would kill me. I just I wish

I would die, and says he lays down once and then an angel comes

before him, and then he gives him some food. He feeds him,

gives him some food, and then after he eats that food, he lies

down for a nap. I've read my Bible, but naps are not in

my Bible, a lot says. He wakes up and the angel comes again

and gives him some more food. It's more cake. He eats it again,

and then he goes and takes another nap. And then what happens is

is when the Angel wakes him up again, he tells him, I had

to make sure you got your rest and you got your food because I'm taking

you somewhere. I gotta make sure that you're rested because where I want to

deliver you too and deliver you from is gonna take some work on your end.

Yeah, and so the best thing you could do in Elijah and God.

The Angel didn't come and wake up Elijah. You lazy, no good,

raw and good for nothing, he said the Angel, the Lord said,

Elijah, here's some ca Eat it. Take a nap, eat it.

What's happening during that cake. What's happening during that nap, God is

moving. He's Elijah's decreasing so that God can increase. What's happening is Elijah's

taking his hand off the steering wheel so that God can put his hand on

the steering wheel. And so what happens is God is making himself known in

demonstration and in deliverance. In the power. God has already demonstrated himself.

Now God is showing Elijah, I also have the power and I can deliver.

So one of the best things you can do, I got a little

homework for you today. Just like you go to the doctor and you say

doctor's order, or if you go to the dentist they work on your teeth

and they tell you can only have ice cream for the rest of the day.

So you come home, you say doctor's order, I can only have

ice cream. So you just is it like a doctor order? Today?

When you leave church today, if you've been wrestling with something, if you've

been struggling with some things, if you've been going through some things, I

want you to go home. And before you go home, I want you

to pick up some food. I want you to go home. I want

you to eat that food. Okay, So you can go to Lucille's,

you can go to Bakers, you go to Crispy Kreme. I don't care

what you do. Elijah got hot cake, so I think anything is on

the table. I want you to go home. I want you to eat

it, and I want you to take a nap. And before you take

that nap, I say God. You say God, in this moment,

I decrease, so that you increase. God. In this moment. When

I go to take this nap, I pray for RESTful thinking. I pray

for RESTful thoughts, and I pray that you give me clarity for what to

do next, because that's what God begins to do. God could not speak

to Elijah in the emotional state that Elijah was in, so he gave him

some food and he told him to take a nap, and he said,

when you wake up and you're back in your right mind, I'll tell you

what's next. I'll tell you what you're gonna do next. And so sometimes

when you are wanting to be in control, the best thing you can do

is go have a snack and go to bed. That's what you gotta do.

Stop doing it yourself. So if you took notes the title for the

messages rise and eat and then when you're done rising it eating, go sleep.

I know it's contrary to this grind culture. I know it's contrary to

this get up and get after it culture. I know it's contrary. But

that's what the world has told you. That's what the systems of the secularization

has told you. That everything is in your own hands, everything is up

to you. You go dream it, you can fulfill it. That is

bs it is. It's a lie. Because everything we have, if we

want it to last, if we want it to truly heal us, if

we want to see God truly in there and deliverance to take place, it

means that God is the one in control, and God would be the one

in control. I'll tell you this if you're taking notes. The next thing

we have to do point two is we have to destroy denial, this idea

of can God do it? Would God do it? Should God do it?

Come on, the Lord is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

If you open up your word, if you read your Bible, you

will see what God can do. You will see what God should do.

You will see how God can deliver him. And you can look at that

and you can say, God, You're the same yesterday, today and forever.

You can do that again. God is the same. Destroy that denial,

that lie that gets embedded inside of you. And so what happens is

is we see this because Elijah's scared. He's thinking to himself regardless if if

I go and I, you know, go out there God, and I

don't light in this cape, Jezebel's gonna still kill me. But no,

what happens is, and I'll tell you first. In First Corinthians, chapter

two, or in chapter three, verse sixteen to seventeen, it says this,

do you not know that you are God's temple, that in God's spirit

dwells inside of you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him,

For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. In other words,

if anything is intimidating you with a Jezebel spirit and you think that you

will be destroyed, then what happens is God says, I will take care

of that, because anything that endeavors to destroy my temple, which is my

people, I will destroy them. So what happens is is he tells Elijah.

Just a few verses later, in First Kings, chapter nine, verse

fifteen, it says this, and the Lord said he took him through a

forty day fast, so after he ate, after he napped, he let

send him into the wilderness for forty days of disconnection. That's where deliverance starts

to take place. Where you disconnect from the world, you disconnect from your

worries, you disconnect from your fears. So what happens is God says,

at the end of forty days, I'm gonna send you somewhere, but you

got to spend forty days with me. That's what's gonna happen. You're gonna

have to be able to connect with me. And then he says, at

the end of this forty days, here's what's gonna happen. And the Lord

said to him in verse fifteen, go and return on your way to the

wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall annoyt Hazel to be

king over Syria. And Jay, who the son of Nishmi, you shall

annoint to be king over Israel. Wait, Ahab is king over Israel,

and Elijah, the son of Sefat of Abel, you shall annoint to be

profit in your place. Way, God, this doesn't make any sense.

I'm the current prophet and Ahab's the current king. But what happens is is

a chapter later, is Jezebel and Ahab are gonna be put to death by

the people. The people are gonna get fed up with them. So God's

already been at work in something that Elijah couldn't see. So where Elijah was

fearful that if I go back to Israel, what's gonna happen is she's gonna

have my head, God said, I already have her head accounted for,

already have her destruction accounted for. So all I need you to do is

do what I've called you to do, which you are the prophet. It's

your job to annoint and pray. So what I need you to go do

is I have a new king that when they die, will take their place.

I need you to go anoint them, and then I have your successor.

And so what happens is he tells Elijah, you've been doing a great

job. Elijah's gonna send to heaven. But he says, I need you

to anoint your successor. I need you to pour into the next generation to

teach the next generation what it means to see God's deliverance, to teach the

next generation what it means to be anointed by God and sent by God.

He says, I won't take you somewhere until you have your replacement. And

so he encourages Elijah in Elijah's own denial of God's ability and his power.

You know, just last Saturday, we had our Generosity Center here in Rancho

and we're you know, we give food every Saturday to the community and those

that need it. Just so happened while everyone was serving, there was a

massive car wreck where a car was literally cut in half. I have the

pictures the lip that you can see that car. One half of the car

is closer in the picture, and then we have another picture the other half

is on the other side. There was a woman and man in there.

The man was stuck in the car, and there was oil leaking, and

it was going towards the side of the road and it was going into the

engine and everything was leaking and everything was smoking. And so what happens is

is our team hears it. They rush out. They see that a woman

is crawling out of the car, and they see that the man is stuck

and he can't get out. And so two of our members, Darius Montgomery

and Phil Headley, who was Phil was up here last week for Father's Day,

they ran into the car. And Pastor Garfield tells me, before they

ran into it, he told them, wait, that car could blow.

Look at all of this oil, look at everything leaking. And they said,

first we have to get this man out of the car. So they

ran in that car and they loosened that man and they pulled him out of

the car, not just in God's demonstration, but in God's power, in

God's spirit. There was no wait, let me second guess, oh wait,

let me consider myself. They said, regardless, there is a life

in that car, and we need to get to work. And they both

lee win in that car and they boldly served that man in that moment,

and now they're in recovery. That's what we, as people of God are

called to do. Not only do we believe that God's demonstration. Right there,

everyone was saying, let's pray, let's pray. There was a moment

of demonstration, definitely, but then a moment of God's power came in,

which was Darius Phil get y'all's but in that car. That's what the spirit

was saying. Get in that car and you saved that man. Right now,

you could pray and hold hands all day God. Can God demonstrate yourself,

demonstrate yourself, he said, Get in the game. That's what he

did. With Elijah. Yeah, I demonstrated myself. But now you gotta

go start anointing some new people. I got work for you to do.

I need, I got some of you. You're not done, you're not

tapped out, You're not dead. That leads to the third point is we

have to destroy disillusion, this disappearing act that we all want to do on

a regular basis, I'm out of here act. And first this starts with

us our own heart. You gotta let God work on your heart. That's

what happened. That's why God had to take Elijah for forty days. He

had to do some heart work on Elijah. You gotta start to destroy you

this flesh. Destroy this heart that's corruptible, this heart that's easily intimidated,

this heart that's easily fearful, this heart that is quick to give up,

this heart that's quick to give up on the marriage, his heart that's quick

to give up on my family, the heart that's quick to give up at

my job. Now there may be things that God is speaking to and individually,

but when we have this heart of just walking away because it got hard,

walking away because it got intimidating, walk away because I just don't want

to do it no more. We have to destroy our flesh. Here's three

ways we do that. We call it repentance. But here's a quicker way

that you can do it. It's in three seas. First thing we have

to do is we gotta confess. You gotta start confessing your sins, confessing

your failures. Confess. Don't be afraid to say, God, I confess

these things. I didn't trust you. I've been committed to these things and

these things that are wrong. I've had my eyes on these things. I've

been thinking about these things, and it's wrong. And next thing you have

to do is you have to begin to correct your direction. I meet people

all day who are unafraid. Yeah, I'm just I'm you know, I'm

imperfect. I'm a sinful man. I'm a piece of junk. I hear

that all the time from people. They think, for some reason, that's

a get out of jail free card. I'm not saying I'm perfect, bro,

I tell God all that that all the time. I'm not perfect,

and they think that that, oh that makes me in the big guy.

Good. No, no, no, no no. When you confess,

what you have to start to do is now correct your direction, correct your

direction. I know you're imperfect. I'm imperfect too. That's why some people

will say, oh, you Christians think you're so perfect. No no,

no, no, no no. We know we're imperfect, but we know

to correct our direction in our imperfection. That's what we know to do,

and we're striving to do that. That's what we're striving to do. So

I know I'm sinful, I know I've fallen short, I know I deserve

Hell. I have confessed those things, and I've also corrected my direction.

And then the third thing, which is the greatest thing it hinges on,

is I've connected with God. I have pursued Christ. I have Jesus as

my Lord and Savior. And so when by confess, when I correct,

I then connect to God and I say, Jesus, I can't do this

without it. That's what Elijah was doing. He was going through a season

of confession in those forty days. He had to correct his direction, and

so God sends him to the wilderness. You can't stay in this cave.

You got to come spend some time with me, come connect with me.

And so that's similar to me, like when I need to connect with God,

I need to spend some time in this word. I need to spend

some time in prayer. I need to spend a season committed to God more

than I've ever been before. Because if I want to see God deliver and

demonstrate, I have to connect. I have to connect and I have to

destroy this disillusion like God can't do nothing with you or doesn't want to do

anything with you. And this Elijah moment just kill me. Now, I'm

done, and we gotta get out of that. We've been in the season

of Fathers of faith, and so I find a lot of men sometimes just

deflated, defeated. You're in this disillusion, like nobody needs you, Like

you don't got a voice, you don't got a purpose. You got a

purpose. You have a voice. God has a unique identity on you.

God has a calling for your life. You can shape and shift atmospheres.

Your presence is tangible. So stop disappearing in the background and in the shadows.

Stop coming in the house and slipping out the back door every chance you

can. Stop going to work and thinking that you can't impact anyone around you.

Yes you can, Yes you can. The Lord can use you,

and He's not done with you. He shows Elijah he's not done with him.

And so just a few years ago, me and my wife were on

a little two night trip to get away and we went over to Palm Springs,

and so we're in Palm Springs and we're in these like a little room

kind of bungalows where you have an outdoor patio and all the rooms are kind

of connected, but they give you this like nine foot walls for privacy and

so and so, you know, we're in the bat hanging out and we

hear this little elderly lady, you know, she's probably seventy five seventy eight

years old, and she's knocking on the door and she's yelling, Joe,

open up this door, Joe, open up this door. And so we

open up our door and hey, are you okay? And it's like a

hundred is Palmp Springs. It was like one hundred and twelve degrees, and

so she's sweating and she's like, I went to the grocery store real quick,

and my husband fell asleep and he won't open the door. And she

goes, I think he's in the backyard still, because that's where we are

hanging out. And so I said, well, let let me go check.

And so I go in the backyard and I'm listening and I can hear

snoring, and so I come back. I say, yeah, man,

he's asleep in the backyard, and she goes, would you try to call

his name from the backyard and wake him? I don't think he can hear

me, so yeah, I can't. So I go in the backyard.

I'm like, hey, Joe, Joe, you gotta wake up man.

Your wife's at the front door. Joe, he won't wake up. So

I go out, like, hey, he won't wake up. She's like,

could you you know she's she's elderly, so you could tell there's not

much she could do if I just said, hey, come in my room,

you can wake him up. And so she said, could you just

grab something and like grab a chair and maybe toss it at him to try

to wake him up. So I said, yeah, I think I could

do that, And so I go in the backyard and I grabbed like a

little cap from a pin, and so I go and I put the chair

up against the wall and as I'm coming up and say, Joe, I'm

coming around trying to wake you up. And so I get on the chair

and then I step up and Joe's there, and he's asleep, but he's

also completely naked. Everything is out and so now at this point I paused,

and I thought, well, I'm here, I'm committed to wake up

Joe. Hey Joe, and I throw the little pincap towards him. It

hits the wall and lands on his chest, and he wakes up and he's

making eye contact at me now, and then he looks down, realizes he

was naked. He grabs the pillow, covers up. I said, hey,

Joe, your wife's been trying to wake you up for the past thirty

minutes, and he oh, oh, okay. So so he gets up,

and I now go back in the room and I tell her, hey,

he's on his way, and I closed the door back up again,

and I hear him open the door and let her slide in, and all

I hear is she's saying, have you been naked this whole time? I

was there for two days, and every time I saw Joe, Joe would

not even look me in the eyes. The wife would always smile and wave.

He would not even acknowledge our existence. All Joe wanted to do was

disappeared and The thing is is that's us. When God sees us naked,

all we want to do is disappear. All we want to do is hide.

That's what we want to do when other people see us naked. We

fall short, when we fail, when we mess up, we try to

hide, we try to run away. Just say, oh, well,

maybe I can get a new job, maybe I can get a new spouse,

maybe I can get a new thing, because I'm tired of people seeing

me nakedness. And what happens is is if we don't just stop, pause,

eat, taken that app and go spend some time with the Lord.

Let God see you in your nakedness. Let God see you in your shortcomings.

Let God see you in your fear. But now, let God begin

to demonstrate his power and his spirit to you. Let the Lord begin to

deliver you where we've fallen short. God is there in the midst where our

fear is. God's boldness can come in if we would just hold to the

spirit of God and allow God's spirit to tell us to rise and go eat,

Rise and go eat. And so if you're here today, I just

I want to say a particular thing and I want to encourage in a particular

direction. You know, his message is for everyone today, but particularly as

we've been women of wonder and fathers of our faith is so many women are

active in the kingdom. They're they're active in their purpose, they're active in

serving, they're active and generosity. You know, if you need a need

of the women, the women are there. And then that translates into the

community as well. You go to any city council meeting, you go to

any city thing, you go to any pta meeting, it's ninety nine percent

women there. And so we believe that in order for the church to be

effective, we need more men of God who know their position in the kingdom,

who know their identity, who are confident in God's power and his spirit.

And so if you're in this place and you're a man, and you

find yourself not like Elijah in the front with the demonstration, you find yourself

with Elijah, with the lack of the power, lack of the spirit.

Find yourself like Elijah who's just saying God, I just I'm good. Elijah

who's just sitting in the tree and just saying God, it's all over.

I don't care anymore. I just I'm over it. I have no desire.

I'm losing purpose, I'm losing identity, I'm losing all these things.

But you're saying that you believe God can do a new thing in your life,

that you believe God can not only demonstrate himself in your life, but

He can also begin to deliver in your life and his power and truth.

If you're a man that just wants to make that commitment and wants to be

prayed for to see God begin to deliver you in certain areas, demonstrate himself

to you in certain areas, then I just want you to boldly right now,

just raise your hand up because we're gonna pray together. And the reason

why I'm saying, men, raise your hand, because we don't like to

do this. This is like, ah, man, I don't know about

this. I don't know. God bless you guys, God bless you guys.

That's the boldness that it takes to leave. Can we all bow our

heads right now? Men? Can you keep your hands up right now so

that I can pray for you Lord right now for every man that hand that

is raised Lord, every man's hand who wanted to raise but it's still contemplating

with the confidence. Right now, God I pray we all need your power,

we all need your spirit, We all need your deliverance. God.

So God, I pray right now, Father, God, as you are

a God of deliverance. You've delivered the children of Israel time and time again.

You delivered our souls through Jesus Christ. God, you have brought us

near to you in every which way. God, And even though we find

ourselves tempted by the spirit of Jezebel, intimidated by the spirit of Jezebel,

right now, God, may this be our confession in this moment. Lord.

May this be our corrected direction in this moment. Lord, May this

be a pivotal time where we shift our direction to lay our eyes on you.

Lord, not like Lightlock's wife who looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah.

Lord, but may we keep our eyes fixated on you. May we connect

with you. Lord. God. I pray you give every man and here

clarity of vision, clarity of purpose. Lord, I pray you begin to

anoint their hands, anoint their minds, anoint their mouths, anoint their feet.

Lord, give them a spirit of boldness Lord, where they can trust

in You. It's not by their might, not by their works. But

by your goodness and mercy every single day, may we stand before you,

naked in truth to know that if our God is for us, then who

be against us? Lord? So God, I pray you activate every man

and here God, to make an impact as a grandfather, as a father,

as an uncle, as a friend, as a leader, as a

person who knows that they know that God is active in their life. And

may they stop giving up, May they stop walking away, may they stop

disappearing, but may they be rooted in Christ, central in the home,

central in the family, central in the community. Lord, and may we,

as men and women of God, show the world what it means to

be sons and daughters of God. We pray this right now in Jesus Mighty

name. Amen and amen? Can we thank God this morning as we leave

here? Right now, just a matter of moments, I just want to

make an invitation to you right now, if by any chance, one day

we saw in the picture that we saw that you know, none of us

ever expect in that car accident that that would be any of us. But

the reality is is that couple could have been a couple that was just coming

from the park, coming from the movies. Coming from breakfast at a restaurant.

They were having a normal day, and days always come that will surprise

us. Tomorrow's not promise for anyone, And so I just want to make

sure that everyone here that you would be confident to know that if you were

to stand before God, that you know that you would be inheritors of heaven.

And the thing is is all of us have an opportunity to choose heaven.

We choose heaven by choosing God's son. We choose heaven by changing our

direction and following Christ, the one who died for our cross and rose three

died on the cross and rose three days later. It's through Christ's victory that

we can have any relationship with God. It's through Christ's victory that we could

have any assurance to know where our eternity is held. Because Jesus paid the

ultimate price, which is a life for a life. He gave his life

for our life, and it's through him that we have salvation and eternity promised

in the hands of the Savior. And it's through him that one day if

we go through Christ, if we confess him as Lord and Savior and we

believe in his resurrection, it's God in whom we will stand one day,

and when God says who is this person, Jesus will say, they are

with me and I am with them. That is a promise that God gives

us. And so if you're here today and you've never given your life to

Christ, or maybe you had at one point, you want to rededicate your

life because the way you've been living doesn't reflect that of a Christian, Well,

then in this place I want to encourage all of us. Whether you're

out in the courtyard one of our campuses, are in this place, you

are going to say a prayer out loud. And the prayer is not the

thing that saves you by any means. It's the affirmation the prayers, the

affirmation of what God is already doing in your life right now. The spirit

is the one who saves. The spirit is the one who delivers. In

this prayer, we're affirming of God's goodness and mercy in this moment. So

would you all join me in repeating this prayer right now and say this,

Dear Lord Jesus, in this moment, I confess, I correct, and

I connect with you. I believe right now that you died on the cross

and you rose three days later, and from this day forward I commit to

follow you for the rest of my days in Jesus name. Amen. Can

we give a handclapp for those that may send that prayer today? God bless

you. We really hope you enjoyed the message, and if you said yes

to Jesus, we just want to say congratulations and give you a free devotional

to help you walk out your faith. Click the link of the description or

head over to grow dot Faith to download your devotional. Oh and be sure

to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. Thanks for listening to LS

podcasts and I hope you tune in again.