[0:02]Tell the person next to you, I would tell you my testimony, but it would take too long.
[0:11]Tell a man it's kinda R-rated if I told you the real one.
[0:18]You could scale it, couldn't you?PG 13. Oh, that's good. But we're here today, um, to give God glory and one thing that I think is so cool about this time of year. This time of year you're not coming to church because it's a New Year's resolution. This time of year you're coming to church. Because of all the Christians in the world, you're in the top 1%. Matter of fact, you come to church the week before Thanksgiving and it automatically subtracts 1500 calories off of your meal. Isn't that good to know? Oh man, it's going to be good. Tell the person next to you, get a good look at me and take a picture because I'm going to be a little heavier next time you see me. I'm planning on bulking a little bit. Bulking season. Let's clap our hands and thank God for the worship today. We're also preparing this time of year. I wanted to underscore our year-end offering on December 10th. We're excited to be able to give to God. We're blessed to be a blessing. I've got my offering ready already and I'm excited to give it. It's time of year where we say thank you to God for who he's been to us, who he is to us. And we also declare with confidence that the Lord is our helper and we're trusting him in the days to come. Somebody say I trust in God. Well, we say that with our lips and so the greatest thing we can do is to lean into that. The Bible says lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. So, I don't mind giving to God. I don't like paying taxes. I don't like paying even the gas bill, even though I appreciate the heat. But giving to God to build his church and his kingdom to me is always the greatest joy. And so I thank you in advance. All of you who are participating, we're calling it our trust offering because we trust in God. And our chance to declare that. December 10th is our official offering Sunday. You can go right now if you're online, elevationchurch.org, and we will believe God with you for great things to come. I decided to preach the end of the year all the way through the end of the year around our faith and, uh, I know that sounds generic, like every message in the senses about faith. But I wanted to zero back in on this scripture in Hebrews chapter 11. Remain standing for just a moment as I read it. And this same scripture from last week in Hebrews chapter 11, I think contains. Yeah, there it is. A pretty cool revelation for our lives. Listen to this verses 8 and following. Make sure I got the right version. Here we go. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And by faith Abraham, even though he was too old to have children—and Sarah herself was not able to conceive—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. say hey.
[4:47]People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. The title for this message is very simple. Uh, I'm calling this message, God knows, you don't. Tell your neighbor, God knows, you don't. You may be seated. God knows.
[5:29]You don't. You know these little things we say when we're leading up to something. My friend was the other day about to give an opinion and before they said the thing they wanted to say, they said, now, I'm no doctor, but. And when they got done saying the rest of it, I was like, no, go back to the first part. I'm so shocked. You're not a doctor. We've been friends 20 years. I thought you were a doctor. Just kind of a little throw away thing you say just to say like, this may be completely stupid and irrelevant, and don't fact check me on it, but I want to say what I think anyway. I'm like, I know you're not a doctor. And it's amazing how much time we spend trying to hide. I'm trying to hope and maybe hold out some aspiration that people won't see our deepest needs. The year 1978, a phrase was coined in psychology called imposter syndrome. It was used to describe people who had great achievements, but had a hard time that they couldn't believe that they achieved those things. It was almost as if they thought that they got those things by luck or by external circumstances. And because of their ability to depersonalize their accomplishments, they had a very difficult time integrating their successes into their identity. So although they were in positions of power, they felt very weak. Although they were in positions of influence, they felt insignificant. And the term imposter syndrome was coined. Later it would be called fraudulence complex, a different shade of the same color.
[7:16]But it's meaning is not as clinical as something like anxiety or depression. It's just a feeling that you can get sometimes that I don't know what I'm doing and I hope nobody else ever finds out. That feeling you get when you're raising your kids and you hope that they never find out how much of this you are making up as you go.
[7:44]Because if they ever did, they might turn the tables and they might run the house, because you know no more than they do. The interesting thing about even saying stuff like that in a church is that this is a place that is branded for certainty. For we know that our redeemer lives, and we know we have this hope. And we know that all things work together for the good of those that love God. So one of the things that always frustrated me about my own preaching was that God would always lead me to preach messages that were less about certainty and more about the mystery. The mystery of knowing that God has put something inside of me but spending so much of my waking life doubting that very fact. A moment ago we were singing a song that said, that's why I trust in God. One time Jesus asked an interesting question of Peter because Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on water and all of a sudden started thrashing when he saw the wind and the waves. And Jesus said why did you doubt? It's kind of the flip side of what we were singing. That's why I trust him because he healed my cancer. That's why I trust him because when my money was low, he made provision for me in a very unusual way. That's why I trust him because I sensed his presence when others walked away. That's why I trust him because he gave me the strength to carry on another day. And then into this certainty, confession comes to question of Jesus. Then, if you have so many reasons to trust him, why did you doubt him now? Why would you doubt him now? When like Abraham, you find yourself in a situation, Bible says that Abraham verse 8, let's go back there, was called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, he obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. It is easy for us to take the summary of Abraham's journey, resound and resonate with the general principle that sometimes God will obey you to go, even though you don't know where you're going. It is much more difficult to live as if this is true for you that God will sometimes call you to obey something today that he will explain much later.
[10:20]I'm going to say it again. The testimony of my life is that many times God has called me to obey today something that he will explain later. The space between obeying today and God explaining later is called faith. That space is called faith. That thing you are unsure of and uncertain about. That is no reason for you to turn your back on God now. In fact, your uncertainty is God's job security. If you knew it all, he would have nothing left to do. If you had it all figured out, he would have nothing left to work out. If if and and I know we want to pretend like we love God just because he's beautiful and lovely and holy, but the truth is, if we thought we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't talk to him very much. And so God will leave these uncertainties in our lives in order to teach us to lean on him. I've been preaching along those lines the last several weeks and really for the last 17 years of pastoring this church. It's just true. Now, write these things down because I want us to understand a little bit about God's promises. A lot of times when we talk about the promises of God, what we mean is the positive outcomes that we want. So we'll say, God never breaks a promise. God always keeps his promises. But in our mental paradigm of what that means, it's that God will always give us the outcome that we consider positive. What I've learned about God's promises, I'm preaching already. I don't have to scream to preach. I can preach to my works just fine. I can preach at this volume all day long. I can preach like this and save my voice and go sing opera tonight. God's promise will often be, I'm going to give you three things, write these down. God's promise will often be different than you pictured. Different than you pictured. Slower than you wanted.
[12:27]And farther than you thought. These three things I thought I'd mentioned today, that God's promise will be different than you pictured. Tell your neighbor, it's going to be different than you pictured. Tell him it's going to be slower than you wanted. And farther than you thought.
[12:50]Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So Abraham gets to the promised land. God speaks to him. He's like, I'm going to bless you. You're going to be a blessing. I'm taking you to a place. It's going to be amazing. And Abraham gets there and did you notice what the scripture said that he lived in tents in the place of promise? That's where I left off last week. It is a picture of a man who is living smack dab in the place God promised him. In the place that God would give his descendants, but he's living there temporarily in tents. I was trying to get you to see that sometimes you can actually be there, but not feel there. Be blessed, but feel stressed. You say, I'm too blessed to be stressed. No, you be blessed and stressed.
[13:46]You live in tents. You live in tension between the truth that God spoke and the things you don't know. So to say that I have joy as a promise from God does not mean I will not have depression as a human experience. One time a lady said to me, I don't want to listen to a pastor who preaches that it's okay to have depression. My Bible says rejoice in the Lord. And my thing about that is to have the joy of the Lord, to claim the joy of the Lord, and to know the joy of the Lord and still feel depressed from time to time is not hypocrisy. It's humanity.
[14:31]We live in tents.
[14:35]We live in tents. And the tent that you live in will all all often, especially when you have a great big calling on your life, it will often contradict the truth that you're believing. That is your situation will challenge your faith. In these moments it could be as if you feel you are an imposter. I imagine Abraham rolling up on the promised land like, hey, God told me he was going to give me this. But none of the Canaanites that were living in the land knew about that. None of the Jebusites knew about that. None of the Hittites, Amorites, Parasites, and since it's Thanksgiving, Celulites, got the memo that this land belongs to Abraham. And you know what blew my mind? As long as he lived in this land, it was never really his. Technically speaking, there was never a transfer of the deed of the land in his lifetime.
[15:42]Or Isaac's. It would not be until the time when many generations later, these nations would possess this land that the promise God made Abraham would evolve into the bigger picture that he had all along. So don't judge your life by the frame, judge it by your faith.
[16:09]I'm worried because I pay you to clap and you're the only one clapping. Pay him to play. And the Lord was speaking to me about some things that are that are different than I pictured right now. I'll give you an example. I've shared it before. I remember when we said we were going to have 100,000 people in the church. We do. But most of them don't come to buildings.
[16:35]I like to welcome our E-Fam all over the world. Joining us online right now.
[16:43]But see, maybe in my mind I saw that looking one way. It looks different. Matter of fact, you know, the first time we had 100,000 people in one in one Sunday, when there were five people in the building for COVID. That was different than I pictured. So watch, God told me something that he was going to do. I believed it by faith, and it was different than I pictured. When you get there, it's going to be different than you pictured. When you get to impacting influence. Everybody wants to be an influencer. Influence does not always look like followers. Influence does not always look like sponsorship. Influence does not always look like friends. Sometimes influence looks like something that you invest now for something that God is going to bring to pass later, but you have to sow it by faith. Everybody say by faith. So I'm framing this situation by faith, knowing that I don't see everything that God has called me to see. Even this Ballantyne building, I said, it's different than you pictured, and it's slower than you wanted. We were on a two-year delay moving into this building. A two-year delay from when we thought we were going to move in. One of the issues in the delay was a clam that the environmental protection agency said might be on the property. The Carolina heelsplitter clam, if I remember correctly. And they had to check for six months to see if there was a clam on the land before we could build this building. And the clam wasn't even here, but we had to clear the land of the potential of a clam. I never thought a clam would cost me six months. Because we already paid for the land. Now I'm just paying on something that I can't even participate in. Because a clam, because a little thing, because of something I never saw coming. You know, you can get one text that will back up your whole timeline. One virus can shut down a whole. But watch this. We got in the building two years later. It was slower than I wanted. It was different than I pictured. But when I welcome people online from nations all over the world, it's going farther than I thought. God says, I've got a blessing for you, and when you get to it, be ready because it's going to be different than you pictured. It might be slower than you want it, but let me look in this camera and tell you, it's going to go farther than you thought. This is a big blessing. This one's going to ripple. This one's going to reach farther than just your house. I'm going to use you to bless others.
[19:58]Doesn't being a grown-up feel different than you thought a grown-up felt?
[20:05]Just keeping it real, ain't it different than you pictured being a grown-up? Nobody's going to tell me what to do.
[20:16]Except your boss, the IRS, and depending on your marital arrangements, maybe the person you sleep next to him. The verse touched me because it said by faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. God knows where you're going, even though you don't. So follow him. Step by step. God knows what he's given you, even though you are too, whatever. Oh, young. That's what Timothy said. I'm too young. He said, Don't let anyone look down on you because you're youth. Set an example for the believers in life and love and speech and faith and godliness and purity. Don't let anybody put their two on you.
[21:13]Because they don't know. You've been divorced too many times. Think how much you've learned that you can help other people who have been through divorce. You not paid the tuition, you might as well teach the class. Hey. God knows, you don't. God knows, you don't.
[21:39]And even the passage that that we don't like to preach a lot because it said that Abraham took his son Isaac and laid him down on the altar, and he thought he was going to have to kill his only son, even after waiting 25 years.
[21:54]That's how long it took between God spoke it and he saw it. We quit too quick.
[22:39]We have microwave mindsets and we serve a crockpot God. So it might be slower than you wanted, but from this boy Isaac, came the nations that would inhabit this very land that Abraham was living in. And I want you to see him on Mount Mariah. I want you to see him build the altar.
[23:03]I want you to see him lay his son Isaac on the altar, who we waited for a quarter of his a quarter of his life, a quarter of his life.
[23:44]He waited this long and yet at the moment that he thought he was going to have to give up what God promised him, there was a ram in the bush that he didn't know about. But God knew. And God knew the moment that the ram would need to be in the bush for Abraham to make the sacrifice.
[24:50]Whatever has been withheld from your life, whatever seems like it is behind in your life, whatever seems like the enemy has taken it out of your life. Can you trust the timing of God in this moment enough to know that he knows.
[25:21]He knows what I need, when I need it. And if it didn't come yet, it wasn't time yet. But somebody who knows his time. By faith, for you to take the next step when you can't see beyond it. Stand up and give God praise by faith. There is a praise that comes by faith.
[25:52]Even though.
[25:57]My favorite Bible verse is when the sister came to Jesus and said, I know my brother will rise again at the last day. And Jesus said, last day, I am the resurrection and the life. And whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies. So we're living in the even though.
