Loading summary
Transcript9 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. With school out, summer is the perfect time to teach our kids real world money skills they'll use forever. Greenlight is a debit card and the number one family finance and safety app used by millions of families helping kids learn how to save, invest and spend wisely. Parents can send their kids money and track their spending and saving while kids build money, confidence and skills in fun ways. Start your risk free Greenlight trial today@greenlight.com Ibuprofen iheart that's greenlight.com iheart this Labor Day say goodbye to spills, stains and overpriced furniture with washablesofas.com featuring Anabe, the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly pricing. Sofas start at just $6.99, making it the perfect time to upgrade your space. Anibe's Pet Friendly Stain resistant and interchangeable slipcovers are made with high performance fabric built for real life. You'll love the cloud like comfort of hypoallergenic high resilience foam that never needs fluffing and a durable steel frame that stands the test of time with modular pieces you can rearrange anytime. It's a sofa that adapts to your life. Now through Labor Day. Get up to 60% off site wide@washablesofas.com Every order comes with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping, no restocking fees, every penny back. Shop now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.
- [01:37]
B
Lowes knows that no matter your paint project, saving is at the top of your list. That's why when you shop today you can buy one get one free. Select Valspar and HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams one Coat Coverage Interior paints via rebate. Shop these deals in store or online today at Lowe's. We help you save. Selection varies by location while supplies last. Discount taken at time of purchase. See Sales Associate for details. Offer valid 821 through 93 hey this is Steven Furtick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. Are you excited for the Word of God today? I sure am grateful to preach and share this with you. Thank you Worship Team. If you want to look at Joshua chapter two. Today with me for a moment, a very interesting story in scripture. Those of you at our uptown location and our Melbourne campus, you heard me share from this scripture. You heard me share from this scripture at our vision nights over the last few weeks. I want to share this with the church today. It's a subject that I think will be relevant for each of us and I pray you'll hear this personally for yourself. By the way, what an awesome advantage it is when everyone in the church is leaned in to hear the word of God. I was telling one of the people who helps me on the weekend how exhausting it is when preaching feels like mixed martial arts. I don't want to be like Conor McGregor up here. It's not like that. It's not even a performance when we do this, God speaks. When everybody comes with that attitude and that perspective, we realize that it is our responsibility to receive the word of God. We don't put all this pressure on some guy with a microphone, as if somehow I could fix your life. I can't. My opinion is empty. But God's word is powerful. When you bring that expectation to the word of God, it really makes it dynamic and explosive. All that just to say, look at your neighbor and say, wake up. Pay attention, I know you're ready. Joshua, chapter two, verse one. Then Joshua, son of nun. Secretly. Secretly. You don't have to tell everybody everything you're doing. Secretly. You don't have to post every time you pray on Instagram. You don't have to put a coffee mug post for every devotion. You know what I'm talking about. The coffee mug and the Bible is spread open. And then you highlight a few extra verses before you take the picture. Make it look like. Then Joshua, son of nun. Shh. Don't tell everybody, but just secretly sent two spies from Shittim. That's a long I. When you pronounce shittim. You want to be careful when you pronounce shittim. If you ever preach from Joshua, chapter two, verse one, go look over the land, he said, especially Jericho. Notice he didn't tell them to look at every city because you can get overwhelmed if you think about all the battles you have to fight. This is just the first one. The next one, when we get so focused on everything we have to overcome, it saps our strength. We can't take our next step because we're thinking 14 steps ahead. You can wreck looking at your GPS instead of keeping your eyes on the next turn. So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. Why there? There was nothing else available on Airbnb, so they stayed in the house of a prostitute named Rahab. The king of Jericho was told, look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land. So the king of Jericho sent this message to bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land. But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. If there's one thing Rahab's profession has taught her, it is discretion. I'm saying she might not have lived the most holy life. The Bible says she was a prostitute, but she knew how to hide men. I point that out to let you know God is going to use everything, even the stuff you're not proud of. If you offer it to him, he'll use even the things you want to hide. Rahab hid the men because that's something she knew how to do. I won't say any more about that because you all are looking at me. So, Angelica, she said, yeah, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don't know which way they went, by the way. All of this is a lie. All of this is a lie. So we have a lying prostitute that God uses to fulfill his purpose and demonstrate his glory in the earth. Put that in your theological pipe and toke that vape that. So she's lying and she's hiding the men. And then she uses misdirection, tells the king, go after them quickly. You may catch up with them. Parentheses. But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she'd laid out on the roof. This was not her first time hiding a man in her house. So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. The spies lay down for the night. She went up on the roof and said to them, I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. These are the same enemies the Israelites were so afraid of 40 years earlier that they wouldn't go in. But what they were running from was actually afraid of them. You realize sometimes you're running from a defeated foe. You realize sometimes you're running from Stuff God has already dealt with. If you would move forward, she says. We've heard about you. We've heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea. That was four decades ago. They're still talking about it. We heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. And when we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage failed because of you. For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. Turn to the person next to you and tell them what Rahab told the spies say you have a reputation. The title of this message is Reputation Rehab. You didn't just come to church today, you came to reputation rehab. How many realize that everything people called you is not something you should respond to? At this stage in your life, you have to move past some things and see yourself in a new light. At least that's what God told Joshua. He instated him as the new leader of Israel after Moses left. He said, it's a new day and you are the leader I have chosen and appointed to lead these people into the land I promised their ancestors. God in Joshua, Chapter one reminds Joshua of his reputation. Not the reputation of Joshua, the reputation of Jehovah. He said, I am the God who spoke to the forefathers of this faith tradition, which you are a continuation of, but it didn't start with you. God says, I have a reputation. When you face the resistance, when you go into this new land I've called you to conquer, I want you to remember my reputation. God said, I have a reputation of picking people out that are obscure and unknown and using them to accomplish my purpose in the earth. I have a reputation. I have a reputation for calling men like Abraham and taking him from Ur of the Chaldeans. And even though he's too old to have babies and there are no prescriptions available to help him procreate, I have a reputation for doing what cannot be done in the flesh. For it is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. I have a reputation. Sometimes we need to be reminded of God's reputation, you know, we need to be reminded every once in a while that the wind and the waves know who he is. They know that voice. Do you, my sheep, know my voice. I'm the one who dried up the Red Sea. I just want you to remember my reputation. That's Why I mention Bible stories in church like Daniel and the lion's den, because the lions knew that when God speaks, their mouths had to stay shut. They knew that voice. They knew that voice. I'm encouraged to know that God's reputation is the basis of my faith, not mine. I think it's really funny sometimes how much time we spend trying to build our reputation with people whose opinions don't ultimately matter. You know, when I first started the church, a well meaning minister gave me a piece of advice. He said, protect your reputation, you only get one. I wish that were true. I wish you could protect your reputation and that if you always did the right thing, people would always say the right things about you. The fact is, we live in a world that doesn't know the difference between a rumor and a reputation anymore. To spend all of your energy trying to protect your reputation. The Lord really spoke to me and dealt with me the first time I would defend myself against people who were critical of my ministry. You can spend so much time trying to protect your reputation, which is really ego, wanting people to have a certain image of you that you start preaching to the people who don't like you and you're angry at people who are smiling at you because you're not really talking to them. It happened to me early in ministry and the Lord spoke to me. He spoke to me very specifically. He said, why don't you worry about protecting your integrity and let me protect your reputation? When you stop to think about it, even the premise that you only have one reputation is faulty. I mean, really, you have as many reputations as you have relationships. Isn't that true? What I mean is some people at work think you're quiet because you are around them, because you don't trust them or like them or have anything to say to them. But if we ask your family, I will never forget when our middle child, Graham first went to school and the teacher emailed us how he talked too much in class. It was so funny because we could not get him to talk at home. He was so quiet at home and the teacher said, he will not shut up in class. He's a wonderful child, but could you just talk to him about talking out of turn in class? I said, well, could you talk to him about talking intern at home because we can't get him to say anything. Now he's 11 and he talks all the time. But I remember thinking how strange it was that he could be known as the talkative kid in class, but maybe the birth order or something at home. Maybe we won't shut up long enough to give him a chance at home. You know it's really true because sometimes we only get to know church. You I wonder how big is the gap between your reality and your reputation. It has never been easier to develop a virtual reputation. I see people online and in their profile it says life coach and they're 13. I don't understand how you're going to coach me. And you've never been on the field. It says public figure and you have a private account with 12 followers. I don't understand it, but I do. Because we are living in a world that wants reputation without repetition. A true reputation is not built by what you occasionally do or wish you were or want people to see you as. It's not something you project or perfect. Your real reputation comes from relationship and repetition. Relationship and repetition. I had to come to the point where I realized it is not what people who don't know me think about me or what I can convince them of. That brings me peace in my heart and fulfills my calling. I want to focus my life on developing a reputation that is based on repetition and relationship. That I would do the right thing over and over and over and over and over again. When I don't, I'll apologize and I'll get back on and do it over and over and over. Isn't that how God built His reputation in your life? Because he helped you over and over and over and over again. And he gave you mercy over and over and over and over again. He made ways over and over and over and over again. And he heard your cry over and over and over again. And he forgave you for that same sin you committed over and over and over again. But when you needed grace, you found it over and over and over again. And he woke you up over and over and over again. And he let you see another day over and over and over again. So I will praise him over and over and over again. Because God has a reputation with me. I know him as faithful. Faithful. Watch this. I don't let anybody else build my belief about who God is. I don't need to believe somebody else's report about God. I have a personal relationship with Him. God's reputation with me is based on his faithfulness in my life. I don't go off of what I heard about. I go off what I know. Don't ever let somebody else misrepresent God and run you away from church. You ought to know God for yourself. It's a relational thing so we're losing that. And we're so quick to tear people down. God forgive us for all the times where we've believed a report about someone we didn't even know. In a day where it is so easy to project a false reputation and so easy to destroy a reputation. You can destroy your own reputation with 280 characters. Am I right? I don't call names from this pulpit, but you know what I'm talking about. Yet we stand between the reality of who we are and kind of who we think we need to be. Into that gap, God speaks. It's the most amazing thing. I can't get over this, and it doesn't seem like a smart strategy. But God chooses over and over again the faithful. God entrusts his reputation to faithless people. For 40 years, the Israelites will wander in the wilderness because they believed a bad report, even though they had a history with God. Joshua does something interesting after he calls the people together and tells them, prepare and consecrate yourselves for what God is going to do. And reminds them of what God has already done. He sends back to verse one, two spies. Two spies instead of 12. When Moses got ready to check out Canaan four decades ago, he sent 12 spies and 10 came back with a fear report. It's almost as if Joshua has learned from that exploit. Being one of the two spies who said, if God is with us, we can't fail, he made up his mind this time. I only need two. Somebody shout, I only need two. Look at the person on either side of you and tell both of them, I only need two. I don't need too many opinions in this stage of my life. I'm out of middle school now and I can't live by what everybody else thinks or does. Not anymore. I only need two. I only need two. I read in my Bible that surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. So I have goodness and I have mercy. I only need two. Say it again. I only need two. I can't afford to consult everybody's opinion and every cable news channel. I have goodness and I have mercy. I don't need Fox. I don't need cnn. I don't need Twitter. I don't need Facebook. I don't need Instagram. I don't need my past to consult. I don't need to consult too many people. When you start calling people and asking them for advice, you really don't want advice anymore. After you've called the third person, you want affirmation and attention. I have a shortcut. Now, as a pastor, when people say, I'd like your advice on whatever they say next, I don't respond to. I say, what do you want? Because I'll just say what you want to hear and save you the time from calling the next person and the next person until somebody will finally tell you what you want to hear. A lot of us, maybe not you, maybe somebody you know. A lot of us live our whole life consulting opinions. When you get too many opinions, it really crowds out the voice of God. What's funny about people? You have to be so careful. People will a lot of times and situations will a lot of times. The Bible says they went into Jericho and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab. Why would you go into the house of a prostitute? In order to discern the promise of God. Let me tell you a little secret. God uses who he wants to use. I'm losing amens by the minute. You must be from out of town. God uses who he wants to use. Isn't it fascinating that the God who has a spotless reputation when he gets ready to bring his people into the promise, uses a woman with a reputation, Not a reputation like we think God can use. Not a reputation of perfection. But God uses someone with a reputation and furthermore, someone who the spies would consider technically, Rahab was an enemy of Israel. Yet God used their enemy to show them who they were. She said, I know who you are, and I know that God has given you the victory. Is it possible that your enemy knows more about who you are than you do? Is that why he has been fighting you like he has been fighting you? It's just a question. Saints, is it possible, just a little bit possible, that the trial you're going through is. Is actually a testament to the power that lives within you? The devil doesn't waste bullets if he's leaving you alone. He knows you aren't anything worth fighting against. God used their enemy to show them who they were. God used their struggle to confirm his word. Let me teach. It's crazy how we have set up a false expectation that the proof of God's favor in our life will always be that our fights will decrease and our comfort will increase. But when God was revealing himself in the Book of Job, the devil was going all through the earth trying to look for somebody he could tamper with. And when the devil presented himself before the throne with the angels, because the enemy can't do anything without God's permission. I'm afraid in a lot of our churches, we've given the devil a reputation that he is in equal power with God. He's not. God asked a question to Satan. He said, have you considered my servant Job? Have you thought about picking on him because he's my guy now? Whatever you have to do to get on that list where God tells the devil he can mess with you, I don't want to be that holy. I want to find that mark. But God said, have at his sight stuff. You can touch him, his family. You can't touch him. When the devil came back and said, I tried it, and you were right, he didn't curse you. But if you let me hurt him, it's one thing for everything around him to be affected, but if you let me hurt his body, he'll curse you. God said, you can do it, but you can't kill him. After that period of testing had been completed, after Job survived all of the rounds, this means he lost not only his income, not only his business, not only his belongings, but his children. The only person who stayed alive with Job was his wife. If you read about her, he's probably praying God would go ahead and wipe her out too, because she wasn't a very good wife. She said, go ahead and curse God and die. Let's get it over with. You really going to put up with this and still serve God? But Job would not charge God with wrongdoing. Yes, at the end of Job's life, he was doubly blessed. But I don't think the point of the book of Job is that Job got double for his trouble. That's nice for a bumper sticker. But he still lost his children. What's the point? The point is the devil didn't mention Job's name. God did. Job had a reputation with heaven. Heaven knew about Job. He can be trusted with trouble. He won't break beneath the weight of a burden. Heaven knows about you. You can raise those ADHD kids. Those A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P kids. God knew he could give you the whole Alphabet and you wouldn't kill him. God knew he could trust you with sorrow. God knew he could trust you with trial and with tribulation, he knew that about you. If the devil isn't messing with you, maybe he doesn't even know you're here. Like, one time in the Book of Acts, these seven sons of a Jewish priest saw Paul laying hands on people. And they were like, oh, that's cool, huh? Maybe we say what he says. We could do what he does. Maybe we can make money off of it. In the name of Jesus, come out. When they said it, the demon spoke and said, I heard you say Jesus, and we know him. I heard you say Paul, and we know him. We hate him. We're on assignment against him. We send snakes to bite him. We put Paul through shipwrecks. We stir up people and create contention so that stones are thrown at Paul. We've heard of Jesus. We've heard of Paul, but who are you? Look at somebody next to you and say it in that falsetto voice like I said it, like Prince. Say, who are you? Who are you? I'm concerned that a lot of times we are convinced that our trouble is an indication of the absence of God's presence, when more times than not in the Scripture you can find that trouble accompanies God's presence. He is an ever present help in the time of trouble. So if you're in trouble, you're in God. Who are you? Who are you? The devil is looking at some of y'. All. Who are you? I don't even have to. I don't even have to mess with your life. You're doing a good job by yourself. Who are you? Who are you? I don't get paid to argue with you. No. So they go to the house of Rahab the prostitute, y'. All. I probably would not preach about a prostitute if she were only mentioned in Joshua Chapter two, because I would figure that's the Old Testament. But a funny thing happened in the Book of Matthew when the writer started listing the genealogy of Jesus and all of the generations he came through. It's like 14 generations and then 14 more and then 14 more. This is the stuff we skip over sometimes when we're reading the Christmas story, because it's all these names we don't recognize. So and so begot. So and so begot. So and so begot so and so. Really, all I want to do is get to verse 18. Then came Jesus. But some of the stuff you skip is some of the places where God speaks. I said, some of the stuff you skip is some of the stuff God speaks through. Matthew said in Matthew 15, I feel like preaching Salmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Now, to get to Jesus in the genealogy, you have to go through Rahab the prostitute. God works through who he wants to work through. All things work together for the good of them that love the Lord whose mother was Rahab. Stop being so stuck up. Stop categorizing people and casting them out like you don't have issues. You ought to be glad to see Rahab's name in there. Hope for me, too. If Rahab made it, maybe I can, by faith, shout it out. By faith. By faith. So then you get to Hebrews 11, and not just once, but for the second time. In the New Testament, Rahab gets an honorable mention in the hall of Faith, where they're inducting all of the Sunday school heroes. All of the classic events on which redemptive history hinged are mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11. By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea on dry land, but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. Side note, God doesn't bring you into deep waters to kill you. He brings you into deep water to drown your enemies. He knows they can't swim in deep waters. That's where you deal with your doubts. In deep waters, that's where you come face to face with your dysfunction and have to lean and rely on the grace of God. So the Egyptians drowned by faith. The walls of Jericho fell not because they fought so well, but because the faith they had enabled them to do what made no sense naturally. And by faith. The walls of Jericho fell after the army had marched around them for seven days. Here comes Rahab by faith. The prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. What more shall I say? I don't have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. You mean you don't have time to talk about David, the greatest king Israel ever knew, A man after God's own heart. But you had time to mention Rahab. God says, I don't look at people based on your standard of importance. I don't look at people based on your standard of significance. God doesn't check your followers to see how much favor he gives you. You, God, is looking at your faith. Then James jumps in for a third time. This harlot is mentioned alongside the heroes of scripture. Hero, harlot, harlot, hero. Now I can't tell the difference because God calls someone that I call a harlot a hero. And I know you don't like it. I know it doesn't go down easy. I know we can't eat it with vanilla wafers and put it on a flannel graft because the story of Rahab is R rated and it doesn't teach very well in E kids. But James said in the same way, in the same way. Was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction. Keep calling her that. Rahab the prostitute. Keep labeling her. It's crazy. God didn't change her before he used her. You know how we think God can't use me because I currently struggle with. It's not like she was a prostitute and then she became a prophet. She was still a prostitute. This doesn't excuse bad behavior. But it helps me to see that the love of God is not the reward for change. It is the resource by which I am changed. That revelation of the love of God is so powerful. I was telling you. My son Graham talks a lot more now and he actually says some really funny stuff. I'm praying that he will not become a stand up comic. I'm not praying that he'll be a preacher either. I really don't care if my kids take on this profession or not like that. I might even tell them, do something else if you can, because you have to be called to do this. All my kids have heard so many sermons. They come up with funny little questions about the Bible I never thought of before, but just from a child's mind. It's so funny. Graham asked me the other day, he said, I hear people say all the time when I get to heaven, I want to see Jesus. He said, but have you ever thought about how long the line is going to be? We had just been to Disneyland, so he had that in his mind. He said, it's going to be a long line to see Jesus. I wonder if you could get somebody to hold your place in line to see Jesus and then go see some of the other characters in the Bible. I kind of played it out and I was thinking you probably could. There are probably some characters in the Bible that no one will want a selfie with. And you could probably just walk right up to them. Like Jonah. Who wants to meet Jonah? He's the most dysfunctional, discouraging prophet in the Bible. He preached and God sent a revival and he went outside and wanted to die. So Jonah is available. You could go see Jonah for a few minutes, a few hundred years while you wait to see Jesus. Eternity is long. Then you could probably go see Bartholomew. The apostle. Paul might be unavailable. And John, the disciple who Jesus loved. He might have a little wait list, but you could probably see Bartholomew. Jewish legend says that Rahab was one of the most four beautiful women who ever lived. I don't know if that's true, but maybe you want to see for yourself. You get to Heaven. There's Samson. Walk over to the front desk. There's Peter. He's got his iPad. And you say, hey, I'm in line to see Jesus. I'm number 15,973,223. While I'm waiting, I was kind of stranger. Class, could I see a Rahab the prostitute? Let me check. Shh. Sounds bad, man. Keep it down. Oh, I'm sorry. We do have a Rahab up here. But you said Rahab the prostitute. There's nobody here by that name. Up here, we don't call people what they were. We don't call people what they did. We don't call people what they were. Labeled. Up here, she doesn't go by that name. So you can see Rahab, but make sure you call her by her new name. Up here, we call her Rahab the Righteous. There is a righteousness that comes from God by faith. I said there is a righteousness that is not of works. So no one can boast. I don't know about you, but I'm grateful for the blood of Jesus that covered my path. I'm not what I did. I'm not what I was, and I'm not what I think. And I'm not where I'm broken. I'm not what they said. I have a new name. I have a new name. I have a new reputation. I am a child of God. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Look at somebody say, don't call me that. You don't know me like that. Don't call me. According to how you memorized me in my past, God is doing a new thing in my life. When condemnation comes in to remind you of all of those reasons God can't use you. Remember Rahab. Remember Rahab, who had nothing to offer except faith? God said even she was considered righteous. That's what church is. It's a place for you to come and leave all of the labels you've accumulated in your life because of your behaviors. Oh, yeah. Some of the stuff people said about you is facts. It's not always that they were lying. It's just that there is a greater truth that supersedes whatever they can say about you. And every weakness is potential strength. When I was writing this message, I made a critical mistake. I was typing so fast in my phone, I kept misspelling Rahab's name. I kept spelling it R, E, H, A B because I was writing fast, not because my IQ is low. After writing it down 10 times, I noticed I keep spelling it rehab. And God said, you got it right. What I want you to tell the people when you preach it is that I am in the business rehabilitating. See my title again on the screen. You did not come to a religious service today. You came to rehab. The place it starts is not with what others think of you. We spend so much time on that. We fail to realize that really the issue is how you see you. The greatest place my reputation needs repair is within myself. Because I've let myself down so many times. I've made promises to myself and others over and over again. And I'm really going to have a better attitude this time. And I'm really going at this time. And I'm really going at this time. Some of you have developed a reputation with yourself that does not reflect your reputation with heaven. God doesn't see you like that. The gap between your reality and your reputation with yourself could cost you the opportunity to see God use you in the future. If you don't deal with that, it costs the spies. Ten of the 12 said, we can't go in. That's 83.66666% of the people who went into the land came back with the wrong report. I think 83.6666% of stuff I tell myself is probably wrong. At least if I don't deal with that, I can have a new reality, a new nature. I can be chosen by God, loved by God, accepted by God. He can even have an assignment for me. He can even want to use my house to bring forth a promise. If I don't see myself that way, I'll be like those spies. The reason they didn't go into the land wasn't how they saw God, was how they saw themselves. The reason they saw themselves as small is because they had spent 430 years enslaved. Sometimes you carry that with you. The Bible actually says that before they could go into the land, God had to roll away the reproach of Egypt. Their past, their shackles, their former condition. When you carry forward with you the reproach of different things you struggled with or currently struggle with, it will always keep you from realizing your righteousness in Christ. Always. When you see your life through the lens of self, it's very small. That's what the spies came back and said. They had totally lost sight of God's reputation because they were so concerned about their own numbers. 1333 says they gave the man of God, Moses, this report. They said, we saw the Nephilim there. The Nephilim were giants. It might represent anything in your life that's too powerful for you and your own strength. It might represent your fear, your insecurity. That chronic thing keeps creeping into your life, taking you down. Thought pattern. It doesn't have to be a physical giant or a physical enemy. In fact, the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. There's a good chance your Nephilim has a different name. We saw the giants and we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes. Why were you comparing yourself to the giants? You were supposed to be comparing your giants to your God. But you lost sight of that, didn't you? You start thinking what's wrong with me is more powerful than what's right with God. We look like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we look the same to them. Because when you don't know who you are, you depend on the rest of the world to tell you. Now you're empty. And now you're projecting. And now you're trying to perfect this reputation. But God brought you here for rehab. God brought you here for a reminder of who he is. The Lord. The Lord. Slow to anger, abounding in love, maintaining faithfulness to a thousand generations. That's who he is. He has a reputation. He has picked up people like you and like me at our lowest point. He has picked up people like you and me on our highest mountaintop. He specializes in imperfection. Would you stand to your feet? No one leaving, no one moving. I'd like to pray for you, please. If this word has ministered to you today and there is a reproach you have been carrying forward into your future that needs to be rolled into your past, I would like to pray for you today that God would remind you of his reputation. He has never lost a battle. He has never met a need that he couldn't meet. He never created a life he did not intend to use. So we find hope today in this story of Rahab, that God is rehabilitating our eyes, that we could see him as he really is. Father, I pray that not one of your children would brush this message off. I pray that it would not fall on deaf ears. And I pray that our pride would not keep us from receiving it. Because probably we could think, well, I'm not that bad. I'm not some prostitute. We all have broken places. We all have many reasons why we feel useless and unworthy. Yet you call us righteous by faith. Speak over your people today, Lord, in direct contradiction to every lie the enemy has planted in their mind. It is not so and it will not prevail. Whatever has been spoken over their life by others or by themselves that does not align with your word, we come against it now. In the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, the name that is able to heal, save, deliver and set free. In the name of Jesus, the name that is above every name, the name that is above every Nephilim, the name that is above every dysfunction, the name that is above all shame and sin. We ask you that in this moment of worship we would remember who you say we already are chosen, not forsaken. I am who you say I am. You are for me, not against me. I am who you say I am. Say it I am who are you who you say I am. Lift your hands to your Father and say, I am who you say I am. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. It's because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to Give now or visit elevationchurch.orgpodcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us LevationChurch. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
- [50:18]
A
At Hill's Pet Nutrition we know that pet parent guilt is real. Leaving too long, playing too little, new homes, new babies, waking them up when.
- [50:27]
B
They look so comfy.
- [50:29]
A
Running out of patience, running out of.
- [50:31]
B
Treats, running the vacuum.
- [50:34]
A
You can only do so much. That's why there's Hills Science led nutrition.
- [50:38]
B
To help you give more love than.
- [50:40]
A
Humanly possible because you're only human. There's Hills Find the right food@hillspet.com ScienceDoesMore so do healthier choices really pay off with prescription plans from CVS Caremark? They do. Their plan designs give you more choice, which gives members more ways to get on, stay on and manage their meds. And that helps you control your costs because healthier members are better for business. Go to CMK Co Access to learn more about helping your members stay adherent. That's CMK Co Access this Labor Day. Say goodbye to spills, stains and overpriced furniture with washablesofas.com featuring Anibe, the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget friendly pricing. Sofas start at just $699, making it the perfect time to upgrade your space. Annabe's Pet Friendly Stain resistant and interchangeable Slipcovers are made with high performance fabric built for real life. You'll love the cloud like comfort of hypoallergenic high resilience foam that never needs fluffing and a durable steel frame that sticks stands the test of time with modular pieces you can rearrange anytime. It's a sofa that adapts to your life. Now through Labor Day, get up to 60% off site wide@washablesofas.com Every order comes with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping, no restocking fees. Every penny back. Shop now@washablesofas.com Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. This is an I Heart podcast.