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That's innerbalance.com when Kohler, global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, asked me to be their ambassador for timeless, elegant, durable cast iron, I said, I'm in. Soon after, I was in their Kohler, Wisconsin foundry watching molten iron poured, enamel applied by hand, and the beautiful finished pieces ready to ship. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron has been crafted by incredible artisans, and seeing it firsthand gave me a whole new appreciation for their craftsmanship. Now I am proud to lend my stamp of approval to my favorite Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and enduring style. Shop my curated picks@kohler.com as the Kohler Cast Iron ambassador, I say I long live cast iron.
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There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still. Not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit Capella. Edu to learn more. 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. Enjoy the message. How awesome. How awesome. What a wonderful, wonderful time of worship. Amen. Do me a favor real quick before you take your seat. I'm kind of torn. I'm going to preach in just a moment. I'm excited to preach. I'm in a little bit of a dilemma. I have two different scriptures. One is from the Old Testament, one is from the New Testament. I kind of can't decide which one I want to give you, so I thought we'd put it up for a vote. She said both. Well, it's a good thing because my message today is the blessing of both. Let's do it. Let's do it. You may be seated. God bless you. God bless you, choir. God bless you, Anna. God bless you, Matt. God bless you. Pastor Sean C. In the house from Athens Church. Let's thank God for this great man of God. Thanks for stopping by. It's good to have my brother, Pastor Mike Todd, on the second row representing the Oakland Athletics. You're not a fan at all, are you? Oh, man, that's terrible. You just watched Moneyball and bought an Oakland A's hat. Is that what happened? Oh, man, this feels good. So if I'm not preaching good, I can throw the mic on the first row, the second row, and somebody else can pick it up. It's so good to be here. Just touch somebody and say, if pastor had time, he would say thank God for you and mention your name too. Can you do that? If they had time. So many wonderful things to share from the word of God. Hey, thank you for serving this love week. Whatever you did, if you did something this week, really what I like to thank God for is consistency. Because it's not just one week out of the year that builds a great church. While this week there are many people we could highlight and thank for their contribution, I want to say thank you to those of you who never make a lot of noise, but you just contribute in meaningful waysprayer. Giving service is a big deal. You lead an egroup, whether it's a spectacular thing, whether it's 40 people or four people, you just do it. That's really how you can know you're doing it for God and not for the approval of others or the praises of people. It's just really beautiful. And I appreciate you. I don't know how to say it any more than that, but I appreciate you and I hope you can feel that that's sincere. From my heart, thank you. To those of you. You don't blow a trumpet or anything like that. You don't announce it. You just do it. And that means a lot. It's not just the Nike slogan. It's the way that a great local church is built, when people are just willing to do it and not necessarily have to be known for it. But I thank God for each and every one of you on every location. I just wanted to say that in the spirit of love. I wore pink. Now let's get into the Bible. Let me read you this from Ecclesiastes 11, 5, 6. Now I'm going to take my time because I've been waiting to preach these passages since the beginning of June and I couldn't figure out how God wanted me to preach them. But today I saw it. I've just been pacing all day waiting for you to put on your Makeup and get here so we could talk about it together. Now I can't find Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Everything is falling apart. Here it is. It's right there. You do not know the way the Spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child. So you do not know the work of God, who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand. For you do not know which will prosper this or that, or whether both alike will be good. There's our word. Both. Go over to Matthew, chapter 13, verse 24. For my second scripture. You told me you wanted both, so I'm fulfilling your request. He put another parable before them, verse 24, saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also, by the way, by the time something destructive appears in your life, it has been planted for a little while. There's a difference between the time when it was deposited in the soil and the time it showed up in your life. When they woke up to the weeds, he said. The servant said, master, did you not sow good seed in your field? I thought you raised your kids right, things like that. I thought you went to church. I thought you prayed. But he said, if you sowed good seeds, how then does it have weeds in the field? He said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servants said to him, do you want us to go and gather them? Take care of it, sort it out. He's like, no, you have to be careful, because lest gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them. Let both. Let both grow together. Interesting. Until the harvest, and at harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first. Bind them in bundles to be burned. But gather the wheat into my barn. When Jesus was teaching about the Kingdom of God, it was a new phrase and an entirely new concept for his hearers. It had never been said that way before. The Kingdom of God. Israel thought of themselves as a kingdom in a military and nationalistic sense. But to think of the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God in an invisible realm required Jesus to not only explain it, but to demonstrate it. And both are always necessary. That's why Love Week was so important in our church. Those 100,000 hours we served validated the message we preach. It is one thing to explain love, but it's Another thing, to hand somebody some warm food or a blanket or to be with somebody in their time of need. Jesus had to do both. He had quite a challenge on his hands because he would demonstrate something by working a miracle, but then he would have to explain it because the people who saw the miracle would miss the point. I told you about one last week, when he took the Happy Meal and fed everybody. They thought the point of the miracle was that their stomachs were full because they wanted him to be their Burger King. He had to shut that whole thing down and say, eat my flesh, drink my blood. You missed the entire point. So he's always having to explain it. He was always having to demonstrate so they could see it and then explain it so they could understand it. He said, if you see it but don't understand it, it will be like a seed that was sown, but the bird snatches it up before it has the opportunity to hit the soil. If you don't get the lesson in your heart through the power of demonstration, then you will miss the intention of the message. But if you only see the demonstration and don't hear the explanation, then you'll understand the miracle on the wrong level. You'll always live your life thinking that the physical thing is the real thing, and you'll not understand what it's really pointing to. So you'll engage in behavior modification to try to fix your life, not understanding that every habit in your life started with something in your heart. Until God turns the soil of your heart and weeds out the stuff that is choking the seed of His Word. Like I said, it's a lot. In the text, Jesus must have felt overwhelmed, because in the crowd he had his disciples and he needed them to take the message after he left. Then there were the people who were just coming just to see the show and just to eat the fries. He had to separate the two out. And he would often have to pull the disciples aside and say, now, when I said this, this is what I meant. He had to not only teach to the crowds, but he had to teach his disciples too. He had to do both. I relate to that challenge because some of you in this church know so much of the Bible. You know, I'm like, Matthew 13:24, wheat in the tares. Wow. Then others are like, Matthew, who is that? His brother's name. What are we doing? It's all over the place in terms of knowledge and just frame of reference. But Jesus was always able to speak to both, unless they thought he could only do one or the other. He'd do stuff like this. He'd say to a paralytic friend, your sins are forgiven. Then when the people doubted if he had the power to forgive sins, he would tell them, now, get up and take up your bed and walk. The reason he told them to get up and take up his bed and walk was to give them a physical demonstration of his spiritual authority. So it's demonstration and explanation, and Jesus is doing both. In the context of the kingdom of God. He would often have to teach this principle of the already and not yet eschatological, the eschatological tension of the kingdom of God. It simply means that some things have already come. The kingdom of God is here, and then some things are still coming. Isn't it that way in our life to know that if we have trusted in Christ, we are saved, we have been saved, and yet we are being saved, and we will be saved? There are certain things in my life right now that God has already done. I can see the fruit of it. But there are other changes that are still taking root in my life. What I've noticed about this is that as my devotion to Christ grows, so do the things that distract me to try to pull me away from that pure devotion and simple, childlike faith in the grace of God. Jesus is using a parable so he can use an earthly symbol to convey a spiritual truth. He said, it's like if a man was planting weeds with the plural, it might be legal, but it isn't always just the best thing to do. But that's a different sermon. But he said it's like if he was planting wheat and then somebody else planted weeds. He said, I want you to know that both grow together, which is symbolic of how as the ministry of Jesus increased, so did the opposition. The more his popularity grew, the more vocal his opponents became, because both grow together in the church. I grew up in, Moncks Corner United Methodist Church. We used to go upstairs to the youth room. Rick Burnett would lead us in praise and worship songs like It Only Takes a spark to Get a Fire going. Shine, Jesus, shine. What was the other one he used to love so much? Oh, I remember the other one. I'm not going to tell you what it was. I'll tell you. You know how James Taylor sang the Carole King song, you've Got a friend? He would do you've Got a Friend. But then he would go into, what a friend we have in Jesus. It was like a medley. Then he would stop after he played the songs. It was only about 10 of us in the youth group. But he would always say, now it's time for praise reports and prayer requests. So it's a bunch of teenagers, right? What would usually happen is everybody who would raise their hand would raise their hand and say, I have an unspoken. Unspoken is code for it's probably about a girl or it's about a guy. I have an unspoken. But, you know, maybe every once in a while, somebody will raise their hand and give a praise report about a test they passed or a prayer request about a test they were taking. Here's what's weird, and I wonder if you've experienced this in your life. In our lives, we will often see the cycle that what will be our prayer request in one season of our life will become our praise report in the next season, only to become our prayer request again. There's probably a couple in here who right now is pregnant with child. And you probably prayed that God would enable you to have a child. Maybe in five months, three months, seven months, you will give birth to your prayer request. You had your friends praying, probably even in a crowd this size, somebody who had trouble conceiving, and maybe even through the course of many different miscarriages. This may be the third or fourth or fifth time you tried. Now you're on the way to giving birth to what you prayed about. Others are still waiting for that. We're all at different places, but let me tell you what's going to happen. Because she's had three babies. You pray for it, and then you have it and you praise God for it, and then you start praying about it all over again. Watch this. Y' all pray. We're trying to have a baby. Y' all pray. We haven't slept in 34 days. Y' all pray. Our toddler is now showing some developmental delays. Y' all pray. We're trying to get him into this school, but we can't get him with the right teacher. Y' all pray. He has his driver's license. Y' all better pray for yourselves. As a matter of fact, y' all might want to stay off the road for the next few years. Y' all pray. It was your prayer request that became your praise report that turned back into your prayer request. So here's what I'm trying to say. You prayed for your problems. Yes, you did. You prayed for the promotion on the job, and the promotion came with people. People are stupid and lazy and late and tardy. You prayed for that. Touch somebody and say you prayed for it. You asked for it. Don't get mad about it now. You prayed for it. You prayed for a man. I heard one girl praying for her husband one time. She was praying for her future husband. She had a whole list about it. She was praying. She was like, God, I pray that he would be godly and I pray that he would be tall but God, I'd rather him be godly than tall but God, if he could be both, if he could be bothered if it could be both, it's both. You need both. You need both. It's in marriage, like, don't marry somebody you're attracted to. Marry somebody that loves the Lord. You better be attracted to them too. It better be both. I'm for real about this. Most preachers won't say these things because they sound carnal and unspiritual, but it needs to be both. You need to like to look at each other. You're going to be looking at each other all the time in this thing. Y' all can be prayer partners. Don't have to get married. You have to have some chemistry and Christ. It goes back to the idea that humans are always wanting to categorize. We always want to divide things. You want us to get the wheat separated from the weeds. That's what we always want to do, separate the good from the bad. We want to talk about. I'm in a season of blessing right now, or I'm going through a really hard season right now. Let me tell you the truth. All of us are going through a season of blessing right now. All of us are going through a really hard season right now. It just depends on which angle you catch me from as to what season I look like I'm going through. If you see me from one side, from my good side, I might look like the most blessed man in the United States of America. In the continental United States of America. But on the other side, I yelled at one of my kids, who shall remain nameless, right before I came to preach to you. But you didn't have to see that. So now I'm a man full of the spirit and wisdom up here. Give him a praise, Let it be done. Receive your rain. We're like a flood. I was coming through like a flood, but a different kind of flood. Just a few minutes before I got on the stage. It's both. I could preach the Bible and want to beat your behind, both in the same two hour period, in the same 120 minutes. Because I'm a pastor, but I'm also a daddy. If you disrespect my wife, I will turn into something else. Because I'm a transformer. I'm a go bot. I'm Bo. You have to know how to be both. Whoa. It wasn't in my notes, but he kept trying to describe the kingdom. He said, it's like the seed was good and the weeds were bad, but they both grow together. Isn't that so true? They both grow together. The opportunities grow, and so do the responsibilities. God, take me deeper in my walk with you. As you go deeper, you're going to gain intimacy with Christ. Then you are going to also gain awareness of your ignorance, because the closer to him you get, the more you're going to realize how much you don't know. It's like, I want to know you more. But the more you come to know Christ, the more you're going to know that you didn't know him at all. That's why I liked Ecclesiastes 11. I was reading how Solomon had chased things he called vanity or meaningless. It was like the sense that in the context of having success and fulfillment, if you have one without the other, it's problematic. What you really want is both. If you have success but not fulfillment or wholeness, that will feel to you like the ultimate failure. Because to chase what you thought you wanted and to get it and it didn't do what you needed done makes you feel like, well, what do I do now? That's the point he was writing from, where he said, there are certain things you just don't know. He mentions two things in Ecclesiastes 11. Because all of us struggle from time to time. When we are sowing, when we are investing, when we are living our lives and doing the things we believe God has called us to do without knowing whether it's making a difference at all. There's so much you don't know. Solomon says if you watch the wind to see if it's blowing right, you will never sow. If you watch the clouds to see if it's dry enough, you will never reap. Your mind will always find an excuse for you, will always find a reason, will always find an indication that this is not the right time. Solomon is giving advice. He's saying, just like you don't know how the breath enters the bones of a woman in the womb. Now, granted, we have ultrasounds now, but it's still true to be said today that there is a part of the process of human life we can't put on a sonogram. There's a part of it, he says. There are the bones and then there's the spirit or the breath. It's the same way God breathed. It's the spirit of God, the ruach of God. In the Old Testament, he said, there are the bones and there's the breath. There's the structure and there's the spirit. If you have structure but not spirit, you don't have life. If you have spirit, but you don't have structure, you don't have life. In a few weeks, I'm going to be teaching our staff on our annual staff advance. And I'm doing a whole session just around this verse for leadership. Because in church you can pray for the Spirit of God to come, but if you don't have structure, if you don't have any capacity to manage what God brings you, it will simply be irresponsibility and wishful thinking. On the other hand, you can have organizational charts and resources and all of the things that would tend to make people think you are successful. But without the spirit, just without that thing that only God can do. Can I tell you something? I can get up here with an outline and an outfit and think I have something to say. But there's a part of me that knows because I've been doing this for 14 years now on this stage. Well, not this one. We had different buildings. But at this church. Ask the pastor. There is a certain thing God has to do that I can't do. I don't always know what he's going to do. There's a part of me that came in today excited to preach to you because I had a structure. I have some scriptures. But there's a part of me that knows that God, if you don't blow on this, if you don't breathe on this, if you don't do that thing you do that I can't do. If you don't tear open somebody's facade and speak down deep into places of their heart, then I'll just be a clanging cymbal. I'll just lose my voice. But I won't say anything. God, I need you to breathe on my life. I need you to breathe peace. I need you to breathe joy. God, I can get a big house, a nice car, the right clothes and a lot of people. But if you don't breathe, I won't be fulfilled. If you don't do it, it won't be done. I need both. I need the bones and the breath. I need the structure and the spirit. Here's what I love about it. I need the friends and the enemies. I need both I was amazed how Jesus, when he was putting together his kingdom dream team, knew one of them was a devil and kept him anyway. John, I understand the disciple Jesus loved. At least that's what he put in his own bio. Of course you chose John. He's going to take care of your mama when you're gone. Of course he chose Judas. Because Judas was the one who got him to the cross where he paid the price he came to pay. You need both. You need wheat and weeds. If you try to pull them up, you try to get the stuff out of your life you don't like, you'll tear out the wheat. The substance, you'll tear out the thing God is growing. What would happen if you planted this particular type of weed, or some versions call it the tares? The wheat and the tares, it looked the same on the surface, but where it was really difficult was underground, where the tares would intermingle with the wheat and the root systems would get intertwined. Sometimes what God is doing in your life beneath the surface, the pain is intertwined with the purpose. Do you hear me? The thing you don't like about yourself is sometimes the thing God is using. We ask God to use us, and we ask God to do his will in our lives. Unless we don't like it. Then we want to root that out. Then it's like, well, God, I want you to do this, but not that. What Solomon said is what Jesus said. You don't know which one is which. So we have to be very careful when we are trying to do our own gardening. I don't know about you, but I am not a horticulturist. I don't have a lot of agriculture experience. I was preparing this message and I had this weird memory of. Of being a little boy. My mom had this little flower bed outside our house. One day, I decided to be helpful. I came back to the door and I was so proud. I was like, mom, I had my hands full and I said, I got all the weeds out of your flower bed. She looked like she wanted to slap me, but she restrained herself. She said, those were the flowers, but I didn't know the difference because I was too immature to know the difference. Sometimes we are spiritually immature and we are running from things and removing things and resisting things. And in the process of trying to pluck out the weeds, you're removing the wheat. If God answered every prayer, you prayed right now. I'm sorry. Bruce Almighty was a pretty good movie. It would screw up the universe. It would ruin Your training. Look, can I teach a little bit? All right. I used to not be able to do a pull up. I'm not going to lie to you. I was 22 years old and I had never done a pull up in my life. So I started training to do pull ups and I could do some pull ups. One day this guy told me I had to do not only pull ups, which was a feat of accomplishment for me that I worked my whole life toward to this point, a culmination of my entire life's effort in the realm of exercise. He's like, now I need you to do a negative. I said, what's a negative? He said, well, there are two parts to every rep. There's when you're going up and there's when you're coming down. But there's just as much benefit in coming down as there is in coming up. I'm going to give you seven seconds. If that hits you right, you will start to see that the things in your life right now that you perceive as negative might be a crucial function in building your strength and your stamina and your hope. There are some things about God you can only learn going down. Ask Peter beginning to sink when he felt the grip of the grace of God through the hand of Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, now I know that you're Lord. It's the blessing of both. You don't know. Touch somebody say you don't know. You don't know the difference between wheat and weed. You can't do the angel's job. Let God sort that out. I heard the Lord say, keep sowing and stop sorting. S O R T I N G Keep sowing and stop sorting. Stop judging the experience the moment it happens. Give it some time to see what it is. As a matter of fact, I don't know if you have experienced this, but some of my successes have been the fruit of my failures. Some of the things that have produced the most in my life were the things, honestly, at the time I was the most embarrassed about. Some of the things that have. Actually, I know most of you in this church know the song oh, Come to the Altar, the song that Almost Never was. There were 12 versions of that song. All of them sucked. All right, write this down. Do you want a deep revelation? Success starts with sucks. He says, sow it in the morning, sow it in the evening. Because you don't know. No. Seeds can be deceiving. Seeds can look awfully small. Seeds can look impotent. They may be dormant for a while and when you sow them, they go away for a little while. But they didn't go to die. They went to multiply. Some of the things in your life you said goodbye to, you need to say, see you later. I'm expecting you to come back up again. Because I believe in resurrection soon. The blessing of both. I need both in my life. Paul needed both. I guess I do, too. Paul had this thing he called a thorn. And he kept trying to weed it out. Ask God three times, take it away. If you've ever asked God to take something away, that's fine. But if he doesn't do it, leave it alone. Here's why you can leave it alone. The presence of weeds will not cancel out the power of the wheat. What is supposed to grow will grow. Leave it alone for a little while and see what it becomes. See if it will be the fruit. This failure you're processing right now, some of you started the business, you did the thing, you took the step and you made a mess out of it. See if maybe that might be the seed of something that becomes something people will celebrate in the future. You will know, and God will know that you almost gave up. The enemy was there telling you, stop sowing. It's not working. But you kept sowing, and you sowed in the morning and you sowed in the evening, and you loved anyway and you forgave anyway, and you showed up anyway, and you did it anyway. You memorized a scripture and quoted it anyway, even though it wasn't happening in your life. But you kept quoting it and you kept sowing and you didn't try to sort it out. You didn't try to root it up. You didn't get impatient and immature. But you waited for the will of God to come to pass in your life. Don't you ever stop sowing? Because you don't know. Solomon said you don't know the way the breath enters the bones. And you don't know the way God works either. You don't know. We don't know which sermons God is going to use to touch people. Didn't you ever preach one you hated and then everybody wanted to talk about it? For the next year you preached one you loved and nobody ever remembered it. It'll make you mad, but that's how the breath operates. So you'll be reminded that you need the spirit of God, not just structure and skill. Some things in your life are going to surprise you because you don't know. He said one might work and one might not, or both might do Equally well. In fact, he said in the esv, both may be good. That made me think of Joseph, naturally. Old Testament Joseph with the. But the coat. Joseph, the coat that got him beat up. The coat that got him thrown in a pit. The coat that represented the favor of his father. The coat that was kind of loud and obnoxious, but he wore it anyway. The coat that let him know he was chosen even if people didn't like him. Remember, you need both. Everybody is not supposed to like you. If everybody likes you, you are doing nothing. If everybody likes you, you stand for nothing. If everybody agrees with you, you are saying nothing. You don't need everybody to like you. This is spoken like a true prophet. Now, one time I was going through some criticism and I asked God to make it stop. He said, well, if I stop that, then I have to stop the blessing that created the criticism to begin with. Because both grow together. Both grow together. Oh, I want to be used by God. And I want everybody to agree with all of my decisions and validate my existence. Both grow together. When Joseph did get pushed in a pit, it was no surprise to me that the Ishmaelite caravan was the one who picked him up. It didn't surprise me at all, because that's just like God. He always uses both. Ishmael was the son Abraham had doing it his own way. Isaac was the one he had doing it God's way. But guess which one God used? Both. You mean God will use my mistakes to bring about a deliverance in my future? You mean God will use the dumb thing I did? I. I'm saying absolutely. If he's sovereign, he will. If it's his field, if it's his harvest, if it's his job to superintend your life. Even the Ishmaelites served a purpose. When David slept with Bathsheba after the child died, the next son he had was named Solomon, who was the wisest man who ever lived, who wrote Ecclesiastes 11. His dumbest decision led to the world's greatest wisdom. I saw it in my mind like this. I saw that God is using both in your life right now. When Joseph gets thrown in prison, it's not good, but God uses that to introduce him to somebody who is going to bring him before Pharaoh. When he comes before Pharaoh, Pharaoh is telling him about a dream, that that means there's going to be a famine in the land. Well, the famine isn't good, but God is using the famine to create a position of favor for his people. When they finally got There Joseph is standing before his brothers and he has a revelation that everything that has happened in his life wasn't good. But everything that happened in his life has been held in the hand of God. So God wasn't just using the stuff that felt good to you. Not just the stuff you praised him for, not just the stuff you thanked him for. Paul finally came to the point where he said, I learned to thank God for my thorn. I learned to thank him for the things he is using that I did not choose for myself. The things he is using that tormented me at one time, but the tormentor was my mentor that transformed. Transformed me into who I needed to be. So I would rely on the grace of God. It's the blessing of both. So when Joseph said, you meant it to harm me, but God meant it for good. He's not speaking out of both sides of his mouth. It's both. They meant it, but God used it. God is going to use both. I promise you. He is. That's what the cross represents, after all. Two beams, one vertical. That's you and God. One horizontal. That's you and people. It's both. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. It's both. It's not one or the other. It's both. I praise God when I feel it. I praise God when I don't feel it. I praise God when I sense Him. I praise him when it's so distant. I wonder sometimes, is any of this even real? I praise him in the good times, I praise him in the bad times. I praise him when he does what I ask. I praise him when he runs a little late to Lazarus funeral. Because I know even on the fourth day, he can say something. Joseph said, oh, it's both is pain and purpose. It's both. We keep waiting to this day when everything in our life will be stable and all of our relationships will be harmonious. God said, I need you to learn how to celebrate the wheat even while you're looking at the weeds. Even the enemy serves a purpose. Even the devil works for God. The devil is not in charge of what happens in my life. God doesn't do everything that happens to me, but he uses everything that happens to me. There is nothing that is happening in your life that will not have to pass through the hand of God by the time it's said and done. I saw this picture that really moved me of how Joseph's father, Jacob, at the end of his life, was sitting on his deathbed. Jacob was an interesting character because he had two. Jacob deceiver Israel Prince. Which one was he? If you'll be really honest, you're both too. So please don't judge people just because they're shortcomings are exposed. If it weren't for the grace of God, who knows where you would be. How many know what you're capable of? I didn't have a problem. I didn't have a problem preaching in that prison the other day, because I'm not in that same situation. But I could be. There's nothing better about me than anybody I was preaching to. It wasn't a problem for me to preach. It's the power of both. It's the blessing of both. When Jacob was about to die, Joseph wanted to get his kids in front of Jacob so they could be blessed. He brought these two sons he had in Egypt. The oldest one was named Manasseh. The younger one was named Ephraim. They sat on Jacob's knees for a minute. Jacob couldn't see very well. After all that Joseph has been through, God has blessed him anyway. These two sons have significant names. Manasseh means to forget. Because he said, I'm going to forget the shame and the pain of Egypt. God has made me forget. And then Ephraim means fruitful. Isn't that beautiful how God can produce fruit in even the hardest and worst situations? Anyway, when Jacob was sitting up to bless the boys, he did something weird. I want to show you this real quick. I don't know who this is for, but in Genesis 48:13, Please, it said, and Joseph. Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand. God is going to bless both. And he brought them near him. And Israel stretched out his right hand, laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands. For Manasseh was the firstborn. Understand? When he did that, it broke every protocol and violated every expectation because he was supposed to bless the oldest one first. But God doesn't do things the way we think he should do things. We don't get what we deserve from God. We get so much more. We get his grace and his mercy. When he crossed his hands over to bless the younger one first. Do any of you know that God has blessed you in ways you don't deserve and didn't earn? And there's no way in the world you could have built a resume to afford it? When he did it, Joseph got Really upset. It said, when Joseph saw verse 17 that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to. To Manasseh's head. Watch the next verse. Joseph said to his father, not this way, my father. This one is the firstborn. I know you're getting old and you used to do this when you were a little kid. You've been trying to switch things up your whole life, but put your right hand on his head. Watch the next verse. But his father refused and said, I know my son. I know he shall also become a people. He shall also be great. In other words, he said, I'm going to bless both. Do you know why I don't ever have to be jealous of anybody else's life? You know why I don't ever have to worry about comparing myself to what God does for somebody else? Because God is big enough to bless both of us. When you know that. When you know that this is the blessing of both. To know that what I call good, what I call bad, God is going to bless both. Don't you go trying to pluck stuff yourself. That's above your pay grade. Don't you go on a self improvement project without God's help. You'll mess up the masterpiece. God said, it's all working together for the good. I'm going to bless both. They were singing a minute ago. Come here, Tiff. She was singing, you never lost a battle. You never lost a battle. I felt that when we were writing that song. I felt it. She was. We were just singing that. You never lost a battle. We just started singing that. Oh, man. I was like, yes, Lord, the church is going to want to sing this. Come here, come here, come here, come here. Then I was like, keep singing it. But then I was like, chris, won't you help her? Then she sang it. I said, what if they. What if they both. What if they both. What if they both. Yeah, what if they both. What if. What if it was both? What if it was both? What if Paul and Silas start praising God together? What if we come together in his name and begin to lift him up? What if we praise Him? Let all things work together. 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. 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.
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When Kohler, global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products and asked me to be their ambassador for timeless, elegant, durable cast iron, I said I'm in. Soon after, I was in their Kohler, Wisconsin foundry watching molten iron, poured enamel applied by hand and the beautiful finished pieces ready to ship. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron has been crafted by incredible artisans and seeing it firsthand gave me a whole new appreciation for for their craftsmanship. Now I'm proud to lend my stamp of approval to my favorite Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and enduring style. Shop my curated picks@kohler.com as the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say Long live Cast Iron.
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