Your Next Messy Step

0:42 I haven't preached on this passage of Scripture since 2018. Wow. And it's one of my absolute favorites. The Lord will surely meet us here. Look at Genesis chapter 28. Verse 10 through 22. The Bible says, Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord. I like that. I like that God is above whatever I'm going through. That's just a good reminder or refresher for my faith and encourages my heart today. There above it stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. Listen to this promise and let it get in your heart for a moment today. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. He was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. Early the next morning, Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be

2:49 called Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God, and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me, I will give you a tenth. Say amen for the word of God. Go back to verse 14 for a moment. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out. We've got dust and expansion in the same sentence. What I want to talk to you about today is your next step. But very specifically for those of you who are in a season of uncertainty or confusion or fear, I want to talk to you about your next messy step.

4:00 Father, we roll up our sleeves today to dig into your word to see what you might say to each and every one of us. I ask now that you would use me. I am nothing without you, but if you breathe through me, speak through me, this could be monumental. In these moments, God, we stand before a person in a passage of Scripture who lived hundreds of years ago, but he faced the same things that we face. He needed direction and provision from you, and so do we. So we ask now, God, that you would speak to us no less than you spoke to Jacob. Remind us what you're doing. reveal to us who you are, have your way, and give us the courage to respond to what you say. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Your next messy step. I wrote that phrase down today to use as a title, your next messy step. I want to talk for a moment about what it's like for me as a pastor when we go down the memory lane of different things that have happened in this church and talk about all the things God has done.

5:06 See, when we're showing a highlight video like we showed earlier of all the amazing things God did in this church, there's a part of me that celebrates, and I can clap for it now. But a lot of the things I can clap about now I cried through then. A lot of times I'm hesitant to teach leadership to other pastors, not because I don't care for them, but because it's a lot different to explain something than it was to experience it. I never just want to be one of these hypocrites who gets up here and hides the humanity of the struggle of the steps I've taken in my life in order to just accentuate and elevate the heavenly parts of our journey where God moved. The truth of the matter is every time God has greatly moved in our ministry and in my life, it was messy. I don't remember one time that God really moved where there wasn't a real mess.

6:06 I don't remember one thing that God did in this ministry that was significant that was not sacrificial. I don't remember one time when I did something for God and my hands weren't shaking before I came out and steadied myself behind this pulpit and announced it. I don't remember many times when I opened my mouth to preach to you that I didn't feel like I wanted to throw up and swallow it back down before I did. That is true to this day. Y'all don't like that kind of stuff when I talk about throwing up this early in my sermon, because you just want the message. You don't want the mess. But the fact of the matter is, there is no message where there is no mess.

6:47 It's true of your life. you know, the ways that we ask God to use us and the ways that we ask God to bless us. We kind of want the blessing without the mess. In Jacob's life in Genesis chapter 28, you could say it was the best of times because he just met God. You could say it was the worst of times because he met him on the run. It was the blessed of times. It was the messed of times. Jacob has made a mess of his family situation. When I read the context of the passage only to refer to the blessing, I left out the mess so that we could talk about it together right now. I told you that Jacob set out for a place called Haran, but I didn't tell you that he ran to Haran. He ran to Haran not because he was going on vacation there. He ran there because his brother Esau wanted to kill him. His brother Esau wanted to kill him because Jacob stole his blessing from their father Isaac, who was going blind. Genesis 28 starts out with Jacob moving to a new place, not because he made a decision that would benefit his career or his future, but because he had no other options. Jacob is in a place of vulnerability.

8:08 He has come to the end of himself, and he has to relocate in the middle of his life to a place he's never been before. This is the context of the blessing of God on the life of Jacob. Now, looking back on Jacob's life, we know that he became a great nation called Israel. The 12 tribes of Israel were born from the 12 sons that would be born to him in the place where he was going. When he got where he was going, he would meet his wife Leah and his wife Rachel, don't do that. Those were different times.

8:43 And the Bible says that after they had birthed all of those babies in the messy sibling rivalry of two sisters who were trying to prove that one was more productive or more loved than the other, a nation set out, and Jacob became that nation 20 years later. I'm telling you all of this because we can see now the strategy of God and how he birthed a nation through Jacob. But as I've already told you at the beginning of my sermon, what is explained as strategic is often experienced as surrender. The reason I don't really like to teach pastors about church growth or leadership or strategic objectives is because I can explain it as the steps we took to get where we are, but at the time I was not experiencing it as steps, not in the strategic sense. I was experiencing it as surrender. What I'm trying to say to you is most everything I've ever done right in my life was me doing what I thought God was telling me because I didn't have anything else to do because everything else I had tried to do didn't work, so I finally had to give up and do it God's way. I can explain it to you strategically. How do you start a worship ministry like Elevation Worship? I can tell you strategically about a record label. I can tell you strategically about DSPs and streaming services, and I can tell you strategically about anthems that are written for the church and touring strategies, and I can tell you strategically about putting together a team, I can tell you strategically about bands and sounds and systematization systems and systems and strategies and all of that, but the real secret to all of it was surrender.

10:26 At the beginning of starting our ministry, I said, Lord, I believe you want us to have a worship ministry that will touch the world. That's where it started, with surrender, because I knew I didn't have the skills to do it by myself, so God sent others. I knew I wasn't smart enough to do it by myself, so God gave wisdom. I knew that I could not figure it out on my own, so God, by faith, did what I could not do by flesh. You explain things as strategic, but you experience them as surrender. You look back and you say, well, here's how we raised our kids. See, when they were five, we taught them about the meh, and when they were seven, we moved them on to the blank, and the nine, we taught them about the meh, and when they were 11, we taught them about the meh, And in stage one, you're more like a coach. And in stage two, you're more like a consultant. And then in stage three, you're more like a confidant. And here are the stages and the steps for raising godly kids.

11:22 And there's really only one. You're God. One step to raising godly kids. Here, God. They're yours. Parenting can be explained strategically. I mean, you can write a book about it all you want, but the truth is you really know that if God didn't give you what it took to raise those kids, you would have lost your mind a long time ago. So I'm trying to get you to see that in this journey called faith, what we explain as strategy we experience as surrender. Why is that important for our lesson today? In case you don't know what God is calling you to do next, and you think that because you don't know the next step, that means that God is not in it. That's not true. Everything God is ever in feels uncertain.

12:17 Look at Genesis 28, verse 10. The Bible says that Jacob set out for Haram. Verse 11 says, when he reached a certain place… Everybody say, a certain place. Now, isn't that ironic that the Bible calls it a certain place, and Jacob's life has never been more uncertain? How many of you feel like I'm in an uncertain place right now in my life. Come on. I'm uncertain about who to talk to. I'm uncertain about who to trust. I'm uncertain if I'm in the right job. I'm uncertain if I'm at the right school. I'm uncertain if I have what it takes. I'm uncertain whether God is calling me to step out the boat or stay in the boat. I'm uncertain about whether God wants me to quit because this is not him, or he wants me to persevere because it is. I hear you talk about how you can tell you're in God's will when the enemy attacks, but I'm not so sure if it's an attack from the enemy or if it's actually a bad decision I made that I need to go back and remake. I'm uncertain. Raise your hand again. I'm in an uncertain place. Now tell your neighbor, don't feel bad. I don't know either.

13:28 When we started the church, one of the books they told us to read was pretty good. It was about building your church with strategy. They gave me the book, and I liked most of it, but there was one part… I couldn't stand this part, and I did not adhere to it. It said that when you bring people into discipleship in your church, it's like taking them around the bases at a baseball game. When you go to the base one, it looks like this, and this is what discipleship looks like with first base. Then you take them to the second, and then this is what the second stage looks like in the third base and the home play. Then you get them all home, and they're all disciples. I read that, and I wanted that, and I would like that, because that would be cool if it was that clear, not only for me as a pastor but for me as a person. See, your walk with God goes like this. You do this, and then you do that, and then you do that, and then you're home.

14:25 but home is called heaven, and you have to die to go there. So now, as long as we're on this earth, I found that life is more like dirt and less like a diamond on a baseball field. It's more dirt, less diamond, because my spiritual journey has not looked like home. My spiritual journey, if I'm really telling you the truth… I could explain it that way. I took step one, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I took step two, I was baptized in his name. I took step three, I began to share my faith with others. I took step four, and now I am a wonderful, beautiful child of God with absolutely no blemish and no flaw. But the fact of the matter is that God formed me, and I'm flawed. I am following Jesus flawed. It has not looked like this.

15:24 There have not always been bass coaches telling me it's safe to come. It has looked more like… I should draw this for you, but you'll get the picture. All the base path people, teach me how you know so clearly what to do next. Teach me how you know so certainly what God is calling you to do right now, because most of my discipleship has been through making the wrong decision, repenting, learning, trusting, and growing. Most of my discipleship has looked like I'm doing everything I think I'm supposed to do, and I'm all over the place, and I'm all over the map, and, God, I'm going to do this and that and that, and finally just this.

16:26 okay God isn't it true everybody over 50 back your man up today it looks like this I'm up I'm growing I'm down I feel like I'm dying I want to die I'm back up I'm back down I'm left I'm right I dated him God said he was the one but that wasn't God talking that was my loneliness back down to singleness back up here's another chance took that job Looked like a good job. Thought I'd get a promotion. Got a new manager. Wanted to walk out. Stayed for three years. Wondered if I stayed 36 months too long. Don't even know right now what I'm doing. Thought I was going to retire. Made an investment in crypto. Still learning how to do it.

17:15 It's like this. Look at your neighbor and make some swiggles and some scribbles and some zigs and some zags and say, it's like this. It's like this and like that. It's like this and like that. It's like this and it's like that. But everywhere I've gone, I ran head-on into grace. Everywhere I've been, I ran right into God. Whether I went to the right or to the left, somehow I heard a voice saying, No, this is the way. Walk in it. This is the way. This is the way. I'm zigging and I'm zagging. and I'm up and I'm down and I'm back and I'm forward. I don't know if this is third base or second base or the outfield. Sometimes I feel like I'm just in the dugout. I'm going to put me in coach. I'm ready to play. Sometimes I feel like I'm eating a hot dog in the cheap seas, but I'm here for it and I'm in the game and God is with me. That's what God told Jacob in verse 15.

18:17 show them. He said, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. You're not always going to go like this and like that. You're not always going to even know where home plate is. Every umpire is not going to agree with your opinion of a strike and a ball. You're going to miss some stuff. You're going to slide into some stuff, but the promise is this. I will be with you. I will be with you. He didn't say, I will be with you. He said, I am with you.

18:56 Which one would you rather have, a God who will be with you or a God who already is? When it comes to your next step that God has given you to take… I don't know if that's walking someone you love through a difficult medical procedure. That may be your next step. I don't know if that is working through this addiction issue that has really, really got you by the throat. I don't know whether that's just you continuing to be faithful in something that feels kind of boring and mundane. I don't know if that's you getting together with all of those people in a couple of weeks for a meal without cursing any of them out.

19:36 Whatever your next step is. I want to talk to you about it. I want to let you know what God told Jacob. See, Jacob is such a messy man, and I'm glad for that because the Bible says that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. But Jacob shows me that the steps of God's man, even if he's not a good man, are ordered by the Lord too.

20:14 because for Jacob to steal Esau's blessing and his name literally to mean trick, it means he was messy. He is at this point in his life grown enough to know better, and he should be mature, but we see three things in the passage that may be going on in your life too. One is a mistake, one is a middle, and the other is a move. a mistake, a middle, and a move, all in one passage, all happening in the life of one man. You may say it wasn't a mistake for him to steal Esau's blessing because God is sovereign, and the book of Romans says, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, and it was predestined by God. Yet, be that as it may, the way he went about it wasn't right. He lied to get this blessing. He's blessed, but it's messy. He's successful, but it's messy. He is increasing, but he's isolated.

21:21 That's a crazy place to be, where you find yourself in a certain place because of a mistake. You know, as we talk about God, we say things like, where God guides, he provides. But in this specific situation of Jacob's life, we get an indication that even if it wasn't God guiding you there, he will provide for you there if you will turn to him and trust him. I don't know who this is for, but you need to go ahead and own the mistake you made. Don't even blame the devil for it. The devil didn't make Jacob dress up and take his brother's blessing. He decided to do it, and it was his mom's idea. He was 71 years old when he did it. It's too late to blame your mom when you are 71 years old. Sometimes you have to come to the place and say, God, I'm in this place because of my mistake. Not all four jobs you lost in the last eight years were the result of the devil attacking you. If it was one job in eight years, maybe it was the devil. If it was four jobs in eight years, maybe there are some decisions, not just devils.

22:32 They don't like me today, not one bit in the world today. How can the grace come until the mistake is acknowledged and accepted? So I'm in this mess, God. I'm in this mess. I don't know what to do about this mess. God, it was my stubbornness that got me here. I think it's so great when we preach about Jonah, you know, because he's an example of somebody who made his own mess, but so is Jacob. In fact, Jacob literally made his bed and had to lie in it. I don't know if you noticed this or not, but it said that when he got there to the place in verse 12, in the certain place that wasn't so certain, he had a dream on which he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven. But go to the verse before that so we can get the full context when he saw this beautiful dream. It says, he reached a certain place, stopped for the night because the sun had set, and taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.

23:34 He is literally in a hard place. and it's not it's not hard because of god it's hard because of him this is not in my notes so bear with me and be patient sometimes it's not him making it hard sometimes it's us and our decisions making it hard sometimes it's our being paralyzed in the past that's making it so hard Sometimes it's our grabbing after things that God told us to give up that makes it hard. The problem with preaching is that people will clap for the clips we put on the internet that say that if life is hard for you right now, it's because God has something great for you. But sometimes we need to also say, if life is hard for you right now, it might be because God is trying to change you. It can be both.

24:31 It can be both. Waking up with a hangover every morning is not God testing you or the Devil attacking you. Getting yourself excluded from each opportunity because you are never on time is not the Devil attacking you. The Devil is not in the traffic. You cannot rebuke traffic. The remedy for traffic is not rebuke. The remedy for traffic is 10 minutes earlier. I'm not playing with y'all no more. I'm not playing with y'all no more because you have to admit, I am why I'm here. I am why I'm here.

25:27 You know, God sent some opportunities for me to have some friends, but I wasn't friendly. He's saying, rejection is God's protection. Maybe it's a bad personality. Maybe you need to be nicer. Maybe you need to ask other people, how are they doing? They rejected me. That was God redirecting me. No, they rejected you because you're mean, because you're drama, because you're messy.

25:59 Before you just ghost them and move your mess around to the next person who hasn't figured you out yet, take some time to say, Hey, God, is there a reason why I don't have the same friends at the end of every year? Hey, God, is there a reason why I continue to fly off the handle with my temper and think about how others made me lose it. I didn't even intend to preach like this today. But notice, in the mistake Jacob made, God gets in the middle of Jacob's mistake. That really blessed me, because you would think if you have yourself here, you have to get yourself out of this.

27:00 Or I would at least think if Jacob wanted God to visit him, he would have to pray and ask him to come. Show me in Genesis 28 where Jacob prayed. It's not there. Show me in Genesis 28 where Jacob repented. It's not there. Show me in Genesis 28 where Jacob took seven steps to get his life together. Show me where Jacob set up on the base path, and the first step, and the second step, and the third step… I burned that book when I read it. I was like, people aren't coming to church because they're in a baseball game. They're coming to church because they're in a battle. It is a battlefield, and it looks like this, and it looks like that, and it looks like this, and it looks like that. Get this little league Christianity out of your mind. God will meet me in the middle, right on the mound. God will set up and throw me another pitch, no matter how the last one went down.

27:57 That's what I see. In Genesis 28, the Bible says in verse 11 that with Jacob's pillow being a rock… This is horrible for your posture. The sun being set… Not only does God come into the middle of hard places, he comes into the middle of dark places. God does some of the best stuff in the dark. Jacob stops in a place he doesn't even know the name of. I'm going to tell you a story about that in a minute. Look at this story. It said, he took one of the stones, put it under his head, laid down to sleep, and… Verse 12. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels were going up and down on it. That's what he saw with his eyes closed. That's what he saw laying on a rock. That's what he saw in a hard place.

29:01 I'm trying to decide which set of stairs to come over to. This one feels right today. is the right one. It went up and down. The angels are moving. Jacob isn't. Jacob is stopped because the sun is set, but just because the sunset stopped you doesn't mean it stopped God. I love to make the Bible come alive for people. Can you see it? Isn't it crazy? In all of Jacob's scheming, he got blessed by his dad, but in Jacob's sleeping, he got blessed by God. The angels are moving up and down. up and down, because life isn't always like this. It's up and down. So the angels are doing what life does.

30:05 Ascending. The angels are doing what your bank account does. The angels are doing what your mood does. Am I not preaching this thing? I haven't preached it since 2018, so I've been waiting to get back to it. Up and down and up and down and up and down like your life. Jacob isn't moving because God shows up in the middle of his mistake and in the middle of the night and in the middle of sleep, so that you and I know that it is not when we get there that God shows up. It is not when we accomplish that that he shows up. It is not when we reach the place of our goal that we meet God. God meets me in the middle. This is the part of my sermon where you touch five people and say, He met me in the middle. You don't have to say any more than that. You don't have to say what it was the middle of. If it was the middle of a divorce, if it was the middle of a diagnosis, if it was the middle of a battle with sickness, if it was the middle of a season of depression, if it was the middle of you losing your mind, if it was the middle of a nervous breakdown, if it was in the middle of the street when you stood there and said, God, I don't know which way to go. I'm too young to be old. I'm too old to be young. God met me in the middle.

31:34 I'm too happy to be sad, too sad to be happy, and he met me in the middle. I can't quite name this place yet, but God met Jacob in the middle, and Jacob did not even know the name of the place where he was, but he didn't have to know the name of the place because God knew his name. There is a woman who brought me a letter in Atlanta, Georgia. Her name is Lish. She's watching online right now from Atlanta. Everybody say, Hey, Lish. I want to show you her picture so you can see who we're talking about. This is Lish getting baptized just recently at one of our pop-ups at Elevation Atlanta pop-up. Did y'all know our church has pop-ups? Did you know we have pop-ups? We go to different cities. We popped up in Riverside, California today. We're having a pop-up. You can take the picture down right now. Why do we have pop-up church? Because we have a pop-up God. Because the devil is a pop-up devil, and the devil will just pop up at times you don't expect him. So we just take church wherever people are, and God will pop up in the middle of a place.

32:46 God will pop up in the middle of a struggle. God will pop up in the middle of a panic attack. Have you ever had God just pop up for you? Like, boom, zam, wig. Right, there it is. Bam. God just popped up. Looked like it was over. Looked like it was done. Felt like it was over. Felt like it was done. And God popped up. He turned a grave into a garden. They were weeping for Lazarus, but Jesus popped up. And Lazarus popped up when he said his name. So we baptized her at the pop-up, but she told me I haven't always been on such a good track. Listen to what she told me. She said, I had opened several doors to the enemy through the course of my life, and because of that, I ended up on the run from many abusive situations and one in particular. She didn't tell me what those situations were, but she told me it got so bad for her that she was going from place to place to place. Now stop. You're thinking, well, my life isn't that bad. But we go from place to place to place. She was doing it physically, but some of us do it emotionally from place to place. I'm going to preach so everybody in this church will admit that it's this and it's that.

34:07 It's this and it's that. It's this and it's that. She wrote me this letter, and she gave it to me. She said, It got so bad at one point that I had to go live with a friend, and my friend would always play Christian TV. It was so annoying. One night I walked in, and this guy was preaching. She was talking about me. It really spoke to my situation, and it spoke so straight to me. I felt like I didn't even know what to call it because I wasn't yet a Christian, but I felt something. I didn't know what it was called. I just felt something. She said, I had to leave there suddenly, and I didn't get to ask my friend what was the name of that preacher that we watched. She said, for three years, I would think about it while I kept making the wrong decisions. For three years. My situation didn't get better. it got worse. Eventually, she said, I was in a car wreck and I was unable to walk for six months after it. She said, During the six months, I would try to watch the Christian TV anywhere I was, but I couldn't find that preacher again. The other stuff was good, she said, but there was just…

35:13 She said, I wish I could say it got better from there, but it didn't get better from there. As I went from safe house to safe house, at one point it got so bad that I thought, I don't even know if I want to go on living anymore. What does my life worth when I'm just going from place to place to place to place to place to place. She said, one night at the safe house, I just decided to turn on the old clock radio. It was the only thing in the room. I turned it on. I wanted to hear some music, and some music started playing, and it was very beautiful, but I didn't know what it was. Then they started saying the name of Jesus on the song. She said, and I reached to grab for the dial because I was not trying to listen to Christian music. She said, but before I touch the dial, the most beautiful thing I've heard happened. She played the intro real quick to More Than Able.

36:00 She said, the most beautiful music I've heard came on the radio. She said, the presence of God, looking back… I didn't know what to call it, but the presence of God met me in that room, and I began to cry, and I began to weep. She said, I honestly feel that God came into my life when that song was playing.

36:27 It said, I've come a long way. I've seen how you work. There's so much goodness and grace, much more than I deserve. I know who I am, but I can't stay where I'm at. We've come this far by faith, and I just can't turn back, because you're not done with me yet. Listen. Listen. She said, I'm crying, and when the DJ comes on after the song, he says, that was Elevation Worship with More Than Able. She said, I thought to myself, what is an Elevation Worship?

37:00 That's literally what she wrote me in the note. She said, I thought to myself… This is her note. She said, I literally thought to myself, what is an Elevation Worship? I borrowed a computer from the counselor the next morning and Googled, What is an elevation worship? This is what Lish said in her letter to me. I was led to the Elevation Church website. After years of looking for you, I found you. But I want to say something. Don't clap for that. It's not after years of looking for me she found me. It's not about finding me at all. Because after years of running, God found her. I messed up by showing you the first picture before I read you the letter, because you would have just thought she went like this and like this and like this, and now she's home. But she told me it was like this and like this and like this and like this and like this, and then with a clock radio, the Lord found her.

38:18 She said she's doing good now. She said the Lord is working in her life. She said she teaches at a Christian school. Not like this, but like this and like this and like this and like this and like this. I came to find somebody today who has been doing all of this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and I came with an announcement. The Lord is in this place. and it's messy i know it is but we're celebrating a holiday called christmas in a few weeks and it kind of proves that the greatest miracles start in the messiest situations after all why will millions of people sing all around the world of a baby who was born in a manger who was really the king of kings. Now, you may say, what does that have to do with me?

39:28 Because I see you trying to make your next step. I saw it when I was praying about this message. I saw people like Jacob who know I have made this mistake, and I really can't go back to where I came from. I can't really figure out where I'm supposed to go. What is my next step? and the Lord said, it is going to be your next messy step. What messy means is you're not going to know if it's the right one. Oh, you'll look back and you'll say, this was my path. but what is explained as a path later was really experienced as a problem in real time.

40:09 Everything God ever did for me that later I could be like, and then God directed my path. It was really this and this and this and this and this. I don't know what kind of day you're having today. You might be doing like this, and you're like, That's wonderful for that lady, but what does it mean for me? I'll tell you what it means for you. It means that you cannot forget the God who brought you this far when you remember that you started at rock bottom. You can't come all this way and say, look what I did. No, if it had not been for the Lord on my side, I would be down. I would be over. But God is able. So you have Jacob lying on the ground, and you have God speaking to Jacob, and you have both things happening simultaneously. You have the nation of Israel in this man who is lying on the ground with no one, with nothing. God is speaking of his descendants, and he doesn't even have one child. God is speaking of his future, and he doesn't even have a single friend. God is speaking to you about things that you can't see in your life, but notice what verse 14 says. It says that there was a ladder that started on the earth and went to heaven, and a voice from the Lord who stood over it, and he said, Your descendants will be like the dust.

41:51 God does stuff in dust. God does stuff in dust. Y'all, I'm having a moment right now where I know I'm preaching to Elish. I am preaching to somebody who is going to write me a year from now and say, I was in the dust. Well, that's how your whole life got started. Did you ever read the book of Genesis?

42:31 We talk about destiny. I'm talking about destiny. I'm talking about God knows the plans he has for you, plans to give you a hope and a future. I'm talking about God speaks to the you that he formed from the dust, and he breathed the breath of life into him, and he formed you from the dust, and now you are following the God who formed you from the dust. It's going to be messy sometimes. It was messy for the disciples following Jesus. They're up, and we're down, and we're here, and we're there, and it's working, and it's not, and Hosanna, and crucify him, and we get it, and we don't, and we understand, and we're confused. That's okay, because God leads people through messy next steps. It doesn't have to be a beautiful next step. You don't have to have a choreographed next step. You don't have to dance into your future.

43:34 You can just absolutely say, okay, God, I'm going to do it. I'm going to call a Christian counselor. I don't even know if this is the right one. If they're weird, I'll fire them and get another one. There's a whole lot of counselors, and ChatGPT doesn't count as a counselor. So I'm going to get a real human being, God, a real human being, because I'm going to take that messy step. See, a controlled step is you keep trying to deal with things at the level you can see things. But what if the next step for you is that God wants to show you a staircase? takes. Remember, God can do more while you're sleeping than you can do while you're striving. It is not you figuring this out. It is you following Jesus into the mess. When Jesus called his disciples, he called one disciple named Nathanael, and Nathanael was confused. He was like, how do you know me? How do you see me under the fig tree? How did you know who I was. In John 1, verse 50, Jesus said to Nathaniel, you are amazed and believed because I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that. Watch this, Skinner. Verse 51, he said, very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven open and you will see the angels of God.

44:56 watch this flashback genesis 28 he said you will see the angels of god ascending and descending not on jacob's ladder but jesus said you will see the angels ascending put my verse up boys and descending on the son of man who's the son of man jesus who is the ladder that appeared to Jacob in the wilderness. Jesus, who is the one who is calling to you in this season of your life, saying, We can do this. We can move forward in this. I came to declare to you that it is not your next step that matters. It is the step God has already made toward you. It's a mistake, it's a middle, and it's a move, but it wasn't Jacob's move that saved him.

46:01 It was God's move. God is moving in your situation, man. You say, I can't see him. That's because he put you to sleep to do it. Thank you. You say, I can't see it. That's because it's covered in dust. But whether it's Genesis or whether it's Jesus who bent down in the dirt when a woman who committed adultery was about to be stoned, God does stuff in the dust. Your next messy step. That's all it's going to take. It's just your next messy step, because God has already done the real work. You will know what it is today that the Lord is speaking to you about, how could I? I'm not God. You will know the place in your life where it has felt like… I feel like I'm speaking to somebody, though, who you thought you had arrived, and now you've been in a setback, and you're surprised by it a little bit.

47:08 Well, surprise. God is in the setback too. It's this. Everyone's standing all over this auditorium and nobody moving to leave at this moment. Where did the Lord find you today? Was it like Lish, where you're like, yo, man, I don't even see a way forward? Or was it like Jacob, who should have been at the top of his life but was empty inside? This is a moment for you to decide. Is he your God, and do you trust him? In verse 15, he told Jacob, I am with you, and I will be with you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." You know, the Lord didn't say he was going to do everything we prayed for. He said he would do everything he promised.

48:11 who is that for You think for you to take the next step God has to answer your last prayer. No. He's already done enough. If the next step he called you to take is just stand still, then you do that, because the Lord is in this place. Father, I've administered your word with the grace and conviction with which you ministered it to me. Now I'll put it in your hands. These are your children. These people are precious to you. You see where they're running to. You see what they're running from, and you know where you're leading them. I believe your hand is on each and every one of them, none too dusty, none too dirty, none too messy, none too far gone. I believe there are some people, God, who have accomplished a lot in earthly standards.

49:09 There is a spiritual vacuum, and they're starting to feel it right about now. Lord, would you meet that person in that place? There's somebody listening to me, God, at a point in between, like, I just don't feel like I know what God has called me to do next. I pray that the heavens would be open over them, even if it's just for 30 seconds while I'm praying this prayer. They would know that angels are coming up and down for the high times and for the low times, that this staircase, this step, did not start with them. It started with you. And now, Father, we commit our lives to your grace. Like Jacob said, I will make you my God. I will follow you forward. I thank you, Lord, for what you know about them they don't know about them.

50:03 I thank you for what you see in them they've lost sight of. I thank you for what you're doing that eyes can't perceive. Now lift your hands just a little bit and give that situation to the Lord. Surrender it. You know what it is. I want you to have a strategy. I want you to have a plan, but I want you to have his presence so you could just surrender it to him. Every time in the church I didn't know what to do, I did this, and God did something. Every time with my kids when I don't know what to do, I do this, and I trust God to do something. Every time in my life when I don't know what to do, I do this, because it's not strategy that blesses your life. It is surrender. Father, you see all these hands lifted to you right now? Everything they're carrying, every burden they bear, we place it on Jesus. We see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, Jesus, the burden bearer, the shame remover, the waymaker, the God who is always with us.

51:06 Put your hands down for a moment. With your heads bowed and your eyes closed, is there one here today, even just one, who God brought you here and met you here because you need to give your life to Jesus Christ? Maybe you've been running from God, or maybe you've never really even stopped to consider it, but I believe God brought you to this moment so you could give him your heart. Right now, in the stillness of this moment, I want to lead you in a prayer. If you are ready to give your life to Jesus Christ, I want you to repeat this prayer after me. The prayer is not magical. The prayer does not save you. God saves you. The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So right now, this is your day and God is calling you home, I want you to repeat after me. We're going to pray it out loud as a church family for the benefit of those who are coming to God. Repeat after me. Heavenly Father, I am a sinner in need of a Savior, and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Today, I make Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died, that I would be forgiven and rose again to give me life. I receive this new life.

52:35 This is my new beginning. I am a child of God. On the count of three, shoot your hand up high in the air if you prayed that. One, two, three. I want to celebrate with you. Praise the Lord. That's awesome. Let's go. Come on, let's go. That's amazing. Hey, I hope you enjoyed the podcast. And if you did, make sure to share it and subscribe so we can get you all of these new messages as soon as they're available. I also want to take a moment and thank all of you who are a part of Elevation. Whether you support us financially or serve with us or just share these messages, it's because of you that we're able to reach people all around the world. And if you want more information on how to be a part of Elevation, click the link in the description. Thanks again for listening.

53:26 Make sure to leave a review, share the message, and subscribe. God bless you.