Welcome to the official podcast of Rock Hill Baptist Church 2
where we are focused on glorifying God, spreading the
gospel, and making disciples of Jesus Christ right here in the
heart of Greenville, SC. Each week we bring you a life
changing word from our Senior Pastor, Pastor Matthew D Long
Junior, or one of our anointed guest speakers.
We pray this message strengthens your faith, deepens your
understanding, and empowers you to elevate in every area of your
life. Let's join the service already
in progress. Say neighbor, the ugly side of
elevation. Wow, the ugly side of elevation.
Honestly, it had happened so suddenly, and their brothers and
sisters. The smoke still hung in the air.
The smell of fire clung to everything that used to feel
like home. What was laughter yesterday has
become lament today. A city silent, a camp charred,
and a people crushed. David and his men returned from
the battlefield, but the real battle was waiting at home.
They didn't walk into victory. They walked into vacancy.
Every tent still standing was empty.
Every dream was on fire. And there in the ashes, as seen
behind me. There lies ziglag.
The story takes a turn. Before we rush to shout about
elevation, we need to remember that sometimes the road up runs
straight through but burns down. This isn't a mountaintop text.
It's a valley like scene, a low place for a highly anointed man,
a man with oil on his head and. Ashes at his feet.
It ain't too hot in here for you, is it?
A leader. A leader who's about to discover
that elevation isn't just about rising, it's about balancing.
But everything around you falls, falls apart.
You can almost feel the tension of this text in our own time.
Just this week, matter of fact, almost the 1st of October, in
Chicago, a neighborhood not far from where families played and
worked, children had slept. Federal agents stormed an
apartment building. Doors shattered, children
screaming, mothers trembling black and brown bodies.
Families, some of them U.S. citizens, were zip tied in their
own living rooms. And according to one man and the
Chicago Sun Times, he said, I feel defeated.
If you close your eyes long enough, that sounds a lot like
ziglag. Because broken homes burn dreams
and displaced people aren't just Bible studies, Deacon Glen.
They're breaking news. And the question that lingers in
the smoke is what? Do you do when you come back to
nothing? What do you do when the people
who counted on you are crying because of you?
What do you do when the anointing you carry can't keep
your world from Catching Fire? And that's where David stands
between calling and collapse. It's there that we find the ugly
side of elevation. Matter of fact, that's where we
find ourselves in between the black and white pages of the
book before you are the electronic device from which she
may be reading from standing shoulder to shoulder.
Brother Greg with David peering into the ashes of ziglag.
Now as we walk through this passage together, we will watch
David try to study himself and four movements.
If I can do this, I may do it in three.
Let's see your Bible says in first Samuel chapter 30 I got
nothing. The Bible for you.
Verse #1 And and it came to pass, when David and his men
were come to Ziglag on the third day, that the Amalekites had
invaded the South, and Ziglag and smitten Ziglag, and burned
it with fivers too, and had taken the women captives that
were therein. They slew not any either great
or small, but carried them away and went on their way.
Verse 3. So David and his men came to the
city, and behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and
their sons and their daughters were taken captives.
The very first movement of this touch I think we should all
explore is the fire that throws you off balance.
When we meet David, my dear brothers and sisters in verse #1
he's not in the palace, Sister Chris.
He's actually in the field. He's not wearing the crown that
is soon to be placed on his head.
But Mother Gordine, he's wearing the dust of duty.
And your Bible says it comes to pass.
David and his men were now in ziglag before we turned about.
Before we talk about what you see behind me as being burned,
we need to talk about really who burned the fire.
Because the text says in verse one, the Amalekites had invaded.
And that name alone ought to make every Bible reader from
Sunday school to VBS sit up, sit up real good and straight.
Because they're Malachites. They were not just enemies of
Israel. They were enemies of identity.
I. Better work right through here.
They're Malachites. They represent the ancient
spirit that hates anything connected to covenants.
And the first time we meet them is in Exodus chapter 17.
You remember your Bible? Why?
You remember that one? That's when the Israelites had
just crossed the Red Sea. And here, as they're on the
other side going through a wilderness, the Malachites do
not attack Egypt. Instead they attack the weak.
They didn't fight the front lines.
They crept up from behind and and bushed and tried this.
This fragile, weary, fighting, little faith testing, God
forgotten people. That's really the Malachite way.
They look for what's weary, and even the moment the question
populates, is the Lord among us or not?
The Malachites always come for you when you're tired.
They are opportunistic enemies that show up when your guard is
down, when your rhythm is off, and even when your energy is
divided. They are proof that some battles
don't wait until you're ready. Because by the time we reach
First Samuel Chapter 30, the Malachite should have been
extinct. I think your neighbor's trying
to go to sleep on me. So help me out.
Nudge your neighbor and say, neighbor, this devil ought to be
dead by now. God told Saul in First Samuel
chapter 15 to wipe the Amalekites out completely.
But as you would know in the text, Saul spared which should
have been slain. He let what should have die live
and anything you don't kill in one season will come back to
taunt you him the next. And that's how Ziglag ziglag
caught fire. This isn't just a random raid.
This is a residual rebellion. The unfinished, the unfinished
obedience of one king becomes the unwanted rarefare or
warfare. Excuse me of another Monday,
brothers and sisters, I think I better get and drop this
notification on you real quick that sometimes you're fighting
fires that started and someone else's disobedience.
The Amalekites. The Amalekites are what happened
when yesterday's compromise meets today's calling.
And before David can be elevated, he has to confront.
But another man refused to conquer.
So when the touch says they burned it with fire, it's not
just about the flame. It's about unfinished business
catching up. It's about what happens when old
enemies find new openings. And my dear brothers and sisters
don't rush past that. That phrase, they burned it with
fire because it's not symbolic heats, but flames.
Real smoke, real laws. The Malachites didn't just burn
buildings, sister house. They burned balance.
Help me out. Turn to neighbors and neighbor
balance. They struck David in the one
place he called safe. Thank you, Lord.
While he was fighting 1 battle on the field, another battle
started at home. And that's what the enemy aims
for. He aims for your equilibrium.
The word means your balance. It's it's when your mind and
your heart and your faith are all trying to stay steady at the
same time. You can't worship when your
world is wobbly. You can't even.
Think straight when life keeps tipping nuts what the enemy
wants not just to steal your stuff, but to shake your
stability, are you still in the room?
Because when you lose your equilibrium, even small things
start to feel like big ones. You forget what you still have
because you can't stop staring at what's been burned.
And that's that's how the Amalekites fight.
Not just to destroy your possessions, but to disturb your
position. My mother, Mother Gordine, the
devil can't defeat you. So he'll obviously try to
disorient you. And that's where some of us are
right now. Trying to walk in the will of
God while the ground underneath us won't stop moving.
Trying to stay strong in public while you're shaking in private.
Shaking and private in US all. That's not just life.
That's a battle for balance. Monday, brothers and sisters,
that's how the enemy works. He'll wait until your back is
turned, until your attention is on advancement.
Then he'll light a match under what matters most.
Look, look, look, look, look at what David and his men had come
home to. Look at it.
They had just came from a three
day journey of being dismissed from service.
They are technically displaced and the place they have set up
shop they've they've gotten comfortable in is now burned but
was a symbol of stability and unstable times is burned.
Everything that once said you're secure here is now a smoking
shell of what used to be the air.
The air. The air smells like
disappointment and the ground beneath them feels unsure.
The men can still see the outline of what used to hold
them, but not enough to hold on to.
And that's where the balancing act begins.
Because fire disorients it. It throws your faith into
Vertigo. Some of y'all know about that by
throwing off your reference points.
When what you built in permission burns, often times
your mind starts spinning. Sister Chris spinning with
questions like did I miss God? Did I?
Did I mess up Sister Sherry? Did I move too soon?
Sister Retta and And that's how the enemy tries to unbalance.
I'm balance you not with the blades itself, but with the
questions it raises from the fire.
My dear brothers and sister, the text teaches us that God
sometimes allows the fire not to punish you, but to purify what's
holding you back. Please remember that ziglag,
ziglag ziglag was a Philistine territory.
It was a gift from a foreign king who was a known enemy of
the Israelites. And David had accepted comfort
and a compromised space. He's been living under borrowed
favor, but God is ready to give him divine favor.
So God, let's fire touch what have been outgrown in his life.
He burns. He burns what's been borrowed so
that they can stop depending on what doesn't belong to them.
And my dear brother and sister, sometimes that means the job you
love stops loving you back. Sometimes the relationship you
pray to keep becomes the one God uses to teach you to release.
Sometimes the plan that once you worked doesn't work anymore.
Not because you failed, but because you finished.
Then come here, I got more. Sometimes it's like a child
who's sad they can't fit their favorite shoes anymore, not
realizing they've outgrown, overgrown what once carried them
and protected. Them.
I think I better give you this download real quick.
God won't let you build permanence on what was meant to
be provisional, and I feel a strong need to pull out of this
text the reality that Ziglad had to burn.
I'm going to say it again. Ziglad had to burn.
I'm going to say it a third time.
Ziglad had to burn because the next level couldn't be built on
Philistine property and now now look my dear brothers and
sisters more closely that David doesn't just lose things, he
loses people. Verse 2, verse two of first
Samuel chapter 30 says and have taken the women captives that
were therein. They slew not any either great
or small, but carried them away. He went on went on, went on the
way family. You can replace furniture.
Yeah, yeah, you you can be build some tents.
You you can even replace clothes, cars, cash, cribs.
But what do you do when what you've lost has your last name
attached to it? What do you do?
What do you do when what you've lost carries your life in it?
This isn't about possessions. This is about people who carry
David's promise. It's about losing what you love
most and still having to lead what's left.
But. Here here.
Here's where. It gets real revelatory, sister
Chris, because what they thought was gone come here was only
taken No, I thought y'all were shot right there.
I I really I thought you would just be like I got it.
I I said what they thought was gone was only it was only taken.
They weren't killed, they were carried.
They weren't destroyed, they were detained.
And sometimes God will let something be taken just long
enough to prove. That it still.
Belongs to you. I better say this for the cyber
campus Sir, for those on Twitch or Twitter today.
That the enemy can take it, but he can't keep it because what's
Covenant connected can't stay in captivity forever.
And I'm afraid, my dear brothers and sisters, that we've got too
many looking around. Well, people are being carried
off. Too many distracted leaders and
too many detached Saints watching people get snatched by
life and not moving to recover them.
But that's. That's the real.
Ugly side of elevation when your hands are full of one fight and
your heart. Can't.
See the one happening behind you?
I'm going to work by myself. But wow, wow, wow.
We're fighting in one field, somebody's family is being
carried off in another. And that's what makes this tech
so sobering. Because David's men weren't
lazy. They, they were actually loyal.
They, they were not negligence. They were needed.
But check this out didn't Glenn. They were needed elsewhere.
They were out serving, they were out fighting.
They were out doing what was right.
And yet while they were defending one assignment, the
enemy attacked another one. Can I clue you in real quick?
Sometimes you can be an obedient sneaking nauser and still be
blindsided. That's not your responsibility.
That's the reality of leadership that sometimes elevation
stretches you so far in One Direction that you lose sight of
with slipping away in another. If you listen close enough, that
same cry, that same cry still echoes in our world today, from
cities like Chicago to Memphis, from Los Angeles to little towns
like Folly, Alabama. You can hear it in the trembling
voice of a mother saying, they took my babies.
You can hear it in the father's cracked whisper, I feel
defeated. You.
You can still see it in black and brown family, citizens of
this country, watching the safety of their homes turn into
the scenes of chaos. Doors broken in, children
terrified, lives disrupted. That's what Ziglag looks like in
modern form. A world on fire and a people off
balance. Maybe someone here, someone
here, knows that feeling too well.
Because you too didn't ask for this fire.
You too were living wrong. You too were just trying to
serve God faithfully. Leave your family, stay focused.
And suddenly the ground gave way.
But, but here's the tension of the test for my Bible scholars.
David's greatest test didn't happen.
And The Cave of a Dulum when he was trying to run and hide.
But it's actually right here, right here in the ashes of Zig
Lab. Because sometimes the fire isn't
meant to test your platform. It's meant to test your poise.
OK, come here since I'm in in this little world history thing.
You remember in 1956, Doctor King by he was preaching peace
in Montgomery, AL, a bomb tore through his home.
His wife and seven week old daughter Yolanda were inside
house shaking but the man stood still.
He walked through the smoke and you know the words he said we
must meet hate with love. He showed the world.
But it means to keep your balance when your house is
burning. And that's what David is
teaching Garcia. That before God can elevate you
up, he first has to see if you can balance by everything around
you burns down. And that's what David is
teaching Sister Shirley, that before God can elevate you up,
he wants to see, wants to see what you're going to do in
between here. Because this is the part of
elevation that they don't put in in the brochure.
This is the part, the part that does not get on somebodies
Facebook reels. This is this is the part that
nobody likes to talk about when the air gets thin and the climb
gets costly. This is the side of elevation
that doesn't shine. It actually scars.
It's the ugly side when what was supposed to lift you up, Brother
Paul actually leaves you looking around, wondering who's still
with me. And right here and the smoke of
zig lag, David learns what it feels like to be called higher
by life, drags you down lower. I guess I better move on so I
don't bore you. And the second movement of this
text is found in the fourth verse, the first Samuel chapter
30. Read it with me, it says.
Then David and the come on, read it with me.
Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their
voice and wept until they had no more power to weep.
The second movement of the text is the tears that threaten your
balance. There's there's something
haunting about this scripture right here.
First Samuel, chapter 30, verse 4.
It's not just describing a scene, Deacon Davis.
It's really revealing a season because the hardest sound
sometimes in Scripture is not Thunder, Sister Hauser, neither
is it war. But it's really mother weeping.
You can almost hear the exhaustion in that voice.
These are warriors, not weak men.
Men who had outrun song, men who had outlasted scarcity, men who
had out worshipped their wounds. They have survived swords,
survived exile, survived betrayal.
And in this moment, the moment breaks them.
This time the tears outnumber their triumphs, because grief
would do what giants could. Sorrow can break, but Spears
could never Pierce. And when they stood before
giants, they were swinging swords.
But when they stood before loss, they just dropped to their knees
because disappointment would drain.
But distance never did and the text says they wept.
Sometimes we like to skip over a scripture so fast and get to the
good beautiful parts. And he recovered all.
But the truth of the matter is, this is real life, that here
they are not whispering, nor are they sighing, but they are
weeping out loud until their tears take their strength.
I've got to admit to you, minding brothers and sisters
online and in person, that you can survive battle after battle,
at the battle, at the battle, at the battle, at the battle, and
still go home and break down. That's the tough part of this
lesson, that elevation doesn't exhibit you from emotion.
My dear friend, I want to let you know that you can be chosen
and still cry. You can be anointed and still
ache. You can be next in line and
still feel like you're running out of faith.
And I believe if you got your Bible open, you'll see for
yourself that the text says that they lifted up their voice and
wept, lifted up their voice. And Hebrew means to cry aloud
together in unity that this wasn't just one man moaning,
Mother Thelma. It was a chorus of grief.
For the first time in the touch, David does not sound like a
commander. He actually sounds like a
companion in pain. Because elevation doesn't just
stretch your faith. Come here, it stretches your
feelings. Elevation isn't about titles,
tiaras, or Thrones. Elevation is about assignment.
I guess I better give it to you one more time because this whole
year, this whole year, you might have just missed that one piece.
That was that. That was a nugget right there.
The elevation is not about titles and tiaras and Thrones.
Elevation is about assignment. David is living in between the
conundrum of anointment and appointment.
And I've got a humbly submit that tears don't cancel your
anointing. They confirm your humanity.
And just like God wrapped himself in humanity to save the
world, God is not intimidated by your emotion.
Come here. Matter of fact, Sister Shirley,
God wants to be invited into your emotions.
David tears. David's tears didn't make him
less chosen, they make him more connected.
Some of us have mistaken composure for faith.
I'm going to say it again for you.
Some of us have mistaken composure for faith.
But faith isn't pretending not to feel.
But faith is trusting. Wow, you feel everything.
That's why you shouldn't care how loud someone praise the Lord
or how long they rolled on the floor, because you don't know.
But they had to survive to steal.
Have a sound. You don't know what they had to
endure just to steal. Have energy to exhale.
You don't know what they had to endure.
You don't know what kind of Ziglar they had to walk out of
just to steal. Worship, and that's why the same
David would later write in Psalm 126 and five, they that sow in
tears shall reap in joy, I believe because he learned that
sometimes your praise is born in pain and your worship is watered
by worship. Worship through reaping.
Let me add that for you. I'm going to say it again, that
they that sow in tears reaping joy.
So we must now learn that sometimes your praise is born in
pain and your worship it's watered by weeping.
But your Bible, your Bible, your Bible says in first Samuel
chapter 30, verse 4. Then David and the people that
were with them lifted up their voice and repped check this out
until they had no more power to weep.
That word power in Hebrew is clock, which doesn't just mean
strength, Deacon Davis. It needs capacity, endurance,
Braylon energy to continue. They didn't just run out of
tears, but Paul, they. Ran out of try.
Because there comes a moment in life when your tears clock out
before your task does. They had cried so hard that
their bodies had betrayed them. Sister Jackie.
The throats were raw, the eyes swollen, the energy gone.
And this was not just emotion. This was exhaustion.
I think I better give you a quick homological highlight real
quick. But when tears drain your
strength, trust becomes your stamina.
I'm going to say it one more time.
When tears drain your strength, trust becomes your stamina.
There's a fatigue that comes from fighting, but but there's
another fatigue that comes from feeling.
And many people don't burnout Mother Gordy from battle.
They bleed out from the burden. They run out of emotional energy
since the bird before they ever run out of calling.
That's why some of us feel heavy even when nothing's wrong,
because you're caring too much emotionally for where you are
spiritually. And before God recharges your
mission, He has to release your mourning.
Ziglag is where God drains you to develop you.
I got to move on to this next movement.
But ziglag is the kind of place that teaches you the difference
between breakdown and a breakthrough.
And sometimes the only thing separating the 2 is what you do
next. Look at the text.
Look at the text first Samuel chapter 5 says and David's two
wives were taken captives. He know him the Jeselitis and
Abigail the rival Nabel the Carmelite verse 6.
And David was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning
him. I got to stop that.
I can't even go all the way. The third movement of this text
is the breaking point of the balance, the breaking point of
the balanced. Look at this mother, brothers
and sisters. We moved from they to he.
Previously they were crying together.
Previously they were weeping together.
Previously they were wailing together.
But now your text, your Bible, my Bible, shows us moving from
they to He right. The communal cry of verse 4 has
now quieted down and now the weight rests currently on David.
Matter of fact, verse 5 shows us that the loss wasn't just
public, it was personal. That the right of this text
slows down to name the two women, the two wives of David,
because the text wants us to feel the ink behind the ashes.
They weren't just wives, they were witnesses that they had
seen David at his lowest and loved them still, that they had
walked with him through rejection and rebuilding.
It's it's one thing, it's one thing.
It's one thing to to lose your soldiers, but it's another thing
to lose your support system. One thing, one thing to lose the
crowd, but it's another to lose the comfort of those who knew
your heart. Because sometimes elevation cost
you the people who helped hold you together.
And he's no longer surrounded by comfort, but he's surrounded by
conflict. But the same crowd, Lord, I hear
you. The same crowd that once cried
with him now contemplates stoning him.
Deacon Davis, The same hands that had helped him fight on,
now ready to harm him. The same voices that shouted
David, our leader, are now whispering.
David, our liability. And that's the ugly side of
elevation when the same people who once held you up now hold
stones, when the ones who said I got you now say I blame you,
elevation will expose what emotion can't sustain.
Look at this the Texas David was greatly distressed.
The word in Hebrew is Yahtzee are which means to be pressed or
y'all like going to the fair, right?
They're not the fair. They have squeezed lemonade.
That word Yahtzee means to be squeezed.
Or check this out. To be him then.
So phrase the old folks used to say, confined by pressure on
every side. It is not just external, but
it's internal compression. David is hemmed in between grief
and blame, between calling and criticism, between pain and
purpose. He's pressed between leadership
and loneliness, squeezed between memory and mission, pulled
between what he was known for to them and now, who he must be for
God. And that's where some of us
live. I'm sorry.
I feel them coming. We live in the tension between
what we feel and what we must still fulfill.
Trying to lead while leaking. Trying to walk and divine
purpose while waiting through personal pains.
Because being a child of God, Sister Hauser, isn't the absence
of pressure, it's learning how to breathe under it.
David is experiencing what I call the pressure of proximity.
Because the closer people are to you, the heavier the
expectations become. And the same closest that was
once comforted, yes, God comforting him now confines him.
Now watch how the crowd, how the crowd changes.
They cried with David for a while.
But but grief has a way. It has a way.
It has a way of turning company into conflict.
Wow, that's good. They all lifted up their voice
together, but not all of them knew what to do next.
And mess around and have a family member die.
I promise you, you'll see for yourself.
Because tears bring people together, but trauma can tear
them apart. Elevation will reveal who can
fight with you and who can feel with you.
And after all of that, it's the separation that brings shock to
you. Look at the text they had
wrapped together. But David's name is the only one
God mentions next. Because Elevation exposes who
can cry with you and who can stay still with you after you
cry. When people can't process pain,
they need someone to blame. They, they, they can't strike.
They can't strike their malachite, so they strike their
leader. They they, they can't manage the
loss, so they misplaced the anger.
And that's. The ugly sign, the ugly side of
elevation, that when you become the face of someone else's
frustration, you find that they're crying.
But here in the text, David's balancing that they're weeping,
but David's watching. David's, they're falling apart,
but David's holding together with little he has left in the
most. And if I can leave you with some
wisdom for the journey, please know, my dear brothers and
sisters, that leadership is crying enough to stay human, but
standing enough to stay holy. Come here, come here.
Don't, don't, don't that like that you play so hard to get
sometimes. Have you ever?
Have you ever had to find yourself smiling in public while
silently screaming in private? Have you ever found yourself
walking the floor all night trying to figure out how you
won't get that bill paid? Have you ever found yourself
trying to hold a house together when you were falling apart
yourself? Have you ever found yourself
going to work with a broken heart, trying to lead with
excellence while living on empty?
OK, come here. Maybe you going to school?
Have you ever tried to study hard, do yourself your best, but
still feel unseen, unheard, uncelebrated, doing your
homework in tears, Trying to believe that hard work still
matters? Because sometimes faith requires
functioning about. Frustrated.
That's where David is, holding his tears in one hand and his
task in another, and here he is. He can't quit.
He can't crumble, he can't call time out because too much is
depending on him and somebody in the room knows what that feels
like. To be chosen but feel like
you're crushed, Crushed by life. To be elevated and to also be
exhausted, to have oil on your head and ashes at your feet.
And this man and brothers and sisters, is the breaking point
of the balance, that fragile intersection where your faith is
fighting fatigue and your calling is clashing with their
capacity. David is anointed but anxious.
He's crowned and promised but crushed and pressure, and he's
too called to quit. But he's too tired to keep
pretending he's OK. And I will let you know that
sometimes the hardest miracle is maintaining your balance by
everything around you is breaking.
And for those in the room, as I get on in the sky, we'll let you
know that that's the place where God does His deepest work.
Not in your comfort, but in your compression.
Even those compression socks you may have on because the oil that
anoints you can't flow into the olive gets crushed and squeezed.
You'll never know what kind of oil is on you until life
squeezes it out of you. And maybe, just maybe, God had
allowed Ziglag to press David, not to punish him, but to.
Prove. Him and to show that the same
hands that once held a harm can still handle the heat.
I think I better go in the sky and get y'all home.
Now this text shows us him that David really is being revealed
of what's inside of him. It's stronger than what's
surrounding him. And it's here in the young Bible
for Samuel, chapter 30, verse #6 at the sea clause, the sea
clause of it all. It says, but David encouraged
himself in the Lord. That's not survival talk,
Mother. That spiritual ignition.
He. Didn't have a crier.
With him, No, no, no, no, no, no.
He didn't even have a worship team there, but he became the
worship leader for his own self, and he became his own crier.
He. Didn't even have a crowd all
around him. All he had was a covenant.
He didn't even have someone to applause him, but all he had was
assurance. Because sometimes God will strip
your support so you discover your sores and it's right there
in the ashes. David preaches his own revival.
He said. I may have lost my city, but I
didn't lose my Savior. I may have lost my help.
Yeah, but I did not lose my hope, he says.
I may have lost my people, but I didn't even lose my power.
Because when they can't find strength, yes, Lord, strength
all around you, you've got to find it, find it within you.
And when you can't hear a word from them around you, you're
going to have to recall a word from him who's in you.
And when life takes your melody. You're going to have to make
music out of all of those memories.
That's when it means. That's what it.
Means. That's what it means when.
The text says David encouraged himself.
Yeah, that word encouraged. Now it means to seize hold of
what God said with nothing else seems to stick.
The Hebrew word here means to strengthen yourself by grip.
David had to reach back and grab ahold of grace.
He had tied his trembling faith to a trustworthy God.
And I can hear him say now the Lord is my light and my
salvation. Whom?
Shall I fear the Lord? Is the strength.
Of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?
Maybe he even said, I will bless the Lord at all times, and His
praise shall continually shall continually shall continually be
in my mouth. Maybe he didn't have.
Those words then, and he just told himself.
I still believe. Because.
Faith doesn't stop the fire, but Faith makes it flame proof.
And the text shows us that he encouraged himself while others
are talking around him, encourage themselves by the
planning to stone him. Encourage themselves even though
we didn't change around him, he got himself up.
Yes, Lord wiped his face, straighten his back up and
started to pursue again. Because Zig line teaches you how
to recover without revenge, Singling teaches you how to
worship without a cry or praise. Team.
Singling God teaches you how to lead when you're losing and how
the praise even while they're still burning around you, not
their brothers and sisters. This is the ugly side of
elevation, but it's also the holy side, the holy side of
endurance, because life will burn down some places in your
life all the way down to the ashes.
Vanguard, I'm sorry y'all, I got happy.
I said God can still raise, raise you up from what remains.
And when people walk away, God, he walks right in.
It's something about the fire God doesn't stay away from.
I've got to go for real now. But when the fire takes
everything great, still gives you something, I've got to go
for real. But I've learned that the same
God who lets you weep in one season is the same God who will
let you win in the next season. The same God who let you burn
down is the same God. The same God who will help you
build, build it back again. I'm sorry, I'm over my time.
I really want us to go home for real.
I want to eat some fried chicken.
How about you? But I'm so glad that the text,
that text is telling the teachers that the same God who
watched you cry in verse 4 is the same God, God who will make
you shout in verses because the power of sick laggy is you can
lose everything, surely, and still have enough love to get it
all back again. I can't help but think about I'm
not the son of David who also stood surrounded, surrounded by
sorrow, betrayed by those he blessed, pressed between heaven
and earth. Yeah, they thought his story was
over, too. They mocked him all night long.
They whipped him all night long. Put him on this balance beam
between cross and arrows. They made sure they beat him
long enough. They made sure they pierced him
deep enough. They made sure they lifted him
high enough. And the crime that cried Hosanna
one week, cried crucified the next week.
And that's the ugly side of elevation, because even Jesus
had to be lifted up before he can lift us up.
But I'm so glad he died. Y'all ain't Baptist for real.
I said he died side of that old rugged cross.
Golly for real. He died until the moon shook the
blood side. Until.
The arrows of heaven begin to collide with the men of the
earth. He died.
Until they had. To find a borrowed place for
him. But I'm so glad that early
Sunday morning, the same God who watched him hang.
It's the same God who raised him higher.
Raise him higher. Raise him higher.
Raise him higher than the ashes he was in.
Raise him higher than the pain he was in.
Come on, help me. Let's have church here.
Raise him higher. Higher than what he's surrounded
with. But I'm so glad that when he was
raised higher, he got up higher with all power in his hands.
Power to repeal what was ruined power.
Yeah. To restore what was lost power.
To redeem what was broken. Because Calvary proves that zig
lag may be a place of everything burning up, but God has a plan
to build back better. That's all I came to tell you.
Build back better. That's all I came to remind you.
Build back better. And if God can do it for his Son
Jesus, I need you to be reminded that this is not how your story
is. This is not how your story is.
This is not how your story is.
Cry but it ain't over yet.
Weep, but it ain't over yet. Well, but it ain't over yet.
But after you do all of that, encourage yourself and the Lord.
I will trust in the Lord with all, all my heart.
I wanna lead to my own understanding.
But in All in all you know Him on my lace.
Y'all don't want to have no church Him on the ways I'll
acknowledge I'm sorry. I feel glory.
I'll acknowledge him because the Lord's not under me.
This is not how my story is. I ain't ending with broken
bones. I ain't ending in defeat and
delay. I ain't in think in despair and
grief. I ain't nothing and sorrow and
small, but I'm mending help. God says I'm the head, I got to
stop, not the tail. I'm a bell and I'm not beneath.
I'm the lift up and not the borrower.
That's why you got to go. Go get some brother.
That's right there. I just thought I forgot.
Got to get it's your sister, you got to kill them because the
story ain't over. You might be stoic, but it ain't
no. Y'all don't want this word?
It's all right. It ain't over, Hallelujah, It
ain't over Hallelujah. It ain't over.
Hallelujah the sad. Part is 600 men who had who had
been with David from a place of debt, desolation and distrust
give up at Zig Lab and there are some of us in person and online
that to find themselves in this. Ugly.
Side of elevation. And instead of being David,
you're one of them once. Who are stuck in your feelings
and God just wants to know, can I get in your feelings?
I want to use your feelings. I'm going to use that too.
The more I I studied this text, I didn't know all this was
there. No lie.
I don't know how it gave me probably 27 pages of notes.
I know that's that's ambiguous, but I gave you that because I
want you to realize that elevation is about assignment.
It's not about a promotion, not about getting the title.
It's not about a, a new car, new discount prescription car.
What you say to Chris, not not in the AARP, but that's inside
elevation is about assignment. And before David can get his
second anointing, Deacon David, she might enjoy this.
David has only had one anointing when he was at his daddy's
house. Nobody knows publicly, other
than the chatter of who this David is.
Because everybody knows how the rumor mirror goes.
It spreads all around. David is living in between
anointment and appointment, and the crazy part is some Lord, I'm
sorry we got to get out here, but some of us have learned how
to live in the ruins of Zig Lag instead of crying in Zig Lag
bearing but need to be buried but moving on because there's a
headburn on the way. I know, I know, it's hard to
clap right there. I get it.
Because you want to get the second Samuel chapter 1 when
Saul has died and now David is to ascend to this seat.
We want to get there to to where we get the big chair, where we
get the house, get the car to Boo and we get the five bank
accounts. But sometimes God will sit us
right in between zig lag. To purge and prune.
US. And it's how you manage here.
Rather you rather you will breakdown or you will
breakthrough. Today I invite you to to get to
know Jesus for yourself and the free part of your sins.
He died on the cross for you and I.
He's already Lord and Savior. He just simply wants you to
acknowledge Him. He just wants you to accept them
to your heart and confess at your mouth and believe that's
all. I believe that he died and rose
from the grave. And Paul tells us if you do
that, you are saved. The man on the cross simply
said, Lord, Remember Me and he was saved on the cross.
We we say this prayer together, not because you can't pray, but
to help our our brothers and sisters in case you need words
to pray. So repeat this prayer to me if
you want to be saved, say Lord Jesus, come into my heart, save
me. I want to be saved.
Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross of me.
Lord Jesus, thank you for soon coming again for me.
Lord Jesus, thank you, in Jesus name, Amen.
Come on, put those hands. Together in my faith.
That someone just. Received Jesus.
Come on for real, clap those hands.
Someone just received Jesus into the heart.
Thank you for tuning in to the Rock Hill Baptist Church 2
Podcast. We pray today's message planted
something in your spirit and gave you the strength to keep
growing here at the Rock Hill Baptist Church 2.
We're a growing church, and growth starts with one step.
If you're ready to go deeper, visit us online at
www.myrockhill2.org and click Next Steps to get connected,
join a ministry, or give your life to Christ.
Be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss a message and
share this episode with someone you know is ready to grow too.
And remember, no matter what comes your way, you were built
to elevate. Until next time, walk in
purpose, live in power, and grow in grace.