Hey, want to give a quick update as most all of you know if
you've been hanging around Next Level for any period of time,
you know really since the first of the year that we are under
contract to purchase a 31,000 square foot building on Metro
Parkway. Yes.
And we are scheduled to close on that building by the end of this
month here in just a few few days, just about two weeks or
so, less than two weeks. And so again, you probably know
we have $1,000,000 match that a couple in our church has come
forward and said, hey, we want to offer $1,000,000.
And then for every dollar that comes in between now and that
closing the end of the month, then that goes toward the down
payment of that Metro Parkway building purchase.
And so I want to give you an update as of right now we are at
six 568,000. Yeah, come on.
Which is awesome toward that match 568 and so listen, here's
the deal. Our responsibility is make the
need known all of our responsibility as as family
members at next level churches go to the father and say God is
for me in my house. What would you want us to do and
then just simply obey and here's what pastor Sarah and I have
found over 24 years. God's never failed us yet Amen.
Come on, he's never failed us yet.
So hey, participate in that. Just smart Kingdom builders.
When you go to the website, it's that simple, that intuitive.
Or grab somebody with a lanyard and say, hey, how do I do that?
We would love, love, love to help you.
Well, listen, today we are continuing our series called
Don't Let doubt Take You Out. And we'll say doubt take you
out. We're not going to let doubt
take us out. And this series is is based off
of my pastor, Pastor Todd Mullins, who is the pastor of of
Christ Fellowship Church in West Palm Beach, off of his book that
he released about a year ago called Don't let doubt take you
out. And church family.
Let me say this. If you didn't get a copy of it,
I think we have a few at at all our location.
Maybe it's definitely on Amazon. Make sure you get it.
The good news is leaders are readers and all of you bought a
whole bunch of copies last week. So if there's any, make sure you
grab one at your location. If there's not, just go to
Amazon. There's plenty of copies there.
We already checked. We know that's true.
But man, I just love hearing the stories already of how not only
the series, but the the content of this book is making such a
difference in your life. And so, you know, the truth is
doubt is one of those things that that is present in all of
our lives. And the truth is what what's
interesting to me is when you study the Bible, which around
here in next level church we believe is the inspired word of
God relevant and applicable to our everyday lives.
When you study the the men and women of God that he used, that
God used in a mighty way, what we discover church family is
every one of them went through seasons, went through through
moments, went through periods of time where they wrestled with
doubt, where fear tried to grip their heart, where anxiety,
where, where, where depression hit them.
So the good news is, if you've ever struggled with that, which
again we all have, the good news is you're not alone.
And I actually want us to look at one of those people today in
the Old Testament who struggled with fear, anxiety and doubt and
how God showed up on his behalf. Hey, before we're before we move
on to the word of God, let's pray.
Father, thank you, God, thank you that you're bigger than
doubt. God, thank you that you're
bigger than fear or anxiety. God, you're bigger than
depression. And Lord, we pray as we look in
your word and a man named Elijah and how you showed up on his
behalf when he struggled with this issue that we're struggling
with. God, would you speak to our
hearts? Lord, we're open.
Whatever you want to say, we want to listen in Jesus name,
everyone who agreed with that prayer said Amen, Amen, Amen.
So let me ask you a question before we get started.
Have you ever had one of those moments in your life where
you're just, you're cruising along like everything's going
awesome, everything's going fine, everything's decent,
everything is normal, everything's OK.
And then all of a sudden someone says one thing to you.
Come on, anybody know what I'm talking about?
Or, Or you get one piece of news, or you read 1 headline or
you read one comment on a post you make.
Come on, somebody all right, I'm preaching to the right people
today and all of a sudden it just right like you, just you
just all of a sudden you were cruising along and now you're
just right. OK.
This happened to me a few weeks ago.
So I was fine, OK. I was in a good way.
You know how some people are like, how are you fine?
Clearly you're not fine. No, no, I was fine.
Everything was good. And then I was in a conversation
with someone in our church and they told me that someone else
in our church had been gossiping about me behind my back, which
is a normal occasion when you have set when you pass through
several thousand people, it's fine.
I'm good for that. Like it's I know people talk
about me. It's fine.
But for whatever reason, like this person was a friend is a
friend. And it was one of those moments
for right, we've all had to one of those moments where all of a
sudden it was like, and man, I just like I couldn't get out of
it. The next morning.
I had to wake up. I got early, I got my journal
out. I had to pour out my heart to
like, I thank God for freedom principles, Amen.
We've all been there, right? Well, today I want us to look at
someone who I mentioned a moment ago named Elijah.
Everyone say Elijah and he lived 700 ish years before Jesus.
OK, so we're going all the way way back into the Old Testament
pre Jesus and Elijah was God's prophet into the to the children
of Israel, who are God's people in the Old Testament.
And so in those days, God would basically choose a spokesperson
in every generation that he God would then speak through to kind
of be his mouthpiece, his spokesperson to the whole
nation. Well, Elijah was that guy and
God was using him in a mighty way.
And in First Kings chapter 18 and 19, we see this this story
where Elijah is being mightily used of God.
As a matter of fact, in those days, there were there were
these prophets, these false prophets of bail of a false God
named Bail. And there were about 800 of
them. Well, God uses Elijah in this
massively awesome way to to basically call down fire from
heaven and destroy these 800 prophets of Baal.
It's an intense story, like Avengers kind of awesomeness.
Like if you don't read the Bible, you really should.
People like it's there's cool stuff in here.
OK, so read first Kings 18. All of that to say Elijah's on a
mountaintop ever say mountaintop?
OK so Elijah's on this mountaintop then look what
happens next. First Kings chapter 19 verse one
says this. Now Ahab who's the king told
Jezebel his wife everything Elijah had done.
So all the guy just got used when he fired the thing and what
like crazy and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
This is where things start to turn.
So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, May the gods,
little G gods, deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this
time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them.
In other words, you killed them, now I'm going to kill you.
Look what it says. Elijah was afraid and ran for
his life. I want to give us three thoughts
today that I think matter to each of us, where we find
ourselves maybe wrestling with doubt, fear, anxiousness,
discouragement today. Here's the first thing I want
you to see. Number one, Elijah was messed up
by a message. Elijah got messed up by a
message. Jezebel essentially posted post
the equivalent of a negative comment on Facebook or
Instagram. She sends him a message, little
DM. She slipped into his DMS Old
Testament style and Elijah flips out.
It says he was afraid. Look at verse three.
He was afraid and ran for his life.
Look at this. When he came to Beersheba in
Judah, he left his servant there while he himself went a day's
journey into the wilderness. OK, let me tell you about this.
A few years ago, a team of 20 of us, you've heard us talk about
we went to Israel. So we've been to Mount Carmel,
where Elijah was, which is in the northern part of Israel.
This says that then he ran, ran on foot to Beersheba.
Beersheba is 86 miles away. That's a lot of fear.
That's like someone sending us a death threat and us being like,
I'm out, I'm going to Sarasota on foot.
Then it says he left his servant when he got to Beersheba, and he
went another day's journey into the woods, into the wilderness.
A day's journey in those days was about 15 miles.
So my man goes over 100 miles on foot.
Why 'cause he got messed up by a message.
See, what the enemy wants to do was the enemy wanted to use fear
and doubt to take Elijah out of his calling and church family.
He wants to do the same thing with us.
Man, don't miss this. One of the devil's biggest
tactics is to use negative messages to steal our
confidence. Watch, the enemy wants to use
negative messages both personally and in generally to
steal our confidence. And here's why.
Because the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 35 that
if we don't throw away our confidence, look at this verse,
then it will be richly, richly rewarded.
Church, the devil knows that if, if, if, if you and I will stand
in Our Calling. If you and I will stand as sons
and daughters of God. If you and I will stand in our
confidence, not in ourselves. As Pastor Todd said last week,
our Godfidence, the enemy knows there's a big reward attached to
that. And some of you, the devil's
been attacking you with doubt and fear and worry and anxiety
because he's trying to knock you out of your confidence, your God
confidence, who you are. That's what he did in Elijah's
day. That's what he's doing in our
day. So church, listen, we have to be
so aware of the messages that we're allowing into our hearts
and minds. We know this is true.
Input drives output, right? What you put in, you get out
input. Same.
It's true. In our life, input drives
output. So watch this.
If what you and I are inputting all day into our heart, into our
mind, into our spirit is negative and pessimistic and
angry and fearful and divisive, then guess what?
We have to know it will affect our output in our life.
So, church, we have to be so, so aware when negative messages
come our way. It's not nothing and it's not
neutral. You can't watch hours and hours
and hours and hours and hours and hours of negative news and
not think it's not going to affect your spirit.
It does. You can't scroll for hours and
hours and see conspiracy theories and anger and division.
And they said and they said and they said about what they said
and they said we and not think it's not affecting us.
Input drives output. Elijah was messed up by a
message. So here's my question.
What do we do? What what are we doing with the
negative messaging that's coming in and bombarding our souls on a
daily basis? We have to be aware of this and
then we have to be aware of what we're doing with it, which can I
just say thank God for freedom. Amen.
Listen to if you've never been through our freedom here at Next
Level Church, you got to get signed up.
I'm sure there's a waiting list somewhere.
Go to somewhere, something, somehow I'm just get signed this
fall. I'm just telling you at your
location, you got, if you've never been through freedom,
here's why 'cause freedom is a whole bunch of things, but it's
a toolbox, which by the way, we had freedom experience this
weekend with over 400 people. We're hearing so many stories of
how God is just transforming so many of us in our church family.
Man, I'm so thankful. Why?
Because freedom gives us the tools to be able to deal with
all the stuff that's coming at us.
Elijah was messed up by a message.
Keep reading. It says verse four that he came
to a broom Bush, sat under it and prayed, look at this, that
he might die. I've had enough, Lord, he said,
take my life. I am no better than my
ancestors. Then he lay down under the Bush
and fell asleep. Here's the second thought I want
to give us today as we're talking about not letting doubt
take us out. Number two, Elijah let his
feelings dictate his reality. Elijah was messed up by a
message, but #2 he let his feelings dictate his reality.
Elijah was exhausted. He was tired, he was spiritually
spent. Elijah was overwhelmed, he was
overworked, and now he's scared and afraid.
And in that state, doubt tried to take him out.
Did you? Did you see it in the verse?
He literally said, God, take my life.
Let me pause just for a second. That is a suicidal ideation in
church. We want you to know that that's
real, man. You can't get this many people
across 4 locations in a church like ours and not have some of
us who are struggling. And we want you to know we your
church, we take it seriously. We love you.
We want you to know we see you. We want you to know your
Heavenly Father sees you. We want you to know there's
hope. Matter of fact, we've created a
whole web page, nextlevelchurch.com/soul
healthnextlevelchurch.com. So we need to take a picture of
that and write that down right now, nextlevelchurch.com/soul
Health. And this is a whole page, a
whole web page that we've created with resources, with
counselling, with books. There's a whole series we did
called Breaking the Stigma a couple of years ago.
All of those messages of the four parts of that series are
there on that web page. And so listen, if you're
struggling, we want you to know you're not alone.
We want you to know there's hope.
And we want you to know we, as your church fan, want to come
alongside of you and walk with you.
Elijah was messed up by a message and he started to let
his feelings dictate his reality.
OK, do you know that globally the number what?
The number one answer to the question how are you is now?
Anybody got any guesses what the number one well #1 answer
probably is for? For the word for the question
how are you in the world right now?
Ready. Here it is busy.
To which everybody intuitively says Amen, right.
Like right. Like how are you busy?
I'm busy. And here's here's the deal.
All of us know that busyness is a problem that's real in our
life, but very few of us actively know how to do anything
about it. You know what else we
intuitively know? Church Van We intuitively know
that we don't make our best decisions when we're tired, when
we're overwhelmed, when we're stressed out, when we're busy.
Right? Snickers?
Anybody else love those Snicker Bar commercials?
You're not yourself when you're hungry, OK?
How is it possible that a candy bar company understands
something that we sons and daughters of God are are I think
we got to get? Come on.
There's room for improvement, everybody.
Amen. Hey, elbow the person next to
you and tell them come on, there's room for improvement.
Come on, tell them there's room for improvement.
So here's. So back to our boy or Elijah.
Back to our boy. Come on, everybody, focus right
here. Come on, lock it in.
Now you're talking. No, no, no.
Come on. Right here, right here.
OK, Elijah, he's exhausted, he's stressed out, he's worried, he's
overwhelmed like so many of us feel like we are in our world
today. And in that state of exhaustion,
he was, he was vulnerable. So let me ask you a question.
Ready. Let's get super granular, super
practical for a second this weekend.
On a scale of 1 to 1010 being high, how exhausted?
And let me say it this way, not yourself are you right now?
One to 10, Give yourself a note. If you're taking notes, write
your number down on a piece of paper, on your phone, whatever
you know, 1 to one out of one to 10.
How exhausted, How not yourself are you right now?
OK, whatever your number is, you don't have to share your number.
You're not going to share this with the person next to you.
That's I'll have you say something else to them in a
second. You just hold this to yourself.
K1 to 10. Are you a 5 right now?
Are you a 7 right now? Are you a nine right now?
Are you like a 9.9997 right now? Are you a some of you?
You're like Pastor Matt. I'm an 18 brother.
I'm going to need more numbers on the scale.
How how not yourself are you? Look, what if I asked your
spouse or your kids? What number would they?
What if I asked your mother-in-law?
Because she might be the only person in your life that'll tell
you the truth. Thank God for mothers in law.
Come on church, Fear, doubt, anxiousness will always run
close to exhaustion. And that's where Elijah was.
And some of us, God brought you here into your location today to
get you to admit I'm not OK, because guess what?
God can meet you there. Back to our story.
Look at verse 5. All at once an Angel touched
Elijah. God showed up and said get up
and eat. He looked around and there by
his head Elijah with some bread baked over hot coals in a jar of
water. He ate and drank and then lay
down again. That's interesting.
The Angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him
and said get up and eat. Look at this part for the
journey is too much for you. In other words, hey Elijah, what
you're facing? You're not going to be able to
handle in your own strength, in your own power, in your own
ability. You're going to need
supernatural strength. And some of you, that's a word
for you today because you've been trying to be the man,
you've been trying to be the woman.
You've been trying to be tough. You've been trying to to tough
it out. You've been trying to be be.
I just need to be strong in my hey, guess what?
You're not gonna have enough strength for what you're facing.
You need the strength of the Lord today.
You need something super. This isn't a game.
This is real life, everybody. And we need the supernatural
power of God, like Elijah did verse 8.
So he got up and he ate, and he drank, and strengthened by that
food, this is awesome. He travelled 40 days and 40
nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him #3 last thought I want to
give you, Elijah needed a word from the Lord.
Elijah needed a word from the Lord.
And church fam, can I just tell you this weekend we need a word
from the Lord. When Elijah finally slowed down
enough to hear from God, God's voice got really, really loud.
And some of us were struggling with doubt and fear.
We're struggling with anxiety and discourage and depression.
And what we need is not more of the world.
What we need is to carve in some time to actually hear from God.
But isn't that usually the hardest thing for us to do?
Here's why. Because our flesh and the devil
fight like crazy to let us get to that place where we actually
can hear from God. And So what I need most in my
life is to pray and hear from God.
And because of my flesh, it's all it always feels like it's
the last thing I want to do. Anybody else find that to be
true in your life? That the thing I need most, it's
a moment with God. It's a word from God.
It's to spend time with God. And yet that's the moment where
you now you're distracted and you're on your phone.
That's the moment where the kids need to.
That's the moment where you, your kid do like, oh, I need to
can't ever get to order this or I need to get this.
I need to pick up this prescription.
All right, all of the it's all the it's all watch.
Why? Because we're in a spiritual
battle. We need a word from God.
Elijah needed a word from God. Getting a word from God is the
secret to victory over doubt and fear in our lives.
Verse 9, The word of the Lord came to him.
What are you doing here Elijah? And Elijah replied, I've been
very zealous for the Lord God Almighty, the the Israelites,
his people have rejected your covenant.
They've torn down your altars. They put your prophets to death
with the sword. I'm the only one left.
And now they're trying to kill me too.
OK, can I tell you something? I've been preaching for over 30
years. I have preached this story
dozens of times. And every time I've preached it,
I have dogged Elijah right here. Oh, he's whining to gun.
I'm the only one left. Can I tell you something?
This morning the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, Matt, he
wasn't just whining. You know what the Holy Spirit
said? He was pouring out his heart to
God. He, he was, he was just
extroverting, saying out loud what he was feeling on the
inside. Some of you, you've never given
yourself permission to say out loud to the Lord what's really
going on in this season? Can I tell you you're in a
church where that's OK? It's OK to say it out loud.
We don't have to pretend. We don't have to faith it up.
Elijah's just real. And God was OK with it.
Now he didn't let him stay there.
Check it out, verse 11. And the Lord said, hey, go out
and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord.
Look for the Lord's about to pass by.
In other words, I'm about to show up.
OK, good. Elijah, you've extroverted it.
You've journaled it all out. You've said it out loud.
Awesome. That's where you really are.
Well, guess what? The Lord's going to show up
where you really are. I love that.
That is awesome. Look.
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and
shattered the rocks before the Lord.
But the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not
in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a
fire. Earth, wind and fire.
By the way, if you know, you know.
Come on, older generation, let's go.
All right, all right, all right. That's enough.
We're fine. But the Lord looked.
But the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and he
went out and stood at the mouth off the The Cave church.
We don't need more loud headlines.
We don't need more alerts on our phone.
Turn them off. We don't need more status
updates. We don't need more breaking
news, which by the way, it's not breaking.
We don't, we don't. We don't need more online rabbit
holes to obsess in. If you're struggling with doubt
and fear and anxiety this weekend, if it, if it, that's
where you find yourself. Guess what?
You don't need all those things. You know what you need?
You need stillness and a word from God.
We don't need wind and earthquakes and fire.
We don't need big stuff, man. I, I, I, I worry about a young
generation who's even growing up in the church who thinks that,
that if there's not lights and haze and fog and full bands and
full stadiums and big emotional responses, that God must not be
there. No, he's in the still.
He's in the small. That's where God is.
He's, he's in the he's in the quiet.
Elijah came out of The Cave of fear and doubt that was trying
to take him out and he said, OK, God, I'm listening.
Since he put a cloak over his face.
That's that's a picture of humility.
He humbled himself, said God, I need you, God, I'm listening,
God speak. And from this point forward,
everything changed. So let me boil this all down for
us. Then I want us to pray.
What's the point of this message?
My mind goes to three things. Really we we need.
First of all, we need to put out negative messages.
Number one, just stop. Just stop.
Turn it off. How much is enough?
How much do you really need? How much news do you need?
How much scrolling do you need put out?
Put out negative. Check your pace.
You need to slow down.
Do you need to say no to something this week?
So you need to work from now to to, to June to pull some things
out of your calendar to create a little more space.
You get a little more disciplined so that you've got a
little more time for the Lord, not just running, running,
running. And we need to create some space
to actually hear from God because I have found over 35
years of walking with Jesus that when I actually slow down and
get quiet and get still, the voice of God gets pretty loud,
very loud. Can we stand together?
We're not done. Nobody's leaving.
I just want every location. Come on, let's stand together.
I'm going to invite our worship teams to come back and we're
going to sing that song Fall Like Rain that we sang earlier
in our time together at all our locations.
But here's what I want to before we get into that, before we even
worship, before we turn the music up.
Can we just be still? Can we just be still God your
word says be still and know that I am God.
So God, I pray right now for so many of these precious ones or
we were gathered at our locate God of the our E location
downtown. God keep coral or he got it
online. Lord that you see Lord, the pace
of our life, the busyness of our life.
So Lord, right now we just we don't mind.
We just pause, just take a deep breath.
It just creates space to hear from you.
God, one moment in your presence, one word from you, one
touch from you can change everything.
God, would you speak to us right now, in this moment?
Lord, where do we need to course correct?
Where do we need to tweak some things?
Where do we need to say no to some things?
Where do I need to put up a boundary?
Where do we need to say yes to some things?
Where do we need to reprioritize you, your word?
We got our new Soap Guides today, getting back into the
discipline of every day, just reading God's Word, applying it
to our life. Be still and know that I am God.
That's what we're doing right now.
God. Would you just alleviate anxiety
right now? Would you throw out though?
Would you encourage the discouraged, which is
strengthened the oppressed and depressed?
Maybe you're in one of our locations right now.
Let's just stay in this atmosphere, just continue to
meet with God. But maybe you're here, there's a
few of us, perhaps many, and you're not in relationship with
God. You've never surrendered your
life to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
You've never said yes to following him.
I want to give you an opportunity to do that today.
The Bible says it's a free gift. It's as simple as acknowledging
that we're a Sinner, believing that what Jesus did on the cross
was payment for our sin. That's what we were celebrating
a couple weeks ago on Easter, His death and resurrection.
And the Bible says if you and I will confess that, that we will
be saved. If you've never surrendered your
life to Jesus, today I want to give you a chance to do that.
Every location. I'm going to count to 3 in just
a second if you want to, if you want to make that decision today
when I hit 3, would you just throw your hand up?
Come on, let's do it. 123. Pastor Matt, that's me.
Pastor Matt. That's it.
Just throw your hand up. Awesome.
Yeah. Come on.
Every location. East downtown, Cape Coral here
in Fort. If you're an additional seat, if
you're, if you're online, just mention it in the chat.
One of our team will engage with you there.
Pastor Matt, I want us to thank you.
Keep. Yep.
That's it. Pastor Matt.
That's me. Pastor Matt, that's me.
I want to surrender my life to Jesus.
Awesome. You can put your hands down.
Hey, listen, for the sake of so many who've lifted their hands
across our locations today, I'm going to ask all of us to repeat
this prayer after me. And if you lifted your hand, I
want you to pray this prayer from your heart.
And God's going to hear you come in, transform your life from the
inside out. Come on, let's pray together.
Say, dear Jesus, thanks for loving me, bringing me here
today. I acknowledge in this moment
that I'm a Sinner and I need to save you.
Forgive me of my sin. Wash me clean, make me a new
creation. I say yes to you and right now I
surrender my life. Help me to go your way because
it is the best way for the rest of my days.
In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Amen.
Yeah. Wow.
Listen, if you just said yes, we have a Bible we want to put in
your hands. Our team will talk about it here
in just a second. Don't leave the property without
going to your next steps area at your location today.
Grab that Bible. There's AQR code on there.
Make sure you scan that code. My wife and I recorded some
videos to help you in this your new relationship with Jesus.
Hey, let me pray for all of us before we move on together.
Father, thank you that your spirit is here, that your spirit
is moving across every room. Lord, you're doing a work in our
heart, a work of stillness and peace that's greater than
anxiety and fear. Father, thank you that we're not
going to let doubt take us out, but Lord, we're going to respond
to your spirit in Jesus mighty name.
And everyone who agreed with that prayer said, Amen, come on,
let's give Jesus Christ.