Elevation with Steven FurtickIn “Tune Your Heart To Truth,” Pastor Steven Furtick teaches us that turning to God for the truth keeps us from being distracted by the enemy's lies.
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Scripture References:
Psalm 144, verses 1-2, 9-11
Colossians 3, verse 1
Jeremiah 17, verse 9
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Enjoy the message.
Some trust in cherias, some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord.
Our God. Say Amen, Say Amen again now, Father.
In every season and situation, our strategy is the same. To surrender to you, Everybody, say Lord, I surrender, and to sing to you, to sing a Hallelujah from a heart that knows that you did it before, You're gonna do it again.
Hallelujah, Glory to God.
In Jesus' name. Clap those handskift God, praise.
Oh yeah, Chris, your voice sounded like honey on a butter biscuit today, Big old fluffy biscuit. Give me some of those multi vitamins. Beautiful, What a beautiful time of worship. Oh thank the Lord. How many are grateful that he gave you another day to sing His praises with your borrow of breath. Everybody joining us online, We welcome you. This church is glad you're here. We're excited. We connect with you right now by means of the Holy Spirit and internet access.
Or cable television, whatever the case may be.
Wherever you are, whatever you need, God is here and he's got it. You need grace, He's got it. You need healing for a broken heart. He's got it. You need wisdom for what to do this Wednesday in that meeting.
He's got it.
Touch somebody, say God's got it.
Say it like hot Pocket, Say God's got it.
God's got it, hot Pocket, God's got it.
Pray for me.
We are so excited about our elevation Night's tour coming up. We better bring that holy ghost fire because there's gonna be cold where we're going.
Now.
Listen, these are selling out. I'm gonna name the cities and the dates. February twentieth through twenty ninth. Hershey, Pennsylvania, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio.
Hoffman Estates, Illinois, Belmont Park, New York.
Last week I said Long Island and somebody got very offended. They said Belmont Park is not Long Island. They are different. Okay, I'll find.
Out when I get there. I'm from Monk's Corner.
Leave me Alone, Boston, Massachusetts and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Elevation Nights dot com. Are any of y'all coming?
You don't have to.
You're here right now.
We're celebrating our eighteen year anniversary next Sunday.
Get here for the party.
The most unusual message that the Lord gave us for that, so I hope you'll be here to hear it. Then I'm starting my series, Do the New You.
I'm releasing a book. I'm starting a series that's the week after so much good stuff.
Holly's been locked away in the studio making small group curriculum. We've just been going at it this year. We've been writing songs. I think we wrote eight songs last week. And the Lord is about to pour out a gully washing. Do you know the word gully washing? A gully washing torrent of his grace and mercy upon our church in this next year.
And I'm excited you're here for it. You say, well, I'm not even a member. You don't have to be.
This is one of those overflowing blessings. If you just get close enough to the boat, it'll splash on you. I'm telling you, man, God's got something incredible all right. Today, I want to share with you a message that I've been trying to figure out how to present since this summer. So I'm excited. Just give you a picture, and I know it's going to help you. Turning your Bible to Psalm Chapter one Psalm one four. Been waiting on the right time to preach this one. The Lord showed me how to do it, and I pray you will help me. You pray for me too, because if he helps me, it helps you. So pray for me that I would say what he wants me to say, nothing more, nothing less.
So one forty four. Are you ready? I take that as a no. Are you ready?
Praise me to the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God, and my fortress, my stronghold, and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.
Drop down to verse nine. Please, I will sing a new song to you, my God.
On the ten string, liar, I will make music to you, to the world. One who gives victory the kings, who delivers his servant David now say your name this time, who delivers his servant. Yeah, he's going to deliver you. He's going to deliver you. He's going to deliver you from the deadly sword. Deliver me, rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful. Say amen to that. Now, let's look at Colossians Chapter three, verse one. Just one verse from Colossians the third chapter, the first verse. You ready, since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. I want to teach you today how to tune your heart to truth, How to tune your heart to truth, so you can get some peace, so you can get some joy, so you can get some energy, so you can.
Get some direction. Father.
Now I stand ready to be used by you. Blow through me like I'm a trumpet, and use me how you want to.
In Jesus name, Amen, you may be seated.
The fun thing about marriage, well, there's a lot of fun things about marriage. One fun thing is putting little nicknames in your phone for your spouse's contact And how many of you have a name for your spouse significant other in your phone. That is not their legal name. It's not their social Security number. I've changed the name I have for Holly about once every year. The one I have now is just two emojis. I've got the heart emoji and the queen emoji because she's the queen of my heart. And of course it's an orange heart for Daba and for Clemson.
And it's funny.
One day I had it hooked up to the car where it reads the text to you when they come through, and it was reading it out loud and it said text from Orange Heart Light Skin Princess.
So that's what I call her around the house when we're.
Not here on Sunday, come over here, orange Heart Light Skin Princess. Well, she put the name in her phone for me, and again we'll change them. We'll get a little new inside joke and we'll change it from time to time. If you don't have a different name for your spouse in your phone than their name, you need to be more intimate. Yet it's a predictor of how long the marry just gonna last if you have a playful name in your phone. I'm sure a study says that somewhere eighty seven percent of studies are made up on the spot.
All right.
So she put a name in her phone for me, and I just thought about this this morning when I was thinking how I want to introduce this topic to you. And we got it from a John Mayer song and it said a good man with a good heart. There's song that we really liked that John Mayer saying he said, I'm.
A good man with a good heart. I'm not going to sing anymore.
So I don't get you tube copyright straight on that from John Maher, But that would say that in her phone when I would call a good man with a good heart.
So of course it makes you wonder, am I am? I?
Are you.
A good man with a good heart. We're going to talk about that for a moment.
We're going to talk about a good heart, because honestly, I am surprised how quickly my heart can switch from the best intention to the worst decision. Y'all aren't going to help me preach a bit today. I had to take discermon to Boston in a couple of weeks. This is so difficult in the South to preach anyway, isn't it?
Like?
Because we say bless your heart what we mean is you are an idiot. Oh bless your heart so that even that it's difficult, Do I have a good heart? Well, my heart this week wanted so many different things. There were times this week, well my heart wanted to stay in bed, pull up the covers, and pretend like y'all weren't coming to hear a word from God this week because I didn't know how.
To say it. That happens every week.
Another part of my heart wanted to get in here and find whatever chain you've been bound by and take the hammer of the word of God and see if the Lord might break you loose for his glory so you can get on with doing what you're supposed to do this year, same heart. One part of my heart this week wanted to be a tentist, a good listener. One part of my heart want to be like, would you shut up.
And let me talk because you don't know what you're talking about?
And it was in the same conversation, and it wasn't with anybody in this room.
From the same heart, from the same heart.
We are thankful in these moments for biblical examples like David, aren't we who from the same heart said Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me.
Bless this holy name.
And from the same heart said, go get that woman, Bathsheba, who is not my wife.
Bring her to me.
I want to be intimate with her more than I want to be obedient to God. From the same heart that devised such beautiful language and poetry came so many problems. David had great praise in his heart. David had great problems in his life. One scripture writer said he had ninety nine problems, and Bathsheba was one.
Now, before we.
Move deeper in this textual conversation about your heart, I know it switches sometimes where you feel really grateful and then you get really petty.
Wrong side of the room, fake side, real.
Side, pettiness and praise same heart. Always point this out when I preach about David, lest we forget that we are learning from someone in the scripture whose life was not always perfect.
Now, in our culture, we.
Will see a very different definition and relationship to what's called the heart. And I'm going to define it in just a moment, but I'm not talking about the organ. We see a very different definition than we see scriptually in our culture today. In our culture today, the heart.
Is a master to be obeyed.
Therefore we give advice like, okay, follow your heart.
In the scripture, it's a little different.
In the scripture, the heart does not seem to be a master to be obeyed. Heart representing the center of your internal life. You're like, what are you talking about my heart? I mean that can mean a lot of different things. You're talking about my ability to love. You're talking about my excitement, or you talking about my passion, or you talk about my conscience. Yes, all of those things are embodied in the Hebrew idea of the heart. It is the center of your internal world, and in the Scripture, the heart is capable of incredible generosity. One man said to his fellow comrade, do all that is in your mind. I am with you. Heart and soul. From the heart flow the issues of life. So one scripture writer said, guard your heart. That's really different, isn't it?
Then? Follow your heart. Follow your heart means my heart is leading me.
And the only problem that I have with my heart leading me is that is a limited resource. Because sometimes I feel like following Jesus, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like forgiving, sometimes I don't sometimes I feel like turning the other cheek, and sometimes I feel like kicking.
My heart needs to be guarded.
So let's go back to Colossians three for a moment, and then I'll bring you to David, and then I want to show you this in.
A visual form.
In Colossians, the apostle Paul says, since then you have been raised with Christ. Question class past tense or present tense. You have been raised with Christ past tense or presentents.
Since that happened, raised with Christ.
Set your hearts on things above past tense or present tense.
Okay, I'm pointing this.
Out to you not because I think you need a grammar lesson, but because I want you to understand your soul can be saved and your heart still has to be set.
The language here is active, not passive.
Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, fall your heart. The heart wants what it wants, give it what it wants. You don't do that with a two year old. The two year old would have their tongue in a light sucket, and you watch the two year old because you love the two year old. The two year old is not your enemy. Neither is your heart your emotions are not your enemy.
Neither is your two year old.
But the point that I'm trying to make here is that your heart while not an enemy to be defeated, because God gave you that heart, and He will speak to you through that heart, and he will move in your heart. And sometimes people will say, well, Fredick's just an emotionalist. He's just an emotional preacher. What do you want me to be? Do you want me to be an ambient preacher and put you to sleep and stand up here.
And drone on and on and not move you God?
When God found David, he said, I found a man after my own heart. God is after your heart. God wants you to feel for him. God wants you to praise him with enthusiasm for your future.
And with an excitement about who he is.
Quiet Christians, take note, You've got something to shout about if you want to. And yet the word set drew my attention because the idea that I have been raised with Christ, Jesus did that for me.
Come on, Jesus did that for you. He died for you. Jesus gave you a new heart.
The scripture speaks about a stony heart and a heart of flesh. One is the old covenant keeping the commandments, and one is the new covenant, established and ratified by the blood of our very own Savior, whereby He makes you new on the inside.
And yet this new heart that I have still has to be set.
Because it is not like the infomercial used to say, set it and forget it.
I promise you if you take that.
Approach to your own spiritual life and your attitude and your mindset, I don't care how much blood of Jesus covers you. If you don't take responsibility for setting your heart. That is a decision, not a default. And if you don't do it, the devil will if you don't do it, Disappointment will if you don't do it, stress will. The heart is not an enemy to be hated. You can enjoy the emotions God gave you, and that's wonderful. The heart is not either a leader to be followed. I'll tell you why. The heart is not a leader to be followed because and I want you to say this to your neighbor because it's gonna sound mean, and I want you to be in on it with me, so we all get in trouble together. Look at your neighbor and say your heart is a liar.
It's not a whole conversation. That's all you're supposed to say. You don't need any time for any response. All right, no rebuttal.
We would take our questions at the end of the class. Okay, look at your other neighbors so they don't think you're picking on them.
Say your heart is a liar.
I don't appreciate this. I came to be uplifted and I'm encouraged by the word of God.
All right, since you want to talk about the word of God.
Jeremiah seventeen nine, The heart is.
Deceitful.
Now you understand why I can't let my heart be my leader because I found out my heart is a liar, and I think we got enough liars for leaders without electing our own point of view, to call the shots, without electing how I feel at three pm, to call.
The shots without.
Waiting to see if I'm in the mood that I need to be in to do the thing that I said I would do last week. My heart can't be my leader because my heart is a liar. Don't get me wrong, my heart is also an incredible asset to show me in moments.
This is what God cares about.
You know. We say my heart goes out to you. It means this is one of the ways that I feel guided to help people. And so that's how I know to give that waitress a fifty dollars tip because.
Something in my heart.
That's how I know to, you know, overlook the offense and just see what's going on beneath because my heart and I'm thankful for it.
It's not my enemy, but it's not my instructor either.
Instead, I think we need to look at our heart as an instrument, an instrument. And now I want to move into my picture from David's life in from my life. Just go ahead and bring out the guitar. I'm gonna play it. You're gonna be nice to me when I do. I'm not profefs, but I get by, all right. And I sided to this illustration myself. I'm gonna do my own stunts today, all right, because when I thought about it, David is praising God, right And the first thing he said, back to Psalone forty four, he said, God trains my hands and my fingers for battle. So I'm imagining David writing this probably later you know, he's talking about subduing people. So he's currently a king, but he's remembering that he wasn't always a king. And he's remembering that there was this champion, philistine warrior who dared to defy the armies of the living God. And he was bigger than David, and greater than David, and more skilled in season than David, and had greater weaponry and artillery than David. But when God trains your fingers, even a slingshot with a smooth stone will bring.
Down the biggest giant had at heart.
He wraps his fingers around that sling. I mean I tried to take tennis lessons and it took him three weeks just to get my gripped semi correct my grip for a tennis racket. Imagine what it takes to be a skilled slinger. David said, I trained to kill lions and bears. I trained God showed me how to grip it so that when I got in a fight, he gave me the victory. But then the language changes. The language changes from fighting to flowing. The language changes in verse nine and David, after talking about how God is fighting for you and I want you to remember this week, God is fighting for you. Tell your neighbor, God is fighting for you.
Tell him.
God is bigger than it. Tell him again. God is bigger than it. God is bigger than that report. God is bigger than that of session. God is bigger than that thing. God is bigger than that night terror. And he gives a strategy in verse nine that is connected. But you just have to have ears to hear and a heart to receive. He says, I will sing a new song to you, my God. I will sing from my heart. David was a praiser. Yes, he was a fighter, but he was also a lover. He had heart. He could take down an enemy, but he also understood intimacy. That's why he said, I have trained fingers for war, but the Lord is the love and the refuge of my life. Because he had trained fingers that knew how to grip a sling when he needed to fight a giant. But watch this, he said, I will sing praise verse nine to you God on the.
Ten stringed liar.
Earlier, when I said your heart is a liar, I was setting you up for a double entendre.
To show you that.
David, here in the midst of a battle, You say, how do you know he's in a battle?
Go to verse eleven.
He says, verse eleven, deliver me, rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are.
Full of lies. Lies. He's fighting lies. Are you fighting lies?
The lies they told about you, the lies you told about you, the lies they spoke over you that hath grown into insecurities that followed you into your adult life. Everybody under the sound of my voice is fighting a lie that you're not enough, That God is but you're not. But guess who made you. If he made your mouth, he'll fill it. If he put you there, he'll brow you there. Hallelujah. And I'm fighting these lots. So I was surprised that David fought lies with the liar. Now I've got two liars in the passage. One is an instrument.
A liar is just a harp. They were slightly different, but they're used interchangeably.
The Hebrewscriptures gives three different types of instruments they would go and worship within the temple. The percussion instruments like the symbols and the.
Timbrels and the tambourines. The wind instruments the rams horn, the trumpet, the flute. They used the flute more in Egypt.
That wouldn't really like the Israelites jam, but but they put it. They put the flute in there sometimes just every once in a while, over at eight oh eight, when they were really wanting to party. And then the watch us. This is what I want to talk about. The stringed instrument. Did you see verse nine? He said, I will praise you on the liar from my heart. The ten stringed instrument, the ten string instrument, ten strings, ten strings. I didn't want to bring a liar to church. Felt inefficient to roll a harp out here, seeing us I've never played one. Well, we got so many guitars around this chearch that I thought we could use it for an illustration. First of all, a few words about this guitar. This is a Martin guitar, and that is a good company to make guitars.
No, I'm saying, it's a nice guitar.
And one thing that all of these musicians who are on this stage would tell you is that, first of all, the instrument can never exceed the quality of the musician who plays it. I could hand e a ten dollars guitar. This one's not ten dollars. I don't know how much it costs, but it's not ten dollars. The ten would sound better with him than this one with me. And I'm not being self deprecating. If he were preaching, I'm a better preacher than him. He's just a better guitar player than me. Okay, so whatever. But look, I'm gonna sing you a hymn where I got the title of this message, tune my heart from. And this hymn was written in the seventeen hundreds. And if you know what you can sing it. The words are on the screen. Oh Lord, please don't let me forget the words come the found, every.
Bless tune my heart to sing thy, pray grace, streams of mercy.
Never sees, see call for It, songs of about his praise, teach.
Me song clias son.
Song by flameing tongues, up by.
Praise, amount fix up on amount.
Of fly.
Gaming love. So I got my title from that first line. Listen to again, Calm thou.
Found of every bless tune my heart to sing thy.
It's amazing when you're in tune with the grace of God.
It's amazing when you're in tune with the voice of God.
When I'm in tune with you, Lord, I don't have to fight so much when I'm in tune with you, Lord, I don't have to manipulate so much when I'm in tune with you, Lord, I don't have to defend myself. You fight my battles when I'm in tune with you, Lord, somebody say, Lord, I want to be.
In tune with you. When I'm in tune.
With you, Lord, my problems look small when I'm in tune with you.
Lord.
It feels like all things are possible when I'm in tune with you.
Lord. I can scale a wall when I'm in.
Tune with you, Lord, the giant looks like an opportunity, not a problem.
When I'm in tune with you, Lord, I'm able to laugh at what used to make me cry.
When I'm in tune with you, Lord, I'm able to cry and know that tears don't last always, but joy comes in the morning. When I'm in tune with you, Lord, it's a beautiful thing to be in tune.
I think.
I wouldn't have to use our sling as much if we used our strings a little more. If we would learn to worship God in quiet and in private.
Some of the things that wear us out, he would work out. I'm not saying this magic.
I'm just saying that you in tune with God is a bad dude in a good way, a good man with a good heart. She says, I'm that, and sometimes I am. What happens to me from time to time. And it happened to David too, So I don't feel so bad. And it happens to you. Give me that camera, it happens to you. Is that through daily life we get distracted? Chris, come, I think we should do this together. We talked about it and I told him I might call him. Is that you get distracted?
Right?
You don't decide to just start following your own whims and fall back into old temptations. At least most people don't. Instead, it's more like a distraction. And we worked this out ahead of time, and he's cool with it. He's going to be the devil. He sang like an angel, but he's a versatile worshiper just for illustration, just for illustration.
So I look away. I'm flowing, you know. Yeah, man, Damn, I'm gonna start the business. I'm gonna reasee these kids to be. World changes right.
Like that, And then your second look away because you thought you could set it, and and then you get a text message, and then you have to walk into a meeting and you go to say what you're supposed to say and be who you're supposed to be, and show up like you're supposed to show up.
And it's calmed down. Well, that don't sound.
Do a little more, Chris, because sometimes sometimes the devil just tweaks you.
A little bit. But sometimes.
No, I know, I know, I know how it's really been in your house with your teenagers.
All right, I'm about to prophesy.
Because because you go to step up to it and it was good and it's now it's come down. Now, Wait a minute, God, did you leave me?
Did you forsake me? I know what it is.
I need a new guitar, I need a new husband.
Maybe you do, but before you trash it, tune in, tune in, tune in.
It happens to all of us every day.
If you think for one moment that you can get saved one time, and your heart is permanently set on.
The affections for the things.
That matter to the heart of God, and that now you will be selfless in every encounter and will always know.
The way that He leaves you to go in.
Watch these musicians the next time we worship. Because they don't tune their guitars once a month. They don't tune their guitars once a week. They don't even just tune their guitars every Sunday before they play. They tune it between every song. It means that every day that I'm alive, and every breath that I breathe, and every transition that I go into, there is a possibility that my heart will go out of tune.
I'm done with you them, They b c d get thee behind me.
Give it up for Chris, everybody, the greatest worship leader in.
The continental United States.
Of America, and the devil just for these five minutes, because look, from the same heart come your greatest fears. From the same heart comes your greatest faith. Which one you move into depends on what you're tuned to. Why this helped me so much was because I struggle with a lot of condemnation at how much I change from wanting to do God's will to not wanting to do God's will. From feeling motivated to preach the message to feeling like I just.
Want somebody to preach to me, from feeling.
Like I want to be more giving, to feeling like nobody's taking care of me and.
Being very I can have very big pity parties.
When I realized that my heart is a liar, that my heart is a harp, It's a stringed instrument. Then I realize it has to be tuned to truth. Now, I told you.
This illustration was going to help us, and that's really why I'm doing it.
I'm not trying to just put an entertainment value on the sermon. I don't care about that. There's way better, more entertaining stuff you can watch. It's on your Hulu account. But you came here to get help for your heart, and I'm trying to show you that. It sounds like that right now. But the guitar is good, the wood is good. You've just been tuned to some stuff that has been neath who you really are. How many are glad that Jesus Christ does tune ups? Is that why you came to church today?
Is that why you logged on today? Somebody holler tuned me up?
Lord, tune me up, Lord, tune my heart to sing by grades.
There's two ways to tune this guitar.
The guitar is in tune technically when the strings have the appropriate tension through these pegs. That Chris so rudely tuned down like the devil does with discouragement, disappointment, Bill's offenses, all of these things. I could spend a whole hour just going through all of the things that distract you and detune you. If the enemy can detune your heart, he can defeat you in your life, and you'll be reaching for slings fighting when you need to be reaching for strings tuning.
He trains my hands for war.
But David said, I've learned to tune my heart to truth, not cultural truth. We have personalized the precepts, so we say things like my truth, but I don't tune to my truth because my heart is a liar. I cannot just listen to my heart at all times. That would cause me to want to quit. That would cause me to want to give up. That would cause me to lash out, That would cause me to sink, That would cause me to go all the way down further into the spiral.
That's fine to follow your heart, when your heart's going up. But there are times in your life where you need to be.
Tuned, and I want you to make sure in those times that you are tuning to truth, not your subjective experience, not even what your parents taught you.
If your parents taught it.
And God taught against it, your parents were wrong, not God. What your parents taught you was tradition. What God wants to tune you to is truth. Tune me to truth, and that means God show me where I'm wrong and blaming them. That means God show me where I think I need to get more and I really need to give more because I want to be tuned to truth. Show me where I've been thinking I'm at a disadvantage when really my slingshot is a secret weapon. I've been saying I don't have the resources. But maybe God didn't give you the resources so that he could source this one, so he could get the glory for what he does that you could never do. I feel annoyed to annoying to tune my heart to truth. And there's a couple of ways to tune the instruments. Because a stringed instrument like you and me, we have heart strings, right A stringed instrument.
Goes out of tune.
This guy came over to tune our piano and he charged like three hundred dollars, And then he was back a few months later and I was like, bro, do I get a discount?
This is your second time trying this? He goes, no, Always, I have to do it every time the weather changes, when.
The seasons change, the strings must be recalibrated. You're not a kid anymore. The season is changing. How many of you are going through a seasonal change in your life right now?
Wave at me? How many of y'all feel like?
In Charlotte we go through three seasonal changes every every day.
Every week.
I'm gonna have the piano tuner over at my house three times a day.
If we keep this way, other fluctuation up, good Lord, And it.
Can feel like that in your life because every time the temperature changes, you've got to retune every time the seasons change, so that you need to be asking the question, God, who do you want me to be?
Now? Who are you calling to me to be? Now?
What childish things do I need to put aside? My season is changing. Sometimes you are in a season of abundance, but you keep thinking like scarcity.
You're out of tune.
Sometimes you are in a season of focus, but you're thinking fore. Sometimes you're in a season of marriage, but you're scheduling your life like you're single. Your season has changed. You have to retune. And so when you need to retune, you can do a few things. One you can buy one of these.
This is a tuner.
This one's about twenty dollars, and you can tune, and you can do that.
But I'm going to give you something from the Bible. Okay.
I feel like Garth Brooks with this microphone and this acoustic guitar right now.
This is so weird.
I visualized it, but I told the Lord, I'll flow.
With it however you want.
I never saw myself standing here holding the guitar in this moment behind the pulpit. This is very awkward, and I love you. Okay, Okay, here it is give me Verse ten. I wanted to check the verse. David said, not only is it important what you tune, that you see yourself as a stringed instrument that has to be tuned regularly to the intervals of God's specific purpose and designation of your life.
Not only do I have to be tuned when I go into a.
New room, a new season, so that I don't carry yesterday's man of mentality into today's promised land situation. Not only do I need got to tune me when I go into something new, but watch this, he said, I will sing to the one everybody say to the one. I will sing to the one who gives victory to kings. Now, not only is David saying I will sing to the one like if I gave you a dollar, I gave a dollar to you, but he's saying I am going to sing in tune with the one.
I'll show you.
LJ is playing a digital instrument. His keyboard does not go out of tune. It can't. It's digital. It is set and it will stay set. His keyboard is tuned, and I know it's in tune right now.
So the fact that I'm out of tune.
On this stringed instrument the means that I need to turn around to someone who is always in tune.
I might retire after this. Look.
I've been thinking how to get this across to you. I've been thinking about it for months. Because you think you're trash. You are about to break your martin you're about to mess up your mind.
You're about to walk away from your opportunity. It's not trashed, it's just not tuned. So if I turn.
To the one who is in tune and I say, hey, LJ, give me an E and he plays an E and I play what's supposed to be an e on my liar and he's playing the truth and I'm playing the liar. And he says, E sounds like this, and I say, E sounds like And he's playing higher and I'm playing lower. He's right, I'm wrong. He's not coming down to me. I'm coming up to.
Him because I'm turning to the one. You get it.
You're not coming down to it. It's not coming down to you. God's not going to lower his standard. God's not going to decide you're just in bondage. And that's just the way you were born. If the sun will make you free, you will be free.
Indeed.
So if I'm down here and he's up there, I'm not staying down here.
I'm coming up higher.
Who fine? Five three people say, get up here, Get up here where the glory is, Get up here where the praise is, Get up here where the blessing is get up here where the abundance is, Get up here where the wisdom is first of all peaceable and then pure. It comes from God and it can't.
Run out not to lose my voice.
Whose voice are you tuning too? And I decided that even if everybody else does it, I'm not tuning to everybody else in this season of my life.
I'm not I'm not stupid.
Is still stupid even if you call it true. So if the Lord shows me the way I'm acting as stupid, I'm not stooping, just stupid and calling it truth.
I'm tuning up. I'm tuning up, you feel me.
That's why I gotta get my Bible out in the morning, because I gotta tune out, because I woke up feeling defeated, but my Bible said I'm more than a conqueror.
I gotta tune up.
Yeah, because I could come down to the level of what I feel, or I could come up to the level of what God says. And I hear two voices speaking today, and one is trying to make me a victim and one is trying to make me a victor.
And I want to know whose report do you believe, we shall believe. His report says, I am heal.
His report says I am free.
His report says, victory, give me a BLJ. Yeah, I'm gonna get this thing back in tune.
I'm gonna get my life back in tune. You hear me.
I'm gonna get my heart ungunked and unjunked and unloaded and unblocked and unstopped because.
I believe God wants to use me.
I believe God wants to do more through me, and I can't do it out of tune. The fount of every blessing can't flow through me if I'm fixated on what I think is true. Let God be true Romans three four and every man a liar man.
One time, give me a g LJ.
One time I went on the comments you want to get out of tune, go on a YouTube.
Comment my God about right there. It's ten years ago.
I was to remember this, how much someone can give in your heart something not only a lie, like somebody telling you that sexual immorality is no big deal.
Well that's a lie, but.
That's what my heart is leading me.
Your heart is liar. God's not bringing his standard down to fit your situation. He called you up.
Now he doesn't hate you, he doesn't, but he's not going to leave you in a dissonant state so you miss your destiny.
He's going to bring you in tune.
The Lord loves you too much to let you spend the rest of your life in harmony with Hell.
Speaking of Hell, the YouTube comments.
It was during the time in the church where I used to sing more when we would finish the worship, and I would come out and sing at him all the time, all right, And the YouTube comment on the sermons said, I remember it almost word for word, and God forgive me for giving this person my attention like I did.
But they said that.
Awkward moment when Stephen Ferdick starts singing the song and everybody secretly, which is just shut up and let the real singer sing. Not that I pay any attention to that stuff whatever like that. You know that thing God in my heart? I heard, Man, it got in my heart. It could be anything. I'll go on sometimes and I'll say, why is he wearing that T shirt? He wore a two T shirt on the stage. It's not this is not the this is not the gospel. Where's Jesus and this Jesus is not a YouTube. It's not a stuff can get in your heart if I let it. If I let it that because I'm not a professionally trained singer, keep me from singing.
What songs wouldn't I have written over the last ten years.
If I let everybody who said I didn't preach the real gospel keep me from preaching the gospel?
How many people would we not baptized.
Next week at our eighteenth anniversary. I speak of me to get to you. Are you tuning down to the trolls?
Not only the online ones? Man the Lord really set me free from that.
He said, how are you gonna tune your life to the trolls?
Your wife loves you and knows you're a man of God. The people who need to know know you're a man of God. And somebody likes to hear you sing.
Ah, hope you'll watch it because I'm still singing.
Well, I'm gonna keep on singing.
It as long as I'm got repping my line, because I don't.
You say, Ah, get ready, get ready for what you're gonna do when you get in tune.
God said, I brought you to church to tune you sick to the Lord a new song.
High five. Somebody say, wait till you hear me in tune. Wait till you hear me in tune.
Because when I get in tune, when I get in tune, when I get in the stream of the current of the mercy of God, has not seen and dear has not herved.
God hasn't hitered into the.
Heart of a man.
My God has prepared, but God has revealed it by his spirit.
And you say, well, pastor, this is great, but I don't have LJ Yes you do. This name is Lord Jesus. Now it's time to preach.
Since then you have been raised when Christ all in. Since then you've been brought up out of your grade. Since then your sins are behind you. Since then, there's no red sea in front.
Of you that can stop God from doing what he destined.
For your life.
Get him a prace, get him a grace, and in June praise a season. Just celebrate rooms everything God has bread, get him price whose roots, good days brushes.
I will bless the Lord.
Times and this lease, mama string instrument.
I'm tuned up by the stare.
To did I'm saying to by staring Bill ready for this season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm done tuning down to stupid.
I'm done turning down the trolls. I'm done tuning down to tradition. I got LJ, and he's tuning you. He's tuning you. Look at your neighbor and say he's tuning you.
And tuning feels like stay standing, stay standing.
It feels like tension. It feels like give me D. Yes. Lord. If you say that's D, I say that's D. If you say that's good, I say it's good. If you say it is well, I say it is well. If you say let it go, I let it go. Give me an a.
If you say I'm going to survive and this will make me stronger, I will survive.
It will make me stronger. Give me E and now.
A guitar that I thought needed to be thrown away because I got with l J. And saying to the one who is in tune, I see you getting with Jesus this way.
The Lord Jesus who above all.
Away from the lives, quieting your own heart, allowing his heart to come through. David was a good man with a good heart. But even the best heart gets out it too. You did what you did, but that doesn't reflect who you are.
You are.
An instrument, and I want you to get with him this week and get in harmony with his will, and let him show you some things again, and invite.
Him to take your hand off the sling.
And stop trying to fight in your own strength, and let him put his hands on the strained instrument of your heart so that you can sing again.
Come thou, fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing, die grace.
Streams of mercy. Never see call for songs loudest. Hey, before I can praise, I have to pause and get back in tune. That's all this is.
This is a pause between praises, a pause, a transitional moment.
Teach me song.
Song song by flameing tongues of pus, praise themount and fix the a.
Mons that.
Dam's getting you back in tune.
I hear your music coming forth. Now, I hear your music coming forward. He's tuning you.
And oh to grace, how.
Great daily and constraint be.
Led like goodness like a feed.
Buye my wanandering heart, listen, prone to wander listen, listen, prone to wander.
Lord, I feel.
Just because you wonder doesn't mean he's not with you.
Mm hmmm.
Prone to lee.
God, I.
Here's the message, here's my heart. Or take and see it, seal it, or thy chords up, lift your hands. You're the instrument. Now come, thou fount of every bass, sing it.
Tune my heart to sing thy great.
Streams of yours sees.
Awful songs.
Teach me the song.
So praisome, LOUI fixed up.
All to stop.
Praise about, Oh, praisome, fixed time ah to see.
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