▶
Show Full Transcript
how long am I going to feel like this? How long is it going to be like this? How long are they going to forget about me? How long until they recognize me? But if you have hit a wall called how long today, and you have hit your limit, and you don't see a way to win this fight, the Spirit of God said, change levels. If you've been down too long, stand up and praise the Lord. Wake up the lion inside of your lungs. Change levels for ten seconds. Jump up on your feet, stick your chest out, and tell the Devil, "'Save. Say it. I'm saved.'" Change levels. For we wrestle not against low things. We wrestle against high things. If I'm wrestling against a high thing, I know a high thing that can bring it down. I cast down strongholds. I cast down depression. I cast down fear. I cast down panic. I cast down suicide. Cast it. In the name that is above, every man, live his. Say, "'I'm changing levels.'" Oh, there he goes. There she goes. I can't predict her. When I think I got her down, she gets back up. When I think she's getting proud, she starts to pray. I'm changing. David said, "'I don't know how long this is going to last. I don't know how long I'm going to be hurting like this. I don't know how long I'm going to have to push through this without any evidence that God is working. I don't know how long, but I'll tell you one thing. Not as long as my song.'" I talked about lions, and I talked about bears, and I talked about limits, and I talked about levels, but I want to talk about loops. When you get to verse 5, David has disrupted his own despair and prayer for deliverance. Y'all are sitting down like you're not in a hurry to get out of here and go back to whatever hell you've been fighting. Ain't nothing waiting at home but a lion and a bear for you. You might as well go ahead and get this Bible lesson, but what happens so many times in an experience like this that we won't admit is we get the lesson and we leave, and we don't get in the loop. David said something so powerful in verse 4. He says, "'If you don't do something soon, God, I'm going to fail, and my foes will rejoice when I fall.'" Now, I told the Lord that I would share this with you if the atmosphere felt open to it, and so I will. There was a season of my ministry where Holly and I were so paralyzed by the nature of public ministry, public criticism, and the age of AI when people can make up things that you said and make it sound like you say it and make it look like you were standing there with Oscar the Grouch if they want to. It's no longer to Photoshop you into anything. There was a time where I was so consumed with the fear that something in ministry would cause me to fail or that my best had failed. If you're struggling with that in your own way, the fear of failure or the fear of looking like a fool, listen to what the Lord gave me. It really parallels the thought process of David. Not to compare myself to David, but I do relate to the resistance and the wrestling he felt. I thought for many years that the wrestling meant that something was wrong with me. I thought the fact that I wrestle with this means that I am. I thought the wrestling meant that something was wrong with me. I need to slow down before I show you what I want to show you. In verse 4 he says, My foes will rejoice when I fall. There was a loop in my mind that went on for months and months and months. It's going to end in failure. I couldn't pinpoint why. I did see other things that were happening to other people all around me, and I thought, man, how long can I keep preaching and writing songs and doing ministry? I don't want to do it in the flesh. I want to do it in the Spirit, but sometimes you get tired. Sometimes you get tired too, and you wonder, is this going to end in failure? So one day the Lord gave me a thought, and it busted me out of the prison that I was in that came from the loop of thinking that I had entertained. What if it ends in failure? It's going to end in failure. It's going to end in failure. The way he gave it to me was something I could latch on to, and I give it to you exactly as he gave it to me, and I wrote it down. He said, I want you to start confessing this over your life, and I did it out loud every day for a year. It may end in failure, but I will not live in fear. I've struggled to hold to that, and I've struggled to live it out, but he gave it to me. It was one line he gave me, one line to deal with the lie. See, the lie I was in the loop was that if something fails, I'm a failure, but when I realized that he, he loved me before I started a church. He loved me when y'all got here. He'll love me if you leave. He'll love me if I preach good. He'll love me if I stand up here and stammer and stutter. He knows what I'm trying to say, and he'll even take his spirit and interpret. You'll tell me, Pastor, that was awesome when you said this, and I won't even have said that, and you'll have heard that because God wanted to get it to you. So even if it fails, watch this. It may end in failure, but I will not live in fear. He has done more for me than all of my resistance. See, because you try to wrestle at a certain level, you're like, oh, no, well, I'm going to study, and I'm going to take my creatine, and I'm going to do, you know, but even that has its limits. So I changed the level. David can't figure out how to battle his thoughts, because this is not something he is fighting that is turning on him on the outside. His own mind is turning on him. What do you do when your mind turns on you? And why did David's mind, attack him so viciously? Is it possible that the minds that are under the most vicious attack are also carrying the most brilliant potential? Think about what David went on to do. David went on to become not only a king, but he became the designer of the temple that was the house of God for which he gave the plans to his son Solomon. When he gave him the plans for the temple, he said something very interesting in 1 Chronicles 28. He said, well, that says he gave him the plans, portico, building, storerooms, upper parts, inner rooms, place of atonement. So he had all that mapped out, verse 12, and he gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord and all the surrounding rooms, treasuries, temple of God, treasuries of the dedicated things. It goes on to list in the most specific detail everything that God put into David's mind. Now we understand, why in Psalm 13 he was wrestling with his thoughts, because that mind was under attack by the enemy, because it was the place that would conceive something awesome for God. That mind from which the temple would come, where the people would worship, that mind, that beautiful, brilliant mind… It wasn't a broken mind. It was a brilliant mind. The level, of your battle, tells you something about the level God is calling you to build. See, when you have an overactive imagination, you can build a temple, but if you have an overactive imagination, you can also call Bathsheba to come and sleep with you, even though she's not your wife, and make a plan for her husband to get killed on the front lines of battle. That is why it's important in this season of your life that you win the battle for your mind, because there is something that God wants you to do. God wants you to do. God wants you to bring forth from your mind. I'm trying to say that the place of the blueprint is always the place of the battle. I'll say it again. When God is going to give you a blueprint, some of you are creating generational change. Some of you are doing it different than your family ever did. Some of you are setting a new direction, a new course for everybody with your last name or maiden name in the future. The reason the battle has been so fierce in your mind… There is so much material in your mind. There is so much potential in your mind. David's mind would go on to lead armies. His mind was capable of navigating through the most arid terrain. He could find water in places the troops that were chasing him would not even dare to follow him into. That mind… Of course it was under attack. Of course it was a battle. That was the place of a blueprint. Of course you're struggling. Of course you're dealing with issues. There's nothing wrong. You're just a real one. You are resisting the enemy. You are wrestling not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness. Isn't it amazing that the mind that created something so magnificent as the temple experienced so much misery? Doesn't it give you hope to know that the misery you've been going through is just a clue to the magnificence? Let me say it like the Bible says it. Light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us a far exceeding weight of glory. It will outweigh everything you've been through. When you see what God builds… I'll prove it to you right now. Psalm 13 is written by David about a situation we don't even know what it was. Whatever situation he was going through when he wrote it, the situation is over, but we're still preaching about what he wrote. I said the situation… The situation really lasted so long, but the song was longer than the situation. I'm standing up in front of you thousands of years after he wrestled, and I'm reading what he wrote, because he went through what he went through. I came to tell you that what you are going to see on the other side of this will make what you're going through feel like a short time, a little while. Just a little while. Just a little while. I said the situation is going to change our lives in the end. I don't just keep out of It all starts with verse 5. I'm wrestling. How long? I'm forgotten. How long? I'm forsaken. How long? You're hiding. How long? I'm losing. How long? Verse 5 comes out of nowhere, but I trust. I trust. But I trust. You know how we love to shout in church about, but God? Yeah. Sometimes it's not, but God, that you're waiting on. It's, but I. Because sometimes when you're asking God how long, he's asking you the same question. I see y'all next Sunday, but the Lord wanted you to know I've been wondering the same thing. I've been wondering how long you're going to let the devil just tell you anything he wants to tell you unchallenged before you rebuke him and plead the blood of Jesus for everything concerning your life. How long? Love it. I'm happy. Don't think I'm mad. I'm not mad at you. I'm happy for you because God said he's about to. God said you're wrestling with some stuff that's unclean, unfamiliar, unmanageable, overwhelming, but I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. Put me in F sharp. Verse 6. I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me. When you have hit your limit, come to the waters, all you who are thirsty, and buy bread and milk without price. You can get it for free if you come on your knees. He said you need a new loop. You've been in the how long until it gets better loop. How long until it changes loop? How long am I going to be like this loop? How long are they going to ignore me loop? I want to get you in a new loop of how good God has already been to you. Something just shifted in David in verse 5. I can tell it. He realized, I can't fight this like a lion. I can't fight this like a bear. I can't fight this like my previous fights. I have to fight this by getting in a new loop, like when I killed the lion and when I killed the bear. I started thinking to myself how great my God was, not how big my giant was, but I trust. He said, but when God butted in, he ends his song not singing about the struggle, but singing about the goodness of God, for he had been good. Sometimes you get this message, and sometimes you watch these videos, and sometimes you listen to this podcast, and you get the lesson, but you don't get in the loop. You don't get in the loop. You think worship is over because you have to get out to your car, and you think you have to get to your car because you have to get to your lunch, and you have to get to your lunch because you have to get back home and take your nap, and you have to take your nap so you can still wake up tired. Another week talking about God. How long? How long? They say, I don't know, but not as long as my song, because I'm going to out-sing my struggle. Hear me if you can. I am going to out-praise this problem. Let me go deeper. I am going to out-trust this trouble, and it's a sign that I can't fight it in my own flesh. I wrestle not against flesh and blood. I'm wrestling against a high thing, but I have a higher thing, so I will sing praise, for he has been good. To me. And then you might even get convinced. You might say, he's been so good. And then you feel subedar, because you know God was very big in me. That's not it. No. You know God is great because you know Him. Yeah! But if you know God this is discomforting and you have a deep rejection... Are you okay? You know what? This is not what God is supposedly going through in our lives. He's going through a lot of discomfort, so you would want to ask God who knows what codes He is trying to put in an attitude that is currently a promise he's going to make and will always MOVE you. and small enough to snap on the back of your phone. As a creator and entrepreneur, this is huge for me. I could turn everyday conversations into content ideas, plans, and follow-ups without doing extra work. No confusion, no missed details, just clarity. So pick up Pocket today.
