New Year, Same God

TL;DR Summary

This inspiring sermon from Elevation Church focuses on the theme of continuity and faithfulness as we transition into a new year. The message emphasizes that while the calendar changes, the steadfastness of God remains constant. By reflecting on the past year, the sermon encourages believers to recognize God’s unwavering presence and faithfulness in their lives, urging them to carry this assurance into the new year.

The core message is supported by the story of Ruth from the Bible, highlighting how God can transform seemingly negative circumstances into blessings. The pastor draws parallels between Ruth’s life and the experiences of the congregation, illustrating that life’s challenges are like ingredients in a recipe that may taste unpleasant in isolation but contribute to a greater purpose when combined. Scriptures such as Genesis 50:20 and Hebrews 4 are used to reinforce the idea that God’s intentions are always for good, even when situations appear dire.

Listeners are encouraged to maintain their faith and focus on God’s promises, regardless of life’s uncertainties. The sermon challenges individuals to trust in God’s process and to remain hopeful, knowing that God is working all things together for their good. It concludes with a call to reflect on God’s past faithfulness as a foundation for future trust, inspiring believers to embrace the new year with confidence and expectation of God’s continued guidance and blessings.

Full Sermon Transcript

well Happy New Year can I tell you how happy I am that you are starting your new year off with us maybe today you have plans to eat collard greens and black-eyed peas later is that just a southern thing because here in North Carolina our family has a New Year’s tradition where we eat pork and collards and black eyed peas supposedly it symbolizes good things for the new year I think collards represent prosperity and peas represent good luck but mostly we just like them and we’re celebrating a new year together as a family whatever you feed your soul is way more important than what you feed your body and so no matter what you plan to eat today you are ahead of the game because you’re feeding your soul it’s so important to pause and to look back and that is what today is all about one of the primary ways that God speaks to me is through the messages of this house every single week God uses our pastor her to bring the exact word we need to hear how does he do this his messages penetrate whether you have been a Believer for five minutes or 50 years every age every stage of Life there is a word for every single one of us I wonder which messages spoke to you the most this year maybe one that came at the perfect time maybe it hit it a moment when you were doubting or anxious and the sermon was exactly what you needed to hear I love how God works I wish we could just sit down together and talk about it in fact let me know in the chat which messages this year have resonated the most with you today I invited some of the people in our church to share about some of their favorite sermons from 2022. we’ll be diving into our notes sharing our stories and then looking back at portions of these sermons My Hope Is that these excerpts remind you of what God spoke to you and what God did in your life last year I want us to go into 2023 believing that the same God that was with us last year will be with us again this year of course he will that’s why we’re calling today New Year same God we’ve been singing that song Same God over and over this last year and it has been such an Anthem for our church that the god of Jacob the god of Moses of Mary of David the god of your grandma is the same God of you and I and that is who we worship today he is faithful to see us through whatever is ahead and the best way to stir up our faith for what’s ahead is to look back at his past faithfulness so I’m going to go first I have to go first I can’t let others share about how the message is preached by our pastor my husband ministered to them without getting to share how they have ministered to me and I’m pretty sure everyone who follows me and shares about their favorite sermon is gonna say some version of it was so hard to pick just one because it is sometimes I cannot believe the amazing Feast that Stephen furtick lays before us each and every week if you can sit under a sermon by Stephen furtick and say that God did not speak to you you have a listening problem anyway okay it’s so hard to pick just one but back in the spring Steven preached a little mini-series three sermons on the Book of Ruth they were called it will come together the one who seeks finds and blown away I felt like these three weeks I was like trying to get a drink of water from a fire hydrant Steven was dropping wisdom faster than I could write it down and God was speaking to my heart so now that they’ve narrowed it down to three sermons I’m going to tell you the one that I want to talk about not necessarily my favorite of 2022 Stephen sermons are like my children they’re all my favorite but this one this one really got me it was a sermon called it will come together now in this sermon Stephen laid the foundation by talking about Ruth and the tragedy that she had experienced in her life she lost her husband and she lost everything that she held dear in her life it probably felt to her like her life was over but as we read through the Book of Ruth in reality we realized that her life was barely getting started on the basis of all that God was going to do for her and through her Stephen told us that we don’t taste Life as a meal we experience the ingredients as they come and the problem with this is that the ingredients themselves can often taste bad in isolation this really hit home with me because I love to cook and I understand that there are essential ingredients to almost every recipe that tastes bad in isolation like salt and oil and flour if you only taste those things you would spit them out but put them together add in a little bit of baking powder and some eggs and you’re on your way to a cake in my life so often I experience disappointment or frustration when something that I asked God for doesn’t go the way I thought it would I asked God for this relationship but it feels like we’re fighting all the time I ask God for this child but now I feel like I don’t have what it takes to raise them I ask God for this new job but now I feel lonely and when I start to feel these feelings my tendency can be to think that God is angry with me or that maybe I did something wrong or maybe I wasn’t meant to have these things to begin with and I got it all wrong and the thing that stuck with me from this sermon is when he said let God mix it he told us that our prayer should be God I want your will and I want whatever comes with it those ingredients that taste bad to me in isolation are actually building something good in my life that relationship that feels tense is teaching me humility and the Art of putting others before myself that job that challenges me is teaching me to depend on God in ways that I never would otherwise that loneliness is causing me to lean into my relationship with God and then also to invest wisely in the relationships around me Stephen said just because it tastes bad in isolation doesn’t mean it won’t serve a purpose in the finished product the good things often come with frustration and disappointment and difficulty that’s normal that’s okay and he reminded Us in this sermon if it’s not good then God is not done and that Mantra will get you through all right I’ve said enough now I want you to check out this clip so you can see what I’m talking about whoever walked in the kitchen and um uh just use an example I’m not a cook take a scoop of baking powder and just down it did you ever do it so baking powder is bad anybody want a big heaping pile of baking powder for lunch today raise your hand why are you messing up my illustration bro foreign this is why you came from Michigan so God could tell you that’s why you tuned in online just because it tastes bad in isolation mean it won’t serve a purpose in the finished product I’m not saying that the Bible said and after Naomi had gone so low that she said this doesn’t taste good this doesn’t taste good and honestly I figured out why people in church often look so sour when they’re in church because what you went through this week didn’t taste good and you are trying to praise God with a taste in your mouth of disappointment and fear am I preaching yet I mean it’s hard to say hallelujah when your mouth tastes like hurt call me bitter you might as well you might as well you might as well and taste good and yet what a strange blessing that they gave let me give you a little bit more background so I can make sure I’m not confusing Grandma Graham’s my guy you know he he told me the other day he was like dad sometimes you got to slow down with these scriptures you’ve been looking at them all week and we’re just waking up you got to slow down I’m breaking down so even though I can’t do it justice The Book of Ruth is beautiful and you could read it in the time that you could watch half an episode of Ozark and when we move through it we see Naomi elimelech uh kylian and melon melon’s Roots husband orpa is married to Killion and both of those baby names are available by the way if you want to have our original name for your kid but when they went to Moab they they went to a place that they didn’t this is important plan to go this message is for somebody who is in a place you didn’t plan to go and I’m gonna take it further sometimes it’s a place you hate being there because they’re from Bethlehem and they’re in Moab kind of like when when they went to Egypt I mentioned it earlier when the Israelites went to Egypt they didn’t go to Egypt because it was it was their dream to go to Egypt it wasn’t on their bucket list to go to Egypt they went to Egypt to survive and we’ve talked about that a lot because I think a lot of the sin Cycles we get sucked into in our life are out of survival mechanisms and if we don’t deal with it that way we just put so much shame on it we can’t help anybody get healed because people won’t come to Jesus because you don’t understand the power of His Covenant with you you think Jesus is like other people and that there come a point where he’ll be ashamed of you and he’ll go oh well that’s that’s that’s too far there I was going to use you but really you did that you don’t understand the power of a covenant but but Ruth did because when Naomi said leave me I’ve lost my husband’s I’ve lost my boys I’ve heard there’s bread in Bethlehem we’ve been here 10 years Naomi said I’m not leaving make a covenant with you wither thou goest I go your God become my God and and your God will often become the the same God as your friends if you are around people who worship status and stuff it won’t be long till you’ll you’re Shackled to the same things they are but not touch somebody next to you and say you ought to hang out with me a little while you hang out with me you’re gonna have strong faith you hang out with me come on Def Leppard if you hang out with me so so they go back together and and Naomi in this honest moment she says call me bitter I still got the taste in my mouth I’m going back to Bethlehem which means House of Bread which makes it that much more depressing when there’s a famine in Bethlehem when there’s a famine in the place that is named after bread when the joy of the Lord is supposed to be your strength and you are a Christian and you’re depressed and you are a Christian and you can’t sleep and you are a Christian and you have addictions and you are a crit I am a c I am a CH I am a c-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n but I got a ADD ADHD a d d i c t i o I’m in the house of bread but I’m hungry call me Mara she Bruce said I was with you when I wanted your son now you don’t have a son to give me but I’m still with you I wonder who the Lord is saying that to I’m still with you I don’t I don’t sell low and buy High God is Not Warren Buffett God doesn’t trade like that God said I’m still with you because I made a covenant with you it’s not that kind of Covenant I made with Noah that was limited it’s not the kind of Covenant I made with Abraham that was limited it’s not the Covenant I made with Moses that was limited it’s not the Covenant I made with David that was limited this is the Covenant of my blood made with the life of my son and I am with you what’s up y’all I’m Elijah ferdick I’m Pastor Steven’s oldest son now obviously my dad is a goat of preaching so I had to share one of my takeaways from one of his sermons with y’all the sermon that I’m going to be talking about is a recent one it’s called I’m not dead yet and I actually have some Insider information on the making behind it a couple of months ago me and my girlfriend started reading through the Bible one chapter at a time it felt like something that God was calling me to do because I wanted to get the full context of the Bible and everything that God wanted us to know we told my dad what we were doing and he said how much he loved it a couple of weeks later he asked us what chapter we were on so he could read it with us and he sent us an application from the chapter that turned into a group chat called the read the Bible in four years Club because if we read one chapter every day that’s about how long it would take us we started sending a key verse application that we took away from each chapter and obviously my dads were always the best we came to the Book of Leviticus we started to struggle to find an application for every chapter because the chapters get so repetitive and specific but somehow my dad would always find a fire application Leviticus is tough because it’s a lot of lists of rules and regulations for the ancient Israelites but we still did our best to figure out what we could learn about God from reading it now when I look at all the implications that my dad had sent in the group chat one particular one stands out Leviticus 11. Leviticus 11 is a pretty boring chapter at first glance it’s all about the kosher laws and certain animals that people can’t eat I can actually show you guys the text but he told us a couple of great points pull it out real quick all right here it is got it prepared but you know big old big old long text so what’s crazy is a lot of this actually ended up making it into a sermon one of the things that he talked about in the text was how important it is to ask yourself do I listen when God tells me something that’s polluting my heart or do I only see it in others blank inspect type deal you know he talked about verse 37 which says if a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted they remain clean he uses to tell us about the idea of the seed Will Survive sometimes a dead thing falls in the seed of what God is trying to do but the seed survives the devil tried to kill the seed of your potential but the seed is still clean you’d think it’s dead but it’s just dormant even connected to how Herod tried to kill Jesus but the seeds survived I already knew that had potential but I had no idea that he would turn it into a whole sermon he was able to take the potential of what he told us and polish it up a little bit in the end he used the example of the weasel which the people were not allowed to eat which was specified in the chapter he showed an image of a weasel that was eating some eggs before they had a chance to be born he used it to show how you can’t let the devil pollute the seed of something that God is doing in your life another one of my favorite points he made was when he said if you have confidence in God’s promise but not commitment to his process that’s not Faith that’s just denial that really hit me because in my life a lot of times I don’t struggle with my confidence in God as much as my confidence in myself however when I doubt myself that is kind of me doubting the process and doubting that God has put me why I need to be to impact people for his good and at the end of the day I can know that the seed of God’s potential lives in me it was so powerful for me to hear how he was able to take a seemingly boring chapter about kosher laws and shows how it applies to us in modern day life if we’re not careful we can make the Bible too much about ourselves and forget the framing of the story we’re reading however if we read the Bible in a way that treats us like an ancient text with no application to our current day lives then we might as well read Harry Potter so I felt like this was such a legendary sermon he was able to give us the full background context and meeting of the text but also try to help us figure out what the chapter is trying to tell us about the nature of God and how we can use that information to become closer to God let me show you all this clip real quick so y’all can hear the sermon for yourself look at that weasel little sneaky that guy is a serial killer I’ll look him up you could get in a small place and then oh he look at he’s got those eggs look what he’s trying to do to those eggs look what he’s trying to do to that thing that hasn’t been born yet look at that weasel y’all are on board with Leviticus now are you because you do need to know how to deal with the weasel don’t you you do need to learn how to deal with the weasel because you got a weasel called worry that while God is speaking his word to you say Amen in Portuguese when it gets through on this interpretation because I need to hear an amen I need to hear an amen that weasel that weasel that weasel no he’s not just leaving you alone he’s trying to steal what God spoke now I know you think I’m out of context it’s not talking about that kind of weasel it’s talking about everything in your life to try to distinguish like the enemy will plant a seed in your mind right he’ll say okay well this is this is going to go wrong and have you thought about this and did you hear what they said about that and it’s a recession a recession a recession a recession a recession recession a recession a recession you have thought about Resurrection in about three months because all you’ve been reading about is recession so now that weasel got right in there in your space your little space where God does great things and he eats through the potential of what God speaks so what do you do with Louise so God said don’t eat it what do you do with the weasel God said put it off limits what do you do with those little thoughts that come up a million miles an hour and you know that’s a good question to be asking the enemy will weasel his way into your marriage he’ll weasel his way into your business get you to start cutting corners and stuff like that yeah I know how he works I’m a I’m a weasel expert we used to try to keep you from worshiping God and weasel the Lord said I’m gonna list a lot of things that will multiply rapidly in your life small things moving things Saras and I’ma show you what to do with them so I can keep doing big things God still has big things for me I felt chills on my body when I said it God still has big things for me things that are bigger than my intellect things that are bigger than my imagination exceedingly abundantly above all I ask or imagine the seed of God’s potential lives inside of me I say it again for the people who who really believe what the word of God says the seed of God’s potential lives in me I mean think about it here are people in Leviticus who have been through Egypt have been through the Red Sea who started with the man named Abraham all out of one man came millions of people because God said I will bless you and multiply you and Abram was waiting we preached about him for two weeks a while back we preached about him for two weeks how he was 99 and God gave him the promise when he was a hundred and I preached on keep it a hundred but can I keep it a hundred with you Abraham said my wife’s womb is as good as dead and so is my body and my body is as good as dead because I’m 99 but then something got inside of Abraham and kicked inside of Abraham because see the seed that was inside of him was greater than the limitation that was on him so something got inside of Abraham and he looked in the mirror but then he looked at the stars and he talked to himself and his situation but then he talked to God and God reminded him of the promise and Abram said I’m old but I’m not dead yet I think he said it with no teeth all right there he said I’m not dead yet I’m not dead yet I’m not done yet I’m Not Dead yet it’s not over yet I’m Not Dead God’s not done if I’m Not Dead God’s not done greater things are still to come do you believe it wow that was an amazing sermon if you hadn’t gone back and watched it if you didn’t know it’s on YouTube matter of fact all of the messages from Pastor Stephen you can find on YouTube and so go back watch them I don’t know about you but every single Sunday I actually watched the message two times I watched two times the first time I watch it for myself as a husband as a father just as a man I need to be able to take some time to see what does God want to speak to my life but not only that not only that I watched it the second time because I’m trying to figure out how am I going to reteach it how am I going to re-preach it and after pastor preached this sermon called bent knees breaks chains I went back and I began to read over and over and over again throughout the story of Joseph and God just really ministered to my soul I love how Pastor it just gives us a fresh take on so many stories that maybe you’ve read over and over and over again but in this message every reminded us that life happens sometimes we go through things that are difficult we have loved ones in our lives that are struggling that are hurting that are maybe maybe sitting in a hospital bed and in those moments sometimes you feel helpless sometimes I just get paralyzed because I feel like there’s nothing that I can do what I love about this message vent needs breaks chains it reminds me that yes God is in control but I’m responsible for my posture and Pastor in this message he gets right on his knees and he demonstrates that it’s bent knees that breaks chains now I will either stay chained to the event or I’ll make a decision to fix my posture when Pastor said that it really spoke to me because it lets me lets me know that that I can do something I can focus I can worship I can lean into the presence of God I can get some people around me to support me and encourage me and then God will do what only he can so here’s one of my favorite moments from this message Vietnamese brace chains and Joseph has a decision to make and he does it like this I’m not God and in the moment of decision he takes a posture as the second most powerful man in the land he takes his posture to say God has been I wonder what would look like for you to have this mentality to say God put me here for a purpose and I’m submitting everything that’s happened to me to God I’m gonna do I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna put myself in a position on my knees before God I never come to preach to you if I can help it that I don’t do this even if it’s for 10 seconds before I Round the Corner because a lot of times the way that I’ll preach stuff will be just be coming to me to the last minute and I’m literally like but I try I try every time to take one minute by myself and say God when I get out there today and there’s there’s people out there whose parents abandoned them there’s people out there who were molested there’s people out there who are going through the most scary medical situation in their life or their kids are there’s people out there who have no idea how they’re going to catch up on four months worth of mortgage there are people out there today who need you and I can only meet that need on my knees and it reminds me that if I do this I can do this [Applause] because see power that you it’s not in me but if I go to the one who has all power and all authority and I get down low and I say God I lift my eyes to the hills where does my help come from my help comes from you I know bent knees can break things I know one word from almighty God one breath from the spirit of I feel Chase breaking right now I feel burdens lifting right now I feel shackle second on Prison floors and prison doors flying open right now foreign [Applause] God does that [Applause] what you did to me was bad what happened to me is bad what I’m going through is bad but if I Blame You then my blame will become bitterness and my bitterness will become bondage not your bondage it will be my bondage so I either get to stay chained to the events or I get to make a decision this is where God brought you to this is why you logged on this is why they sent you the link this is why you came to church you thought you decided to come to church you’re crazy God sovereignly brought you to church you had 10 excuses not to come what didn’t fit and I have nothing to wear but here you are it’s a size too small but you can’t why for this moment God wanted you to know you are in an important moment of your life and if you do this come on every athlete knows you can’t hit a golf ball good if you don’t bend your knees that’s where your power comes from you can’t shoot a basketball right if you don’t bend your knees that’s where your accuracy comes from you can’t do a takedown standing up straight there’s no division one Wrestling champions that stand up straight talk why are you fighting your battles like this when God gave you this this is how I fight my balance devil watch me surrender to God cause beneath breaks you can’t do it in your own strength if you could you would have by now but God brought you to your knees as he’s breaking some generational change I feel the Holy Ghost come Lord come Lord break those chains break it break it break it break it break it break it break it break it the past has no power over you the blood of Jesus speaks up better I break it in the name of Jesus okay bent knees breaks chains you gotta listen to chat there go and catch that message because just a clip like that it’s not enough you gotta catch the whole thing okay one of the things I love so much that we get to do as a church is see how far these sermons reach now back in September we were able to share a story with you about one of our family members in the DMV area now I’m sure you remember this because all I heard was so many people said man we love Leon that message was so good that video is so good and so today we wanted to bring Leon here to share a little bit of how messages have impacted him so we don’t have him in the room but we’ve got them right here so Leon thank you for joining us thank you for being a part of Elevation Church we love that it’s not buildings we talk about that all the time it’s not buildings here at elevation it’s people and from where you are you’ve been impacted by messages so why don’t you share with the church family a message that has meant a lot to you you this year well thanks Pastor Chad for having me uh there’s so many messages of course that resonate with me but there was one particular message that uh Pastor Stephen preached back in April I believe and the name of the message was the facts aren’t final and one of the things that Pastor encouraged us and this message was that most of the time or some of the time the things that we struggle with in our faith I actually have nothing to do with the Enemy and have nothing to do with an attack but it is some things that happen with our friends and some of those things are actually facts and because they’re facts they scare us but he encouraged Us in this message that as long as we remain faithful and continue to believe God that those things that we struggle with that are facts are not going to put a limitation on God but if we continue to worship and we continue to believe that those things will begin to be a blessing in our lives and I’m so grateful for that message it impacted me because I was going through something at that time and it really spoke to my heart well uh Leon you’re preaching it you might as well keep going okay no we’re gonna share it with you though the facts aren’t final take a look it’s kind of our junk drawer to say I’m just under attack it’s not always an attack no it’s not it is sometimes it’s not always an attack and it’s not always the enemy because I know the devil is a liar even when I believe him something in me kind of knows called the holy spirit this is not true so the devil’s lives are one thing but look at the passage with me in verse 35 it doesn’t say that the devil told Jairus a bad report it says that while Jesus was speaking follow me some people came from jairus’s own house people who worked for him and they told him your daughter is dead and then they asked him why bother the teacher anymore notice what they call Jesus the teacher because to them that’s all he was they didn’t believe in him yet he hadn’t died yet he hadn’t risen yet these were not Believers in Jesus these were members of the synagogue who were still making up their mind about Jesus so when they call him the teacher they’re not lying but they are limiting because if all he is is a teacher then why are you still standing here listening to him with this crowd you need to get home your daughter’s dead and you are needed for the funeral arrangements because in Jewish custom there would be mourners that would come in two flutes and one there would be at least four people if you were poor imagine how many people were filling jairus’s house at that moment to mourn the death of his daughter and if all he is is a teacher we’re wasting time so when they call him a teacher and they say your daughter’s dead notice this they are not the enemy these are his friends and this is not a lie but it is a limitation now sometimes the devil will just outright lie to you you can feel it when it comes on you’re worthless you’re a piece of crap you suck bad word bad word bad word bad word that’s the devil calling you stuff that you know God doesn’t see you as that right and so then you just rebuke the devil ah God rebuke you devil you’re so crazy you think I’ma listen to this trash talk you think I’m really just gonna drive my car into another car right now feel so bad about myself I’m in my life come on devil you’re crazy I rebuke you Satan in the name of the Lord the blood of Jesus against you Satan and all of these things you can do when it’s the enemy when it’s an attack but in this case it’s not the enemy and it’s not an attack it’s his friends and it’s a fact some of the stuff that you’re fighting with in your faith right now it’s not a lie and that’s what makes it so scary it’s a fact I can’t just pray everything away by denial and close my eyes and wait for the Rapture the facts are the facts but are you feeding more facts to your spirit than you are Faith to your spirit I love that sermon so much and if we’re all really honest with ourselves we can find a little bit of Jairus in each of us and what I mean by that is maybe you’ve come through a situation or maybe you’re currently in a situation where the facts are challenging your faith okay and that looks like different things like we’ll ask ourselves questions like why am I here how did I get here God do you even hear me or care about what I’m going through but the one thing that I know can be fact checked is that God is always bigger than our circumstances okay and here’s the thing this passage of scripture comes from Mark chapter five and it is like the gift that keeps on giving because we got to hear not one but two sermons from this passage of scripture because just a few weeks later Pastor Holly preached a sermon called waiting on my Miracle where we got to revisit the story of Jairus and this is such a great story of scripture that talks us through several different things but just maybe you remember but in case you don’t this is story where Jairus meets Jesus and his daughter is sick and he asks Jesus to heal his daughter a thing that we would all maybe be looking for what do you need healing and is this something that you’re willing to come and ask Jesus for but in route to go heal his daughter this other really popular Bible story comes up that you maybe know about or have heard about and this is the woman with the issue of blood and in the midst of Jesus going to heal jairus’s daughter well he ends up healing this woman and stopping to a dress her which is amazing right this is a good thing that’s happening but in the midst of this miracle happening the miracle that Jairus was hoping for ends up not happening because his daughter dies and here’s the thing we’ve all maybe probably had a dream a hope something that we were wishing for something that has died in our lives and I wonder what we do in those moments if you’re anything like me I’m a little embarrassed to admit this but I’m hoping I can be honest with you I get mad I get angry I shut down and I don’t always handle these situations in the best way but one thing that we learned in this Bible story is the example that Jairus set and this is what Holly preached about is what should we do whenever we’re waiting on a miracle and Holly says it best whenever she says if you stay close if you stay close you’ll come out stronger on the other side Holly preached about staying close to Jesus in the midst of waiting and then seeing what God can do through that because that’s where he reveals himself to us that’s where we grow in our faith is in those moments of waiting and walking close to Jesus I feel like I’ve talked enough enough about it I would love for us to be able to relive a little bit of this sermon so let’s take a look at this one of the greatest things that I’m learning about prayer is that I have to hold my list the things I want God to do how I want him to do it when I want him to do it I hold my list with a light grip because sometimes God’s gonna ask me to let go of my list but hold firm to my faith may not happen the way you thought it would but my faith is not in the list my faith is in my God who I believe is working all things for my good my faith is in the God who knows the number of hairs on my head my faith is in my perfect father who knows me better than I know myself all I have to do is stay close to him no matter how dark it gets and remember that he is with me you know that there is no Darkness you can experience that Jesus has not already felt Hebrews 4. tells us look at this I love this passage of scripture therefore since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven Jesus the son of God let us hold firmly to the faith we profess for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are yet he did not sin let us then approach God’s throne of grace with with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find Grace to help us in our time of need Jesus experienced every grief and every Temptation he is the true friend the true empathizer our heavenly father he actually went to all the schools he went to betrayal School he went to raise a child with special needs School he went to loneliness School and you can you can come to him [Applause] I’m telling you now you can come to him with confidence and while we wait for him to give us an answer we find so much more we find Grace and we find Mercy in our time of need it’s in the waiting that we get to know him better we find out that he’s not just a God who heals but he is a God who is with us in our pain and in our confusion and in our frustration and in our disappointment and he stands by he never left he’s with you he stands by ready with the grace that you need for each moment and when I think of the darkest seasons in my life the seasons of my life when you wake up in the morning and for a brief second you forget everything that you’re going through have you ever been there and then all of a sudden the pain and the realization of what’s going on and the fear sets in in those moments what I remember most from those seasons it’s the tangible presence of God if I didn’t stay close to him I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed if I didn’t stay close to him I wouldn’t have made it through the day and no I wouldn’t have chosen those situations in those seasons but I’m here to tell you today if you stay close you’ll come out stronger on the other side one of the sermons that deeply impacted me this year was one that Pastor titled my future is my focus I honestly believe there may not be a better word for us as we start a new year than this one right here because of course at the start of another calendar year many of us see this time as an intersection of what we’re choosing to leave behind in the previous season and what we’re stepping into in this next one so the passage pastor preached from was Genesis 49 and 50 which is toward the end of Joseph’s story and at this point the Book of Genesis has covered 40 Years of Joseph’s faithfulness even though he was mistreated thrown into a pit even though he was put into prison lied about he didn’t let that take his purpose Pastor said you got to learn to interrupt what the enemy sent to destroy you and break it with a but God but I was so inspired by Joseph’s determination to not allow these things it could have kept him in bondage to keep him from his purpose in Genesis 50 Joseph’s father Jacob has just died and his brothers are scared that Joseph is going to hold a grudge against them and pay him back for all the wrongs that they did to him so they come to Joseph who at this point in his life is really powerful and he’s sitting in the court of pharaoh because God’s blessed him but his brothers throw themselves at his feet and they’re scared about his response and Joseph responds in a way that only someone who’s chosen to stay focused on their purpose could he says don’t be afraid you intended to harm me but God intended it for good and I want my life to be marked by that same Heavenly perspective and so we just prophesied that same over you in this new year that you’ll focus on what matters that your focus will be fixed on the truth that Christ is in you and that is enough and when the enemy tries to attack you with shame or condemnation you’ll hit back with but God who is rich in Mercy has made me alive in Christ when the same old hurt and bitterness tries to fight for all your attention you’ll remember Joseph’s words you intended to harm me but God intended it for my good in the clip we want to show you now Pastor Stephen has just pulled a few of our campus pastors up with him on stage to help demonstrate what it takes to keep your focus and I want to show you that now telling God you’re worthless is an insult to the word that he spoke over you and it is the opposite of worshiping God to tell him how worthless you are because the focus is on you [Applause] so watch this watch this this is a chain and what it becomes is terrible but it becomes bitterness and now you’ve got bondage walk with it for me in your own life something bad happens oh that’s horrible I didn’t get to finish because of them they weren’t there for me I mean if we just named everything that’s in this room forget about all over the world if we just named everything that’s in this room if we name everything bad that happened in this room I wouldn’t get to preach another sermon until 2064. all right I wouldn’t get to preach if we spent the rest of this day we would spill over into tomorrow and then yet Joseph after after everything he’s been through Genesis 50 20 put it on the screen you intended to harm me and that’s all he said about that that’s freedom hold on he wasn’t in denial either because he’s still wept there was a process he didn’t say it the next day he didn’t say it in the pit he didn’t say it in the back of the Caravan as he’s being being sold and chained but at some point his perspective became but God [Applause] so you break it with a butt let me show you again y’all I got the I got the remedial class the summer school in here today I’m gonna show you again you intended to harm me that was bad now I could blame you I could be bitter about it and I could spend the rest of my life but God show you again so again get back together let me show you again let me show you till you see yourself interrupting what the enemy said to destroy you and you could break it with a butt God you can break it [Applause] so I’m looking now now I’m looking my future is my focus so I’m looking for everything in my life that has to be in bondage and I’m looking to put a butt right here to see what God is gonna do next I need 30 of y’all I need 30 people in a ham and B3 [Music] some praise God that’s the power to break it it’s in your praise in your perspective in your purpose get together that’s how you break a chain that’s a they left me but God has somebody else for me [Applause] they hurt me but God healed me he’s healing me right now somebody say it in the chat but God but God I feel like preaching in this room today like God is freaking safe I’m serious y’all you can break it with a [ __ ] we were dead in our sin but God you meant it for evil but God the weapon was formed against me but it didn’t Prosper cause I’m still breathing living walking talking moving but God [Music] but God [Applause] break that thing I can break that thing you break it before it breaks you you hear me you break it before it breaks you New Year same God I hope that this encouraged you I hope that today you’re walking away with a sense of gratitude for what God has done in your life and a feeling of expectancy for what he’s going to do in the year ahead God came through last year God spoke last year and he’s going to come through again and he’s going to speak again this year if you missed any of the sermons that we talked about today and you were thinking that you would love to see the rest of it good news they’re all up on our Elevation Church YouTube channel or also available on the Elevation Church podcast the titles are all listed in the description below I also hope that today you’ll take a few minutes to reflect on the past year yes it’s important to set goals for the year ahead but before you do that take some time to look back at the faithfulness of God in your life in 2022 how did God provide for you who did God bring into your life who did he remove from your life what did God Speak to you this year if you’ll just start writing and reflecting on the presence of God in your life over the past year I know that you’re going to be overwhelmed with gratitude and excited about what’s ahead or maybe I should say excited about who is ahead with you he was with you in 2022 and he’ll be with you in 2023 and I have to say thank you to all of you who attend a location who watch every week who volunteer and who give Faithfully to this ministry Pastor Stephen and I counted a privilege that we get to do this every single week right alongside you let me pray for us Heavenly Father we thank you for your presence in our lives it is with gratitude that we look back and it is with excitement that we look ahead we know that whatever we will face in 2023 we do not have to face it alone you go before us you come behind us you’re with us every step of the way God we serve render our year and our lives to you and we ask that you not only be with us but that you use us For Your Glory thank you for our pastor may you continue to bless him and give him the words to speak to us each week thank you for this church it means so much to us we love you lord it’s in Jesus name we pray amen