We honor your presence, God. It's never an interruption to our plans to give you praise. Anytime we can make an altar and worship you, our sacrifice, it brings us joy. Lord, I thank you for a palpable sense of faith and expectation rooted in the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ today. I feel it in my bones. I sense it in my brothers and sisters who have gathered, and I speak it over everyone who may not be able to feel it right now that you are able to do immeasurably more. For every "I can't" we
have a Great I Am. Today we celebrate that all things are possible through you. Now, God, we're not going to stop worshiping. We might stop singing, but this service is just getting started. I thank you that there is a powerful, plowing word that has been planted in my spirit for this occasion, and I pray that today you would help me deliver it just how you would say it through my mouth, through my vocal cords, but your words, your thoughts, your heart. In Jesus' name, amen. Hug 17 people. Give them a big hug. Don't take your
seat yet. After you've given out all of the hugs you can stand, clap your hands and give God glory for bringing you through another day, another week. It feels kind of fired up today. It feels like we're getting a little pre-Elevation Nights anointing, Chris. You all's flows were ridiculous today. We're getting ready to head out to the West Coast. We're going to tell some liberals out there about Jesus. I'm just kidding. We love the West Coast. If you live in any of these cities, there are still some tickets available. Not many. You'll want to act
fast. We start on September 24, and we'll be out through October 3 in the following cities. Go to elevationnights.com. Seattle, Washington; Vancouver, BC; Sacramento, California; Los Angeles and Anaheim; Boise, Idaho… Are you shouting for Boise? That has never happened. Indeed, the Lord can do anything. That's crazy. I said, "LA." No shout. "Seattle." No shout. I said, "Boise…" Okay. That's what it's going to be like when we get to Boise. Remind me to drink a Celsius before we get to Boise, because they're fired up. And Salt Lake City and Denver, Colorado. If you want to come
to one, go and get a ticket and get a plane ticket and come on out. One day, when the Lord really blesses me, I'm going to load you all up on a plane, like Oprah did one time, and take you with us. Until then, you'll just have to pray for us. I also want to celebrate, because it's not a small thing, that over 1,000 people were baptized in our church last week. Incredible. If you knew the starting point of this ministry, you would know how much that means to me. That's amazing. I think one of
the reasons the worship is so powerful today… I think the ladies left some residual anointing from Reflect. One of our worship leaders said, "Leading worship in a room full of women is a cheat code." They're much more expressive. That's crazy to me, but it's absolutely amazing. Holly, God used you in a great way. Thank you for the word. Thank you for your vision, for your leadership, all of the moments that will continue to unfold because of the moment you made possible through your faith. We celebrate you. Today, I'm going to do my best to get
in the slipstream of what God spoke and preach a word to you today. I pray that you would lean in to receive it. Last week, when I left you, I left you in the muddy puddles of the Jordan River. Let's go back there for a moment from Joshua, chapter 4. I'll be sharing with you today from Joshua 4:15-5:1. I'll just take a moment to remember how much this meant to me when God showed it to me so I can preach it to you from that same place. The only reason I bring my notes up here…
Somebody asked, "Why do you take all of those notes up there? We don't see you look at them." It's true. I get into it, and I forget to look at the notes. At least seeing it reminds me how excited I was writing it, and then I can come at it and remember, when I was scribbling this, I was picturing us sharing in the Word together. What an honor to share God's Word with you today. I'm so thankful for the opportunity. Wherever you are, even if you're online today, the Word is no less effective, so get
ready to receive it. May this word reach you right where you are. Joshua 4:15: "Then the Lord said to Joshua…" Watch my hands. Picture this Scripture visually as well as verbally. Verse 16: "'Command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant law to come up out of the Jordan.' So Joshua commanded the priests, 'Come up out of the Jordan.' And the priests came up out of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord. No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their
place and ran at flood stage as before. On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan…" The Lord said to Joshua, Joshua said to the priests, and then the people went up. So watch. I'm doing like this. "…the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho." What do you know about Jericho? Walls do fall. But before the walls of Jericho can fall and before the battle of Jericho can be won, because this will be the first fight for the children of God
to occupy the Promised Land… Before their first fight, Joshua is setting the frame. Verse 20: "And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, 'In the future when your descendants ask their parents…'" We've gone from the Lord said to Joshua to Joshua said to the priests to the priests did it for the people. The people are doing something that will not even accomplish a purpose that may be seen in their own lives but in a generation that is yet to come. "In the future
when your descendants ask their parents, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them, 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.' For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this…" That's the best thing I've read in a long time. We were testifying last week. We were talking about Rescue Your Testimony. Rescue your testimony from the clutches of depression. Rescue your testimony
from the clutches of despair. Rescue your testimony from the regrets of your past. Testify to your neighbor. Say, "He did this." "I'm standing here because he did this." Come on, let's have a testimony service really quick. How many know God did? Let's practice. Let's see if you rescued your testimony last week. I'm going to ask you a question and you say what you think. Who opened your prison doors? God did? Then say it. Say, "God did." Who dried up your ocean floors? Think about that thing. Who saved you and set you free? Who gave you
victory? Who gave you another day? Who made you another way? Who gave you the breath to praise? Who gave you a brand-new name? Oh, somebody shout, "God did!" "He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God." The final verse I'm going to read, and then I'll tell you what we're going to talk about today, but we're already talking because God is speaking. "Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all
the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear…" It's no longer just the people of God who know who God is. It's the enemies too. "…and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites." Today, God wants to do something very special in your life. He wants to Reverse the Ripple. That's the word of the Lord. Father, as we declare it today, we walk in it, we stand in it, we decree it, and we believe it.
Most of all, we thank you for it, because only you could do it. In Jesus' name, amen. Reverse the Ripple. You will know what that means in about 32 minutes if I do my job. The Lord has some things he wants to turn around in your life. We're going to rescue our testimony, and God is going to reverse the ripple. I wish we could teach this on the lake. It would be a good illustration. How many of you like the lake? How many of you have a boat and you could take me out on the
lake? I'm going to hit you up. So, if we went out on the lake, I could demonstrate the ripple effect. You know what it is. It's when one thing happens and another thing happens and another thing happens. We use it metaphorically, but it would be good if we could be at the lake, because we could get a rock, and then we could drop the rock and we could watch the ripple, and then I could teach the lesson. I could say, "And just like this rock hit the water…" We wouldn't even have to get in the
water, because I know it's getting kind of cold. We could just do it from the shore right there in your boat. We could drop the rock, watch the ripple, and we could talk about how things in our lives happen that cause a ripple, and sometimes it's not even until you're living in the ripple that you realize the rock was dropped. If we're at the lake… And maybe you could have me a bottle of Diet Coke. (Don't text me about aspartame. I don't care. I've made peace with aspartame.) We would talk about the ripple effects of
decisions you and I have both made, words we've spoken. I could probably teach a whole leadership class just from a rock and a ripple. Many times, as a leader, I never saw myself as being that important, and I don't think I am important. I think God is important, but I think he uses people in important ways. I think when you speak for God, your words weigh more. Many times, I've said things to people in passing as a leader and forgot I said them, and they kept those things with them for three years, good and bad.
(I'm not going to take a long time with this setup, but I want us to get… We're at the lake. We dropped a rock. We see the ripple.) A lady one time told me she kept a voicemail I sent her when her husband died. She kept it for four years. I never met her. Before you get too impressed with me, because I don't just ride around leaving voice memos praying for people all the time, my kids have told me things I said that I said because they were true, but the way I said them, it
stuck with them in a way that they weren't ready to hear it like that. With all three of my kids and with my wife, I can go back to times where I spoke something, not realizing the weight of the rock I dropped and the ripple it caused for the person I spoke to. So, now I have to walk into situations and scenarios and take responsibility for my ripple. That's a whole word: take responsibility for your ripple. The things you just say in passing… "Oh, I'm just speaking my mind." Well, why don't you just speak your
mind inside? Do a little internal monologue and scream into your pillow, but make sure you respect your calling enough to take responsibility for your ripple. When the Lord said to Joshua, and Joshua said to the priests, and the priests led the people, and the people demonstrated God's faithfulness in a way that even impressed their enemies, we are watching the ripple effect of a revelation from God. The very fact that we are sitting here today, preaching about an incident that happened, an event that occurred this long ago, proves my point: the power of a ripple. The
ripple effect of your thoughts leading to your actions, leading to your habits, leading to your character, becoming concrete so that what you call destiny later was actually a decision when the rock was dropped. Yet wouldn't it be nice if life were as simple spiritually as it is physically? If we were at the lake doing this lesson, we could look at the rock, and we could predict within a few inches how big the ripple would be. If we had a few minutes, we could drop a little rock, a big rock, and a medium rock, and we
could start saying, "This one is going to ripple." I'm just saying the bigger the rock was, the bigger the ripple would be, physically. Spiritually, it's a little different. You never can tell, looking at the rock, how big the ripple is going to be. Not in the kingdom of God. So, Jesus walks around saying things like, "If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain." What kind of mustard seed moves a mountain? A supernatural one, one that has been watered by the Word of God, one that has been cultivated by a
heart of faith. What kind of lunch has the power to provide for the physical hunger of 5,000? You would think such a little lunch could maybe only feed a little boy, but when God gets it, the ripple becomes something you would have never realized. A rock in the hands of a shepherd should not bring down a nine-foot giant, but you can't tell the size of the ripple from the size of this rock if it's in God's hands. So, we came to remind the Devil today, "My rock might be little, but a little rock can make
a big ripple if God gets ahold of it." Let's switch this thing around. Let's stop looking at the size of our resource, the size of our strength, the size of our knowledge, the scope of our understanding to determine what God can do. Let's stop letting the waves of unbelief block us from the reality of the ocean of God's provision. Let's reverse the ripple. What I mean when I say, "Reverse the ripple…" Well, I mean a few things. Let me break it down a little bit. The first thing I mean by "Reverse the ripple" is instead
of starting with what you see, start with what God has said. That's life-changing right there, if you would start with what God said. Many times, we, like the nation of Israel in Joshua, chapter 4, come to places in our own lives where we need God to do something that if he doesn't do it… This is not like, "I need God to help me wake up on time." You can set an alarm clock for that. This is something different. One of the things I respect about the Bible is it will repeat something over and over again,
because we learn through repetition. If you look at Joshua, chapter 4, there are several times that God tells Joshua, "Take these stones out of the water." Kind of like they're building an altar. (Holly preached at Reflect on the altar. Go on her YouTube and watch that message, and wear your steel-toed boots, because she was stepping on our toes, but she did it so sweetly. She did it in ballet flats. It was unbelievable.) The Lord is telling Joshua, "Before you get to your first fight, I want you to approach it from a place of thinking about
your future." Now this is marvelous. Frame the fight you're facing from a place of future faith. That is often very hard because we're just in the moment. Remember, it's like that rock and that ripple. Knowing in the moment what the ripple is going to be… It's not always predictable in the spirit, is it? You came to church because she was cute and asked you to come. Then you messed around and got too close to the boat, and Jesus hooked you and pulled you in, and now you're one of us. Boy, God is tricky with that
ripple. You didn't even know. "I was just going to get her to shut up, and now I'm bringing people. I don't know what happened." Tell your neighbor, "It's the ripple." God will drop something. God will just put you somewhere. God will drop you somewhere. You will think you're there because it's a new job, and then you meet Gene. Gene is going through chemotherapy, and you went through chemotherapy. So now you minister to Gene out of what you went through so you can comfort him with the comfort by which you have been comforted. This is the
ripple. By the way, what if we did that more often? What if we started asking, "God, what do you want to do not just for me but through me? God, who can I touch? You touched me. Who can I help? You healed me. Who can I be a blessing to? You blessed me." When are you going to hand somebody a $50 bill one time instead of waiting on one? When will you be the ripple? Now, this is not my message so pace yourself. I'm just setting up this idea of Reverse the Ripple. I have learned
in my life that if I do not consider causes, I will spend my life chasing consequences. Consider the cause or you will spend the rest of your life managing consequences. Consider the cause or you can spend the rest of your life looking for tips on TikTok for how to be more peaceful. But after you have done everything TikTok told you to do… I mean, you could do everything. You could walk backward barefoot on the grass, sipping a protein smoothie with collagens in the smoothie. You could do all of that. You could do red light, blue
light, black light, strobe light. You can do all of the lights on your face. You can do all of it. You can meditate. You can pontificate. You can bloviate. You can hyperventilate. You are not getting peace until you consider the source. You can get all of the tips you want, but until you get the truth, you will not come through this Jordan. Here's what I'm trying to say. You can't fix the ripple until you find the rock. I think a lot of religion is ripple management, behavior modification, empty tradition. "God, I promise I'll never do
it again until 3:30, and it's 3:25 right now." That's ripple management. That's white knuckling, not worship. Ripple management cannot bring you to a place of restoration. It can only bring you to a place of relief temporarily. So, what are the areas in your life right now where you are trying to fix ripples, but you don't even know what rock was dropped that caused it to begin with? This is like quoting Bible verses on top of trauma you won't deal with. This is like switching friend groups every time they see what's really secret and hidden in
you and call it out and confront it. It's going to get quieter and quieter. It's going to be a reverse ripple today. Usually we start small and get big. We're going the other way today. We're reversing the ripple today until we get down to what is the thing that was dropped that caused you to do it. "What was dropped that caused me to do it? Why did I lose my temper?" "Because they're annoying." Really? The people at work were annoying, but you didn't go off on them because you knew you couldn't get away with it.
You went off on them at home not because they're annoying but because you know they'll forgive you. The real rock that made you do it was the fact that you don't take responsibility for it. Until we get real about this stuff, we will spend our entire lives riding the waves of our ripples, going, "I'm so anxious. I'm so anxious. I'm so anxious." Well, cut your thumb off. Jesus said it'd be better to lose your whole hand than go to hell. I'd rather fix it where the rock dropped than live the rest of my life frustrated
by the ripples of it. You say, "This is just an Old Testament story." Are you absolutely crazy, out of your mind, ridiculous? Do you not understand this is the entire thread of the New Testament? It is law versus grace. It is us never really understanding… I hope to come back to this in a moment if this sermon comes full circle. Speaking of full circle, there is a place called Gilgal in Joshua, chapter 4. If you've never heard of it, you can be forgiven, but the word Gilgal actually means circle. Isn't it interesting in a passage
that demonstrates the power of "The Lord spoke to Joshua, Joshua spoke to the priests, the priests spoke to the people, the people did what God told them, and it was a demonstration to the nations that didn't even know God…" Isn't it interesting that circle after circle after circle after concentric circles…? Let us not forget about the circle of the generation that isn't even old enough to ask the question yet that is being affected by their faith or lack thereof. Which brings us back to the Red Sea, which was the central motif of Israel's identity. Now,
Brueggemann says it is the… I think his exact wording is the primal narrative, but I like to simplify things, so core story. Is that better? Primal narrative. It sounds like you have to pay to hear about something like that, and you didn't pay anything to get in here today. So core story. When God brought them through the Red Sea was their core story. In fact, even when Joshua says, "Go get some rocks to tell your kids what God did…" Why would he think like this? Surely you have more important things to do. Namely, when they
get to Gilgal, they have to cut off everybody's foreskin, because none of these people had been circumcised yet. I'm not going to illustrate how this whole text is circular. This all has to happen at Gilgal, but before you get to Gilgal, before you go to Jericho, before you even get to the place of cutting away that's going to happen before you go in, get some rocks to tell your kids what God did. I like that. And you're going to tell them what God did, not what you did. All you did was walk. Y'all, we take
too much credit sometimes. I saw you hustle and grind on Instagram, but I also saw you hide and grumble and groan and grieve. I saw all of that too. The real testimony of it from my life is what God did. I want to thank our creative team for the video they showed earlier in the service of the ripple effect of this ministry. Thank you. That was excellent. That was well done. It wasn't bragging on us, but it was showing the people that all the way from Ballantyne to Boise to Botswana… I'm going to show you
something that's going to blow your mind. I got teary on the front row. I said, "Furtick, keep it together. Save your emotion for when you get up there. Do not leak this thing out on the front row." I'm like, "But, God, this is touching me right now." He said, "Stuff it down and share it with them." So here's what it is. You said "Woo!" when I said, "Boise," and there was somebody on the video who said they were from Botswana, and we're here at Ballantyne. It took me back to just yesterday, a story I was
telling my son on the second row because he asked me something about the early days of this church. He asked me something about the phase when we were just moving here and we only had our core team. He asked me something about the way it is now and the way it was then and going out to minister to people all over the world and the reach and the ripple of the ministry. He didn't say "ripple," but that's what we were talking about. I was sitting there talking to him, and I said, "I'm sorry. I have
to compose myself for a minute, because this conversation takes me back to how before I would come out to our team and tell them, 'We're going to reach the world. We're going to touch the world. God is going to use us. God is going to do something. It's going to be amazing…'" It takes me back to how before I would go and boldly speak to them, I would sneak into the bathroom and lock myself in the stall, and I would fight back my own reflex to walk out, because how could I walk out and tell
them this when I was wondering, "Did I mislead all of them? Can we really do this?" I stood at a Jordan and I thought God spoke, but sometimes you think it and don't feel it when it comes time to do it. I locked that stall, and I said, "God, if it's going to happen, it's going to have to be you. When I tell my kids one day from Ballantyne what you did all the way to Boise, what you did all the way to Botswana… When I tell my children what a faithful God you've been…" Truer
words have never been spoken. My stones will tell my story. My sleepless nights will give way to a new day, and my stones will tell my story. We'll shout at Ballantyne, we'll shout in Boise, we'll shout in Botswana, and we'll shout until you get the breakthrough! We're going to turn this thing around right now. You keep talking about how big these Amalekites are, how big these Canaanites are. We need to reverse this ripple. It doesn't start with the size of the Canaanites; it starts with the size of the God you serve. I have a big
God. I have a good God. I keep telling God how big it is. I want to tell it how big… If you saw my God, you'd understand my shout. Shout now like you need a wall to fall! Shout like Boise! High-five your neighbor and say, "Reverse it." When you rehearse it you reverse it. When you tell him how you locked yourself in the bathroom stall, you'll remember that there is no space too tight, no mountain too high, no need too great, no ravine too dry for God to show up and do what God does. He
did it at the Red Sea. He did it at the Jordan. He's doing it in you right now, but it will be by faith. Who did God set me on fire for today that you need to reverse the ripple? Every time you think about the court case, you go into panic attacks. Think about the Judge and give it over to him and you're going to be all right, baby boy. Every time you think about it, it sends a ripple. It sends you into fear. It sends you into self-loathing. It sends you into hiding. It sends
you back to drugs. It sends you back to sex you shouldn't be having with people who are the ripple of a decision you made that you never would have made had you been in your right place and your right mind. We have to find the rock or we can't fix the ripple. Why I think Joshua was so intentional in this moment and why God is so intentional with you and why he is revealing things even now for you is because for 40 years, the story was told. Watch this. "We went through the Red Sea." We
clap when we talk about that. They cried. After they got through the Red Sea, they stopped, and I'd like to show you why. When Numbers, chapter 13, gets to verse 31, it's kind of a battle of opinions, kind of like you have going on in the world right now, everybody shouting about everything and making a bunch of noise. A whole lot of ripple, not a lot of revelation. When Caleb stood up, he was like, "Shut up. We can do it," because they were about to go into the Promised Land. That's the saddest thing to me.
When Holly was preaching… They built the altar, God gave them the Ten Commandments, and then they went into the wilderness for 40 years. Why? Ripple. Numbers 13:31: "But the men who had gone up with [Caleb]…" The only ones who said, "We can do it" were Joshua and Caleb. The 10 others said, "We can't attack those people…" That's why I had y'all singing, "I can't do it, but the Great I Am can" earlier. That's why we wrote that, so you can acknowledge it. "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." Now watch what
happens. Verse 32: "They spread among the Israelites a bad [ripple]." A bad report. Bad reports have ripples. "…a bad report about the land they had explored." About what God wanted to give them, about the size of the giants. "They said, 'The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.'" Why in the world would you start with your eyes if
you're receiving God's promise? I told you at the beginning of my sermon it's what you see and what God says. God said you can have it and you see that you can't. Which one is your rock? What are you building on? Verse 31: "They are stronger than we are." That's true. The disease is stronger than your body right now. That is true. The shame is real because the event really happened. That's true. The guilt is real because you really would have done it differently. That's true. All of that is true, but it's not your starting
place. This is a principle I want you to receive from the Word of the Lord today. If you start with your strength, you end in defeat. If you start with your strength, if you start with your smarts, if you start with your anything, you end in defeat, because you run out. Reverse the ripple. Start with God. Tell your neighbor, "I'm a name dropper." Tell them, "I don't mean it how you think I mean it." Tell them, "But I know the Great I Am, so whatever I'm not, he is. I don't start with who I am;
I drop the name of the Great I Am." That's good right there. That's good like syrup right there. When you put the name of your God, the promise of your God on the thing you're facing, it reverses not necessarily the situation, but it taps you into his strength. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." So, I am not starting with my strength. Stop waking up in the morning and discerning what you can do today based on how strong you feel when you wake up. You have to reverse that. No, no. The first
thing I'm doing when I wake up in the morning is not consulting my stress level. My stress level will keep me under all of these sheets, but at some point, I have to throw off the covers. I have to stand up on my feet. I have to declare that what God called me to do today will be done today, what he called me to do tomorrow can wait till tomorrow, and what he never called me to do somebody else can do, because I am not responsible for their ripple. You cannot fix the ripple until you
find the rock. The problem with God's people in this passage has really not changed very much at all. They have allowed their identity to become filtered through an event. "We stayed in the wilderness because of an event. We did not have our confidence because we came from Egypt where we were slaves." But slavery was the event, not the identity. Somebody right now who has been divorced, somebody right now who has had an abortion, somebody right now who tried to take their own life, somebody right now who has never been able to hold down a job,
somebody right now who has never been able to be good with money… Those are events. They are not identities. Identities come from within. It is Christ in you the hope of glory. He is your rock. For everybody who has ever been rejected, let me jump a few centuries to 1 Peter 2:7 where Peter quotes the prophet, saying, "Now to you who believe, this stone…" We're talking about stones. Right? "…this stone [being Christ] is precious. But to those who do not believe, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.'" Stop living in the ripple of
their rejection. They are not your rock. To the point that human ingenuity is so limited that they tried to throw Jesus away. They rejected the stone God built the whole thing on. God is my rock. But first, something must happen at this place where your feet are right now. Something must happen at the place where you've stalled out. Something must happen at the place where you laid down. Something must happen at the place where you remain uncircumcised. Something must happen. Isn't it amazing how almost everything with God is opposite? A cross brings life. What? A
cross is gruesome. A cross is death. No, a cross is glorious. Rocks bring down giants. I'm going to tell you one more thing just to throw it in, because I feel like it's for somebody, and I don't know who it's for. I don't want to miss it. How fast the ripple happens doesn't always tell you how far it's going to go. Some things in your life are going slow because God is building something that's really, really big. This ripple may start slow, but it may spread wide. You don't know. Somebody packed that little boy's lunch
that he fed to the crowd that day. You might be a mom packing a lunch that we're going to be talking about in Boise, Ballantyne, and Botswana. That's the ripple. That's how God does it. He takes something as simple as a stone. I love him, because sometimes the smallest pebbles have the greatest purpose. There was a widow in church one day. She put two mites, two coins, in the offering. Jesus said, "That's the biggest ripple that has been put in that temple today." All of the rich people didn't ripple at all. Jesus saw that little
pebble and said, "That's all she has right there." Do you see how the smallest pebble can serve the biggest purpose? Do you see how the smallest rock, if the right guy has it, with just enough rotations…? Boom! We are preaching about him every Sunday. There's not a Sunday that goes by that I don't tell you David killed Goliath. Little pebble, big purpose. Yet we want to look at Joshua 4:20, because this one is a little different. He said, "Take the 12 stones out of the Jordan." Normally, a ripple happens when you throw a stone in,
but this ripple is in reverse. "You're going to tell your children what I did." You think a ripple only happens when a stone is thrown in, but this ripple… After all I've been through, after all I've seen God do, after all of the reasons I shouldn't be here… This ripple is not going to happen because of a stone you threw in; it's going to happen because of a stone you take out. There are some ripples that can only happen through removal. Get it out. All that bitterness…get it out. All that regret…get it out. All that
bias, all that judgment, all that prejudice, all that insecurity…get it out. This ripple… The first shall be last and the last shall be first. They who sow in tears will reap in joy. This ripple is in reverse. You keep waiting for God to put something in, but God said, "I will reveal it when you remove it." God removes to reveal. God wants to show you through this story. God wants to show you through this moment. God wants to show you through what you call a burden. God wants to show you through what you can't carry.
God wants to show you through what you can't do. God is even using your enemies to cause you to depend on him. This ripple is in reverse. Don't wait for something else to come. Take that thing out that is keeping you from believing what he spoke. If it's an addiction, it has to go. If it's pride, it has to go. If it's your thoughts of yourself, it has to go. If it's your need to be right, it has to go. Every stone must go. This woman of God confirmed my message. She preached on altars. She
talked about rocks. I was already getting ready to preach. She talked about rocks, and then she went home and sent a verse to our Bible club. We've been going through the book of Ezekiel. I wanted to say, "Stuck in the weird part of the book of Ezekiel," but that sounds sacrilegious. The reason y'all don't think it's weird is because y'all don't read it. Judge me all you want. You can't condemn me. It was 1:30 in the morning. She had preached from Reflect. She had poured her heart out, and she said, "I've got to go do
my key verse," because we swap around and do the key verse. I said, "I'll do it for you today, babe. I can do this for you." I was going to ChatGPT a little bit and send it over. But she said, "I'm going to go do it," and she sent it to me. She sent Ezekiel 11:19, and the Lord said, "Now you know I have the right message for you about removing the rocks." The prophet said, "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart
of stone." Now I can fix the ripple because I found the rock. It has been my hard heart. The nature of the Lord is that he removes to reveal. Verse 20 says, when he does that, when he gives you this Jesus heart, this heart that is sensitive to the ways of grace; this heart that knows you need him; this heart that knows he did it, not you; this heart that remembers that you are in the bathroom stall long before you are in Boise; the heart that remembers the Lord did this and that he's bigger than
our enemies… That heart, that heart of flesh, that heart that is justified only by Jesus, made righteous only through him, his blood, his Word, his covenant, his water… Verse 20: "Then they will follow my decrees…" Watch the ripple. "When I remove it, then they will follow." "…and be careful to keep my laws." Stay with me for one more minute. There is one more story that has nothing to do with Jordan Rivers. It is in John's gospel. The Lord alerted it to me as a confirmation and a word for those who are struggling with shame, condemnation,
rejection, and guilt, and it has been ripping through your sanity. It has been ripping through your relationships. It has been ripping through your professional life. It has been ripping through every part of your life. What's going to happen if we don't share this story right now is you're going to think the point of my message is that you have to pick up a big, heavy stone and carry it and show God you really mean it this time, but those are religion ripples. We're dealing with rocks today. When Jesus walked the earth, he did something very,
very interesting, because he was the Rock. He demonstrated something one day in an unlikely way. John 8:3 says they brought a woman who was caught in adultery. I think that has a double meaning. I think "She was caught" means they saw her doing it. I also think it means she didn't want to do it. She was caught. I think when we get caught usually we were caught. It's not that we wanted to do it. I wonder what rocks were dropped in her life to cause this ripple. Nobody wanted to know that, did they? No. They
just brought her, charged her, and made her stand before the group. Verse 4: "…and said to Jesus, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.'" How right they were. "In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women." I just told you an event is not an identity. She's not a "such woman." Who in the world do you think you are labeling people according to their worst mistake and lowest moment? I'm about to show you what Jesus thinks about this and for when you label yourself. "So we have to stone her. Right? What
do you say?" Isn't that crazy how our text in Joshua had a question? "What do these stones mean?" Now you have a group of people, probably men… The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were men, and they want to stone the woman because they put her identity through the grid of the event. So, here's where we are. Here's where you are. You've been there. You might be there right now. "What do you say? What do these stones mean? What do you see?" Let's see how the Rock responds to their rocks. Verse 6: "They were
using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him." A trap. They're trying to trip him up, but he's the Rock. He's not going to trip over what he is. A stumbling block or a cornerstone. It all depends on how you see him. "…in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger." Maybe he's writing her a new story. Maybe he's writing a new chapter. Maybe he's writing something that she's going to do. Maybe he's writing down all
of their sins, because watch this. Watch what happened when he did. Verse 7: "When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said, 'Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'" Watch what God does when they go to throw their rocks. Watch what he does the next time guilt tries to tell you that you can never recover. Watch what God does the next time you try to go back to your past and imprison yourself over something everybody else has forgiven but you. Verse 8 says
as they circled around her, he again stooped and wrote on the ground. "At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time…" This is comical. "…the older ones first…" If he was writing their sins in the dirt, the ones who had lived the longest had the most ripples. So they took off running, because "I have ripples." If we really started listing what you've been through, you wouldn't be commenting on anybody else's Instagram, would you? I'm talking about the Rock. Not their rocks…the Rock. He got down on the ground and began to write,
and they all started leaving. Watch this. "…until only Jesus was left…" Because only Jesus was right. Until the only one right was the only one left. The only one who had the right to throw a stone… He didn't throw it; he took it. You tell me about your sin. Let me tell you about his grace. "Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that can pardon and cleanse within, grace that is greater than all my sin." My sin sent a ripple, and his righteousness sent forgiveness. My sin sent a ripple, but his death sent a different message to
my shame. The Bible says it was just Jesus and her. He looked around, like he didn't know, and asked her a question. "Woman, where are they?" "Oh, they didn't throw their rocks? That's because I am your Rock. You let me defend you. You let me vindicate you. You let me justify you." Do you hear me? You don't even have to prove it to them. Stop posting to prove it and pray about it. Get down on your knees with Jesus and let him restore your reputation. You'll walk differently. While you're trying to fix the ripple, he's
trying to get you to drop the rocks. I love what he gave her as a gift in verse 11, and I give it to you as I close today. He looked all around, and all of the rocks were gone but one. Then he told her, "Now that we got rid of their rocks, let's get rid of yours." He said, "You can go now and leave your life of sin." You keep trying to fix the sin. That's the ripple. But when he removes the stone, when he takes that hard place away… In fact, right now, I
want us to stand to our feet and lift our hands to the Lord. Just do it. Quit being so stubborn about surrendering to God. Quit letting that heart of stone tell you what to do and when to do it. There are some things that can happen in a moment in the presence of God that can ripple back to your home. Do you know that? If you just get this word from God and feel an emotion, great. If I can give you one hour to escape the hell you have to go through, I'll show up and
do it, but what if we could send a ripple? What if in this moment you dropped some rocks today? I know we keep waiting for something else to come, another blessing, another opportunity, but the Lord gave me a different message today. He said we're reversing the ripple. We are not starting with what is coming in; we are starting with what is coming out. I call you out today…out of fear, out of bondage, out of shame, out of it. Come out! Come out, heart of stone. Come out until the only one left is the only one
right. Listen to me. What God says about you is right. Everything else is wrong. What you call yourself is wrong. What you thought your life was supposed to be is wrong. Who you thought was supposed to still be in your life right now was wrong. He's right. I hear "Same God" in my spirit. O God, my God, I need you, O God, my God, I need you now How I need you now… I reckon this is why I heard it, this line right here. O Rock, O Rock of ages, I'm standing on your faithfulness… Stay
right there. We're going to go back into the bridge in a minute, but we're going to hit verse 24 one more time. You tell them what God did. The central event of your life was not a failure; it was a cross. Your core story, your primal narrative… Your rock is a stone that was rolled away. Now (this is the reverse ripple) the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. You can build your life on him. He removes to reveal. He reveals to restore. The word restore must literally mean re-story, a new story. When
the stone goes, the new story comes. So, I'll give you this and I'll get out of your way. He said, "What I did at the Red Sea you weren't ready for yet, and you stayed stuck in that regret for so long. The bad report rippled through 40 years of wilderness living, but now I want you to take a stone with you, because you are going into a season where I am rolling away your regrets. I am rolling away your reproach. I am cutting away your flesh." Who opened your prison doors? God did. Who dried up
your ocean floors? God did. Who raised you up from the dead? God did. Who justified, redeemed you, called you, created you, and breathed the very breath of life into you? So, if he did it then… you heard your children then you hear your children now you are the you are the same you don't hold it back and you will let it flow let it flow you are the same God let it flow you are the same new flow unlocked right now new flow you are providing then you are providing now you are the the same
God this is a holy moment now you are the same God you moved in power come on let's take it up higher let's take it up higher you are the same God you are and the Lord says it's your Jordan year it's your Jordan year it's your Jordan year are the yes it is you are the same heard it right it's your Jordan here it's your Jordan here you're the same God call on your rock you are call on your rock oh God my God I need you God my God I need you now how
I need you hey thank you for watching the Elevation Church YouTube I want you to subscribe that way you can know when we go live and post new content make sure leave me a comment let me know what spoke to you today where you're watching from and what we can pray for you about and if you'd like to support the ministry financially you can click the give button now and help us continue reaching people around the world for Jesus Christ thanks again I'll see you next time
