He is Exalted

Hello everyone. My name is Pastor roderick caesar the third on the lead Pastor of Bethel Gospel Tabernacle in Jamaica queens, new york. And my prayer is that you would be blessed. You would be encouraged and strengthened by this word. Hope you enjoy God bless praise the Lord everyone. Um, I’m so grateful to be in the house of God to be able to share with you today. Today, I’d like to speak about higher ground being on higher ground. Uh, if you have your bibles turn with me to the book of psalm. Chapter 61 Psalm. Chapter 61 Yeah, We’ll be reading all eight verses and I’m going to begin. Mhm David writes, hear my cry, Oh God and listen to my prayer from the end of the earth. I will call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I for you have been my refuge. A strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings, sila for you. Oh God have heard my vows. You have given me the inherited the heritage of those who fear your name. Prolong the life of the king. May his years endure to all generations. May he be enthroned forever before God appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him. So I will ever sing praises to your name, as I perform my vows day after day. That’s all. I truly believe that God wants to take us to new heights in him, New heights in him heights that we could not reach on our own. God wants to take us higher. God wants to take us higher. He wants to grow us higher in him, lift us up as we follow him. It’s not easy. It’s not easy. But there is a higher ground that the Lord is calling us to whenever the Lord calls us higher we sometimes get excited, we say yes, it’s gonna be great, we’re gonna do this. We only think of the elevation but we sometimes fail to think of what that actually means and how it will actually look in our lives. So the question is it’s not easy but there is a higher ground that God is calling us to. The question is are we willing to do what it takes to get there? Let’s pray. Dear God, I thank you so much for this time. I thank you for this message. I thank you for your people. I pray right now that as I speak you would be seen you would be heard, you would be felt and do what only you can do in the lives of your people through this message. Through your word, I pray Lord that you would give strength to those that are weak. Father. That you would give boldness to those that are fearful Lord. That you would bring joy to those that are downcast. That you would bring hope to those that feel hopeless. I thank you and I praise you for this word. I thank you and praise you for this time and for this season that you called us to the kingdom for such a time as this. I pray that you would get the praise, you would get the honor, you would get the glory. We ask these things in jesus name and everyone here said everyone online typed Amen Amen Amen. And they meant they say context is king. So I wouldn’t want to do a disservice to the text by not laying out some information that will help us better understand this particular psalm. Uh, let’s jump into some historical background. So as many of us know not all of the psalms, but some of the psalms were written by David, most of them actually. And this is one of the psalms that David wrote. David is the author of psalm 61 it is believed that this uh, this psalm was written after David had come to the throne. Some commentaries went back and forth about saying whether David wrote this psalm when he was being persecuted by Saul. But the majority stated that this was after David had come to the throne. And it was during a very difficult season and difficult time in the life of David and in the life of David’s reign when he came to the throne. It was during the period of his forced exile from the Tabernacle in exile from the city that he loved an exile from the city that he was king over by his son Absalon. Now, for those of you who may have stopped at David and Goliath, and that’s as far as, you know, when it comes down to David, that’s, that’s perfectly fine. But we can jump in a little bit deeper here and realized that David had some difficulties with his son. His son rose up against him and, and wanted to truly fight and, and, and become king and wanted to usurp the throne and kicked David out of power. And we see that that’s something that uh, was, was happening here in this, not in this text, but this is something that David wrote during that period of his life. And in this time, David says, David is in a period of deep sorrow. He is in a period of deep anguish as he writes this text. He says, hear my cry, oh God, and listen to my prayer. Hear my cry, oh God, and listen to my prayer. Everyone wants their voice to be heard. No one wants to be ignored or unheard, everyone wants their voice to be heard. No one wants to be ignored or unhurt. And so David, it’s so interesting because he says, hear my cry, oh God, and listen to my prayer. David is saying something that we can all resonate with. We all want to be heard. We all want to know what it is that we want our voices to be heard, We want to feel understood? We want to feel connected? And we realized that David wants that as well? He says, hear my cry? Oh God! And listen to my prayer. He’s not saying. Okay, God, you’ve heard me. But what he does say is here, my cry, Listen to me Lord. And what we want to do is we want to believe that God doesn’t just see you praying. But he also hears you praying. He doesn’t just see you crying out to him. But he hears you crying out to him because the words that you’re saying is important. The words that you’re saying has has value and has weight and we want to, we want to be heard by God. So no one wants to be uh ignored. No one wants to be unheard. And David is sharing something that we can all resonate with. We realized that David says, hear my cry, Oh Lord. We realized that David says, listen to my prayer. He says, hear my cry because he wants to be heard. And there’s something within us as the creation that wants to creator to hear us. Even when we’re speaking to other people, No one here likes to be ignored. No one here likes to just contest consistently be reaching out and never uh be responded back to. And so David is saying here, my cry, I’m crying out to you, God, I need you to hear me and listen to my prayer? Many of us want God to hear us. But what is our prayer? What is it that we’re praying? Are we even praying? Or are we just hoping? Are we even praying? Or are we just wishing, are we being committed in consistent prayer before the Lord? Or are we taking our prayer to God and never revisiting it? Are we taking our prayer to God and never coming back to it? What we need to do is consistently regularly come before the Lord. Take it to the Lord in prayer. So many times we just pray and we say, all right fine and we we forget about it and we don’t revisit it. Is that truly a desire that we want met? Is that truly a prayer that we want answered. And I think it’s very important for us to be persistent in prayer, persistent in prayer sometimes that’s why trouble comes in our lives. That’s where trouble comes in our lives. Because it forces us to pray. And the seasons. When we were when in the seasons, when things are going okay, Sometimes we don’t pray in the seasons, when things are going alright, sometimes we don’t uh, seek the Lord or run to the Lord. But when the heat gets turned up, there we go, dropping to our knees in prayer. There we go crying out to God in prayer. And so it’s very important for us to understand that uh, our prayers are being heard by God. We want our prayers to be heard, but we need to be consistent in asking God to hear us consistent in taking it to the Lord in prayer. We are the creation that wants to be heard by our creator. So David says, hear my cry, oh Lord! Listen to my prayer. And then he says, from the ends of the earth, I call to you when my heart is faint from the ends of the earth, I call to you when my heart is faint. And it’s so, so important to know that where David was and how he was feeling from the ends of the earth. I call to you when my heart is faint from the ends of the earth. I call to you when my heart is faint, I think it’s so important to know this because look at his condition, he has a faint heart, he said, I call to you and my heart is faint. That means he’s downcast. That means he’s upset. That means he’s weary. Life can throw some difficult punches at us, make absolutely no mistake about that. Life can throw some haymakers. Life can throw some difficult punches that make us want to give up Life can cause us to be discouraged. Life can cause us to walk with our heads down and live discouraged lives lost. Uh, life can cause us to walk with our head down looking downcast. But as David writes in psalm 42 why are you downcast on my soul And why is there so much turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my God and my salvation. The amazing thing is what we see in this text is life can knock us down, but we don’t have to stay there. Life can knock us down, but we don’t have to make our bed there and and stay there. We can get up because we hope in a higher power. We hope in the true and living God who can call us to higher ground? So even though life tries to knock us off, course we know that we are on higher ground because we serve a higher authority, jesus the christ. And now, why, why do we see that? David is downcast? Why is David? Why is his heart faint? Why is he grown weary? Why? Because he was kicked out of the kingdom by his own son? His own son says, Dad, look, I’m taking over and gives him the boot and kicks him out and does him dirty. And he’s away from home. David is away from home. He’s away from his comfort. He’s away from what’s familiar. He’s on a ledge by the edge of everything that he’s known, he says to the from the ends of the earth God, I cry out to you from the ends of my kingdom. God. I cry out to you from the ends of what’s familiar God. I cry out to you, I’m walking this, this, this tight rope. I’m at the very edge. God, I’m about to fall off. And I cry out to you hear my cry, oh God, and listen to my prayer. Look at me. My heart is down casting from the ends of the earth. I cry out to you. Sometimes that’s what it takes to realize how much we need. God. Sometimes it takes us being at the end of the earth to realize that we need God and the ends of the earth looks different for everyone. For David, it looked like him being exiled from his kingdom. For us might look like coronavirus hitting our lives affecting our loved ones, affecting our finances, affecting our families. This year has been a, the ends of the earth year for many of us for many different reasons. But I think it’s so important that we don’t lose sight of what David does here. What David does is he takes action. He says, look, I’m at the end of the earth. I’m at the ends of the earth. So what do I do from the ends of the earth. I call to you. Oh, God! From the ends of the earth. God, I call to you. Yes, my heart is downcast. But I call to you. Oh God, not to another idol. I call to you, not to another idol of his day. Not to bail, not to ask her off, not to any of the other idols. He says I call to you. So not the idols of his day nor for us. We shouldn’t call to the idols of our day, not to weed, not to money, not to other drugs, not to alcohol, not to sex or pornography, not to social media posts or going to social media post for for clout or for attention, not to anything else that we once put before God in our lives and in our hearts. We should not go to the idols of the day. When our heart is overwhelmed in our distress, we don’t go to other idols. We go to the King of Kings to the Lord of Lords. His name is jesus, the christ son of the living god. And we don’t go to the idols of our day. But we go to the King of Kings in our hearts. We go to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords The Lord over all creation David says from the ends of the earth, I cry out to you, he says that you need to lead me to the rock that is higher. Then I lead me to the rock that is higher. Then I interesting thing is he says lead me which means that he’s giving up his control. I surrender right. He says I’m going to follow jesus, I’m going to follow God God wherever this rock that is higher than I is. Lead me there. Take me there, I don’t know that is the thing that we have to grow comfortable with when surrendering to God is the fact that there are some things we just don’t know some things we just don’t understand some things we just can’t wrap our minds around. So lead me God because I don’t know how to get there. How do I get there? God I have to follow you Spirit. Lead me Spirit, lead me Spirit lead me. We have to be spirit led we have to be led by God, not led by flesh, not led by feeling, not led by opinion. Led by the true and living God lead me to the rock that is higher than I jesus says look if any man must follow me, he must first what deny himself pick up his cross and then follow me. If anyone must first be my disciple if you want to follow me than follow me. So he says lead me to the rock that is higher, then I where is our footing related me to the rock to the firm foundation. Lead me to the rock to the rock to the rock that is higher, then I mm hmm. Doesn’t say lead me to sinking sand. Doesn’t say lead me to uh something that’s not stable. He says lead me to the rock to a firm foundation. You see a foundation that’s dependable. Lead me to the rock that’s dependable, a foundation that’s reliable that we can lean on, that we can stand on when the storms of life come, A foundation that is firm, that is firm, that is firm, that is unwavering. This foundation is found in God. This foundation is found in christ and in christ we have security in christ, we have assurance in christ. We have stability. Lead me to the rock rock not of my own making rock, not of my own doing, but the rock that is higher than I. The rock whose ways are not my waves whose thoughts are not my thoughts. The rock who is who thinks differently, who does things differently? Who operates on a different paradigm on a different times table on a different time schedule. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. If it’s higher than you, then how can you reach it? If it’s higher than you, then how can you uh get onto the rock once you get there, you gotta climb. But you have to have faith and you have to have obedience. You have to have faith and you have to have obedience. If this rock is higher than you. Its ways are higher than your ways. His thoughts are higher than your thoughts. If the things that transpire as a result of you being on this rock are so are so high, you wouldn’t you wouldn’t even obtain them on your own. How can you get there? You have to operate in faith. The word says, we walk by faith and not by sight. The word says that without faith it is impossible to please God. And so it’s so important for us as believers to be anchored and rooted and grounded in faith. So that when the storms come, we can know in whom we trust, it’s so important for us as believers to be anchored and rooted and grounded in faith. Why? So that when the difficulty comes, we can know that on christ the solid rock, I stand all other ground is sinking sand. We need to understand Saints of God, that we are called to have faith. We can’t get on the rock that’s higher than us without faith. But that faith will not stand alone. That faith needs to be paired with obedience for us to stay on the rock. Yo that faith needs to be paired with obedience for us to remain on the rock. And it’s so important because the bible says by faith itself, Faith without works is dead. And so a lot of times we’ll do is we’ll say I have faith, I have faith, I have faith. And that’s wonderful. But where are your works? If you’re just saying it? If you’re just praying it, but you’re not living it out, Where’s the fruit? Where is the fruit? And so faith has to be paired with works in order for it to be filled with life in order for it to be filled with breath in order for it to be living active and moving faith needs to be paired with works. And so that is the way that we reached this rock that is higher than us by acting in faith. By believing in faith and then by walking out in obedience to what God has said and what God has commanded. And then David writes for you have been my refuge leading me to the rock that is higher than I. We’re operating on higher ground. And because we’re operating on higher ground, uh, we’re going to do some different things. That’s why obedience is required to stay on this higher ground. For you have been my refuge. A strong tower against the enemy. Verse three. What we realized here is that David is a man who speaks from experience for you have been my refuge. A strong tower against the enemy speaks from experience. Experience Charles Spurgeon wrote in one of the commentaries on this on this passage. That experience is the nurse of Faith from the past. We gather arguments for our present confidence. So we can look back on where God brought us from and realize that’s why we can trust God. Now, we can look back on how good God has been to us and realize this is why I can put my trust and lean wholeheartedly on him right now in this season, in this time, even though it’s difficult and what we realized in David’s life is at this point in his life. He’s already been through so much. David’s already been through so much. He’s overcome the family odds with his family being the youngest, being the one that uh, was, was frowned upon being the one that was not looked at kindly being the one that uh they left to, to, to, to look down upon and and, and was younger and he wasn’t getting respect. He overcame odds. Why? Because God chose him. Remember Samuel shows up and like, hey Jesse, one of your sons is going to be king and everyone’s looking at the oldest son and the strongest son and the tallest son and the wisest son and all of this. And they totally discredit David by not even bringing him to be seen by the prophet of God. And David has to overcome that, that that family dynamic he’s overcome that. He’s already overcome fighting the lion and the bear and and rescuing the sheep from the clutches of death. Right, David’s already overcome that. And then he’s, we realized it’s a story that most of us know David has already slain Goliath. He’s already been obedient in that regard and and and been victorious in that regard. So God has been with David from season to season from mountain top to valley and then he gets promised the throne. But then we see the king that’s in power, There was supposed to be mentoring David actually wants to kill him and take him out of the scene and take him out of the picture completely. And so what do we see here? We see that David learns to trust God and walk with God even in difficult times. Even in difficult seasons, he learns to walk with God. He learns to lean on God. Because when he’s in the caves, hiding from Saul, when he’s in the valleys, hiding from Saul, when he’s hiding and ducking and dodging and running for his life from someone who he trusted from someone who he was growing closer with. He learned to say, okay, I can lean holy and dependent upon the true and living God. So what we need to know is that even after he became king, even after he stopped running from Saul, he still made mistakes. Even as king, he made mistakes. Even once he was on the throne, he made mistakes. And these mistakes are what has him in this position. These mistakes are what has him calling out to God right here and right now. And what this shows me what this shows us, is that every challenge is a lesson. And every experience has the ability to bring us closer to the true and living God. Yeah, every challenge is a lesson and every experience has the ability to bring us closer to the true and living God. When we realize here is that we don’t want to waste our experiences. We don’t want to waste our trials. We don’t want to waste the pain that we went through. We don’t want to waste the adversity that we went through. We don’t want to waste the sorrow that we felt. We don’t want to waste it because everything can bring us closer to God if we let it many of us, we experience hard times and there we go, hardening our hearts. There we go, flexing, flexing our muscle and trying to do it our way and resisting what God is saying, resisting what God is doing, resisting how God is moving. But I think it’s so important for us to realize I don’t want to waste this pain. I don’t want to waste this experience. I don’t want to waste uh this sorrow, I want to draw closer to God so that God can get glory out of my pain. God can get glory out of my affliction. God can get glory out of my scars. And when they heal, I can give him the praise him the honor him the glory and the testimony that is due his name. So, every experience has the ability to bring us closer. Then David says, let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings. Let me dwell in your tent forever. We want to abide In God, Jesus writes, and Jesus says in John 15 abide in me and I and you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. Mhm. We’re called to abide in God. He says, let me dwell in your tent forever. David had a relationship with God, He was leaning wholeheartedly on God. He was dependent on God. We know this, why? Because he says, let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings. And he writes again in psalm 91 he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty, I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust and this, this psalm 91 is written in a different context, perhaps in a different time. But what this shows us is that David knew that God wasn’t just his fortress, wasn’t just trying to abide in him just for that moment, just for when he was afflicted. But this was a habit, this was a lifestyle, this was something that David did. He always called out to God, cried out to God and wanted to abide and be with God, not just when trouble came, but at all times because he knew God was a deliverer, he knew he could rely on him again and depend on him again and run to him again and again. So he says, let me dwell in your tent forever. Your tent forever. Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings, protect me O Lord. And then after he after he says this, he says Sila, which means to pause and reflect, which means to stop and to think many of us life, life can move so fast that before we know it, we blink and we’re somewhere we never thought we’d be, we blink in and you know, things just move very quickly and it’s so important for us. That’s why I love this word uh Si La because it’s it’s it’s literally through its it’s you see it throughout the psalms. But it’s a word that that when the reader reads it, it’s a command to let us know to stop and think about what you just read. Stop and think about what you just read. You can move so quick and a lot of times we can just be zooming through life. Just making moves, just making connections. Just trying to build, Just trying to do this, trying to do that. But see La just, just stop for one second, just pause and reflect for a moment. David says, hear my cry, oh God and listen to my prayer from the end of the earth. I call to you and my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I for you have been my refuge. A strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings. Stop and let’s think about that for a moment, think about how God has been your refuge and your strong tower forever. Think about how God is someone that you can run to someone that you can rely on, someone that you can depend on someone that you called out to in difficult times before and has come through time and time again. Stop and think for a moment about his grace, think about his love, think about his protection. Think about his covering. Think about his goodness to you and your family. Think about his covering and protection in the midst of pandemic, think about his covering and protection in the midst of adversity. Think about his covering and protection in the midst of all of the difficulties of life. When I think of the goodness of jesus and all that he has done for me, my very soul cries out Hallelujah praise the Lord for saving me. When we stop and think about it when we think about his love, think about his goodness, think about his grace that brought us through. What a mighty God we serve. What an incredible God we serve what a gracious God, we serve an incredible God deserves incredible praise. So when the chat I just want you to just just right clap or something. Right, right, praise God. Right, Hallelujah, whatever it is that we can do wherever you are just lift your hands and just thank God, thank God, thank God take a look back and thank God for what he’s done. Thank God for his goodness, thank God for his mercy And immediately I want you to see something. What that does is it puts you on higher ground when you go back and when you when you stop and you pause and reflect and think about the goodness of God and think about what he’s done for you and in your life it puts you on higher ground. It takes you from just complaining and moping and being sad and looking down and being downcast to now being strong to now being able to lift your head because you’re not looking at your situation. But you’re looking to the hills from where your help comes and allows you to say God, you are good God, you are worthy and you feel your help coming, you feel like God is with you. You feel the peace that surpasses all understanding and guard your hearts and minds in christ jesus. You know that God is with you and it puts you on a different ground. It puts you on higher ground. So you don’t even go through your problems the same way anymore. You don’t even go through your problems the same way anymore because you’re on higher ground for you. Oh God have heard my vows, David writes, he pauses reflects, he thinks and then he says, you know God, you you’ve heard me, you’ve heard my vows, you’ve given me the heritage of those who fear your name. I know that I am heard before. When he said, Lord hear my cry and listen to my prayer. But now he says, God, you have heard me. You have heard my vows. I know that I’m heard. And the amazing thing is he said, you’ve heard my vows, not you’ve heard my prayers. I believe he’s believing by faith that you’ve heard my prayers. You’ve heard my my my my crying out to you. You’ve heard me in my pain. You’ve heard me and you you’re going to deliver me. He’s believing that in faith. But I do believe that he’s saying, you’ve heard my vows. Because how many of you know, you know when you’re backed up against the wall, you start so I’m making some promises, You’re backed up against the wall. You start saying, oh God, look, if you get me out of this, I promise I’ll do this. I promise I’ll start to tie the I promise, I’ll stream the services. I’ll promise. I’ll read my word and getting my devotions. God. If you just fix this situation as only you can. You know what I mean. Like we started praying and making these promises to God. But Davis says, God, I know you’ve heard me, you’ve heard my vows. You’ve heard what I’ve said when my back is up against the wall God. I’m gonna be the best king. I’m gonna serve you in this area, serve you in that area And you’ve given me the heritage. The heritage. The heritage of those who fear your name. The amazing thing about this is, David has every intention of keeping those vows because he knows God heard them. But then he says, you’ve given me the heritage of those who fear your name, which means I’m in good company, which means I’m not just out here on my own. I’m standing in the Fear of God, in the fear of God. And as a result of this, I have this heritage of those who fear my fear your name. I have uh God by my side, I have goodness and mercy following me. I have protection. I have grace, I have all of these things that come my way. I have morning by morning, New mercies. I see I have the faith to to lean and lean on God in difficult times. I have all of these things. Why? Because I know that I am in good standing with God. Because I have the fear of God. You’ve given me the heritage of those who fear your name. You cannot live any kind of way and still be in good standing with God. You just can’t, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Right? So it’s so important for us to understand that. He says, he says, I’m in good standing with God because you’ve given me the heritage of those who fear your name. The fear of God is important. It’s so important in a lot of times you’d like to make it same team like, oh, you know, fear of God is just just knowing that God loves us so much, you know, and it’s just really us us understanding that we have to just respect him. You know, like, no, no, no. It’s it’s it’s more than that. It’s understanding that God is God and we are not that God is sovereign and we are not that God knows and we do not. And as a result of that, the way we live our lives reflects the fact that we know that we are just we are dust, that we are creation and he has creates your and walking out in that in a way that gives him glory in a way that gives him honor. In a way that gives him praise shows that we fear God. And it’s so important for us to know this. It’s so important for us to live this out. And so then he writes in verse six, prolong the life of the king May his years endure for all generations. With long life, you will satisfy me satisfy and impact, satisfaction and impact, he says, let me live a long life and let my years endure to all generations. Let me impact individuals. Let me impact people. Let me impact someone. Why? Because I’m on higher ground and as a result of this. David says, may he be enthroned forever before God and appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him so I will ever sing praises to your name. As I perform my vows day by day, give God Glory, Give God Glory says I perform my bows day by day. He says, look I’m here, but I’m gonna still give God glory, I’m in the midst of this situation but I’m still understand that when I do get what God is going to give back to me, I’m going to give God Glory what I want us to grasp here is God is David starts this summer in pain but he ends the psalm and praise. He starts to psalm saying, God look at me, look at where I’m at, hear me hear me, but then he says, God, I’m gonna ever sing praises to your name and I’m going to perform these vows. Day by day by day by day, he starts to Solomon, prays and ends it in start to Solomon pain and ends it in praise. Why? Because he turned his eyes for where his help came. He turned his eyes to God, the hymn that says turn your eyes upon jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace when you turn your eyes upon jesus that elevates you, it allows you to praise in the midst of your problems, it allows you to praise in the midst of your pain and if we want to go higher today, Saints of God, if you want to go to where God is calling us people of God, what we need to do is to understand that we need to look up to go higher. You have to look up to go higher. You have to look up why? Because nobody climbs a mountain, looking down, nobody climbs a mountain. Just I’m gonna keep my head down and look no, no. You have to look up to see where you’re going and realize that you walk by faith and not by sight. So even when you can’t see if God tells you to go to this ledge to go to this grasp and to pull yourself up here, we have to be obedient in that to go higher. You have to look up secondly to go higher, we have to be lead. We have to be led to go higher. You have to look up many times. We’re so focused on our surroundings, are focused on, our problems are focused on, our pains are focused on how we feel and as a result of that, we don’t look up, how do we expect to go higher in God? If we’re so if we don’t look up or focus on the things that are upward, focus on the things that are eternal and not temporary. So we need to understand that we have to grow higher in God. So we have to look up Number two, we to go higher. We have to be lead. We have to be led. David says, lead me to the rock. That is higher, then I that means we have to go some places we don’t want to go. It means we have to do some things we don’t want to do. Say some things we don’t want to say or that means we can’t go places that we want to go. That means we can’t say things that we want to say. We can’t do things that we want to do. Why? Because we are led. We’re not leading, but we are led. We are led. And as ones that are being led, there are gonna be some things that we maybe want to do some places we maybe want to go. That we realized, wait a minute, wait a minute. My life is not my own. I’m being led by God. And if I’m being led to the rock, that is higher than I have to follow the steps that God’s called me to follow. You cannot go higher in God by following your feelings. You cannot go higher in God by following the crowd. You cannot go higher in God by following the social trends. The only way to go higher in God is by following God, point blank period. The only way to go higher in God is by following God and you can go high uh, by the world’s standards. But does that mean you’re making progress with God? You can have money in the bank? You can have the world singing your name. You can have all of these different things that we equate to success. But in God’s eyes, when you put that in the fire before the Lord, does it stand the test? What we want is long term success and you’re not getting no more any more long term than eternity. We want success in eternity. And that means going higher with God. That means the only way that we go higher in God is by following God third. And finally before the team comes up to go higher, you have to keep your cool. David does not ah panic under pressure by running to idolatry in the midst of his pain. He still knows who to turn to. He didn’t run to his vices. He didn’t run to his idols. He didn’t run to the things that made him uh feel better about himself. But he ran instead to the true and living God. From where his help came, we too must know how to run to God under pressure. Because pressure can distort your mindset pressure. Can can bring something out of you that you didn’t know was in. You pressure can bring something out of you that you thought you had dealt with. But haven’t gone back to deal with in a while, pressure can can can can bring those things out. So we have to stay cool under pressure and realized that, okay, I’m running to God under pressure. What are your steps to run to God? What are your steps to run to God? Do you say? Okay? All right. You know, I’m just gonna pray when something happens immediately. Do you say? Okay, I’m gonna throw on this, this worship music immediately. Do you say? I’m going to find a nice quiet space, Take a couple deep breaths. How do you run to God? And so for us, we need to run to the true and living God under pressure. We need to know that. Look, I don’t have to be on level with my problems. I can go to a higher ground. I can go to a higher authority. I can go to a place where a higher place I can go to a higher mindset. I can cultivate higher habits and as a result God can get the glory. Yeah, as I close and as the team comes up, I truly believe Saints of God that God is calling us to a higher ground to a higher level, to a higher authority in him. I believe that we’ve been at this certain level or certain altitude for too long and God wants to elevate us and climb us and have us climb higher in him. Our growth and our maturity and God will not be easy. Nothing worth it ever is. But it’s so important for us to realize that we need to keep our vows and commit to God keep our vows and press on to God keep our vows and follow God’s leading and go higher. God is calling us higher. The question is, are we willing to do what it takes to go higher in God God bless you and thank you so much. Dear God, I just pray right now for your people. I pray for those that are listening to this word. I pray that you would bless them, that you would strengthen them, That you would comfort them, that you would equip them, That you would protect them from the hand of the enemy. I thank you for your sovereignty. I thank you for your goodness, your grace, your mercy and compassion. I pray right now Lord that as this word has gone forth, perhaps it it touched the lives of someone. I pray Lord that you would help us to realize that you want more from us want more in our lives. Help us to not grow comfortable, not grow cozy, not grow nestled into uh, just the way life is. God would help us to realize that you’re calling us higher. We thank you, we praise you and we give you glory for all that you’re doing all that you’ve done and all that you’re going to continue to do as we surrender to you and grow higher in you. We thank you in jesus name Amen Now. If you’re here, you’ve heard this message, you’re watching, you’ve heard this message and you realize, look, I don’t know jesus christ, I don’t have a relationship with him, I still have sin in my life that I have not asked for forgiveness for if that’s you, I’m going to ask you to just repeat after me in prayer. Uh, you can text this number as well. You can text save this. It’s gonna flash down there on the screen but text saved to the number that’s on the screen and we have individuals that are willing to reach out to you and pray with you and speak to you about the goodness of jesus christ. But uh if you’re listening and you don’t know jesus, I just want you to repeat after me. Dear God, I come to you a senate. I want to be saved by grace. I want to be saved by faith. I don’t know Jesus christ, but I thank you for sending him your son. Show me how to live and to die so that I can have life. Thank you for forgiving me of my sins and cleansing me of iron righteousness. Make me more like you. I thank you, I praise you In Jesus name. Amen and Amen. Give yourselves a round of applause for coming to Christ today. I thank you for making the best decision you can make uh in life today, thank you and I pray that you all are continuously blessed by how God is moving and enjoy just the rest of the week. one. God bless you. Hello again. Pastor roderick CAesar third here. Thank you so much for watching. My prayer is that you were blessed. You are encouraged and strengthened by that message. If you would like to be a blessing to the ministry, you can text B G T F I 277977. Again, you can text B G T F I 277977 to sow a seed into the ministry and we thank you. Thank you so much for your generosity. Or you can visit our website at B g T F I dot us for more information. Thank you so much. Once again, I hope you are blessed. I’m praying for you. We love you here at Bethel God bless