Partnering With Grace

What if the answer you’re praying for is already in your hands—just in seed form? We dive into Hebrews 11, 2 Corinthians 12, and Luke 1 to reframe faith, grace, and what favor actually feels like when it shows up in real life. The thread running through everything is simple but disruptive: God’s grace is sufficient, and most breakthroughs begin as small, easy-to-miss seeds that grow as we partner with them by faith.

We start with faith as confidence in the unseen and move into the common trap of resisting grace because it looks too small for our very real needs. From there, Paul’s confession—“My grace is sufficient for you”—becomes permission to step into assignments that outsize our strength. Weakness is not disqualification; it’s where Christ’s power rests. If God sends you, grace sustains you. That truth dismantles the pressure to manufacture outcomes and clarifies the difference between grace-empowered effort and anxious striving.

Mary’s yes in Luke 1 brings the theology home. Favor made her vulnerable to misunderstanding, yet God secured what she couldn’t—Joseph’s trust, provision for the journey, and the unfolding of a promise the world had never seen. The sign God gives her is relational: Elizabeth. Their friendship becomes a symbiosis of faith where impossible promises leap to life. That’s a pattern for us—find people carrying holy impossibilities and let mutual encouragement become the oxygen for your calling.

If you’re carrying a word that feels heavy or delayed, this conversation offers a sturdy map: honor the seed, set your faith toward the word, take the next step grace reveals, and surround yourself with voices that make your promise leap. 

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find these conversations. 

What seed are you tending right now?

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Transcript

Framing The Incarnation And Faith

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Hi everyone, I'm Ben. And I'm Logan, and we're the Robin. Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. I'm going to get right to it. We're going to go to Hebrews 11. And we're going to re-examine Hebrews 11, 1 through 6. I'm going to stay in the same vein I've been in for the last three gatherings. And I think I don't feel that the Lord is done speaking to us from this text. So I'm going to just continue to continue to press in on the incarnation and Luke 1, and we'll see how far down the road the Lord lets us get. So we're going to go Hebrews, we're going to start with Hebrews 1, but I want to make sure that I'm reminding us and constantly putting us in remembrance of the fact that the incarnation, the whole logic of the incarnation was what? The Father, Son, and Spirit wanted a way to share their life with us. They were searching for a path to share their life with humanity. After that communion was broken, he was searching for a way to share his life with us, right? So it's this weird timeline that gets messed up in our heads a little bit sometimes. Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. So the Father knew that humanity would mess this up, and that he would then have to break through and find a way to share his life with us. And the one way that he found that he could share his life with us was to send himself. So he sent the son, and the son became the great repairer of the breach, the restorer of things lost, and brought us back into or reconciled us back into communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit. And it is through him that we find our uh our pericresis, our union, our dance, our inclusion into the uh love that the father, son, and spirit share with one another. The whole logic of the incarnation is that the father wanted to share his life with me. And you and humanity at large, but we have got to make this thing personal because if we don't make it personal enough, we'll err on the side of humanity at large and we'll never quite get narrowed down to our own idiosyncrasies, our own um inconsistencies, our own uh thought processes that still need repentance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We've got to make it very personal. The incarnation ought to be one of the most personal things in all of Scripture to us. It needs to be for it to have the desired effect. Well, what do you mean, the desired effect? That you would enter fully into the communion made available to you, that you're already caught up in. Oh, please, that you're already caught up in, that we need to become aware of, that we need to be awakened to. We need a great awakening of the grace that has been made available to us. That might be the greatest great awakening that we could have, a great grace awakening. I think I heard a prophetic word about a grace awakening sometime. That that's ringing in my ears. I'm sure Dutch had something to say about that at some point. I'm sure Will again soon in the future. So um yes, Willow will be back after church tomorrow. That's right. Willow is at a birthday party, and I told her go roller skate and have fun. So that's what she's doing. So Hebrews 1. I want to start in Hebrews 1, and I'm gonna frame everything I say kind of around Hebrews 1, or Hebrews 11, I mean. Hebrews 11. Then we're gonna go into to Luke 1, and I'm gonna look again at 2 Corinthians 12. So there's a little bit of scripture to get through, but I really don't plan on being here long and talking long. I'm gonna light a fire here in a moment. We can enjoy a fire, perhaps a s'more. If if the kid, yeah, the Western's excited about that, see. Um what'd you say? Oh my gosh, that's a good idea. I'll order myself, I'll order myself a pizza and y'all can watch me eat it. Um I actually was in Sioux City yesterday with Samuel. Uh, we were watching my old alma mater play for the conference championship. Uh it's the first season they'd gone 9-0 through their first nine games. They've been to the playoffs and had very good football teams the last few years. Um but uh we uh we fell in overtime to morningside 28 to 34 is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. But if we get a chance again at those individuals, Lance, you knew what I was gonna say. If we get a chance again at those individuals, we are gonna we're gonna make them regret that they beat us the first time, I promise you. Um, but uh I had a pizza yesterday after the game with some of my old football teammates, a Korean barbecue pizza. It was so good. Y'all, it was so good. I wish it was a little spicier, though. I wish it was a little bit sweet, not quite enough spice, but it was still very good. The the the uh components are there for a fantastic pizza. Is it good on fruit on fruit? No, no fruit. God, no. Fruit on pizza, no. No, stop. Guys, come on. Come on, come on. I love it. That's all that matters. Oh my gosh. All right, Hebrews 11:1.

Faith Defined In Hebrews 11

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen. It gives us assurance about the things we cannot see. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen. It gives us assurance about the things we cannot see. Through their faith, people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. Abel's offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man. And God showed his approval of his gifts. Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith. It was by faith that Enoch was taken up into heaven without dying, he disappeared because God took him. For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God, and it is impossible, it is impossible, and it is impossible to please God without faith. It is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him, now we learn how to have faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. He rewards those that sincerely seek him. He rewards those that sincerely seek him. It's impossible to please God without faith. It's impossible to please God without faith, and God rewards those who sincerely seek him. It gives us assurance about things we cannot see. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek

Seeds As God’s Usual Answer To Prayer

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him. I want to talk today, and I'm starting on faith for a reason, but I want to talk today about the sufficiency of grace and partnering with grace rather than resisting the grace that's offered to you. I'm going to frame it this way, and if my wording is wrong, I'll come back later and fix some of my wording, but I'm going to frame it this way. You're either resisting grace or you're partnering with grace, and there's no in between. You're either partnering with the grace made available to you through faith, or you're resisting grace and there is no in between. And what we do is we have grace made available to us that either one, we've not yet become aware of, or two, we despise because that grace comes in the form of the seed of answered prayer. Okay. I'll say that again. We have grace offered to us. We have these prayer requests. We bring it's the word says to bring your requests boldly before the throne of grace. Bring your request to grace, and grace responds with a seed. The way that prayer most often gets answered is not through. There are times when there's massive breakthrough. I celebrate massive breakthrough. I celebrate moments when the floodgates open and everything gets fixed in a moment, but more often than not, at least in my life, what I have found is that prayer gets answered through seed. Yahweh loves the Yahweh loves the order. I'll say order instead of process because I think it's more order than process. Yahweh loves the order of seed time and harvest. Yahweh loves the order of seed time and then harvest. And what Yahweh will do when we bring a prayer request to him or we bring our request to him is he'll respond to us in seed form. And what I have found to be the most dangerous thing that I think I do, that I have done in my relationship with the Lord, is look at the seed that I've been given and despise it because it's not enough. To despise something isn't what you would think when you despise something. Because that thing that has been placed into your hand is insufficient for the size of the need that you have brought to Yahweh. Okay. Now I'm gonna move on to 2 Corinthians 12. Make a couple of points, then we'll move into the incarnation story, and then I think I'll probably be done. I'm gonna be quick today. Somebody laughed. I hate y'all so much. Debbie. Alright, 2 Corinthians 12, and we're gonna look at, I want to, I could just look at verse 9. We'll start at verse 7.

My Grace Is Sufficient For You

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Even though I've received such wonderful revelations from God, so to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I beg the Lord to take it away. I'm not gonna talk about what I think the thorn in his flesh was. There's so many debates about what people think the thorn in his flesh was, and people take this verse and use it so wildly out of context that they partner with things like things like poverty and sickness in their lives because they believe it's their thorn and it's the thorn in their flesh. I want to tell you something. God cannot give you something he doesn't have. He didn't say it was from Yahweh, he said it was a messenger of Satan. He said it was a messenger of Satan. Yahweh doesn't have sickness or poverty to give because he's not in possession of sickness or poverty. Yahweh doesn't have sickness or poverty to give you because he's not in possession of any sickness or poverty. He's not in He's not in possession of those things. So how can he then give you those things? He cannot and he will not. That is not from Yahweh. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get caught up on that. I'm gonna move forward quickly. I saw Randy Clark one time. He was starting to ramble, he's starting to go down a rabbit trail, and he said, Rabbit, bang, I shot it, and he just moved on. I said, just shoot the rabbit. So he said, bang, I shot the rabbit, and then I moved and he moved on. It was really funny. It was really funny. I laughed really hard. I think I might have distracted him with how loudly I laughed and how inappropriate my laughter is in moments like that. I was close enough up front, too, where he probably did hear me. Um, even though I've received such wonderful revelations from God, so to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Bang, shot the rabbit. Three different times I beg the Lord to take it away from me. Each time he said, My grace is all you need, my power works best in weakness, so now I'm glad to boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That's why I take pleasure in my weakness and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. When I am weak, then I am strong. When I am weak, then I am strong. I'm going to read it in the New King James because I like the way he says it. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly I will boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, and needs, in persecutions, in distress for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. Why would Yahweh have to teach the man who gave us the most profound writings on grace? He gave us the most profound writings on grace. Why would Yahweh have to speak to him and say, My grace is sufficient for you? Have you ever thought about that? Why is Yahweh saying that? Because there would have been a question in Paul's mind of whether or not Yahweh's grace was sufficient or not. And he's answering Paul's question by saying, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. All you need do is not resist the grace that I'm offering you. Oh, Jesus. All you need to do, Paul, is not resist the grace that I'm giving you. I'm giving you this grace to be made most powerful when you look weakest. And there's going to be some questions in your mind about whether or not this grace will be sufficient to carry you through. So let me give you the one thing that I have elevated above my own name in all the, hallelujah, in all the created order, there's one name that's above every name. And he has exalted his word according to Psalms. He's exalted his word above even his own name. So the most exalted thing in all the created order in all the universe is the name of Jesus, right? That's he's given him a name above every other name, and his name every tongue will bow, every knee will every every knee will bow, every tongue will have that reversed. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. There we go. I got it right that time. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, etc., etc. etc. Who is worthy to open the seal? And then I wept because there were none found worthy to open the seal, and the man came to me and said, Do not weep. There is one found worthy, the lion of the tribe of Judah is found worthy to open the seal. In Revelation, when the angel is giving, when the angel is giving the proclamation, who's worthy to open the seal? It's a challenge. It's written like a challenge to all of the universe. Who's worthy to open this seal? Come and do it if you are worthy. And none were found that could rise to the challenge of the holy messenger that there was a seal that needed to be opened. And John began to weep, and the angel came to him and said, Do not weep. There's one found worthy. Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, is found worthy. He will open the seal. There's one thing above that name in all created order or all the universe, and that's the word of Yahweh. So Yahweh offers the greatest thing he can offer Paul in a moment where Paul's weakness looks like it's overcoming him. It looks like it's not going to be enough. It looks like this is the end of the road for me. I'm done. It's over. What I have is not enough. You've given me a task that's too big for me, and I'm going to fail miserably. And Yahweh looks him dead in his eyes and says, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. So go forward into the thing you're too small for. Go forward

Partnering With Grace Versus Resisting It

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into the thing that you don't have the revelation for. Go forward into the thing that you don't yet have the power for. Go forward into the thing that you don't have the answer for. If I sent you, my grace is sufficient for you. If I sent you, my grace is sufficient for you. So go forward into the thing that you don't have the answer for. Go forward into the thing that you don't have enough strength for. Go forward into the thing that you're unqualified for because I sent you. And if I sent you, my grace is sufficient for you, and you cannot, you cannot fail to succeed in a place that my grace is sustaining you. You will surely find success there. There's a question in Paul's mind about the sufficiency of the grace of Yahweh. It's this interesting thing where everything we receive in the kingdom is through grace by faith. By grace through faith? It's by grace through faith. So Paul would then have to apply his faith to the fact that Yahweh's grace is sufficient for him. There's this partnering that takes place in the working of grace that we have an active role in. There's a partnering that takes place in the working of grace that we have an active role in. His grace is sufficient for us and is given to us, made available to us, and we receive that grace through faith. What we do and what I find myself doing at times is resisting grace because I believe that I'm not qualified for this, or I'm not ready for this, or this is not the answer that I need. This is too small and insignificant for the size of the need that I have. So I despise or give no weight to the thing that he has given me that is the answer to the prayer that I've been praying. It's in seed form, but it is in fact the answer. And if we would partner with grace through faith and receive gladly the seed that he has given us to answer the prayer, it may take some time, but that thing will become the answer that you've been praying for. And he promises, he promises us this. No eye has seen or ear has heard the things that he has stored up for those that love him. So we have this promise from Yahweh that above, abundantly above all we could ask, hope, dream, or imagine. Every answer he gives us is abundantly above all we could ask, hope, dream, or imagine. Where we fail is we resist grace by refusing to partner in faith. We resist grace. And we wonder why his word is still not coming to pass in our life. He gave us the seed. Three years ago, we didn't give any weight to the seed, and now his word is lying dormant because we have not held up our end of the agreement. And our end of the agreement is simply this partner with grace in faith. There's no real, like there's no real, like I don't want to say that. I want to be careful how I say this. Our role is to partner with grace through faith. It's not by works, it's not by works that we do that. Often what will happen is we'll receive a prophetic word and immediately go over into works, and we'll, Jesus, we'll immediately begin to start working towards bringing that word to pass. We'll start getting things in order, we'll start doing things, and Yahweh will have no more told us than the maim the moon that that's the next step for us. The first and most important step in receiving the word of the Lord is this apply your faith toward that word. And when Yahweh gives you the next step, you take the next step. This is this is how that takes place. This is how that comes to completion. This is how the word of the Lord comes to pass. We partner with his grace, we partner his grace with our faith. And even our faith is a gift because we've been given the faith of Jesus. Luke one.

Mary’s Yes And The Cost Of Favor

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Luke one, I want to give us a really practical example from the incarnation. And I don't know how long I've been speaking, but I don't think it's been very long. Maybe 10 minutes. Maybe 15, maybe. Twelve and a half. Can I get twelve and a half? If I had an auctioneer voice, I'd start doing it right now. Alright, Luke 1. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. I think I've talked about this every time we've read this, but I'm going to do it again. Just because it bears repeating. Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. That is just not the immediate the immediate aftermath of Gabriel's proclamation of the Lord being with this woman and his favor resting on her is not what I would imagine that the favor of the Lord resting on someone would look like. Because she's going to become an outcast and they're going to want to stone her, and her her fiance is going to want to put her away secretly just because he doesn't want to kill her. She just doesn't want to marry her anymore. And it's going to take the intervention of Gabriel a second time. You always gonna intervene in the form of a messenger a second time in a dream to Joseph to tell him, hey, you can it's safe to go ahead and marry this woman because what she's telling you is the truth. That's a pretty tight run affair, guys. That's a pretty tight run affair. There's nothing that she could do to keep that man when she said yes to the grace that was offered her. Oh, that's such a good word. There's nothing she could do to keep that man when she said yes to the grace offered her. She said yes to Yahweh, and Yahweh saw to it that the desire of her heart. Jesus, Yahweh saw to it that the desire of her heart was brought to completion in marrying this man. If I say yes to this, then I could lose this. My grace is sufficient for you. Yeah, but there's nothing I can do to keep this person in my life. If I say yes to this, he's gonna think, he's gonna think some things. He's not gonna believe me when I tell him I'm gonna sound like a crazy person when I tell him that the angel Gabriel showed up to me and said that the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, is gonna overshadow me. And this will be the first immaculate conception in all of human history. He's gonna look at me like I've got seven heads and thirty-two eyeballs, and he's not gonna believe me. The sufficiency of the grace of Yahweh in that moment is astounding. But she did not know, she did not know that he would see to that when she said yes. She just said yes to the grace offered to her. Yahweh said, I want to put something in you that the world has never seen before. And if I do, and she knew if he does, no one's gonna understand this thing that's growing in me. No one will understand this thing that's growing in me. I could lose everyone. And Yahweh said, Your one job is to say yes to grace and let me handle the rest. Apply your faith towards the thing that I'm offering to you, the grace that I'm offering to you. Offer your faith to me and let my grace then go to work on your behalf. The sufficiency of grace in our lives is more than we have even imagined, and more than we have even begun. We've not even begun to scratch the surface of the sufficiency of grace. We've not even begun to scratch the surface, the surface of the sufficiency of grace because we've been afraid of the subject. We've been afraid of the subject, and subconsciously, when we start to hear grace, we have all of these negative connotations that have been pounded into our heads by overweight preachers. Listen, listen, I'm just gonna say I'm that's mean. What I just said was mean, and I meant it with all my heart. I meant it with I'm I I did. I did. I did. We got a bunch, we got a bunch of people out here warning us against grace. You do realize that salvation is by grace through faith. You do realize that everything you receive in the kingdom, all of the new covenant realities are received and brought into your life, get brought into reality in your life by

Nothing Is Impossible With God

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grace through faith. Everything, everything, everything that we receive in the kingdom, everything that we receive from Yahweh, everything he gives us, including our inclusion in the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit is done by grace through faith. And we get warned about the one thing that offers us a lifeline. Well, don't take don't take that lifeline too seriously because what'll happen is you'll get away from working for your salvation. You'll get away from salvation by works, and if we'll take the we'll take the verse from James that says, I'll show you your show me, I'll show you your faith by your works. We take that we take that concept completely out of context. We take it completely out of context, and we use it Samuel Lake. Get his attention. Samuel. Knock it off. Good lord. I love having him doing that in the middle of this. I love it with all my heart. I imagine this is what the early church was like. They're just scolding young young Vin Hadab in the other room. He was I don't know what their name. Where I just made it up. Scolding bin Hadab in the other room because Hadassah was pulling his hair and he was fighting back, and they needed to get the kerfuffle dealt with. Um And we get warned about we get warned about faith, and then we get told to work, we get warned about grace, and we get told to work harder, and we wonder why we have uh we wonder why we have this relationship with the Father that is completely built on our own worthiness and our own works, and what have I done? Have I done enough to make myself worthy to come before him this week? Or do I need to spend the next half hour before church repenting so that I can then come before the Lord and offer my praise to him and be found worthy? And who can ascend the hill of the Lord? He that has a clean hand and a pure heart. Well, guess who has a clean hands and a pure heart? All of us, because Jesus made our hands clear, clean, and our hearts pure, so we can go up the mountain of the Lord. Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? He that has clean hands and a pure heart. Guess what Jesus did at the cross? He gave us, he gave us clean hands and a pure heart. So we can ascend the hill of the Lord. This thing is so finished and so complete and so done. It's done. It's done. Are there things that we still need to repent of? Yes, there are. Yes, yes. If you say that you have no sin, you lie. That's what John says. But if you confess your sin, he's faithful and just to forgive you your sins. Guys, it's not about work, it's about the grace made available through the finished work, finished work of Jesus. The finished work of Jesus brought all our working to completion. Now, does it take effort at times on our end? Yeah, there's an effort involved, there's a work involved, but that effort and work is empowered by grace. Even that is grace. All right. Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son. You will name him Jesus. He will be very great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. This is all amazing. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. Surely she's not at this point yet. Surely at this point, she's not like making the connection that, like, I'm gonna have to tell my fiance that I have conceived and the child is not his. Her fiance was a descendant of David. So surely she's just thinking, my son is gonna be the one who rises and takes up the throne of David and kicks out the Roman oppressor, oppressors once and for all, and he's gonna he's gonna lead us into the glorious kingdom, the glorious kingdom advance that we've been promised all these years,

Find People Carrying Impossible Promises

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and this is what the little fly in the ointment here. And he will reign over Israel forever, his kingdom will never end. That's what the Lord told David. Your kingdom will never end. That's what the Lord told David, your kingdom will never end. Mary asks the angel, but how can this happen? I'm a virgin. She's wanting a little clarity. This will be with Joseph, right? Hold on. Call a quick tea. 30-second time out. This'll be with Joseph, right? This will be Joseph's son, correct? Because he's a son of David. This all makes sense. In my mind, I'm connecting the dots, and this all seems to be making sense. And the angel said, Ah, not so fast. Lee Corso used to do this thing when he was on college game day when someone would say something he'd disagree with. He'd be like, Not so fast, my friend. He'd put his finger up and say, not so fast when they'd make a prediction. And the angel was like, Not so fast. Hold on. There's more. Then the angel replied, The Holy Spirit will come upon you. Oh boy, what's this? I've never heard of this happening before. And the power of the Most High will overshadow you, so the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. Now she realizes the full weight of what the grace being offered to her brings to her life. The inconvenience of the grace that's being offered to her. I can't have a baby. I've never known a man. I can't have a baby. I don't have the necessary things going on in my body to have there, the ingredients are not there for me to conceive. I can't have a baby. Yeah, but you're going to give birth to something the earth has never seen before, so we can just do away with needing all the necessary things, and the power of the Holy Spirit's going to overshadow you. And the thing that comes out of you is going to reconcile heaven and earth back together. And Mary said, Oh Jesus, watch this example. Now I want to show you one piece of this. So the baby will be holy and he will be called the Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth, watch what the Lord does here. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. There are two possible things that we're contending with with Elizabeth's pregnancy. There's this thing called menopause that women go through, and after they go through that, they can no longer conceive. And she would surely have already gone through that. It would have been impossible for her to conceive naturally. She could not do it. Secondarily, we don't know the status of her husband. He may have gone impotent. We don't know. It happens in old age for men. So we're contending with two impossibilities in Elizabeth's life for her to become pregnant. And the angel says, what's more, watch this, what's more, your aunt who was dealing with impossibility in her life has just become pregnant. She just oh she just became pregnant. What's more, Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she's now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God. Woo! Nothing is impossible with God. Mary responded, I'm the Lord's servant, may everything you have said about me come true, and the angel left her. I am the Lord's servant, may everything you have said about me come true, and the angel left her. Now she moves on. A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country. Yeah. Watch what her response was. When given grace to bring something impossible into the world, her first response was to go find someone else who was bringing something impossible into the world. She went and found someone else who had been afforded the same grace to bring an impossible thing into the earth. And she said, I'm going to go spend time with someone else who's got impossible things going on in their life and who are being invited into something that's way too big for them. And I'm going to go spend time there because their, hallelujah, their grace can encourage my grace. I'm going to partner in faith with the grace that's been given to me. But what I need to do is get around someone else who's partnering with the grace in their life with their faith. And I'm going to let our faith mutually encourage each other. I'm going to let mutual encouragement come to the both of us, and we're both going to bring impossible things into the earth. And the partnership of these two impossibilities coming into the earth reconciled the whole of creation back to God. He doesn't use the word impossible, and I've encouraged us to divorce ourselves from the word impossible, but through human, through human intellectual standard, everything that was going on here is impossible. Through human intellectual standard, everything is impossible that's going on here. And there was a symbiosis between these two women. Mary knew that in order for her to succeed in bringing something into the earth that was far too big for her, she needed to go get around someone that was bringing something into the earth that was too big for them. And their faith had a symbiotic relationship of mutual encouragement. And the mutual encouragement helped these women bring these two men into the earth. The same rings true in our lives. And what will begin to happen is their faith will begin to breathe on the coals of your faith. And your faith will breathe on the coals of their faith. And a symbiotic relationship of mutual encouragement will take place that will allow the two of you to go farther than you ever dreamed you could go inside of grace. Okay. A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea to the town where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. At the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leapt within her. At the sound of her greeting, at the sound of her greeting, the impossible thing growing in her leapt inside of her. Jesus, man. At the sound of her greeting, the impossible thing growing on the inside of her leapt. And

Mutual Encouragement And Real Community

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there's something about getting around people that have given themselves to live this kingdom life, that when I get around them, the impossible things that Yahweh has asked me to do, the things that seem way too big for me and are can be discouraging if I look at them. And the word of the Lord can sometimes discourage you. Let me talk about this for just a second. Sometimes the word of the Lord feels like a weight more than an encouragement. I don't know if anybody else has ever experienced that before, but the magnitude of the gift, the magnitude of the opportunity, the magnitude of the grace being offered to you can be like, oh my God, what? And then when it doesn't happen right away, and nothing shifts right away, and a couple of years later, still nothing has shifted, it can begin to feel like a burden. It can begin to feel like a weight you're carrying around. And that's why we need the symbiotic relationship of the faith of the saints mutually encouraging one another. Because what will happen when I get around people that are living the same lifestyle, that are giving themselves to partnering with grace through faith, that are going after the things Yahweh has given to them. What happens is the things inside of me that are feeling like, oh my God, I don't know, man. I'm trying and nothing's happening. And the seed inside of me, that holy seed on the inside of me that Yahweh has given to me starts to jump at the sound of their encouragement. And Mary walks into the room and Elizabeth's impossible seed starts to jump on the inside of her. And it's important and necessary that we find those people and do what it takes to be in relationship with them. We do what it takes to be in relationship. We join ourselves together. There's a mutual joining that takes place that encourages the Jesus, that encourages the word of the Lord in you, and you encourage the word of the Lord in me, and I encourage the word of the Lord in you, and you encourage the word of the Lord in me, and there's a symbiotic relationship that begins to take place inside of real biblical community. One of the worst things that ever happened to the church is that okay. Alright, I want to see if I can say that and be okay. No, I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say that. I I thank you, Holy Spirit, for correcting me before I put my foot in my mouth. But one I can say this. One of the most unholy things that goes on inside of church community is the dishonoring of the word of the Lord on one another. Because we secretly believe Yahweh withholds when someone's carrying something that looks impossible on the inside of them, we begin to dishonor it and distance ourselves from them, or we begin to dishonor it by speaking poorly of them, or we begin to dishonor the word of the Lord. I don't mean them. Talking about them. What do they absolutely not? Absolutely, I don't even like that person. Absolutely not. And we begin to dishonor the word of the Lord. We begin to dishonor the grace on their life. Oh, we begin to dishonor the grace on their life. And you know what? You know what Jesus did when the apostles dishonored the grace on Mary to make the first announcement that Jesus had risen? Mary comes back and says, I've seen him, he's alive. The apostles mock her and go about their business of being sad. They go about their business of mourning. They go about their business of still Jesus, of still thinking things had ended and the that Jesus was gone and there's nothing more they could do, and they're gonna have to go back to their normal lives. And Jesus shows up and rebukes them and says her testimony should have been enough. In other words, the grace on her life to make this announcement should have been honored by you. You ought to know better. And the symbiotic relationship of the faith of the saints is a necessary piece to keep ourselves encouraged in times of adversity. When we find ourselves in the middle of the contradictions of life and we're walking in adversity, it can sometimes begin to feel like the grace that Yahweh gave us has abandoned us and we're stuck in the middle of this alone. And it's then that the symbiosis of the encouragement of the saints, the encouragement of one another's faith. Paul said, Oh gosh, I don't remember which epistle it is, but I desired to come to you so that I could deposit something in you, I could deposit something to you, or that we could both be mutually encouraged. That I could offer my encouragement to you and your faith could be an encouragement to me. I could offer an impartation to you, and your faith would be an encouragement to me and fuel the fire that Yahweh's grace lit on the inside of me when he met me on the road to Damascus. At the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child left within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed, Mary, God has blessed you above all your ha ha, above all women, and your child is blessed. Why am I so honored that the mother of my Lord should visit me? Who when I heard your greeting, the baby within my womb jumped for joy. You are blessed. Watch this. You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said. You are blessed because you partnered with the grace that the Lord offered you with your faith. You are blessed because you partnered your faith with the grace that Yahweh offered you. And because you did that, Mary, and because you're continuing to do that, and because you've come here to be mutually encouraged by the impossibility in me, encouraging the impossibility in you, and the impossibility in you, encouraging the impossibility of me in me, the grace of Yahweh becomes the cornerstone. It becomes front

Weakness As The Doorway To Strength

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and center in your life when you begin to surround your people with yourself with people like that. When you begin to take that seriously and begin to partner in faith and begin to be get around people that are partnering with partnering with the grace given to them with their faith, and you're doing the same. And we all begin to do this, and the grace that's sufficient for us becomes something that we can focus on. I'm gonna close with this. I'm done. I told you it was gonna be quick. I don't know if that was quick or not. It felt quick. Yahweh reminded Paul that his grace was sufficient because there was a question in Paul's heart about the sufficiency of his grace. And what Yahweh then had to do to answer the question of the sufficiency of his grace was to remind Paul that his grace was in fact sufficient. And watch Paul's immediate response. Paul's immediate response was, Therefore I take joy in all my hardships. I take joy in these things. I'm glad about these things because when I'm weak, then I'm strong. When I'm weak, then I'm at my strongest. So I enjoy putting myself in positions of weakness in order that I might be made truly strong. That flies in the face of Western Christianity, that flies in the face of what we get taught from pulpits, that flies in the face of the celebrity-driven Christianity that we have been handed by the generations that have gone before us, and the Lord is bringing that to a swift end. The Lord's bringing that to a swift end. The judgment of the Lord is being rendered against celebrity-driven Christianity. It is currently being it's currently the judgment of the Lord is currently being rendered against that sort of system. I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the system that the people have built. So what then should we do? Get comfortable putting ourselves in positions of weakness or saying yes to Yahweh putting us in position said better. Say say yes to Yahweh putting us in positions of weakness. Because only then can we know what true strength is. When I'm at my weakest and I have no answers and I feel like I'm way too small to be doing the thing that He's asked me to do, then I'm at my strongest. Last thing I'll say. Why do we struggle there? Because if I'm honest, that's a struggle. Being comfortable, putting myself, or not putting myself, but yielding to the I'll say it this way, yielding to the grace to be put in uncomfortable situations that I feel like I'm too small for. Why is that a struggle?

Faith Works By Love And Beloved Identity

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Galatians 5.6 teaches us that faith works by love. Galatians 5.6 teaches us that faith works by love. And that we also get taught that perfect love drives out fear because fear carries with it the anticipation of judgment. And what was it that Yahweh said about Jesus before he sent before he was driven by the or sent to the wilderness to be tested by the Spirit? What was it that he said about him before he was about to be thrust into something that if he was not careful? See, the the danger of the incarnation is this Jesus could have agreed with Adam. That was the that was the danger of the incarnation for the Godhead that Jesus might agree with the delusion of Adam. And in order to fortify Jesus from agreeing with the delusion of Adam that Yahweh was distant and withholding and desired distance between the two of them, what did he do? He made the declaration of beloved identity and then immediately thrust him into the middle of adversity. Why do we struggle in being thrust into the middle of adversity? We struggle because we have not yet been convinced of the depth of the love of God for us. We have not yet been convinced. I'm talking, I'm not talking about understanding and mental assent to the love of God. What I'm talking about is being convinced that the love of God is not just for me, it's not just theoretically available to me, but it is the very essence of my identity, that the love of God is the very essence, that I'm loved, and nothing can change that. And the way that we, you're good, you're fine. The way that we, that was the Lord. Tommy Tenney had a pulpit split in two under the power of his ministry, and I had a a yellow cup fall over. We're getting close. Celebrate the small breakthroughs, saints. Celebrate the small breakthroughs. Oh, why is it that we struggle? Why is it? Why is it because we're not convinced deep in our bones that the very essence of my identity is that I'm wholly loved, wholly accepted, and wholly cared for. When we become, and I think we're on the path there, but when we become convinced of that, the adversity that we get thrust into will not shake our interior world. Paul said this: none of these things move me. Didn't mean he wasn't going through things. It said, none of these things move me, because I'm convinced that the grace that has been given to me and put on my life by Yahweh is more than sufficient to see me through these many trials. So Paul was convinced that the grace of Yahweh was sufficient for him, and he was convinced wholly by the love of God being shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit that he was loved by God,

Final Exhortation To Partner With Grace

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and there was nothing in all the world or in all of hell that could stop that from him, from being his reality. And if this is what Yahweh has asked me to do, then I'm gonna make it to the end of this, and I'm gonna do all that Yahweh asked me to do because I'm partnering my faith with his grace.