SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let me get this set up here. Well, good morning, everyone. So good to see you. Um, you know, I get to do something today that that I haven't done yet, and that's to speak alongside my beautiful bride, Taylor. Um, some of you know her as Scotty's husband. I I would say Scotty's Scotty's wife. Scotty's wife.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Not a husband.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Okay. Hey, can you cut that from the record? Sorry. Some of you know her as Scotty's wife. I just wanted to say, this is where it got tripped up in mind. I'm actually Taylor's husband. That's how you need to know this relationship, okay? Um, but you know, if you weren't here last week, Pastor Mike, right before he left, uh, made an announcement. And man, we are so excited. If you weren't here, we get to be the ones to tell you. But next year, Taylor and I are planting a church in Adel Georgia. Wow. Man, um, that that is that is so exciting. You know, we we intentionally didn't tell you all the details because we don't have a ton of them. But there are a couple of things that I do want to kind of mention to you today. And and before you leave, and I mean, and maybe like walk out early, like, oh, this is just a sales pitch for Adel. No, it's not. No, it's not. Today, I we do want to talk a little bit about what the Lord is calling us to do in ADEL, but we also want to talk about where we, every single one of us, can make space for the Holy Spirit right where you are. So there's two big questions that that have come up. And I want to um, oh, yep, that's great. There we go. So if you have, we have we've created a question and answer for you, um, kind of a frequently asked questions, you can scan the QR code. But there are two things that that we just wanted to just tell you uh initially. Some people heard January and thought that, oh, they're gone in January. We're we're we're we're never touching foot back on this uh new covenant. So no, no, no, no, no, no. We are in January starting a small group on Wednesday nights in Adel, okay? But Tay and I are gonna continue to serve here. I'm gonna continue to to serve as your executive pastor until our official launch date, sometime uh summer later of 2026, okay? Um, second thing is some of you are thinking, great, that's fantastic. Whoa, why are you telling me? Well, the truth is that every single one of us in this room play a part. Now, I'm not telling you that everybody's supposed to go and move to ADEL. Some of you are, and we'd love to talk to you more about that. But as uh as a church multiplies and plants a group of people in a different area, what inevitably happens is that there are now roles that open up here. New opportunities to serve, new opportunities to lead, new opportunities to step into something that you never have before in the kingdom. And so as we go through this process, you need to be prayerfully considering what is my role here at New Covenant? What is my role if I'm supposed to go? What is it that the Lord is drawing me to in this next season? Did I say all the things?

SPEAKER_01 3:18

I said all the things.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Okay. Um, so that gets us to where we are this morning. This morning, we're going to be, if you, if you have your Bible and you'd like to turn there, I want to invite you to turn to 2 Kings chapter 4. We're going to be kind of centering this morning around a story. One that you may or may not have heard, but it's a story about Elisha, who is the successor of Elijah, Elisha and the Shunammite woman. Did somebody say bless you? That wasn't a sneeze. That was actually how you say it in the Bible, Shunammite now. So in uh 2 Kings chapter 4, we we find Elisha as he's traveling as a prophet of the Lord. And if you hear that and you say, I don't really know what that means, before Jesus came, lived the life he lived, died, was resurrected, throughout the Old Testament, there were these individuals, and you can see it all throughout the Old Testament, where it says that the Holy Spirit of God was on this person. Now, today, the Holy Spirit of God is inside of every single one of us, right? That's one of the gifts that was given to us. But in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come down on a person, an individual for a season. And these prophets in the Old Testament, they acted as intermediaries, intermediaries. Am I saying that right?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, like a go-between.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

A go-between. So God would speak directly to these prophets, and they would speak on behalf of God to the people of Israel. And so today we're going to be reading 2 Kings chapter 4, verses 8 through 17. And Taylor reads way better than I do, so you'll be able to follow that better if she says it.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

All right, so 2 Kings 4, starting in verse 8. One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there. In other versions, it says a prominent woman. And she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat. She said to her husband, I'm sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. Let's build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by. In verse 11, one day Elisha returned to Shunim and he went up to his this upper room to rest. He said to his servant, Gehazi, Tell the woman from Shunim, I want to speak to her. When she appeared, Elisha said to Gehazi, Tell her, we appreciate this kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army? No, she replied, My family takes good care of me. Later, Elisha asked Gehazi, What can we do for her? Gehazi replied, Well, she doesn't have a son, and her husband is an old man. 15, call her back again, Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her, as she stood in the doorway, Next year, at this time, you will be holding a son in your arms. No, my Lord, she cried. Oh man of God, don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time, the following year, she had a son, just as Elisha had said.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So we have this story, and I think it can be very difficult at times for us to step back into the culture of the Old Testament. We've got a man, he's a prophet of God himself. People saw him as the mouthpiece of God. And he's traveling primarily through this northern region of Israel, going back and forth. And during a time when actually culturally, people in Israel were falling away from God. This isn't a time where everybody was very receptive to the word of God. Does it sound like today? This was a time when people didn't care as much about God as what they wanted to do. And not only that, but you could also find a God, I'll say little G God, to match any preference that you want. In the midst of this time period is when Elisha is traveling back and forth, and this woman says, I recognize that this is a man of God. What does this have to do with us today? Well, I would tell you a whole lot. There are opportunities like never before in the kingdom of God, not just here inside of this church, but when you step out into your car and drive wherever you're going today, you go into your home with your family. There are opportunities, and the question is, are we willing to make space for the presence of God in our lives? So let me pray over this word. Father, we love you. And in this moment, we cannot wait for what it is that you'll reveal to us. God, if it is a word of correction and adjustment and change, we receive it with open hands. If it is a word of encouragement, we receive it with open hands. But Father, I pray that you would speak loud and clear through your Holy Spirit to us where we need to make space for you, where we need to build a room for you, and how we can better presence, uh sorry, better house your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

unknown 9:40

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

All right. So we're gonna start back at the very beginning of this story in 2 Kings 4, 8 and 9. Um, and then we're gonna pull some things out of it and talk a little bit more about that. Um, so we'll read it again. One day Elisha went to the town of Shunam. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat. She said to her husband, I'm sure this man who stops sin from time to time is a holy man. So the first thing that we see from the Shunammite in this story is that she had an awareness of the presence of God. And so our first point, you can see it up there, um, is making space for God's presence starts with recognizing where he is already passing through. You see, the Shinamite woman didn't just grab anybody to come to have her to come to a meal at her house. She picked Elisha and she was aware of his presence, and she didn't really see the fullness of that, but that awareness is what drew him her to invite him to her house.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

You know, I I wanted this is just an aside, but I'll throw it in here. I find it interesting that the story in Elisha, uh, I'm sorry, in chapter four here, is the Shunammite woman and not the just the Shunamites. Um, very clearly, uh, this woman had a husband and they together built the house, but I wonder, and man, I don't know, am I meddling? But I just wonder if it was only the Shunammite woman who recognized the presence of God, and the Shunammite man maybe was sitting back watching the chariot races. Football. Sorry, sorry. No, um, but sitting back just kind of making sure whatever makes you happy, wifey, you know what I mean? I just wonder why in this story is it the woman, the wife that was mentioned, is it because she was the one, the only one to see the faith, or that had the faith to see the gift. And and and we wrote this down, and I I love this. It's that awareness is the seed to encounter. Now, here's the difference for today. We're not looking around for one prophet, one intermediary. There is divine opportunity everywhere we go. When you go home and you eat lunch and you're having a conversation with your family, there is divine opportunity to partner with the Spirit of God and bring his kingdom right into your home. When you go to work tomorrow, there is divine opportunity. And the question is, will you be aware enough, in tune enough with the Holy Spirit to recognize what it is he's asking you to do? And I'm reminded of two other stories in the Bible. First, Exodus three, and we're not gonna read any verses, but I'd encourage you to study it out for yourself. In Exodus chapter three, you have a man named Moses, and we know him as this pillar of the Old Testament. And you've you've heard stories about Moses for your entire life, probably. But we see Moses, who is out being faithful, tending the sheep for his father-in-law, and he sees a bush that's on fire in the middle of a desert. Hot, a bush is on fire. Moses had the awareness not to pass by, but to recognize something's different about this. In Matthew chapter 16, we have Peter with the disciples talking to Jesus. Uh again, and you can write this down. We're not going to read the specific scriptures, but you see that Jesus says, Who do men say that I am? You have the disciples saying different things, and Peter says, You are the Christ, the Son of God. These men who had walked with Jesus for three years, some still didn't quite understand, but in that moment, Peter had an awareness of who he was with. Jesus, Son of God, both fully God and fully man.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

So God's presence is constantly accessible, and it's our responsibility to be aware of it and to respond to it. How many times have you been at the grocery store and you well, maybe not the grocery store?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Well, maybe not, because I go to the grocery store.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Well, I go to Walmart, and anyways, I love Walmart. It's great opportunity there. How many times have you been somewhere and you met someone and you were like, wow, what's different about them? Something seems different. There's an awareness there of something that they're housing, that the presence of God is just create something different on the inside of you. Um, and it changes. And so we have to be receptive and have the ability to kind of seek out and be aware of what the presence is, where the presence is, and follow that and respond to it.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

So the next thing that we see here in 2 Kings chapter 4 is the Shunammites woman's response to God's presence was invitation. And making room for God's presence require what sorry, words are hard. Words are hard. Making room for God's presence requires us not only to recognize it, but intentionally invite him in. Right? Now, right here, we we see the Shunammite woman's first act of sacrifice. And there's more that we'll talk about, but recognition wasn't enough. You can see all day long that person on the side of the road that deeply needs Jesus and deeply needs a meal. You can be aware all day long, but are you willing to offer the invitation?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Um, recognition of the presence is not the goal. Like it's the beginning, it's the process that we walk through to be able to invite the Holy Spirit into him, like like the Shunammite woman did. The invitation is what led to relationship. So she was aware, oh, there's something different. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna have him over for a meal. And then it turned into every time he passed by, he came and had a meal there. It led to relationship. And then she had this epiphany and she spoke to her husband and said, Man, I think this guy that we've been having over all the time, I think he's a man of God. He's a holy man of God. Something is different about him.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

And if you look back at the story of Moses, Moses, Moses, that's that's how you, if you look it up in the blue letter Bible, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced like that. It's not, it's not. That's just my um my inability to read again. In Exodus chapter 33, verses 7 through 11. You've got the Israelites much before 2 Kings ever happened. You've got this people that was called out by God. They're wandering in the desert, but the entire time that they're wandering the desert, they're housing the presence of God in a tent called the tent of meeting or tabernacle, you might have heard. But it's it was a physical place that the presence of God resided in. And wherever that physical place was, the very presence of God was. And every time that the Israelites would stop and rest, this tent of meeting was set up. Moses and Joshua would go day after day and experience the very presence of God. And mind you, this is this is a little bit, it's not even in our notes, but it's a freebie. There was an invitation to the entire people of Israel to experience the presence of God the way we get to today. But they were afraid of the cost that it would cause the price that it would cost them. So they said, Moses, you go speak to God lest we die. But the people knew that that place, that tent of meeting, housed the presence of God. And so they would go and inquire, ask of the Lord through Moses, through Joshua, through others. And they would hear the word of God because they were seeking not just to know that God was there, but inviting him and his word into their hearts.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

And I think what's so interesting about that story is what it required of the Israelites is to actually like leave the place that they were comfortable and walk to this tent to experience Jesus, to experience God. Um we get to experience Jesus, Holy Spirit, all of those things. Um, but it took them from a place of saying, Okay, I have this situation. I need God's wisdom, I need God's help with. What do I do with this? It required them to take steps to come out of their house and then come to the place where the presence of God was. And I feel like that's what the Shinamite woman was doing. She was inviting this man of God, this holy presence into her house. It created relationship and it created um just an opportunity for what God wanted to do in her life.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

So we've got we've we've got a woman who's aware of the presence of God. She doesn't stop with awareness. She moves to a place of invitation. She invites Elisha in. Every time he passes through this town, her town, she would invite him in, but she didn't stop there. In in 2 Kings 4, 10, um, she says, Let's build, speaking to her husband, let's build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by. Excuse me. It wasn't enough just to invite him in for time from time to time. Next, she chose to build a room, to make room for the presence of God, and that was a sacrifice. It cost her. It cost her family monetarily, right? There, there was a price to be paid to build this addition onto her house. But when she housed him, she also fed him. There was a sacrifice to be made. And I'm I'm sorry if I'm the first one to tell you, but when we make space for, when we make room for the presence of God, it does cost something. But there's good news, there's one more point coming, that the reward that we receive when we make space for the presence is far greater than everything we could ever imagine.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

And as we look at our personal lives, we have to count the cost of what it costs to house his presence. Sometimes that means we kind of have to clear out some things. Like there may be some some bitterness, maybe some unforgiveness, maybe a little bit of anger, maybe sin. Maybe there's just not room. And so when we count the cost of what it takes to be able to invite him in and build a space for him, we kind of have to think about those things. What is it gonna cost you? Because if you don't count the cost, then you'll never make the room, you'll never build the house, you'll never add on to what he's calling you to do.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

You know, I love the story in in Mark chapter 14, verses 3 through 9. We we see a woman named Mary. And this is the woman who who brought her most, I don't want to say it was her most, but a very precious thing in an alabaster jar, a jar full of of um of perfume. Now, what what I what I think is really interesting about this story is that she was known by the other people in that house, and she wasn't necessarily known for great things. There's a lot of humility in the act that she that she did to come kneel before the feet of Jesus and then to break that jar and anoint his feet. You know, it's said that that jar represented generally a year's wages, a year's worth of income. Can you imagine the sacrifice it takes in one moment to take one thing, lay it at the feet of Jesus, and say that's worth it? But here's the thing that I want you to see. So many times I think it's it's easier for us to think, well, if I clean up X, Y, Z, then I can come and make space for God. God doesn't do that. He takes us the way we are, right? You know this. He doesn't ask us to clear out all the clutter and junk of life to come to him. He says, come to me just like you are, and I will with you, we will clear this stuff out together. So you might be sitting here thinking, yeah, that's that's great. One day I'll be there. Today's the day. Uh what I know about the Holy Spirit is he's so amazing that the things that he's speaking to me and to tailor our family are different than what he's speaking to you, and that's awesome, that's great. We all, every single one of us have a response to what it is he's calling us to do in this moment.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

So once the Shunite woman she built the room for Elisha, she went from inviting him to stop by to giving him this room. And there's some ownership there. Because you see, later in the story, which we'll talk about some another day. Another day. Um, but later in the story, um there's this issue. There's her son gets sick, and she says that she lays her son on Elisha's bed in Elisha's room. She gave him ownership. She didn't just say, Hey, when you're in town, you can I'll have this extra room, this guest room, I'll let you sleep in. No, she furnished it. She put the things in it and she said, This is yours. This is your, you have complete ownership.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

So, what does that look like for us? Now, uh the the good Southern traditional Christianity looks like Sundays and Wednesdays, right? You go to church on Sunday, you lift your hands if you're feeling crazy, and you go home and you live your life. But ownership looks so different. To give God through the Holy Spirit ownership in your life means you wake up every morning and you pick up that cross that Paul talks about. Say, I die to the things that I want. Holy Spirit, I welcome your voice in my life right now, and I will do whatever it is that you ask me to do. Whatever it is, I will do it. Christianity was never meant to be relegated to Sundays and Wednesdays. I'm sorry, it wasn't. It's a valuable part of our Christian faith, gathering together with other brothers and sisters who love the Lord. But it is not your chief end, which is to recognize and experience God and to make him known to everyone else. Okay, you read a lot. I'll I'll read the next ones, okay? We'll share that load a little bit. So moving on to verse 11, we're gonna read 11 through, is it 17 that we said? Yeah, 11 through 17. One day Elisha returned to Shunam and he went up to the upper room to rest. He said to his servant Gehazi, tell the woman from Shunim, I want to speak to her when she appeared. Elisha said to Gehazi, tell her, we appreciate the kind uh concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can you put in a good can can we hey, listen, you're gonna have to do that thing. I I haven't gotten my glasses in yet. I can't read that mess. Okay. Um I'm sorry. It is way, it is way too small for me. Um, can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army? No, she replied. My family takes good care of me, verse 14. Later Elisha asked Gehazi, what can we do for her? Gehazi said, replied, She doesn't have a son, and her husband is an old man. Call her back again, Elisha told him. When the war when the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, Next year at this time, you will be holding a son in your arms. No, my Lord, she she cried, Oh man of God, don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. Verse 17. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at the time of and at that time, the following year, she had a son, just as Elisha said.

unknown 28:28

I'm sorry. I forgot to click.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

You forgot to click. Y'all got it. You're good. It's all it's it's all good. Because of this Shunammite woman's intentional sacrifice, she received extravagant favor. Now, there's something we've got to talk about here because it can be really easy to look at this as a transactional thing, right? I do what God says, I make room, and in turn I receive his benefits. God's not transactional. Your salvation is not transactional. You could never earn your salvation. And that's beautiful because God didn't ask you to earn it, he asked you to receive it. So much of what God has to offer us is not transactional. We just have to be obedient to say, whatever it is, I'll do it. And trust Him. Think Matthew 6, 33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. What are all of these things? Whatever you need. And your father loves you so much that he doesn't just stop at your of at your immediate needs, he gives you that thing that you say, like the Shunammite woman, that's way too big to ask. I could never ask. But sure enough, one year later, just as he said. Divine favor is yours because of the space that you made for God.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah, and there is like this little piece that I love about this story. You see, when Elisha starts talking about what we can do for this woman, and he calls her in, he's kind of talking through his servant, Gehazi, and he's saying, like, hey, what can we do for her? Call her back in. Do you want a favor from the king? Is there like the commander of the army we need to talk to? And he's speaking through the servant. And then he gets to a point where he's like, Okay, well, she's good. She doesn't need that. What else can we do? And Elisha says, Okay, she needs, she doesn't have a son, let's call her back in. But you don't see in the second part of that, you don't see them going through the servant Gehazi. Elisha speaks straight to her. And he speaks straight to her and says, You're going to receive a son. That's what the presence of God does. He speaks straight to the place of greatest need and produces something there. He created an opportunity for her. I think it's cool that she's standing in the doorway that represents opportunity. She's standing in this doorway, and Elisha looks at her and says, You don't have a son, but you're gonna have one. That's what God wants to do with you guys. When you say yes to the Lord and you are aware of his presence, and when you invite him in and say, Yes, Lord, whatever you say, yes, Lord, when you make room for him and you it creates space for opportunity for God to go in there and say, that thing that you never thought was gonna be accomplished, I'm gonna do that thing, and I'm gonna do it way better than you even thought that it could ever happen. You know that broken piece over there that you thought I was never gonna be able to see and you were never gonna be healed from? I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna make it whole again. I'm gonna make it better than it was when it started. That's what extravagant favor does.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14 through 21. I am gonna read this all for you here. It says, When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the creator of everything in heaven and earth. I pray that from this glorious unlimited resources, from his unglorious unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. I am gonna move over here. Verse 17. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And you and may you have the power to understand as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever. Amen. Scripture is full, full, full of verses like that. And what I want to tell you today is it's not about favor, it's about relationship. Relationship starts with recognition, awareness of the presence of God. No matter where you are right now, there's nothing you've done that takes you out of the running to experience the presence of God. God wants this personal relationship with you. Once you've you've become aware through the Holy Spirit of where he's moving and what he's doing, you have to invite him in. God will not force himself on you in that way. He will not. And once you invite him in, it's not enough to just have that presence come and go, but you have to make room in your life for it. You have to give ownership of what you think is yours, give it up. And then we get to, through, through relationship, experience the divine favor of God in our lives. And I want to read this verse out of Isaiah chapter 54, verses two through three. And then we want to just give you a couple of thoughts. Enlarge your house. You've heard this before, maybe not in this translation, but enlarge your house, build an addition, spread out your home, and spare no expense. Verse 3. For you will soon be bursting at the seams. Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities. This is a prophetic word for you today. And this is a prophetic word for new covenant today. You want to read that?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

So when I read about the Shunamite woman, I see a picture of what God is calling us to do with this church plant in Ado. You see, she didn't build that room for Elisha because she wanted something from God. She built it because she recognized his presence. She said, Let's make room for him. That's what we're doing in Ado. We're making room for God's presence in a new place. We're preparing space for him to move even before we see the results. And just like the Shunammite woman didn't know her miracle would come through the room that she built, we don't know all that that God will do through the space that we're preparing. But here's what I believe as we make room there, God is making room here. He's opening space for new leaders, new voices, and new callings to arise here. Because when you make room for God, you also make room for people. And the same presence that filled that upper room in Shunim is still moving here today. He just needs hearts that say, Lord, you are welcome here.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

And so right now in this moment,