TRANSCRIPTION | Sunday, February 6, 2022 | Meaningful Connections Series | BE STILL

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

Today I get to preach in the vein of meaningful connections and, uh, so thankful for the Swan family and the message that they were able to share with our congregate and that vein, uh, last week right here at Russell Springs. And today in regards to meaningful connections, I wanna put a little bit of focus. Maybe I should say a whole lot of focus on establishing a meaningful connection with God, really taking your relationship with God, to that next level in regards to meaningfulness. And then that can impact and directly affect every other relationship that's in your life. And in order to do that, I, I need to speak within a specific vein today. And, uh, it was during our worship night that, uh, actually Jaron was, uh, sharing some thoughts.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And, uh, I think he shared something that wasn't even necessarily scripted, or maybe not even a part of his notes. He just spoke about how that he felt like that God wanted to establish a stillness in the hearts of many people that evening in the moment he said that things just began to resonate in me and I actually zoned out for a minute and just went straight into the word and God really started speaking some stuff to me on that subject. And so I'd like to thank you for the, uh, the seed to the sower and, uh, giving me the, the thought to, to chase this down today. So I wanna, I wanna drop an anchor with two verses mark chapter four, verse number 39. It says this, and then Jesus arose and he rebuked the wind. And he said to the sea peace, be still, familiar passage, famous words of Jesus and the wind ceased.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And there was a great calm. And then Jesus turns and begins to rebuke the disciples because of their fearfulness and their lack of faith. I'd like to show you another verse it's in Exodus, chapter 14, verse 13 and Moses said to the P people do not be afraid, stand steal, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish you for you today. The Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace. It's an extremely deep passage of text. There are is unbelievable. Th theological ex Jesus available within this verse. And today I in no ways will attempt to unpack all of that. I really just want to take it and share with you some things in this regard to be stilll and see the salvation of the Lord. Would you just look over at somebody and tell 'em be still be still, still means unmoving, soundless, serene, quiet, calm, be still.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

The opposite of stillness is restlessness or disturbance. God said, be steal, stand steal. Let's talk about a meaningful connection with God today in that vein father, help me to preach, help me to teach, help me to share your word or let you will be done in Jesus name and this church. Amen, man. And I are blessed with two kids. Most of you know that, um, we have a 16 year old daughter and a 14 year old son, and they're very different. Uh, they have very different personalities, but our son, when he was first born, uh, up until he was, was about seven months old, the kid was so peaceful. He was so calm. He was so steel in, in one evening. Uh, we had a friend of ours that was preaching for us. It was actually during a Sunday evening gathering. And, uh, this gentleman happened to be like a mentor in our lives.

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And he stopped in the middle of his sermon and Mandy was holding Dawson. He looked over there and he said, that kid is gonna be full of fire. He's gonna be so full of fire. He's gonna have a hard time sitting steel. And I remember thinking like, I love this guy and I know he probably hears the voice of the Lord, but I think he's really off base with this. It was like it woke something up in Dawson about a year later. We could not remember the last time he had slept an entire night. We couldn't remember the last time that he hadn't been fidgeting or moving around. And I can tell you that even when he was about five years old, I actually have a picture where that really captures my son's personality. Um, this is when he's four or five years old and I, I was traveling to preach somewhere and I had been assigned babysitting duty and we had went into what looks like a Starbucks.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And I had like tried to find like some time just to, to be quiet, to be steel, to make sure I had the right message to try to hear the Lord, to, to go over the man message, to be prayerful about the message. And every time I would look up Dawson was rolling around in that chair, standing up on top of that chair, getting ready to flip off backwards and hurt himself. And I, I remember just repetitively be still, it didn't work. Then it don't work. Now at 14 years old, he still is moving constantly. He, his mind always racing. And if his body's not moving, he's gotta be moving his hands. He's gotta be watching something, doing something he's a, he's just, he just struggles to be steel. He's extremely fidgety. He gets it from his mother.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

Maybe you've raised some kids and you've noticed that sometimes it's hard to get them. It be steel. You know, it's really not just an issue with babies or toddlers or children or teenagers. I think all of us in one way or another struggle with being steel. And that's why when we read a verse like this Exodus chapter 14, verse 13 and Moses said to the people do not be afraid, stand steal. I mean, when you're afraid, the last thing you want to do is stand still. When you're rattling with fear, when you're rattling with concern, when you're going through some kind of struggle, you, you don't wanna stand steel. But one of the things that God is communicating here is that one of the displays that they are not struggling with fear is that they are going to be able to stand still. But I, if you're not careful, you can actually get a little bit confused in reading this verse in context, because right here, verse 13 and 14, God is telling them stand stilll.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

The very next verse verse number. And the Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. Is anybody else confused? Because I thought you just told me to stand steel. And now you're going to tell me to go forward. Well, wait a second. God, which one is it that you want from me? Do you want me to stand steel? Or do you want me to go forward? And the truth of it is a lot of us. If we would be honest, we are in that place of tension in our own walk with God. We're not really for sure if we should stand still or if we should go forward. I wanna talk to you today about how to discern that. Because one of the things that the Lord goes right on to say in this same package passage, is that he is getting ready to fight for the people of Israel, the Hebrew people.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

But, but the time in which that God says, stand steel and see the salvation of the Lord. He doesn't just say this in Exodus 14. He also says that in second Chronicles, chapter 20 and second Chronicles, chapter 20 verse 17, he says that this, you will not need to fight in this battle position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. You won't have to fear. You won't have to be dismayed because tomorrow you're gonna discover that the Lord is with you. So now when you take Exodus 14 and second Chronicles and you put them together, you begin to, to see it with a little more clarity, that, that there is to be a time to stand steel. And there's going to be a time to go forward, because what happens when you are obedient to God in the moment that you are required and expected to go forward, it will position you for the moment when you get to stand steel.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And the reason that you're going to get to stay in steel is because God doesn't intend for you to be the one who does the fighting. It says he's about to show up in both scenarios and do the fighting for you. And so it's really important to walk out the things that God tells you to walk out specifically, the things that his screw scripture instructs you to do, even if it is against your own understanding. Because when you go forward in relation to God's command, it puts you in a position where you get to literally stand steal and see the salvation of Lord. So I want you to look over somebody and just tell 'em be still be steel. How do you know when it's time to be steel? How do you know when you've went forward? Far enough? How, how do you know when you've reached the point where it is acceptable to say, okay, now I'm gonna watch God do this thing.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

Well, I, I think one of the ways that it becomes obvious that it's time to stand still is when you are able to evaluate your life and determine why you are still moving forward. Are you still moving forward? Because you, you, I understand we're talking about this. We're not talking anything negative about vision. We're not talking about anything about forward progression. Your life we're are talking about. There's gonna be some specific moments of stillness in your life, make sense. And so how, how do you know when you've reached that place? When you have done the things that now God is saying, okay, it's it. You're gonna take a moment and you're just gonna be still, how do you know you're there? I think it's when we're able to evaluate, why am I still moving forward? Am I doing it? Because it is a clear instruction from God, or am I doing it because I'm running from something.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And I think that there are a lot of people that just move in life without a lot of intentionality, without a lot of systematic approach, without a lot of clarity, but for no other reason, in fact, there's something chasing them and they don't want to get caught. And the way that the Hebrew people knew that it was time to stand steel is an Exodus chapter 14. He tells them go forward. And the reason they go forward is because they've been released from Egyptian. And now they find themselves. Literally, if you look at the geography that there's a mountain on each side of them, and there's red sea in front of them, but God parted the red sea. Somebody remembered the story and they walk across on dry ground. And once they get to the other side, the enemy is still chasing them. The enemy is still moving in their direction. But once that enemy got into the middle of that parted red sea, the Bible explicitly says that God caused the wheels to come off the enemy's chariots. And that thing that was chasing them, couldn't chase them any longer. And there was nothing coming at 'em in the rear view mirror any longer. Now they got the opportunity to literally just stand still. And God said, you're gonna see my salvation. In other words, watch this.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And so I think some of us, we, we, we never really acknowledged the fact that the thing that was chasing us, isn't chasing us any longer. Our God has a way of making old things pass away and everything become new. Again, we become a new creature in Christ Jesus. We become born and again in Christ Jesus. And the result of that is things that used to have a hold on us and used to have authority on us. God takes the wheels off of it. Now I don't believe in running. If there ain't nothing chasing you. That's why I don't exercise my son and I, we were down in bowling green and we had Mandy and Natalie off for something. And I could have done what a normal human being would do. I could have sat in the parking lot and waited on them to come out, but my son does get it honest.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

I just can't set still. And so I decided I'd get out and explore and move around. I got myself so lost that it took me 35 minutes to get back where Mandy was at. I even had Google and Siri confused, cuz I couldn't sit still. And in the process of trying to get back to wherever it was, I had dropped him off. I started making laps evidently around the same block. And I started noticing with every lap I was making in the vehicle, there was this guy and he was running along the sidewalk and I looked at Dawson. I said that dude, he's just running around and around and around and around. And finally I decided to help him. So I just rolled down the window. I said, sir, there ain't nobody chasing you.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

He didn't think it was funny either. But if there isn't anything chasing you, why is it that we run so scared? And we run from this thing to that thing. And from this appointment to that appointment and this manufactured busyness to that manufactured busyness, am I making sense to anybody? And we just, we are constantly in movement. And I think it's because we're so uncomfortable with steel. There's this thing called FOMO. The fear of missing out and, and the, the truth of it is probably every single one of us wrestle with it in some way. That's why we stay constantly connected. We get in a car, we turn on noise. We go in the house, we turn on noise. We are addicted to noise and maybe I'm not talking to everybody, but I'm talking to more than just somebody, because even now when we go into a restaurant there, there's not just one screen.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

There are screens all the way around to the point that even when we're having a meal breaking bread together, it's very difficult to have a meaningful connection because there's so much hindrance. There's so much distraction go in a restaurant sometime and just watch how families will come in. Sometimes even couples on a date night and they will look down and they will never have a meaningful connection with one another because they constantly just scroll and feel up through the noise. And in the same way that that kind of stuff is affecting our meaningful connection with one another. I believe that it is affecting our meaningful connection with God because we don't know how to be still. And, and sometimes we never really get to see the incredible things that he is doing in our life because we are so uncomfortable with being steel. And so sometimes we're out here fighting our own battle and doing stuff that even God would never have expected of us because we don't know how to be steal and just let God be God.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

So I want you to look at somebody and tell, 'em be steal so many hindrances in our life that keep us from being steel. I was a young guy. I was getting started in ministry. There was an African Bishop. We were helping his churches in that continent. He came to see us. He spent the night with us the next morning he was having breakfast with us. And, and as he went and he, and we're sitting at a little counter there in our kitchen, he looks at me and he says, young man, you need to understand something. You're a young guy. You need to get this straight. He said, the enemy's gonna come at you. And he's gonna try to get you to fail with sexual. Imorality gonna try to get you to make a mistake that will damage your ministry and distance you from the presence of God.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And if he can't get you to fail in that regard, he'll come at you. And he'll try to get you to do something crazy with money, try to get to misappropriate funds or steal something or take something that doesn't belong to you so that he can distance you from God. And he said, if he can't get you to get in bed with somebody that's not your wife or take money that doesn't belong to you, he'll try to offend you. He'll try to make you bitter. He'll try to get you to the point where your heart's callous and you walk around feeling entitled because of some bitterness that you've allowed to be nurtured in your law life. He said, and if that doesn't work, then the enemy will bring out the spirit of hindrance. And he will attack you with distraction and hindrance on all four sides of your life.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And you will find yourself literally struggling sometimes just to keep it all straight because of all the noise that the enemy will surround you with. He said, because as if the enemy can't attack you in this way, he's gonna try the next way. And if the next way doesn't work, he's gonna, and I can tell you over and over again in my life, my wife and I, we talk openly about this, that it just seems like the enemy is so insistent and so intent on keeping people distracted and even us, ourselves rationing with hindrances that, that, that make you feel like you gotta constantly be moving. You gotta constantly be doing something and you wrestle with the anxiety of what are you missing out on. If you're not moving right now, we're uncomfortable with stillness.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

Stillness is awkward. Stillness feels weird. Whoever was listening on the radio broadcast has already flipped the channel cause they thought something was wrong. We're not, we're not comfortable with being steel yet. We want to hear the voice of God. And over and over again in scripture, one of the things that you discover is that it seems to be that God's favorite way to speak to us is in moments of steel. This there's this guy named Elijah. He's not your average choir. Boy. He called fire down from heaven, brought national revival. He need to hear the voice of God. So he goes up on a mountain. He's in a cave. And the Bible says, there's a fire, big fire, blazing fire, rowdy fire.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

Couldn't hear God in it. Then there's a wind, a big wind, a hurricane like wind. He couldn't hear God in it. So then stuff started shaking. The earth literally began to shake under his feet. It was an earthquake, but he couldn't hear God in it. And the Bible says, the moment went. Then Elijah finally heard God is when there came a steel, all voice that heaven chose to speak in a whisper and Elijah couldn't hear it until everything got steel. And we want God to bring something big and something loud and something that captures our attention. And then we think that we will hear his voice. But the truth of it is he choose, is to speak in the moments of stillness. The question is whether or not we will create them so that we can hear him stillness. How many times have we missed the voice of God? The direction of God, the destiny of God, the purpose of God, but for no other reason, the fact that we could not deal with the concept of being steel.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

See, we want God to turn his voice up, but if you're going to hear God, you're going to have to be steel. And that means you're going to have to turn everything else down. That is how you be steel. Sometimes it means you gotta lay the phone to the side. Sometimes it means you gotta stop binging on Netflix. It, sometimes you ride down the road without the radio turned on. It means sometimes your phone actually goes on silent and do not disturb. Sometimes you just gotta have a place where you turn everything else down. And even when you're reading his word, it begins to leap off the pages because you're just being steal. So get somebody and tell him, be steal. There's another man in screw name is Moses. He did incredible things for God. We've already referenced some of what happened in his life today, but there's another moment.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

A moment when he's first getting his calling, he he's on the backside of a wilderness. He's went through some difficult time. He he's possibly gonna be charged as a criminal and he's wrestling his way through all of that. But, but he happens to see that there's this Bush that doesn't appear to be a big Bush from what scripts, your implies it it's, it's some shrubbery and it, it happens to be on fire and, and he, he stops and, and he looks at it and he's just standing steel. And he's trying to make sense of it. And he senses that God is speaking to him. And God says, if you want to hear what else I've got to say, you're gonna have to take your sandals off.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And that that's, that's got a lot of prophetic unction, that there's a lot of revelation within why he took his shoes off. But what if at the end of the day, it just simply meant be still like, like what if to be still, we're going to have to make the decision to stop moving. Like, like what if we really want to hear the voice of God that we're gonna have to make the decision to take off our shoes and stay a while. Everybody wants to talk about acts chapter two, especially people who have a spirit empowered background. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty win. Hallelujah, praise God, Cloven tongues of fire sat on each one of them. Peter got up and preached the 3000 people, 10 minutes. They all got, say, my goodness. That's church. Anybody say amen. Yes. But what we missed is they had to sit there for 10 days, 10 days in a room being still, and then came to suddenly, we don't do what they did because we won't do what they did.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

We don't know how to stop moving. We give an hour and 15 minutes on a Sunday. And that's a struggle for us cuz the whole time we're engaged in the moment. We're thinking about where we gotta get to next and the appointments we've gotta check off. And these things, we gotta get the kids to. And these things we gotta wrap up before Monday comes and we just struggle to be steel. But if you're gonna be steel, you're gonna have to turn everything down and you're gonna have to stop moving. But I'm also gonna say to you, you're gonna have to choose a time cuz the time will never choose you. That's what God told Adam and Eve, he said, I'm gonna give you a whole week. You get a whole week, you get seven days, but you're gonna choose a day to be still. You're not gonna work.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

You're not gonna be engaged in anything, but my presence and hearing my voice. And the first day that man was alive, they were creed on the sixth day was God's seventh day. So the first day that man was alive, he's just being steel. And he's looking at everything that God made. And he's saying it is good. It is good. It is good. It is good. It is good. It is very good. Some of us don't even of good things we've got in our life because we never are still enough to just look around and say, man, God's been good. Oh man, God's been good. Oh, he was good on Monday. He was good on Tuesday. He was good on Wednesday. He was good on Thursday. He's good on Friday. He's still good on Saturday. Then I'm here to tell you he really good come Sunday. I don't know who I'm trying to help this morning, but somebody's gotta get the word that every once in a while you just gotta be still. The Sabbath was not a suggestion. It was a command. And it may be the greatest sin in modern Christianity that there is no stillness, no ability to just say this period of time is reserved for his voice.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

Come on, tell somebody be still. But you can't just, you can't just make the decision. You're gonna turn everything down. You're gonna stop moving. You're gonna choose the time. A chosen time requires a chosen place. You have to select a place. Jesus, he's talking to disciples. He says, you wanna know how to pray. Here's how you pray. You find you a, the place and you shut the door. What was he saying? No hindrances, no distractions, no public audience. He said, if you really wanna engage me in prayer, just be steel. And he even said a way with the nonsensical vain repetitions that make you feel good about your prayer life. He said, be totally okay saying what needs to be said and be still probably the most praying young man I ever met. I met about 20 years ago. I don't know that I've ever met a young man that prayed. Like he prayed. He'd get up praying and he'd go to bed praying. And every time you seen him, he was inviting you to another prayer meeting and had his had little wisdom as anyone I've ever met in ministry. And I was baffled by it. How can you pray that much? And never have a lick of sense when it comes to making the right decisions.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And I asked the Lord about it. This is what I believe Lord said to me, Eric, the problem is he does all the talking. You say what needs to be said? And then you listen, he let his word talk to you, get you a place. This is the last thing I'll say to you about being steel. You getting it right? If we're gonna be steel, we gotta turn everything down. Gotta stop moving. Gotta choose a time. Gotta select a place. But if you really want a meaningful connection with God, you're gonna have, have to silence your storm. Here's what I mean by that. We all want God to silence the storm on the outside. And none of us want to acknowledge the storm. That's on the inside. When you read scripture, it seems to me very hard to find a place where that God ever says that he's gonna guard your mind for you. He talks about he will guard your heart, but he puts a responsibility on us to be disciplined in what comes into our mind and the storm that is associated with our mind. And I wanna show you something that scripture says it's Psalm chapter four, verse four, it says be angry and do not sin meditate within your heart, on your bed and be steal.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

God goes on to tell those people and Psalm four, everything he's gonna do for him on the outside. But the first thing he required them to do was acknowledge there was something going on inside of them. That wasn't right, something inside that had to be calmed, something inside that had to be steeled. And, and it's a lesson to all of us that, that if we're gonna really have a meaningful connection with God and a meaningful connection with others, we, we can't operate out of whatever it is that flared up the last moment inside of us. That's why you should never discipline your kids. When you're angry, get yourself somewhere and get yourself calmed down, steal the storm and then bring the discipline. And many times, if you'll let God settle what's happening on the inside, you'll discover that he can speak to what's happening on the outside and is absolutely no storm that's ever crawled outta hill that he can't decree and declare peace be steel.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

But what if one of the prerequisites for hearing peace be steel on the outside is directly connected to the willingness to tell yourself on the inside stand steal, we struggle with it. We don't like the thought of it. But when Jesus talked to those disciples, after he calmed on the outside, he started talking to them about the issue that was on the inside. He's like, y'all are worried about what's going on on the outside. You got something bigger going on the inside. You're dealing with doubt. You're dealing with fear, you know, with all these things in the world. And I came to tell you, you can have on the inside and it'll cause you to never even have to worry or Fred about what's going on on the outside. So, so why don't you get my word alive on the inside and then watch what it'll do on the outside. I dare you. Just tell somebody be steel, be steel, be steel. I I'm gonna leave you this morning with one final thing autos. They begin to just play the music softly. There's a, there's this passage.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

I didn't share it in the other service. I'm not even sure if I should share it now because it doesn't allow me to like package this message together. Kind of cute, neat at the end. But I'm telling you, I saw something in scripture and I saw it this morning about five o'clock. Oh, that's not right. It's about one o'clock it's about one o'clock in the morning. I saw this just a passage, Luke chapter seven, verse 12. And when he came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out and the only son of his mother and she was a widow and a large crowd from the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and he said, do not weep. And then he came and he touched the open coffin. And those who carried him, stood steel.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And Jesus said, young man, I say to you a arise. If I could speak to you in a metaphorical figurative, prophetic tone, there are those of you that are packing something that's dead. In fact, it's so dead. You've thought gonna have to bury that dream. Gonna have to bury that vision. Probably gonna have to bury that calling it's dead. And you are in the procession towards that dream being buried forever. And I just felt like it. If I could say with prop Fe, UNC, I really believe this morning that God would say to you, if you'll just stand still, if you'll just stand still. If you'll, if you'll just turn everything down, if you'll stop moving, if you'll choose a time and you'll select a place and you'll silence all the anger and grief that's inside of you, God's about to speak to some dead stuff and it's gonna come alive again in such a way that coincidence will never be able to take the credit for it.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

And God himself will get all the glory. If you'll just stand steal, you know that God showed up and talked to Abraham and said, I'm gonna destroy a city and your family's gonna die with it. And the Bible says that everybody that surrounded Abraham, when he heard this, they walked off. But the Bible says Abraham stood steel and started pleading with God and said, God, let my family live. God let my family live. God and it's Abraham's family was saved because when everybody else was moving and running around, he stood steel. You better learn the moments to stand steel. It's going to impact every facet and every aspect of your life. And it's gonna take your meaningful connections with God to the next level. Can I get a witness and an amen from somebody to the sound of my voice this morning, come on, give him praise for the fact.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

He brings dead things back to life. Again, give him praise for the fact that he's the one who can save families. When everybody's written 'em off and said, it'll never happen. Give him praise for the fact that he can part the red seas, take the wheels off the enemy and the things that he's chasing you with. Give him praise that sometimes you don't even have to fight your own battle simply because you stand steel and you see the Lord. I'm gonna leave you with one final verse this morning. And it's in the book of Psalms. And the book of Psalms makes this statement in chapter 46, verse 10. Last thing I'm gonna say to you be steel and know that I am God. The reason some of us don't know he is God is because we won't be steel long enough for him to show us my God. I feel the, I just about could have a fit this morning.

 

Pastor Eric Gilbert:

My goodness. Do you, does it make sense to you? Like some of we just don't know he is God, because we years won't be steel and let him show us. So there's a time to go forward and position yourself, but there's also a time to be steel. And if you're running from, if you're running from the enemy, it's about time for you just to stop right where you're at and let the enemy know you're not running me anywhere else. I'm not gonna run from this relationship to that relationship. And from this job to that job. And from this thing to that thing, I'm gonna and steal right here and watch my God be God and his enemies be scattered because if he before me who or what can be against me, God, I'm gonna make room for you to move. I'm gonna make room for you to move. I'm gonna make room for you to move. Come on, stand with me, do your feet all over this room. God we say I'm gonna make room for you to.