Priscilla Shirer // Brand New Name

hey there i want to say thank you so much for letting me be a part of your sunday i love shoreline church and i love every opportunity that i have to be a part of what god is doing through this church whether it's in this capacity when i have an opportunity to minister to you or whether it's just you know my family and i sneaking in and being a part of service and just sitting here most of the time at the white rock campus and just being a part of church we love the life of god that just pulsates and his presence that is felt at shoreline so i'm just saying hello to all of you at the white rock campus and also the north campus and then of course all of you that are joining us online the presence of god is as much with you in your home or wherever it may be that you may be watching today as he is here with us and so we're grateful for that thank you for including me to earl and onika and for the entire staff and team you know y'all are our people you're our family and so it is our pleasure to be able to participate i love god's word i love sharing it i love talking about it listen if you were here with me right now we were just sitting across from each other with a cup of coffee i would still love to just sit down and talk to you about our god and the truth that we discover from his word i believe that every single time we come to the scriptures whether it's individually by ourselves having quiet time or whether it's like this in a corporate gathering whether physically or online no matter what the dynamic is every single time we ought to expect to actually feel the warm breath of god brushing across our cheeks as he speaks a present word to us so i want you to even picture that right now before i share with you just a few simple thoughts that have encouraged and challenged me from this portion of scripture i want you to picture that right now that god's breathed word for you today like not just random theoretical scripture reading no no actually god has something to say to you today so if i were you i would lean in on the edge of my seat with my chin in my hands in eager anticipation with my heart and hands open to say yes lord whatever you want me to hear whatever you want me to get i'm ready to receive let's pray lord i thank you i thank you that you speak to us clearly and obviously by your spirit and so father i pray that in these next few minutes you would do it only you can take this one little simple message and divided how many ever how many ever multiple thousands of ways it needs to be divided so that every single person under the sound of my voice today will know they have heard the voice of god and father i ask that you would allow the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart to be acceptable to you in jesus name i pray amen i want to start by telling you that the past two years really going on two and a half years now the past two and a half years for myself and my family have been incredibly difficult years personally they've been difficult we have had one struggle after another one trying circumstance one disappointment one bit of discouragement after another most of it has been around the loss of loved ones friends and family members just to give you some context and frame of reference for the kind of uh circumstances that we have had to face over the past two to two and a half years we have lost eight family members back to back we lost uh my cousin she was 38 years old in the prime of life four little girls she was not just my cousin she was actually my best friend she was my road dog she was the one i called when we were gonna go to the movies together we're gonna figure out how to put our kids in bed so we could all meet up for the movies and and go out to eat together she was my best friend and in the blink of an eye one day her heart just stopped beating and she went home to be with the lord six months after that i would lose an uncle six months after that i would lose an aunt a couple months after my aunt i would lose her husband and uncle by marriage who had been precious to us for many many decades as an uncle and then i would lose a grandfather i lost my mother and six months after my mother i lost my beloved mother-in-law jerry's mother person after person taken away a week after my own mother's funeral i had to go into the hospital for a surgery that could not be put off any longer i had tried to delay it over and over again but there was something in my lung that they had seen there that they were wondering about and it had gotten to the point where they knew they had to remove it the problem was they couldn't just remove it because it was embedded so deeply into my lung that they told me they were going to have to take out the entire upper lobe of my left lung so a week after my mother's funeral i went in for that surgery it was about four or five days later as we were in the hospital that they came back with the pathology report that that little image that they had seen there in my lung was actually cancer lung cancer the most unexpected surprising disappointing discouraging thing compounded on top of the grief that we were already feeling the emotional havoc that we were already experiencing not only me and jerry personally and my own sons but my entire extended family we were just riveted by emotional chaos that was in january of 2020. well you know what happened after that february and march of 2020 came and the compounded trauma for all of us ensued we didn't just experience one pandemic did we we experienced several one on top of the other because it wasn't just a medical pandemic that riveted the globe but then there has been also a racial pandemic there's been a political pandemic there has been trouble on top of trouble every time we turn around there's a new issue that we're facing whether collectively globally or whether it's one that we're facing in our own communities or whether it's the one you're facing underneath the roof of your own house i know that while your story might not be identical to mine you do have a story there have been things that have happened in your life and it wasn't just one thing and maybe you could have handled it if it was just two things you know spread apart by months or years the problem is that we've had one thing pile itself on top of another thing and then as soon as we feel like we've caught our collective breath from that thing then another one shows up across our social media feed or a doctor's diagnosis that calls or the kid's principle at your kid's school they call with another issue it's one on top of another and i know the tears that fall from your eyes i know the hurt that may be embedded deep down in your heart i know how it feels to turn your eyes and your hands upward towards heaven and say god i trust you but how could you allow this much difficulty in this short amount of space and time there is encouragement and there is conviction and comfort and challenge that has come for me about what to do in the midst of difficult circumstances and how to face how we can have the courage to face whatever it is that life throws at us and i find that encouragement in two simple verses of scripture that i want to point your attention to in the book of judges chapter seven if you have your bible you know if you actually still use the bible with paper pages go ahead and turn over to judges chapter seven if not then you know your ipad your iphone any manner of eyeness will get you to judges chapter seven and let me just tell you that in these few chapters that we find right here embedded in the middle of the book of judges we meet a hero of the old testament and his name is gideon and just like us gideon has experienced some hard stuff in fact that's kind of what makes him a hero that it's despite the hard stuff that he still rises up in triumph he's still in obedience to god in commitment to god goes into a battle that should override him that should overwhelm him he is weak and they are strong it actually ends up being 140 000 midianite soldiers against his meager 300 and yet he comes out victorious that's what makes him one of the heroes one of the most memorable personalities in all of the old testament so before we ever meet him in judges chapter 7 which i'm going to direct your attention to those first two verses in just a second before we ever meet him we find gideon feeling much like you and i have felt beat up and bruised and battered and disappointed and discouraged and a little bit fearful i don't know about you but i've walked on eggshells a little bit i've found and that's that's not my normal personality i don't kind of get up looking for bad news i'm an optimist by default my default personality and nature is that way but i have found myself over these past years just wondering what's the next shoe that's going to drop what's the next bit of news that we're going to get what's the next loss that we're going to experience what's the next difficulty that we're going to have gideon knows how that feels because the verses that perceive the chapters that proceed when introducing us to gideon tells us that gideon and the entire nation just like our entire nation has experienced one trauma on top of another the midianites their enemies have wreaked havoc on them not just once and not just twice and not just for two weeks or two months not just for seven months but for seven consecutive years the enemy keeps on showing up and then just when they feel like he has backed down the enemy shows up again and the midianites have wreaked so much havoc on them that it says they can't even live comfortably in their homes and communities anymore their homes have been burned down by fire their economics have been ravaged as they have um just pillaged their entire towns and so now they've had to escape from their communities they're living in caves that they've had to carve out on the sides of mountain in other words words their entire lives have been turned upside down and i bet if we were in the room together right now somebody would have just said amen because you know how it feels to have your whole life turned upside down i know that i do but gideon having run in fear and timidity and a bit of insecurity that's how we first meet him in judges chapter six he has been running in fear and insecurity because the midianites keep on coming but god met him and god changed his story and changed the gps coordinates on his destiny and reminded him who he was and sent him on on a mission and told him much like he had told moses previously i've got a plan for you you're the one that's going to lead the nation to victory and on the heels of hearing that from the mouth of god we meet gideon in judges chapter 7 verses 1 and 2. and it says this then jerubale parentheses that is gideon look wait a minute let's let's just stop for a second because i can't even get to the rest of this verse without pausing at the fact that the writer has actually called gideon by an entirely different name did you notice that i don't know what translation of the bible you're viewing it from but whichever one you're reading you should see there that gideon is in parentheses and now this writer has given him our hero the one who is known by the name gideon he has now at the top of this chapter referenced him as jerubale jerubale means baal fighter in previous verses we have found that gideon went back to his father's home and he tore down the altars of baal the idols of baal in other words he pushed past the fear and insecurity that had been indicative of his identity in the previous chapters and he had risen up in the power of god and he'd gone back to his home and he'd change the trajectory of his entire family line by becoming a bail fighter and tearing down the idols that were uh specific to who bale was in that community so now here at the top of chapter seven the writer doesn't even call him by the same name anymore he basically says of our hero you are not the same person that you used to be everything has changed which means the way you face the enemy today is going to be different than the way you face the enemy yesterday it means that yes it doesn't mean your troubles have changed it doesn't mean gideon that you're not getting ready to face this same enemy that has ravaged you for the past seven years but it does mean that this time that you're going in as a brand new person with a brand new perspective with a brand new attitude with a brand new identity on this sunday morning i came to tell you brother or sister that you are not the same person that you used to be and here's the deal we get the privilege of having something gideon did not he didn't have you know the bible he didn't have his story in black and white already written down he had no way of knowing that when his story was penned the writer was going to call him one thing in chapter six but then call him something completely different in chapter seven he had no way of knowing what you and i have the privilege of knowing that once we come in contact with god almighty once the holy spirit of god sets us on divine mission and changes the trajectory of our life that our chapter seven can be completely different than our chapter six that you are not the same person that you used to be and here's the thing you've been forged by the fire of the difficulty you faced in chapter six without it without those midianites without that trouble without that diagnosis without that phone call without that fear that you felt without that bit of insecurity that you had to push through without that disappointment without that grief you would not be the brand new person that god is making you into in fact the scriptures say that when we meet jesus christ in salvation a miracle happens at the moment we place faith in jesus a miracle happens second corinthians 5 17 he says the old is gone and the new has come listen when you came to jesus for salvation you were not just changed you were exchanged you are not the same person that you used to be but then that transformation continues throughout the course of your life mostly not through the good times but through the bad times we actually become entirely different human beings tender in places we weren't tender before a bold in places we were timid before we have perspective and breadth of thought and commitment to truth and we've got some backbone and some fortification we never would have had in the chapter seven of our lives if we hadn't come through the chapter six difficulties that we were allowed to face so here's what i want to tell you that i know you've been through some hard stuff i have too but i know you've struggled i have to that i know you've cried the tears and you've been through the hard stuff and you've had to recalibrate your whole life and you've been through financial struggle and health issues and you've lost some loved ones i got it i know the feeling but here's also what i believe the holy spirit came to tell you today that what you're about to face in chapter 7 you are facing as an entirely different person you are not the same person that you used to be your entire identity has shifted so now where you would have not had mercy towards someone now you can have mercy where you wouldn't have felt compassion or empathy towards another individual because you couldn't feel their pain you hadn't been through what they've been through well now you have so there's compassion that is oozing out of everything that you say there is a burden now you have towards other that or others that you wouldn't ordinarily have high school student and university student there is a boldness that you have in truth and what it is that you claim to believe now you know it for sure because of what you've had to walk through in chapter six in chapter seven you're a different person and what a tragedy it would be if we come into chapter seven of our life the next season the next stage the next portion of our life if we come into it like we haven't gone through nothing what a waste all of that would have been if we get into chapter seven and don't know we got a brand new name we have a brand new identity that we don't have to act the same and walk the same and live the same and talk the same and succumb maybe to hopelessness and despair in the exact same way that no we are not the same people that we used to be so the midianites may still be there but the way we face the midianites the enemy this discouragement the trouble the trials the way we face it changes not because they've changed but because we have you got a brand new name when i was in high school um i took on this little experiment i was going to a brand new school for my freshman year and so i decided that since i was going to a brand new huge public school duncanville high school was where i went there were about 750 kids that were in our freshman class i was coming from a little private school there were like 13 kids in my little private school class so to me it was this whole new huge world of a bunch of brand new people for the most part they didn't know me i didn't know them i thought it'd be kind of cool if i just went in and you know changed my name so i told my one friend who i knew from youth group at the church i said listen when you introduce me to new people tell them that my name is dk i just made a little silly nickname two initials d and a k i put them together and i said don't introduce me as priscilla introduce me as dk so she did and y'all it caught on for the next four years every single person at my high school including the teachers the counselors the principals everybody called me dk in fact it caught on so much so that still to this day if i'm in a grocery store or a mall or an airport and somebody somebody says or on twitter hey dk i know they went to high school with me because during those four years of my life nobody called me priscilla so it was no big deal little experiment my parents didn't mind until one day when i got sick at school and my parents had to come my mom had to come and pick me up i had a fever and i remember laying on that little cot they have in the nurse's station you know and they pulled a little drapery there and i remember hearing my mom the click clack of her little heels as she walked up to the counter there where um the nurse was and she said i've come to pick up priscilla and the nurse said who she said i came to pick up brazil you call me she's sick right they toggled back and forth for a moment and discovered oh you mean dk so i went home with my mom and she didn't say anything to me she gave me a little while to recover and feel better but then as soon as i felt well enough i won't forget my mom saying to me as she looked at me with that mama eye that she would give me she said to me now listen girl i don't mind this little experiment you've had going on for the past four years but she said in just a little while just a few more months here you're getting ready to graduate and when you graduate they're gonna have a ceremony and when they have a ceremony they're gonna hand you a little piece of paper she said priscilla when you walk up on that stage and they hand you that piece of paper there better not be a d or a k on it because i don't care what other people have called you there is only one or two people me and your father who actually have the right to give you your name there is only one who has the right to give you your name i don't care what other people have called you and i don't care what you've even called yourself i don't care what the past season of life has made you feel like you may have felt that you are a person who is steeped in fear or insecurity or depression those are real feelings you may feel angry or abused or taken advantage of or hopeless or like you're in a puddle of despair you may rightfully feel those things but that ain't who you are you are who god says you are you can do exactly what your god says that you can do no matter how your past has sought to define you no matter how you have behaved no matter what struggles you have you are not your struggles and you are not your behavior you are not what other people have said about you or what you've said about yourself you have a brand new name and according according to ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 you are his workmanship created in christ jesus so that you can do the good works he prepared before you were even a thought in your mom or dad's eyes even with the midianites on your trail the way they've been on your trail and the way they've been on mine we can still do everything that god has called us to do you are not the same person that you used to be verse one goes on to say that all the people who were with jerubale the jail fight the bail fighter gideon all the people who were with him they rose early and they camped beside the spring of herod let's pause there now remember at this point gideon jerubale the bale fighter he is now on his way into another battle with the midianites who've ravaged them already for seven years he's already intimidated he's already insecure walking on eggshells because he's meeting up with this enemy that has already proven to be a formidable foe and so as he heads towards this battle he's got 32 000 soldiers at his disposal all these resources to stand up against the 142 thousand million night soldiers he's done the best he can to get all his resources together and they begin their march towards this battle and as they march towards this battle the author of this text wants you to know that jerubale camps at the spring of herod he tells us an exact geographical location here's what you need to know about the spring of herod it was a lake that was formed from an effervescent continuous flow of water that spilled out from the side of mount gilboa this seemed like it would have been an appropriate place for gideon to take the 32 000. now remember this is a continuous flow of water which means there would have been vegetation all around the banks of it and if you're taking a bunch of soldiers to prepare for battle they're going to need fresh water to drink they're going to need to have vegetation around so that they can have a continuous supply of all the nutrients and food that they're going to need to sustain them for the battle that is ahead and not only that but the spring of herod was also located on the side of a mountain that overlooked the valley where the battle was going to be waged that means they had a clear perspective and a clear view they were able to see the moment that the midianite soldiers began to encroach upon them this seemed like the perfect place there's only one problem the word herod actually means to tremble it means fear so gideon a man who now has had a brand new identity shift who the the living god has come to in the previous chapter and called him out of fear and insecurity and has set him on a brand new path this man who is not the same person who he used to be takes all the people who are with him and basically camps at a place called fear let me tell you something when you're not the same person that you used to be you have no business going where you used to go throughout the old testament the spring of herod was a landing place for lots of people who were running in fear king saul at one point when he was told in first samuel chapter 28 by a prophet that the philistines were coming upon him and that they were going to destroy him we find that king saul went to this exact same spring running in fear and insecurity and timidity this place was marked by trembling and fear and insecurity gideon had no business now camping out and wallowing in and hanging out in a place that was marked by the thing that was no longer indicative of the person that he had been called to be when you are not the same person that you used to be you ain't got no business going to the same places that you used to go and so i ask you where are you camping out lately i'm not asking you do you feel fear i'm asking you do you wallow in it i'm not asking you do you feel insecurity or anxiety about those issues or even a sense of despair and hopelessness those feelings might be natural and normal to us given the fact that there are 140 000 midianite soldiers breathing down our neck of course you're going to feel a tinge of fear in those scenarios but i'm asking you where are you camping out where are you spending your time what are you allowing to be the environment that most influences the decisions that you make and what are the words that you're allowing to come out of your mouth or the words that you're allowing to feed you in the environments that you are in watch where you go because when you're not the same person that you used to be you have no business going to some of the same places you used to go and the truth is that i do mean this in a physical sense who are the people that you're hanging around what are the environments that you're allowing to influence you who are the people or what is the kind of culture that you're allowing into your closest fear of influence listen it matters high school student university student listen to me it matters the places that you're going the environments that you're cultivating and that you're hanging around those dynamics are significant to the kind of perspective that you are going to have because this place where gideon and these 32 000 soldiers were on this occasion that was the posture they were going to have from which to view the enemy do you realize that the actual location that you choose the stance that you choose to have the environment that you're in it actually shapes the way you view the difficulties that you're about to come head-to-head with in your life so yes it matters it matters what physical actual environments you're in and what you allow yourself to be a part of but even more than that within this context i really am thinking of it in a mental and emotional and a spiritual sense are you going to places that you have no business going are you allowing those thoughts and those feelings to actually govern your life paul said that your thoughts don't govern you the apostle paul he says when you have those thoughts those feelings that are actually contrary to your new identity in christ you take those thoughts captive and you subject them to the truth of who god has called you to be and here's what i know about who god has called you to be that he has not given you a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind when that's the person that you are then that's the kind of environment you allow yourself to hang out in not only physically but mentally emotionally you square yourself up with the truth of who god has called you to be and here's what's so significant about this little portion of scripture i mean we ain't even got out the first verse yet here's what's so significant about it gideon wasn't the only person going to the spring of trembling the lake of anxiety the little oasis of fear he took 32 000 people with him do you recognize that if he would have camped out on the mountain of victory that if he would have camped out on the lake of security if he would have camped out in a place that was more indicative of the victory that they were about to have of the new identity that he had been given that not only would he have gone there but all the people he was influencing would have gone there too so the question is not just about where you're hanging out the question is also about the people that you're leading and influencing the people who are watching you and that are falling in step with you because don't think for a moment that it's just you who's at stake here there are people whose eyes are on you you know the folks who you work with that all know you're a christian they're watching where you go because where you go they following mother of small children father of small children or teenagers or young adult children you need to know that you're setting the temperature for your entire household the culture of that basketball team or volleyball team that you may be on young adult student you need to know that where you go there are other people who you're influencing on your twitter feed on your instagram feed your facebook followers what you post matters and the reason why it matters is because wherever gideon went the 32 000 went with him when you are not the same person that you used to be you got to make sure you don't go to the same places that you used to go anymore verse 2 says and the lord said to gideon the people who are with you are too many for me to give get midian into your hand the reason why is because israel they just might become boastful saying that my own power has delivered me without reading through the next few verses i'll just tell you that god now begins to go on a whittling process where he takes the 32 000 down to about 10 000 and then he still says to gideon you still got too many soldiers on your on your at your disposal so he takes the 10 000 down to three hundred and then once gideon only has this meager scanty amount of soldiers available to him to face the 140 midianite soldiers that are coming against them the lord says to gideon in verse 7 now i will deliver you with the 300. you know what's so interesting about this is that we hear the lord saying to gideon you have in verse 2 he says the people who are with you are too many now remember at that point he had 32 000. the midianites were at 140 000. we would expect that god would say the people who are with them are too many for me to give them into your hands he doesn't say that he doesn't care what the resources are that the enemy has at their disposal he looks at his child and he says the people who are with you are too many you have too much resource at your disposal too many resources too many people too much skill too much talent too much savvy too much flash too much ability on your own if i let you win with all those resources you're going to be tempted to say i did this for myself so i've got to get you into a position that you realize that it is not by power and it is not by might but it is by the spirit of god and what is this lesson for us it tells us that when you are not the same person that you used to be not only do you have no business going to where you used to go but you also don't need everything you thought you needed the resources that you have they already might seem too small but sometimes you will see god whittling you down to emotional reserves that you feel like are too small for this relationship you're trying to maintain the smallest amount of what you feel like is the patience you need or the passion that you need or the creativity that you need or the money that you need or the connections that you need to make this particular thing come to pass and you stand there going god why have you allowed my 32 000 to come down to this meager 300 i can't win like this i'm too limited and i'm too weak and when we say i'm too weak god whispers back to us my strength is made perfect in that weakness when you're not the same person that you used to be you don't go to the same places that you used to go and you don't need everything you thought you need and with just this meager 300 a now gallant warrior goes into battle against 140 000 and god said to him the exact same thing that i believe the spirit of god would say to you and to me as we face whatever midianites are coming in the rest of our year that we have ahead he said to gideon i will deliver you with the 300. you don't need more you just need god's hand of blessing on the 300 you already have you don't need to become something more than what you are right now you don't need more resources at your disposal i know you feel small and limited and weak after everything that the past 18 months has done to you and your marriage and your children and your health and your finances and the struggles that we've all faced i got it but god says the 300 you got left is really all you ever needed to begin with i got you lord jesus i thank you i thank you father that you have positioned us for victory and lord we admit it has been hard and we have struggled to rest in your sovereignty but today we recommit ourselves and we thank you that you will deliver us with the 300 in jesus name amen hey amen amen what a beautiful message and incredible day that we've had at a church family but we actually want to take a moment and say if you've given your heart and your life and you've surrendered it to jesus in this season whether it's after you watch the message today or just even been a few weeks ago we want to know and so we want you to text jesus first just one word to 97 000 because we want to know your name we want to know your story i want to come alongside of you in this journey that you've said yes to so congratulations we celebrate that decision and can't wait to see you text in for sure and hey it doesn't even end there okay yeah there's a journey we want you to be on and it's going to be easy to get on it we call it growth growth track is the front door to this church and honestly we have a growth track every single wednesday at eight o'clock and so we want to invite you to jump on this journey with us it's gonna be incredible yes and last but definitely not least we are a generous church family so i want to make sure to thank every single one of you for continuing to be generous and if today's your day that you want to begin on that journey we say like hey come on in we know that this is a gift that every single one of us gets to even so into the kingdom their lives on the other side of your yes there's multiple ways to give that you'll see um below but we love you all so incredibly much we are so thankful that we've gotten to spend this time with you have the best week

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Length: 37min 8sec (2228 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 07 2021