When You're Being Sifted | Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

i want to talk to you about the language of god today when you start to understand the language of god you understand the why he allows certain things to happen it was in the book of psalm 103 that says he showed his ways to moses but his acts to the sons of israel moses understood the language of god the ways of god although the other saw the acts of god moses understood why and that's what god is wanting to do with you and me that we understand the language of god so that when we go through things that we're going to be talking about like today sifting out of luke 22 we're going to understand so we won't react we won't become defensive we won't work against god we'll start to work with them and in cooperation with them so i want us to understand the language of god but before i want to share with you a funny story of some people that didn't understand the language of their mom mom is turning 95 years old and she has three great kids their names are gerald and milton and donald and they didn't know what to get their mom 95 years old she had everything so milton says well i'm just gonna buy her a brand new house a big old house and uh gerald says well i'm i'm gonna get her a huge mercedes benz with a chauffeur so that she doesn't have to drive anywhere and donald says oh you know what i found it's really expensive several hundred thousand dollars but i found this parrot that a monk for 14 years trained this parrot to memorize the bible i said no way yeah you know how much mom loves the bible yeah they said well well mom all she has to do is tell them a scripture verse like john 3 16 and the parent will actually say it for her whoa they said well they send their gifts to mom and about a month later this 95 year old mom responds and says you know milton thank you so much for the house it's nice but i only live in one room in the house i've got i've got to clean the whole house i don't know what to do with your house and then she said to the other one gerald you know i love the mercedes benz and the chauffeur but i don't want to go anywhere so the chauffeur just sits there and so i laid him off i don't need that but at least she said donald one of you knows what your mother wants the chicken was delicious [Laughter] understanding the language of god we're gonna have to work on that just a little bit today we want to talk about when you're being sifted some years ago i hired a weight trainer so that i'll learn how to lift weights correctly today i don't do that i let my weight train itself but uh but the first day i got there he put some weights on this horizontal bar and there was a bench and he said now we're gonna do 12 reps reps is short for repetitions each one is a repetition so he said we're gonna do 12 reps so he put i'm not going to tell you how many pounds but it's between a zero and 400. and he he put the weight on there and he got positioned me underneath and he said go so the first was not too bad in the second you know and so i'm going up and down he's counting them above me watching me like this and so by the time the 10th rep came my arms were vibrating and i pushed it up and then the 11th i said i can't do it i was spent by this time everything in me was just depleted and he said you can do it you can do it i said i can't he said you can so finally i made it up and then like a gleeful school girl he goes now it's beginning now it's starting i said what he said now dig deep this is your 12th rep this is the most important rep of all now it's beginning i said beginning what he said you're building muscle i thought what in the world you think i've been doing the last 11 reps vacationing so he said now push hard push hard and i tried my best and i couldn't get that thing off my chest it was glued and so he said here here and he put two fingers not a whole hand two fingers and just gave me just enough help but not enough so that i'd give up he just gave me justin and he said now go dig deep dig deep it's starting it's starting now it's starting this is the most important rep of all the next morning i couldn't lift my arms to shampoo my hair but as i replayed that scene i thought he was right you see the most in rep the most important rep of all was the 12th rep when you don't think you can go anymore when you think you're fully spent that's when muscle begins to be built that's when old muscle breaks down the old tissue breaks down and new tissue hopefully new tissue takes its place bigger stronger tissue it's the 12th rep some of you are in a season of sifting some might be in a season of favor but sifting is the 12th rep it's the most important it's the most important in your character in your marriage and your finances and your relationships it's the 12th rep when you think you're spent you're completely depleted and god helps you but he doesn't give you enough help so that you give up because that just builds victimhood and we because most of the time we bail out before the 12th rep and god says no that's the most important rep of all today i want us to learn the language of god when you're on the 12th rep what is he saying what is he doing like moses i'm going to show you my ways it was peter and the disciples with jesus one day in luke chapter 22 and i'm sorry in your notes it says exodus 22 but it's actually luke if you would take out your notes with me then we're going to read together what he says about sifting would you read it with me out of your notes go simon simon satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat but i have prayed for you that your that your what not fail and you once you have turned again strengthen your brothers jesus told his disciples that they're about to be sifted on the threshing floor like wheat move removing the chaff from the grain from the bad from the good but he encourages his disciples not to worry he said because i'm praying for you i'm praying for you that your what your faith not and that's not very reassuring to me i don't know about you it's like you hanging on the side of a cliff and you're yelling help help my fingers are slipping and your friend runs over and goes you know what i'm going to be right here on the picnic table praying that your grip not fail you just go for it yeah i will shoot him and it's almost like jesus said that i'll pray that your faith not fail now some of you may be in a season of favor but some of you may be in a season of sifting and if you're in a season of sifting you're actually in good company believe it or not and i want you to take comfort in the fact that knowing that all of god's greatest people went through the 12th rep and they pushed it they dug deep god gave them a little help but they were sifted david david learned his best and was refined in the desert caves being chased by saul joseph joseph learned what god wanted to do and learned the language of god isolated in an egyptian prison moses moses learned to hear god and was strengthened in the middle of a sinai desert when he was excommunicated from egypt paul the apostle learned his refinement in prison in a philippian prison jacob jacob who was a father of the 12 tribes he learned his lessons and endured training under a man named laban who deceived him for 14 years before he was able to marry the one that he wanted to marry 14 years sifting i think about that that's tough but in every single case god gave them the opportunity to retaliate and run or stay with it and dig deep and they chose to push through the 12th rep and build real muscle the muscle of faith in the process so if you think about you fast forward the tape david who was refined and sifted in the deserts of israel in the caves became the greatest king israel has ever had even till this day you can go to israel and there's a tomb of david people still file through that and put flowers on his tomb today joseph became the second in command of all the known world and then moses when he pushed through the 12th rep led nearly 2 million people out of bondage and jacob became the father of 12 tribes that laid the tarmac for the coming messiah and paul the apostle wrote half the new testament that we still read today you think about that god knew what he was doing but you say but did it say that the devil wanted to sift him like wheat but see god knows what he's doing he knows how to even use the tough stuff in your life that the enemy meant for bad and he can turn it for good his whole thing is just don't let your faith fail i've got my part you got to get yours i don't expect you to lift at all i'll always be there to give you help but you're going to partner with me and not bail out when i was in junior high my dad moved us from hawaii to trail oregon and if you don't know where that is it's on the way to tiller and uh i didn't think that was going to help but uh it's such a small town on one side of the side and says welcome to trail the other side says goodbye and it's just a teeny little place and he bought 10 acres of land on the side of the hill and it wasn't a good piece of ground but in fact he paid 75 dollars an acre for it back then so you can see the condition of the 10 acres well he had to terrace everything because it was on the side of the hill and wanted to build a garden and the the condition of the soil was half shale and half loam and i don't know if you know anything about shale but it's like broken up rocks and so he had two junior high kids at that time myself and my brother gary so that all amounted to basically free labor so he said we've got to sift the soil so we can build a garden so we worked up a frame a two by four frame four by eight and stapled a a mesh screen on it with about a half inch or so uh opening and a grid and then turned it over put it on an angle and all day long we would shovel shale and loam up against the diagonally placed mesh screen the larger rocks would just come to the bottom that we would discard into a landfill and the other dirt the finer dirt would sift through and it was that that we use for garden and boy i tell you our vegetables grew gigantically in that fresh sifted soil till this day i can still remember the the smell of that dark beautiful brown dirt that would just fall through my fingers and i thought you know that's exactly what god does for us there's certain seasons at that season it was growing a garden and so we needed sifted soil and that's exactly what happened plants grow best in sifted soil life grows best in soil has been sifted you want your marriage to grow your marriage is going to get thrown up against the mesh screen and the stuff that god doesn't want is going to roll down into a landfill but the best stuff is going to come through if you push through through the 12th rep you want your finances successful it'll be put up against the screen the mesh screen of god's testing do you want relationships to grow you'll have to throw it up against that screen your character remember nothing grows best until it is sifted and that's why jesus let the sifting happen and then when you understand about this you will begin to understand the language of god and just like the 12th rep it breaks away old muscle old tissue and the best stuff comes through let me give you a couple of things that breaks down and one thing that builds up in the sifting of our life and by the way you're gonna have to think can i encourage you think more like a farmer a farmer has to know what season it is when it's springtime and things are growing like crazy they cannot take breaks when you are haying or when you are planting or when you're harvesting or when the crops are at its peak you don't paint fences you don't dig fence post holes you harvest you work and you work hard and it's almost like god knew that that was harvest season and work season because the days became great much longer it's protracted in a greater way it's almost as if god is saying this is a season to work hard other seasons may not be so but on this season you work hard and you're going to have seasons in your life that you have to discern for example what season are you in ecclesiastes talks about that he says everything there's a season but you have to understand the season and when you do it correctly you cooperate with god and you begin to understand the the language of god and we sifted soil why because it was spring no we sifted that soil why because it was summer because it was winter no because it was a season to grow vegetables what season are you in are you in a family season maybe it's a season for family i don't know but let me get to that in just a moment and and let me rewind the tape and tell you some of the things that it breaks down when you're going through the 12th rep number one when you're being sifted god breaks down old expectations you can write that down he breaks down old expectations expectations we have about god about people they should treat me better whatever do you remember the the people in israel that disciples expected jesus to overthrow the government he was to be the king get rid of herod get rid of pilate get rid of all the romans you're going to be the king but jesus said i didn't come to destroy the government i came to repair a broken relationship between man and god that's why i came for redemption you see when you're being sifted jesus breaks down old expectations some years ago a mother met with me and her son had made some pretty bad choices he was going the wrong way heading for prison and she came into my office and she got mad at me i said why are you mad at me she said you should've you should have a better youth program i said it's pretty good yeah but look at my son and i thought well that ain't my fault we're doing the best we can well she was she had expectations that were displaced and then i thought after a while you know what you're mad at you're mad at god you're mad at heaven because god has given your son the freedom to make bad choices do you know that god gives you the freedom to make bad choices we don't like that we get mad at god and others because of those bad choices that mankind makes but it really is god's love that he gives us the freedom to make bad choices he also gives us the freedom to make good choices and that's why you're going to see that you're going to have two pains in life by the way because you can make a bad choice if you want to but you're going to suffer the consequences of it see god gives everyone the sacred so it's a sacred privilege and the freedom of choice but what you don't have is the privilege to choose the consequences that those choices entail god gives you the sacred prerogative to make choices but what you don't have is a privilege to choose the consequences of those choices and so you can make bad choices you can make good you're free to do that but when they're bad choices we can't blame god it's an expectation we have to break down as it were in our muscles and then when we make good choices our life turns out better bad choices we have to suffer the consequences of whether it's loneliness or fear or relationships that are broken down whatever it might be now is it easy to make good choices not all the time because they're tough pretty easy to make bad choices though but here's the two pains you're going to have in life it's going to be the pain of discipline or the pain of regret two pains in life the pain of discipline or the pain of regret they're both painful but what do you think in the long run is more painful pain of discipline or the pain of regret yeah pain of regret that stays with you for a lifetime so the first thing is god's going to break down old expectations even about church i've got seven expectations that god's going to break down especially as we start a new church here it is number one remember the church will not always make you feel comfortable except today we got air conditioning that's nice the second thing is others in the church may not hold your opinion on all things how many of you understand that's to be true yeah yeah number three you might leave the church sometimes unhappy particularly when god reveals a shortcoming or sin in your heart against the light of his righteousness to oh that's me ouch ouch and so it may not always make you feel good but you'll understand the truth here's a good one the song selection won't always be your cup of tea and it won't always be played in the arrangement of the era that you prefer i'd rather have a tommy dorsey kind of era you know or lawrence welk others say i want bruno mars it won't always happen your way and then the next if you're a single person going to church will not guarantee you a spouse let me get that straight right now just saying i can't think of a better place to find a spouse than in church number six going to church will not guarantee that your children will not make bad choices that's where we have to teach the generation upcoming but here's a good one you might dislike the color of the carpet the taste of your coffee but you'll always love the shirt your pastor wears [Applause] i made that one up myself but it's going to break down old expectations and the second thing would you write down is going to break down old habits old habits i want to introduce you to uh alvin toffler who wrote the book future shock he said something interesting he said the literate of the 21st century will not be those who can read or write those who are going to be the literate in the 21st century will be those who can learn unlearn and relearn you see because there are some things in your past that you learn that doesn't hold water today you have to unlearn them well you know so-and-so told me and i learned this yeah but against the light of god's truth and what he's saying today you may realize that that was good advice for back then but it's not good advice now it doesn't hold water you ratchet back to the word of god you ratchet back to the word of god well that means i have to unlearn what i learned in oh yeah you do yeah you do there was a assembly taking place at a all-girls school in hawaii and the bishop came and and took some questions and answers and one girl said you know the bible says homosexuality's wrong but you know we live in a society today what do you think our society accepts it and it's normal and you have to love people right and the bishop said yeah you know the bible does say homosexuality's wrong but it was written a long time ago and we're a lot different today we've learned so much since that time and i thought oh no no no no the word of god is infallible and we will need to ratchet up to god's word or we will bring his word down to us do we love absolutely do we care for absolutely but if someone does something wrong just because he's my child let's say he steals a car i'm not going to now say car stealing is okay because i love my son no it's still wrong i love my son but that's wrong and we have to understand we have to take the light from the dark and separate that the bible says god's word is going to do that get used to it because it'll break down some old expectations if we're not careful we'll lose our faith in the sifting and that's why jesus said i pray that your what not fail your faith not failed and a lot of people bail out in the 12th rep and they actually lose their faith in the 12th rep but if you'll understand the language of god and what he's doing building you a future and a hope then you'll go i'll stick with the 12th rep even though i think i'm spent and the world says i'm spent and the world tells me i'm a victim and i've got to be like such and such no i'm going to keep pressing god's going to put whether it's two fingers or three he's going to help me bring that weight up and something will change and when it's done i will have a new strength and a new new level of faith that can be gained by no other means except sifting and so it's going to break down old expectations and it's going to it's going gonna break down some old habits but if you think like a farmer it will really help you what season am i in let's read what it says in the book of ecclesiastes solomon says it would you read it with me go to everything there is a and a time for every purpose under heaven heaven has certain purposes in your life and mind and there's a season for that springtime is an act of time we've got to recognize that and work really hard lori would you bring me that stick up there that green one yeah thank you and uh thank you i'm going to use this for a little illustration here i'm going to ask you what season are you in because during these certain seasons you have to work hard is it a season for family a family season some of us are in a family season we've got to concentrate not on work not on play on family do you know what season you're in maybe it's a season for a personal and emotional health she's got to work on personal health maybe it's a season for organizing your life it's in chaos your room is in chaos offices in chaos shops and chaos and god is saying this is a season to organize we're going to get some things organized maybe to renew certain relationships it's so easy then to get distracted because certain relationships take discipline but remember the two pains in life pain of discipline or the pain of regret maybe it's a season to focus on one or more of your children or maybe your spouse to let everything else drop and work on it will it be forever like that no for this season and you're painting fences when you should be harvesting ah okay now i'm understanding the language of god and what he's saying to everything there's a season yeah sometimes uh we wish our lives would be balanced and that we put a what we call a balance or a fulcrum right in the middle now sometimes we say you know when does our marriage begin and work how do you balance life with marriage and work or what about children my children are taking so much time and uh and then i've got work to do how do you balance life because i gotta have family and work okay i got balance okay you kids kids don't move work wife don't move nobody move and we think that's how life is balanced but in actuality life is never balanced it moves it moves from season to season and there's going to be times you're going to have life pretty much balance and you go whoo finally got it balanced and then you've got your marriage over here on one side and god is going to put weight on that you need to take care of this you need to take care of this you're gonna he's gonna put weight on one side here and if you're not careful your whole life will start to cascade because it's off balance if this were the fulcrum but let's call it again your heart here's what god is saying when your marriage needs work because that's a season and i'm going to start sifting this area of your life you're going to have to get rid of some things and keep other things you understand yes so when i put pressure on one end of your life how do you keep this balanced you move the fulcrum and life is like a moving fulcrum you move your heart towards what god is putting his finger on sometimes he's going to put his finger on your marriage move your heart that way your attention that way your focus that way for us to just say oh i don't know what's going on that's why it cascades and sinks and you go god why why'd you do that yeah you when god puts his a a finger on an area of your life move your heart that way and now it's balanced and then at another season of your life god's gonna put his finger on your finances move your heart that way your focus that way your energy that way that it won't be like that forever sometimes we keep it like this because god spoke to us about finances we started to get successful and balanced and now god's working on our family and we don't move our heart when you start moving your heart towards whatever god is putting his finger on you know what that's called it's called living by the leading of the holy spirit the holy spirit is leading you this is what i am working on this is where you're being sifted this is your season of life and it might be personal morality move your heart that way and then i'm going to say good you got that balance now i'm going to work on this certain relationship that you have neglected and you move your heart that way and believe it or not that's still balanced when the fulcrum or your heart has moved because you're being led by the spirit of god some years ago god spoke to me about spending time with my son aaron and i don't know why but i just felt the lord say do it so i we had a little nine foot boat and so i hooked it up to my car and drove to his school he was in the sixth grade i went to the principal and i said can i take my son out of school today the principal said yeah you're the parent so he walked me to the classroom and uh the principal said to the teacher uh aaron come on out we should have seen his eyes like oh i'm dead i'm dog meat i'm roadkill and so he came out and he said what'd i do wrong what did i do wrong i said come on we're going fishing today he said what yeah we're playing hooky would you like to play hooky with me he go yeah let's go so we got into the boat we spent the rest of the day fishing and you know till this day believe it or not i don't know the divine reason but i do know when god puts his finger on something whether you understand it or not you have to under at least understand the language of god and move to cooperate and one day one day you'll find out but that's the leading of the holy spirit what season are you in is he sifting an area of your family is he's is he putting your marriage up against the mesh or the screen to separate the bad from the good and he says i pray that your faith not fail but here's the cool thing the last thing is he'll help you to build strength when you fall because each of us will fall the bible says it this way in the book of proverbs a righteous man falls seven times but rises again you and i are gonna stumble and fumble and fall because we're gonna try our best but we mess up but instead of letting you mess up he gives you two fingers and he helps you he builds your strength when you think you're failing you know we we learn how to fall when you're in judo or gymnastics but no one tells us when you're when you feel spent as a christian what do you do no one teaches us that i want you to know the language of god that he's there to help you when you're about to give up he's the one that gives you the strength in fact let's read this last scripture here would you go strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet so that the limb which is impaired may not be yeah sometimes you say my life is impaired my marriage is impaired god is saying you you push this is your 12th rep don't give up and he reaches down and he helps you he helps you enough to build muscle but not enough for you to give up and say i can't do it no no you keep pushing and you'll be fine you'll be fine sifting what season are you in understand the language of god when you do you start to cooperate because that's how god builds faith it's in sifted soil let me finish with this story uh in hawaii we do a uh cross the channel race with canoes fiber carbon fiber canoes and it's a long race and i shared this with some men let me share it with you we i would work out for about oh 10 months just for this one race because it's a long race it's a 41 miles across the molokai channel and you're racing with six guys in this 40 foot long canoe and your escort boat is following you and about every hour or so half of you jump out in the blue ocean bailout three other guys take your place you swim to the escort boat and you carbo out a little bit and drink some water they go further up and then they drop you off and then you break the other three and they come in and you keep doing that for 41 miles in the hot sun you've got a you've got to work out maybe 10 months so i'm swimming lifting weights running in the middle of the day with a camel back and drinking water as i'm running because you're getting ready for this and and you got to prepare i remember the day of the race came there's a hundred and some canoes out down on the beach and uh we launch and the gun goes off and we start paddling as hard as we can i mean 100 canoes out there big huge samoan guys just cranking it and everyone's energy is up after about an hour all the boats are spread out you can hardly see them over the wakes because it's completely ocean you can't see any land by this time after two hours you can't see any other boat everyone's choosing their own line after three hours because it takes about five or six hours after about three hours you're the only boat in the ocean it seems like and the sun is beating down and you're hitting waves and you're going airborne and bam again sometimes the canoes flip over and you've got to get it back up and paddle again after maybe another hour or so you are so depleted i started seeing mermaids flying over the boat and you can hardly paddle anymore coming near to the fifth hour you're totally depleted you're spent and then i started asking myself why in the world did i sign up for this stupid race and right then when i'm completely spent i said in my mind i'm gonna paddle one more time and when that's done i'm finished i'm gonna bail out go to the escort boat and ride the rest of the way in because this is just too much i mean i was starting to cramp my shoulders were hurting my legs were hurting i was burning in the sun and i said this is it and when i put my paddle in the water for the very last time even though there's an hour more to go i said i'm done i put it in the water and pulled and i said i'm done but just as i put it in the water it's like the lord said to me this is the moment you've been training for the last 10 months you've been training for this last stroke when you're ready to give up this is what all your last 10 months have been for it's not for the race nobody trains for the start of the race everybody's excited right like whoa nobody trains for the end of the race when you're resting i mean do you do you train for a vacation like what are you doing training for vacation no no nobody trains for rest nobody trains to finish it because you got all the cameras even if you're spent right in the race when the cameras come up all of a sudden you're running like this you don't train for the rest time you don't train from the beginning you train for the moment in a race where you don't want to give it your all anymore you're done you gave up in your heart well sometimes you go through the motions but you're done back there that's the moment and god said this is the moment you've been training for all the weights that you've lifted everything that you've been doing the diet that you've been on this is the moment you win here you win this is the moment and listen carefully how many of us have been in more than 50 services church services raise your hand yeah how many how many of you read the bible how many of you have gone through a men or women's clinic or a conference or something raise your hand how many times tons of times how many times have you prayed tons of times you know what god is saying you see all of that that's what you when you're ready to give up on the 12th rep whether it's your family your finances your friends your faith that's what you've been training for that moment in time when you say i'm done yeah see a lot of times we think we train for the easy part hugging people oh give me a cup of coffee let's go visit our friend no we train for the moment when everything is demolished when you're ready to say this is it i'm done and you'll hear heaven say this is what you've been practicing for this is what you've been training for the 12th rep god will be there and he'll help you but push through because when you do always remember plants grow the best in sifted soil that's the language of god can you say amen to them amen

Channel: New Hope West

Views: 1,590

Rating: 4.909091 out of 5

Keywords: church, church online, online church, pastor Wayne cordeiro, Wayne Cordeiro, faith, failure, sifting

Id: x43b0mTWYLs

Length: 37min 49sec (2269 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 27 2021