Samuel Rodriguez - Show Up! Speak Up! Stand Up!
You show up, you speak up and you stand up. You show up, somebody say, "Show up. Speak up. Stand up". Full disclosure pastoral disclaimer, things that you normally won't hear from a pastoral pulpit stage, on a Sunday 'cause it's how the sausage is made. A sermon can either, let me use an analogy here an example, sermons either are a massage, a trip to a masseuse, or to a chiropractor. The vast majority of sermons and I confess I give these too, so I'm not going like these, no. There are sermons that are massages, they make you feel good, release the tension, and then they're good, they make you feel good. You walk out going like yay! Hip hop hooray! I'm gon' take over the world. And it's all spirit and power and Christ that are biblically substantiated.
But then there are sermons that are a trip to a great chiropractor. It's not a massage baby. You get put in some awk, I'm saying this out of testimony I've never been to a chiropractor in my life until a couple a months ago. Never been to one. I question the legitimacy of chiropractors and all that, and I went into a chiropractor who fixed a bunch of stuff. But the awkward positions how they put you. They did stuff to my body that wasn't right. Then they do crazy things like look this way and then my hips went that way. Like who does that? And then what that chiropractor did, an amazing chiropractor, what that person did to my neck, was just a egregious maleficence. That noise should not come from your neck. I went like, "oh wow this is it". Why Am I warning you? What does that have to do with the price of chicken?
This sermon today is not a massage. So, if you came for a massage come next Sunday, but this is a chiropractor biblical alignment. Part of this sermon is gonna make all of us feel uncomfortable but it's gonna put things in alignment. As a pastor I admit I preach both, massages and chiropractor. Today, you're gonna hear somethings crack. 1 Kings 18:11, "And now you say, 'Go tell your Master Elijah is here.'" We're talkin' about the prophet Elijah. "When Ahab saw him," verse 17, "he exclaimed, 'Is it really you, you troublemaker of Israel?'" You troublemaker of Sacramento. You troublemaker of Lodi. You troublemaker of Stockton. You troublemaker of Granite Bay in Roseville and Rockland, Carmichael, Vacaville, San Francisco.
"I have made no trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "It's you and your family"! Uh! ooh "That are the troublemakers. For you have refused to obey the commandments of the Lord and you have worshiped the images of Baal instead. 'Now summon'", now Elijah, just looked at the King of Israel and says now I'm gon' tell you what to do. A prophet telling the president what to do. "'Summon all of Israel to join me at Mount Carmel. Along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah,'" these are all, profiliars false prophets. "'Who are supported by your wife Jezebel.' So, Ahab summoned all the people of Israel and the prophets to Mount Carmel".
Verse 21, "Then Elijah stood in front of them and said, 'How much longer will you waver, hobbling between two opinions?'" He's speaking to his own people now. "'If the Lord is your God, follow Him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!' But the people, were completely silent". We're living this again. The first point today is show up. "And now you say, 'Go tell your Master Elijah is here.'" If you were here last week, show up. I need you to repeat after me, say, I am here. The first thing in order for us to create an ecosystem of change, of transformation it requires you and I to show up. I am here, one more time say, "I am here".
Again, last week we talked about all the deterrents everything hell unleashed to stop you from showing up and being here. Let me repeat life begins when we show up. Change takes place when we show up. The atmosphere shifts when we show up. What if I tell you Christ is exalted when we show up? God's promises are fulfilled when we show up. Hell trembles, when we show up. Heaven rejoices when we show up. Families are saved when we show up. God makes a way when we show up. Doors open when we show up. The world changes when we show up. For when we show up, when I show up, when you show up, we never show up by ourselves. When you like Elijah declare, "I am here". It is not the 'I' of narcissism, egocentrism, unbridled humanism or selfishness.
When you declare I am here, you are declaring the I am who I am declares that I am is here. When you declare I am here you're saying the I am of Galatians 2:20 is here. The I am that died with Jesus and resurrected a Christ is here. The I am that is hidden in the finished work of Jesus is here. The I am so filled with the Holy Spirit that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me is here. When you are a born-again child of God, and you declare I am here, what you are technically saying is, we are here. Because in reality when you show up you never show up by yourself. You missed it but you'll get it. Every time you show up as a child of God, every time you are present in mind, body, soul and spirit, emotionally, intellectually, and financially you never arrive by yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls somebody shout the word "entourage". Somebody shout the word "posse"!
Psalm 23:6 says, "Goodness and mercy shall follow me," some of the days, on the good days, on the holy days, on the sunny days, "all the days of my life". Psalm 34:7 says, "The angel of the Lord surrounds those who fear Him, and he delivers them". Mark 16:17: "These signs will accompany those, will follow those who believe. They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages". Hello Rosetta Stone. When you show up goodness shows up. When you show up mercy shows up. When you show up anywhere angels show up. That's why when you go to Starbucks and order your coffee it's not just you showing up, it's goodness and mercy, it's signs and wonders, it's the angels of God showing up. And when you show up more importantly the Father shows up, the Son shows up, and the Holy Spirit says "I am... I am here".
Jesus said in Matthew 5:14: "that you are the light of the world". Which means when you show up the light shows up, and darkness must flee. Ah, here it is, therefore God is telling you this morning to stop making excuses and show up. Stop going around in circles and life's proverbial dessert and show up. Stop playing the victim role and show up. Stop blaming others and show up. Stop waiting for government to solve your problems and show up. Stop waiting for a stimulus check and show up. Stop saying one day and make today that day and show up. Stop being easily offended and show up. Stop bringing up the past and show up. Show up with your prayers. Show up with your praise. Show up with your shout. Show up with your worship. Show up with your love. Show up with your truth. Show up with your forgiveness. Show up with your compassion. Show up with your service to others. Show up and start some trouble. Show up and stir things up.
Anybody here ready to show up? Tell your neighbor, "I'm ready to show up". Oh, show up. "When Ahab saw him, he exclaimed, 'Is it really you, you troublemaker of Israel?'" Somebody say, "here comes trouble"? So, let me ask you a question, let me not assume anything, are you aware of a troublemaker in your family? You know what let's be more self-reflective. Were you the troublemaker in your family? You know who you are 'cause you're smirking right now. The moment the King of Israel saw the prophet, he said here comes trouble. We do need some holy troublemakers to rise up. And I know you could ask Pastor Sam is that biblical? you're asking Christians to be troublemakers? No, I'm just using the language that was used back here not only in the Old but in the New Testament. A matter fact let me show you a troublemaker, the quintessential troublemaker, the one that everyone thinks was just this beautiful, pristine, quiet, never did anything controversial, Jesus. Floating on a cloud. Really?
Let me tell you what super quiet lamb Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth". Oh! What happened to that Jesus? He said, "I have not come to bring peace, but I have a sword, to divide between belief and unbelief". I don't know if you got that right now. Hey, Jesus was not some sort of little quiet baa lamb introverted. He's not the one that's hanging on a cross like this in perpetuity. The Jesus that we serve is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and Host of Hosts and the Prince of peace! The Jesus that we serve Colossians 2:15, He took every devil, every demon, every legion, every principality, and Colossians says, "He defeated them publicly making a spectacle out of them on the cross". That's the Jesus we serve. Acts 17:6 says, "They dragged Jason and the other believers out," right in the beginning of the church. "Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world".
To be a troublemaker, let me repeat, to be a troublemaker spiritually and prophetically is to flip the script, to stir things up and inject a virus in the algorithm of unrighteousness. So I declare as a generation of troublemakers rising up. Elijah in the eyes of the King of Israel was the troublemaker because he confronted sin, moral relativism, cultural decadence and spiritual apathy. Watch this, Elisha if you're not privy to this, Elisha was his successor. So Elijah was the spiritual father, Elisha was the spiritual son. As a matter a fact he trained him. You know the story we're gonna get to it inevitably before the end of this year or at least before the rapture.
So, this is his spiritual son. Elisha, this is something you may have never heard about. Elijah confronted Ahab, the King of Israel, his own people. Elisha confronted the foreign kings. You missed it. Assyria, Aram, this Elisha focused on the external threats, Elijah dealt with the fact that his house had to be in order. Our generation needs to put things in order here, so the next generation can change the world out there. You gon' get this in a second, let me repeat it. Elisha confronted the King of Assyria, Elisha in 2 Kings 8:10, Elijah confronted the King of Israel in 1 Kings 18. What does this mean pastor Sam? Before Elisha cause trouble out there Elijah caused trouble inside here. What does this mean for us? This is why I told you about the chiropractic session, here we go. Get ready, don't be tense.
I'm gonna give you what the Bible says Matthew 7:5, this is the words of Jesus again not me. Don't get offended with Sam, if you have a problem text the Holy Spirit. Not my words, I don't make the pizza I deliver it. Here's the words of Jesus not mine, if Jesus would have been alive today, He woulda been canceled a long time ago. They woulda kicked Him off Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. Here we go, "Hypocrite"! Jesus said that with an exclamation point, "get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eyes". 1 Peter 4:17 says, "For the time has come for judgment and it must begin with God's house. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible faith awaits those who have never obeyed God's good news".
This is hard so please put on your seatbelt. Here comes the cracking of the bones in your neck, before we overturn Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court, we have to overturn Roe vs. Wade in the church of Jesus Christ. Do your biblical due diligence and do your data due diligence as it pertains to abortions, forty percent of all abortions in America are committed by people that attend church every single Sunday, or at least three to four Sundays a month. Put that in perspective, before it we address human sexuality in the culture, we have to address biblical sexuality in the church. Crack! Crack! Crack! Before we flip the script in the world we must flip the script in our families, in our churches, in our community. Before we point the figure over there we need to point the figure over here. Am I preaching to anybody?
Let's stop trying to change something out there when we haven't changed that very thing in here first. How 'bout this we all got upset when the Governor of California declared that the church was not essential but why didn't we get upset when a great number of Christians in California already were behaving like the church was not essential? Are we ok? We have to start trouble in Israel before we start trouble in Assyria. We have to fix what's wrong in our house before we address what's wrong in our neighbor's house. But praise be to God I'm here to perfectly declare this is the season. God is putting your house in order! God is putting, God is putting my house in order! Your house! My house! The church in order! God is getting your house in order! In order to give you the legitimacy to crash the gates of hell and take back everything that hell stole from you.
If you are willing to let God put things order in your house first raise one hand? If you want God to put things in order in your house before this year is over, if you dare to pray God whatever it takes bring order to my house, to my family, to my way of thinking, to my integrity, to my atmosphere, to my family, to my church so I can have the authority to declare in the Name of Jesus the power of God to a broken world. Can I prophecy right now? I believe that God's about to put things in order, there's an alignment going on. This is not a massage baby, this is a chiropractic, this is a session. God is aligning your spine, your vertebraes all your C's all, He's putting everything in order, but praise be the Lord once you walk right. You're about to step in, and occupy. Somebody praise like you're about to do it. Somebody shout like you're about to do it. Somebody rejoice like God's about to kick out everything in your life!
Out of alignment with His heart, His will and His way. He's putting everything right inside of you so you can fix what's wrong outside of you. He's saving you so you can save others. He healed you so you can heal others. He's setting you free so you can set others free. The same God that is doing the work in you is the same God that would do the work through you. I feel the Lord right now. I told you it was gonna hurt. God is at work in you, God is at work with you, and God is at work through you. I hear the words here comes trouble. Look at your neighbor and tell them, "Here comes trouble". I'm telling you He's putting your finances in order. He's putting your way of thinking in order. Even in your relationship He's putting things in order. He's preventing you from certain people. He's surrounding you with the right people because you and your house are about to see the glory of Jesus like you have never seen before!
Somebody, somebody shout, "Here comes trouble"! Tell your neighbor, "Here comes trouble"! Here comes trouble! It's uncomfortable. He's gonna tell you look this way, then He's gon' take your hips put them this way, then He's gon' tell you raise your leg while he stretches your arm. I mean who does that? And all you here is a, but there were things out of order and the stress you've been feeling, and the tension, and the pain is because there were things out of order. So, help me God, I'm not making this up. My son Nathan, my wife they know this, Lauren, 'cause, especially Nate, 'cause he's a workout guy, he's amazing. So he knows this 'cause we went through the whole process. December of 2019, I'm obsessed with just working out and eating healthy, and exercising on occasion, I still get my pizza and still do my cheating stuff and all that, but I work it out the day after.
But I'm an exercise like OCD about exercising, and I did something silly in December 2019. I did this exercise where I put all the pressure on my C's, my C is 67, if you know anything about your neck. And I put the pressure there I should never have pushed, I did. It was heavy weights and I pressed them. I stretched a nerve. So, it's called Brachial Plexus, it's called the burner in football, but I stretched it. Now it was crazy when I stretched that nerve it went, bloop, and I heard the crack it went crick. So, I got out of there I was fine, except I was dizzy, like things were like woah, what just happened? And to someone who has never done drugs I went like woah, what just happened?
So, all of sudden my fingers started doing their own thing like zroom. I'm walking around and zroom and zroom, I'm going like what is this zroom, it became really weird. So, I went to the doctor they went through a thorough examination to make sure it wasn't anything serious. They went through the most highest of the top guy in the region. And just dotting their I's crossing their T's, right? They went you know, "hey Sam you're perfectly fine, you have a stretched nerve, you have Brachial Plexus". And I go alright now that we know what it is how do we fix it? They went like this, "sometimes it takes six to 12 months, and sometimes a year and a half, sometimes it never gets fixed". And I'm going, "are you kidding me"? Oh well, "we'll take you through a therapist".
So they put me, send me through a therapist through my healthcare provider, God bless him. But the therapist never did any of the chiropractor all they did was give me massages. All I got, for how many months was it honey that I went? Three months all I did was go twice a week to a person who would massage my neck. I would walk out woah. The fingers would still go boom. Sometimes I would preach here on Sunday and all of a sudden boom and y'all thought it was like the Holy Ghost, it wasn't, it was a nerve. Y'all said oh pastor's anointed. No! it was my work out it had nothing to do with the anointing. And then all of a sudden then I did something silly I came back from Promise Keepers this year, I worked out, I forgot the exercise that I did a year and half before that messed me up, totally forgot. Guess what I did? I re injured it.
So right this summer I went nooo! And the moment I did it I went, noooo! And 24-hour Fitness went, let's stop that guy from ever coming in here again. Oh man, so I went, I can't go through the dizziness and zroom I can't. So finally, somebody said, "you gotta go to a chiropractor your problem is not the massage what you need is an alignment". I go I went to the best doctors that UC Davis could possibly offer, the teaching doctor who graduated from Stanford, are you kidding me? You're telling me that your chiropractor's gonna do what these guys couldn't do? The chiropractor will do his, so I went to the chiropractor. Look over here, stretch over here. They took my toe they put it in my ear stuff I've never seen before. It's not humanly possible, your toe cannot go in your ear, but she did that. She happens to be part of our church, actually she's amazing.
So, brup, cramp, bump, pop, pop. I'm going like what just happened? I walked out of that place, I went, where is the dizziness? I went, now this psychosomatic, you're convincing yourself that your better. There's no way that this could actually happen. It's putting things in alignment. That's what the Holy Spirit is doing right now. You wanted a massage, but you needed a chiropractor. I sense the Lord when I tell you right now. I promise you we're getting to the end of the year, God is putting things in order as I speak, and the next few days and weeks prophetically, spiritually speaking even relationally speaking you're gonna hear some noise, oh, you're gonna hear some things, you're gonna see some awkward positioning, but let not your heart be troubled, God is saying I am putting things in alignment because you're about to walk upright like you've never walked before, and your about to occupy what you've never occupied before, and you're about to conquer what you've never conquered before.
If you believe it give God one more praise like you believe it. If you're ready for an alignment stand with me right now. If you're open for God to put things in order stand with me. If you got the word raise your hand. Alignment, just lift up your hands I sense the Lord. Just alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment, alignment. All troublemakers God is putting things in order. He's just putting things in order, in your mind, He's putting thoughts in order, He's putting thoughts in order. The memories of your past will no longer lead the way. He's saying no, no they belong in the right place under the blood of Jesus.