Sometimes we have to release in order to receive. In “Let Go Of What You Can’t Control,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church gives this reminder: freedom often comes when we’re willing to let go.
Here’s the thing I found out.
I found out it really doesn’t matter who causes
it.
If it’s from God or if it’s not from God…
I don’t really know the difference sometimes.
What I know is that
whatever happens in our lives, it has to pass
through his hands.
So whether it came from his hand or whether
it was from the Enemy is not the most consequential
thing.
The most consequential thing is whether I
will partner with what God is doing even if
it’s not what I prefer.
Will I resist it or will I push against it
or will I go with it?
The Israelites are being set free from Pharaoh,
and just about the time freedom is in sight,
just about the time it looks like they’re
going to make it to this land flowing with
milk and honey, the land of the Canaanites
and Perizzites and Hittites and Jebusites
and “cellulites” and all of these enemies
we have to fight in this modern…
That’s a real enemy: the cellulites.
Some of y’all are fighting the virus of overeating
right now.
But listen to what happened when they got
there.
Pharaoh changed his mind and said, “What have
we done?”
Listen to verse 5.
“We have let the Israelites go and have lost
their services!”
“So he had his chariot made ready and took
his army with him.
He took six hundred of the best chariots…”
The Enemy uses the heaviest artillery on the
people who are carrying the greatest purpose.
If a lot is coming against you, that means
God has put a lot in you.
One of the things God is showing us in this
season is what he put in us.
And do you know how he’s doing that?
By shutting down everything around us, because
sometimes the only way for you to see what
is within you is that everything that is not
within you…
I’ll put it like this.
When I preach to a crowd, I sometimes get
carried by their energy, but when I’m preaching
and there are only three people in the room…
Something different has to kick in.
Sometimes the Lord allows something around
us to shut down, to die, so that something
within us can come alive.
Pharaoh said, “I changed my mind about letting
them go.”
The message today is called A Lesson in Letting
Go.
There’s so much we’re learning right now.
We may not know we’ve learned it until way
on the other side of it.
You don’t really realize life lessons until
later.
You know that, right?
It’s later that you say, “Oh, it was good
for me that I was afflicted, because this
taught me that.
Oh, it’s good for me that they told me no,
because I didn’t want to date them anyway.
If I would have married them, I would be in
therapy right now.”
A lot of times, it’s later that we see the
lessons.
Now we can read about Exodus 14.
You know, the children of Israel.
“Wow.
They should have trusted God through the Red
Sea.
God was going to make a way.”
It’s easy to say that on the other side of
it.
It’s so easy to look back and say, “Well,
he made a way where there was no way,” but
that’s when you’re looking back.
What really takes faith is to look forward
at something and to believe he’s going to
make a way when you can’t see it.
A lesson in letting go.
God told Moses from the beginning that freedom
is not going to come easily.
Certain freedoms in our lives have to be forced.
That sounds bad, but it’s true.
The only way God sets us free from certain
things is he has to take them away.
Sometimes what God allows to be removed from
our lives is just as important as what he
allows to be brought into our lives, yet this
is a season where a lot of us are having to
learn to appreciate things.
Remember what I said last week?
The things you were complaining about in February
you would be praising God for in April…all
of the annoying people.
You just wish you could have a different cast
of characters than the four you’re stuck inside
with.
I figured out how much people are saying they’re
finding a rhythm in quarantine is dependent
on how big their house is.
It’s like, “Oh yeah, man!
This is kind of cool.”
Or how grown their kids are.
Or for some people, it’s whether they have
any human interaction.
So, I’ve been thinking a little bit about
the fact that a lot of times in my life the
lesson God is teaching me is to appreciate
something.
Here’s what I want to ask you: What is God
teaching you to appreciate in this season?
Very simple but maybe worth some reflection.
I’m going to wait for you to respond.
You say, “Well, God is teaching me to appreciate
my livelihood.
Honestly, I had gotten so caught up in what
I didn’t like about my job I forgot the fact
that having one is a blessing I can’t take
for granted.”
Sometimes the only way God gets us to appreciate
something is to allow it to leave for a little
while.
That doesn’t mean this global pandemic is
a plague sent by God, but I think God can
use it to teach us to appreciate some things.
Don’t you?
I wish they would let us get back in this
church and sing “Rattle.”
I wish they would.
I’m telling you, the first time Elevation
Church gets to come back and sing “Rattle”
in person…
I’ve been watching y’all online.
Y’all are losing your minds online.
When we get in a building and sing it, you’d
better wear a motorcycle helmet.
I wish they would let us get back together.
Man, we’re going to really have a good time,
but you know what?
The very same thing we long for today is something
we had been living in for so long that God
is teaching me to appreciate some things.
He’s teaching me to appreciate some things
I had become so accustomed to, used to.
You get used to the things God gives you to
the point that you can become used to the
people God gives you.
You can get used to simple moments.
Things that used to be annoying you learn
to appreciate.
What is God teaching me to appreciate in this
season?
Isn’t it interesting how all the children
of Israel wanted to do was get out of Egypt,
get out of Egypt, get out of Egypt?
But when they went through the Red Sea into
the wilderness, they wanted the food they
had in Egypt.
It took leaving Egypt to really appreciate
it.
God was trying to bring them out of it, but
there are some things we need to appreciate,
and we can only appreciate them in seasons
where we don’t quite have them in the same
form anymore.
God is teaching me to appreciate some things.
He’s revealing things to me that I did not
appreciate enough, things I just took for
granted, things I just thought would always
be this way.
One of the things that’s happening in this
season for all of us is God is not only teaching
us to appreciate certain blessings, but he
is resetting the baseline of what we consider
a blessing.
The Bible says, “Let everything that hath
[a new car] praise the Lord.”
“Let everything that hath [perfect circumstance]
praise the Lord.”
Sorry, it has been a while.
Maybe I’m rusty on the Scriptures.
“Let everything that hath breath…”
That’s the new baseline for being grateful.
Before God gives us a new blessing, he wants
to give us a new baseline.
Did you just breathe?
Praise him.
Are you still here?
Praise him.
Did he wake you up?
Praise him.
Did he sustain you?
You might not like the taste of manna, but
if you have something to eat, praise him.
You might not like who you’re sitting next
to on the couch, but praise him that you have
somebody to sit next to.
Grab that hand and squeeze it and say, “If
you have a pulse, praise him.
If you have breath, if he gave you another
day…”
Why am I screaming?
There’s nobody in the room.
My new baseline to praise him is just “Thank
you for keeping me alive.
You’re all over me.
You kept me in my right mind.
I should be going crazy, but you did it anyway.”
“In view of God’s mercy, offer your body as
a living sacrifice.”
I start with the fact that he kept me another
day.
I start with the fact that he did not owe
me real estate today.
I start with the fact that the boundary lines
have fallen in pleasant places for me.
He is my portion.
He is my strength.
He is my rock.
The storm can come, but it can’t knock my
house down.
A new baseline for praise.
Then, he’s not only teaching me to appreciate
some things and is not only resetting some
things, but he’s teaching me to release some
things.
If you are a control freak and you want to
stay that way, log off right now.
If you are a control freak and you want to
stay that way, you’d better search dance videos
or cat videos in the YouTube box right now
and just get off this stream, because right
now I’m coming for every control freak, because
I am one.
God is homeschooling us right now.
God is teaching me some things about release.
I promised you I’d give you this illustration,
because it comes back to my mind all the time.
Chris has been over to the little workout
room we have at the house.
I’m so thankful for that little workout room,
because I hide there for like six hours a
day sometimes right now.
I’m not too proud to tell you.
That’s one of my secrets to survival right
now.
I’m not even lifting weights half the time.
I’m not even lifting weights one-tenth of
the time.
It makes me feel good to be around some dumbbells,
though.
Honestly, certain sermon ideas come to me
when my body is moving, so I try to incorporate
the two.
But I had this flashback the other day from
when…
I guess about three years ago, my elbow started
hurting all the time, and Chunks said, “That’s
called golfer’s elbow.”
He used to be a physical therapist, so I’m
like, “I know you went to school for this
crap, but I’ve never played golf, so you’re
going to have to explain to me how I got golfer’s
elbow.”
I played golf twice in my life with my dad
after he had a six-pack of beer, and neither
time did we finish the nine holes because
it went so badly.
“I have never, ever in my life played golf
as a grown man, so you explain to me how I
have golfer’s elbow.”
Is it golfer’s elbow?
Yeah.
I can never remember.
There’s tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow, and
one is one thing and one is the other, but
the thing I wanted to say to you was my elbow
hurt.
I told him my elbow was hurting because I
had been lifting too heavy.
Isn’t that a man’s way of explaining things?
“The problem is I’ve just been lifting too
much weights.
It’s these 95-pound dumbbells.
I’ve just been pushing myself too hard.”
He said politely, because I pay him, so he
has to say this a certain way…
He said, “Actually, it’s not the amount of
weight that caused the injury.
It’s not how much weight you were lifting;
it’s how hard you were gripping it.”
I’m coming for the control freaks.
I’m coming for the people who even when you
pray for your kids, you’re not really praying;
you’re just giving God a punch list of ways
to make them not in his image but yours.
I’m coming for everybody who had a plan for
this first part of the year, and now you can’t
really find your rhythm.
You can’t find your groove.
It’s understandable, and it’s completely normal.
What Chunks told me…
This is so powerful, and I’m going to say
it way better than he said it, but this is
how I heard it.
I heard him say, “You could lift a lot more
if you will loosen your grip.”
You can lift a lot more…
God said, “If you’ll hold it differently,
you can handle it.”
So here’s what I’m noticing.
If I take it day by day or hour by hour or
moment by moment, I’m good.
It’s only when I get too far out or too far
back…
Either one is a mistake.
I can handle Sunday on Sunday, but I can’t
handle Saturday on Sunday, and I can’t handle
Monday on Sunday.
This is the day the Lord has made.
Forgetting what is behind…
I can’t fix that.
I have a grip on something behind me, and
I can’t go toward what God has put in front
of me.
But I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling.
God said, “You can get there if you let go.”
Let go.
Oh man!
That preaches so good.
Why is it so hard to do?
“Let go and let God.”
“Uh-huh.
Are you going to pay my light bill?”
“No, but let go and let God.”
“Well, God didn’t offer me a rent check.”
“I know, brother, but let go and let God.”
I don’t think it’s really about letting go
of your responsibilities.
It’s about releasing the things you could
never control to begin with.
All God is doing in some of our lives in this
season is showing us how little control we
had to begin with.