In “Get Out Of Your Feelings,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church challenges us to step confidently into what God has for us.
Great faith doesn’t look like you think it
does. I don’t care what anybody tells you about
how long they pray or how much they
believe God or how they taught their
children how to knit quilts and pray
for missionaries at the same time.
That’s all wonderful, but I promise you
that their testimony had a stage of terror.
It has been terrorizing you, hasn’t it?
Some things you did in the past that you wish you
could get back. It has been terrorizing you. Some
things you didn’t do to prepare, and now you’re
not ready. It has been terrorizing you, hasn’t it?
It has been chasing you, hasn’t it? It has been
making you want to give up on you, hasn’t it?
It has been making you sabotage yourself, hasn’t
it? It has been making you think, “Maybe there’s
not a reason for me to go through at all.” It has
been making you want to turn around and go home.
It doesn’t work in reverse. You can’t go
back there. Moses is in a difficult dilemma,
because now they want to go back to Egypt and
they’re making crap up. This didn’t happen.
Verse 12: “Didn’t we say to you in Egypt,
‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’?”
No, you didn’t say that to him in Egypt.
They never said that in Egypt. If you find
it, put it on some social media and I’ll
meet up with you there. You can’t find it. They
didn’t say that. This is a revisionist history.
I feel really bad for Moses even more than I
feel bad for them, and I feel bad for everybody.
I would be saying the same stuff. I
would be having the same thoughts.
I’d be wanting to go back
too. I do it all the time.
But Moses has to motivate them to keep moving.
In fact, in verse 13, he answered the people,
“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see
the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.
The Egyptians you see today
you will never see again.
The Lord will fight for you; you need
only to be still.” Now part of that is
true. The Lord will fight for you, but part
of it is false. You don’t get to be still.
In fact, the moment Moses gets his
motivational speech out of his mouth,
God corrects him. I wonder if you’ve ever read
this about the green light at the Red Sea.
I wonder if you’ve ever really thought
about this. Moses is saying, “Hey,
God has got this. He told us to come through
the Red Sea. He’s going to do it. He’s God. He’s
faithful. He brought us out. He didn’t bring
us this far to leave us. Just stand still.”
Watch God in verse 15. “Then the Lord said
to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to me?
Tell the Israelites to move on.'”
That’s God honking. That’s not
Pharaoh chasing; that’s God honking.
That restless thing inside of
you that’s letting you know
you can’t stay in these excuses and just be
who you were 10 years ago… That’s God honking.
Beep, beep! That’s God honking. That’s a “Beep,
beep.” Now God will give you a courtesy honk
before he lays on the horn. This is
a courtesy honk from God. This word,
this message today from God through me to you
is a courtesy honk from God, because if you
stay here in this dry spot and feel
sorry for yourself or blame others
or spend your time in reverse, you’re not
going to make it out of the parking lot.
You’re not going to get to see the manna.
You’re not going to get to taste the grapes.
You’re not going to bring down
the giant. This is God honking.
He said, “If you stand there
and stay in your feelings…”
I don’t know if you noticed, but it said
they were terrified. I guess they were!
“Well, see, I wouldn’t, because the
Lord fights my battles.” Shut up!
I don’t want God to strike you for lying
while I’m preaching. I’d have to call the
ambulance and all of that. Don’t lie.
The miracle is not in your feelings;
the miracle is in your feet. What you have
to do is move. Beep, beep! It’s green.
You have the go-ahead from God, even though it
doesn’t look like it, even though you don’t see
it, even though this is kind of an off-road season
for you, and you’ve never been this way before,
and you’ve never figured this out before,
and you weren’t educated for this.
You have a green light, and if you sit at this
green light in this intersection long enough…
God will give you the green light,
but he’s not going to drive the car.
Uh-oh! It looks like I hit a nerve. Y’all
were singing, “Jesus, take the wheel.”
He’s like, “Nope!” “Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, because you’re with me.”
Okay. It’s in my feet. He enables me to go through
the valley. That’s what he gave me grace for,
not to make it so I never experience a valley.
Quit looking to external means of
testimony to the goodness of God.
You have to get a green light on the inside
to say, “You know what? I know God is calling
me to love this person even though they get on
my last nerve.” That’s what I mean by a green
light at the Red Sea: when God enables you to
do something you could never do apart from him.
“Apart from me you can do nothing.” But I can do
all things through Christ who strengthens me, and
I can do this too. God is going to get his glory,
but you have to go. I don’t mean running from
stuff. I don’t mean moving cities. I mean walking
by faith, not sight…to pass through the sea.
That’s the reason he brought you to the
Red Sea. The Egyptians can’t swim that far.
All I came to prophesy today is you have green,
and you have to go. “So, where should I move?
Tampa? Atlanta?” You keep thinking it’s
about geography. It’s not about geography.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”
Though I walk through. I feel fear,
but the miracle is not in my feelings;
it’s in my feet. Do you know what else
Psalm 23 says? “He maketh me lie down…”
He knows when it should be red.
He knows when it should be green.
“He maketh me lie down in…” What
pastures? Did you just say “Green”?
My whole sermon goes together to get you to
realize that you have green even in the valley,
that he will feed you in the low place. Yeah,
you’re depressed. Yeah, you’re anxious. Yeah,
you screwed up. Yeah, you did it, but
he’s going to bring you through anyway.
I have that “go through” anointing.
I have that “anyway” anointing.
I have that Red Sea revelation.
He led me through the depths like it was a
desert. He brought me through dysfunction.
He brought me into destiny. He led me through
the desert. The proof that God is leading you
is not that it’s easy. He prepares a table for
me in the green valley, in the presence of my
enemies. He’s leading me. I’m not going
the easy way. I’m going through the sea.
I’ve been baptized in water. I’ve
been baptized in the Father’s love.
I’ve been baptized by fire,
and I shall come forth as gold.
I’m coming out of this refined. I’m coming
out of this restored. I’m coming out of this
with a revelation, because I have
a green light at the Red Sea.
I asked the Lord in coming to preach this message
what he wanted to give you to get you through.
I said, “Show me, Lord, what you want to give
them to get them through.” He gave Moses a staff.
I’m like, “Well, surely you can give
them something.” “Thy rod and thy staff
they comfort me.” Moses had a staff. David
had a staff. God of Moses. God of David.
What did he give Annabelle?
What did he give Kathy?
So I’m praying, and the first thing God said he
wanted to give you as you go through this Red Sea
was grace. Not just any kind of grace,
because we put that before we eat the
casserole. “Let’s say grace.” Not that kind
of grace. He said he wanted to give you grace
for your greatest embarrassments,
for the thing you won’t talk about,
for the thing you pretend like you got
through, but you’re really drowning in it.
I won’t stay here long, because you’ll
pretend like you have to go to the bathroom
and get up and walk out if I keep talking
about this. This is between you and God.
He told me to say it just like that. He said,
“Tell them I want to give them grace for their
greatest embarrassment, for their most spectacular
failure, for their most idiotic mistake.”
I need to show you this again in Psalm 106,
because I never saw it quite this way before.
I thought the Red Sea was about faith. I didn’t
know it was also about failure. They rebelled.
I think we need to keep talking about this idea
that God will give you a green light, the strength
and the assurance and the calling to go through
something you’ve never seen anybody else go
through and that you’ve convinced yourself… I was
telling my friend the other day… They were saying,
“Well, you’re going to get better at this, and
you’re going to develop that.” I said, “I’m 41.
I don’t believe you. Stop lying. If I’m not all
of those things by now, I’m never going to be.”
I didn’t even want to hear it. I put it in
reverse. “I’ve always been this way.” So now
I’m going to be stuck in the parking lot. I’m
going to be stuck outside of the peace of God
because I want to go back to Egypt. My dad
is running across. “Give him another chance.
Please, ma’am.” He’s breathing
heavily. Thank God for second chances.
You’d better voluntarily testify. Third
chances, fourth chances, fifth chances…
It said, in verse 7, they did not remember, so
they rebelled. When you don’t remember, you rebel.
When you don’t remember who God is, what he has
done, what he has called you to, what Jesus has
done for you on the cross… When you forget that,
your sole focus becomes what’s in front of you,
and the Red Sea is big. Of course you want
to go back. Where else are you going to go?
But you just saw the Nile turn
to blood. You just saw frogs
cover the land. You just saw the
firstborn of Egypt struck dead,
because God will get his glory. He’s committed
to it. And God is committed to your freedom.
“They rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.”
I knew they rebelled in the wilderness. I
knew they rebelled at Sinai. Remember they
built the golden calf, dancing around it,
taking their clothes off, and all that?
But they rebelled before they even got
out. They almost failed the test of faith in the
parking lot on their way to the Promised Land.
What really got me was the word yet in verse
8. “Yet he saved them for his name’s sake.”
Don’t you know he leadeth me in paths of
righteousness for his name’s sake? Green pastures,
still water. They rebelled, yet he saved them for
his name’s sake, to make his mighty power known. I
wonder if God brought you to the Red Sea to give
you a green light, to kill off the insecurities,
to kill off the arrogance, to kill off
the idols, to kill off the Egyptians.
I wonder if he brought you
to this not to kill you,
because it wouldn’t make much sense if he
did all of that to bring you out of Egypt
and send his Son to spare you and
then left you here at this Red Sea.
They rebelled, but my soul got happy when I read
what he did. Verse 9: “He rebuked the Red Sea…”
See the symmetry of the text. They rebelled;
he rebuked. That’s what God will do.
Okay. I’m going to preach it boldly.
God is going to do it for you anyway.
Don’t list your résumé of all of the good things
you did, of why God should help you right now.
You won’t need any of that. It’s not what you did
that’s going to get him to do what only he can do.
He’s going to do it in spite
of it… in spite of your stupid,
in spite of your stubborn. He’s going to give you
grace for your greatest embarrassment, and your
kids will live to tell of it, and your grandkids
will know about it. He’s going to save you anyway.