In “Have You Been Lying To Yourself?” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church reveals how the enemy twists the truth to keep you stuck in an old season.
We always assume the Enemy comes to us with
lies, and then we quote the Word of God, which
is the truth, and then the lies go away.
Okay, fine.
Whatever.
But many of us love God too much to just believe
a lie if we see it as a lie.
So then what the Enemy does is he presents
you not with a lie but with the truth.
The next thing the Enemy does to Jesus…
Remember, he’s hungry.
He’s in a weakened physical state.
He’s on the verge of three years of ministry
that will shake the world and overturn the
Roman empire.
He’s in a period of preparation.
He knows who he is.
He not only knows truth but he is truth.
So the Enemy knows the only way he can fight
truth is with truth.
I promise you I’m not just trying to be confusing.
A lot of times what the Enemy will attack
you with is a truth.
In this particular instance…
Verse 5: “Then the devil took him to the holy
city and had him stand on the highest point
of the temple.
‘If you are the Son of God…throw yourself
down.
For it is written…'”
The Enemy doesn’t attack Jesus with a lie;
he attacks him with a Bible verse.
He quotes to Jesus Psalm 91:11-12.
He quotes the Word of God to the Word of God.
“For it is written: ‘He will command his angels
concerning you, and they will lift you up
in their hands, so that you will not strike
your foot against a stone.'”
That’s true.
That’s actually true.
This is not made up.
This is not imaginary.
It is the Word of God.
It is the truth.
So, here’s what I’m realizing in my life.
A lot of times I’m not deciding between a
lie and the truth.
A lot of times I’m stuck between two truths.
One is the truth of my situation, and one
is the truth of my revelation.
One is the truth of what I’m going through,
and the other is the truth of who’s standing
with me in the fire as I go through it.
I have two truths.
What Jesus said was so powerful.
When the Enemy tried to get him to turn the
stones into bread, he said, “It is written…”
because he knew the temptation to turn something
into something it’s not.
A lot of times we try to do this with relationships.
We try to turn them into something they’re
not.
We turn people into our god, and we need their
approval more than we need God’s approval.
Then when they disappoint us we lose our hope
because we tried to turn stones into bread.
Some of us try to turn money into security,
but your trust was never supposed to be in
resources.
Your trust was supposed to be in the one your
help comes from: the Source.
You were supposed to lift your eyes to him.
Your trust was never supposed to be in the
stuff; your trust was supposed to be in the
source.
But when you don’t know the truth of who you
are you will try to turn stones into bread.
You will try to live off of people’s compliments,
so you die by their criticism, because you
tried to turn it into what it was not.
You trade the truth for a lie.
You trade the truth of God’s assessment of
you for someone else’s opinion of you, serving
created things rather than the Creator, who
is forever blessed.
Amen.
(Romans 1:25.)
I love what Jesus said.
I never saw it before.
Did you ever see this before I preached it?
I never saw it.
The first time he said, “It is written…”
but this time he said something different.
He said (verse 7), “It is also written…”
“What you just said is true, but I know something
truer.”
It’s true I made some mistakes in my life,
but it’s also true that my greatest mistake
has the potential to become my greatest miracle.
It’s true, but it’s also true.
Paul said, “I’m pressed, it’s true, but I’m
not crushed.”
I know how to stand between two truths.
One is what I’m thinking, one is what I’m
feeling, one is what the doctor said, one
is what I’m experiencing, but it is also true
I’m not crushed.
I’m persecuted, it’s true, but I’m not abandoned.
It’s also true.
I’m struck down for a minute, but it’s also
true I’m not destroyed.
I’m lonely, but I’m not alone.
I’m weak, but he’s strong.
I’m poor, but he’s rich.
It is also written…
I have a better word on the situation.
I did it, but I’m not it.
I have a new truth.
That means I know the difference between my
truth and my story.
When Jesus was confronted by the Jews, he
had a conversation with them about truth.
It says many of the Jews had believed in him
because of what he did, but they didn’t fully
understand who he was.
They were putting their faith in him, but
they were still attached to the old story.
You know, the old story, the one you tell
yourself about why people reject you.
You did it as a means of survival, because
it’s sometimes easier for you to reject yourself
in advance than to put yourself out there
and risk rejection again.
When you can’t touch the bottom, you tell
yourself a story for survival.
It’s called “prejection.”
It’s when instead of dealing with the reality
of rejection and healing from it you begin
to tell yourself a story about how worthless
you are, and now you stay alone, because to
really be loved requires vulnerability for
the sake of connection.
You would rather stay stuck in an old story
than embrace a new truth.
Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him…
Watch this in John 8:32.
He said, “You will know the truth, and the
truth will set you free.”
The second part of that does not work without
the first.
“You will know the truth…”
This is not a propositional statement.
This doesn’t mean you will be able to quote
the truth.
To know the truth is not to quote the truth;
it’s to trust in it.
It’s to trust in the truth, and what you trust
in is what is true to you.
What you trust in is what is true to you.
That’s why he wouldn’t turn the stone to bread.
It wouldn’t have been a sin for him to do
it; it would have been a substitute.
I don’t live by that.
I don’t trust in that.
That’s not my truth.
When you know the truth…
A lot of times, we think we know the truth
better than we do.
We think we know what other people are like,
because we’ve never traded truth with them.
We think we know what we would do if we were
them.
Sit down with a single mom.
Do you know what you would do if you were
them?
You would have a pill addiction.
You wouldn’t make it out of bed in the morning.
You wouldn’t be strong enough to do it.
“Well, if I were them…”
“I’ll tell you what right now.
If I was running that Elevation Church, I’d
do a few things differently.
I sure will say that right now.”
Jesus is trading truth.
“Oh, it is written?
It is also written…”
“Okay.
I’m accepting it, but it’s not my truth; it’s
just my story.”
Sometimes you can live in a story so long
you become a slave to it.
Have you become a slave to your own story
to the extent that you now think it’s the
truth?
The Jews had.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and
the truth will set you free.”
The response they had to that shows us just
how embedded their identity had become in
their story.
You have to remember these are people who
had spent 430 years in Egypt as slaves making
bricks without straw under Pharaoh.
They had been taken captive by the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, multiple times before Jesus
came onto the scene.
When he said, “You will know the truth, and
the truth will set you free,” it offended
them.
So they looked back at him in verse 33 and
said, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have
never been slaves of anyone.”
The same people who had spent centuries as
slaves had told themselves a story that had
become so true to them they no longer knew
the difference.
A lot of times in my life I’ve lied to myself
so much my lies became truer than my truth.
I don’t willingly exchange the truth for a
lie; it’s just that certain lies I tell myself
I’ve learned to love.
I like self-pity.
It’s comfortable.
It’s my Snuggie for my soul to feel sorry
for myself.
“No one is checking on me.
No one cares about me.”
Do you know why?
Because I don’t want to check on anybody,
so rather than face the fact of the truth
that I’m not checking on anybody, I would
rather tell myself the story that nobody is
checking on me.
I’ve never seen every collective head nod
in the church like it just happened at Ballantyne.
When you become a slave to your story, you
die a death between two truths.
I’m preaching to somebody today who’s standing
between two truths.
One is the old story, the way you always saw
yourself.
If David had stayed stuck in his old story,
he never would have thrown that stone at Goliath’s
forehead, because the way his brothers saw
him was “You’re just down here to make trouble,
and you didn’t even get anybody to keep the
sheep.”
There comes a time when you have to challenge
your old story so the truth can set you free.
They used to train us in evangelism that we
would ask people, “How do you know if you’re
going to heaven when you die?” and when they
said their answer, you were to ask them the
follow-up question, “If you were wrong, would
you want to know?”
What a powerful question.
If the story you’ve been telling yourself
about where you are and why you are and what
you can and what you can’t…
Remember, the Israelites stayed stuck in the
wilderness not for 40 days, like Jesus was
tempted for 40 days; they were there 40 years,
all because of the story they told themselves.
“They’re bigger than us.
They’re stronger than us.
They’re greater than us.”
None of it was true, but when it becomes true
to you it will keep you stuck.
You are not stuck in your reality; you’re
stuck in your story.
But if the Son sets you free, if you get this
truth, you will be free indeed.
I want you to stand up on your feet right
now, because the Spirit of the Lord is in
this place, and where the Spirit is there
is freedom.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.
The Spirit of the Lord is leading you today
into the wilderness to set you free from the
story you’ve been telling yourself perhaps
your whole life long.
I realize sometimes it’s easier to tell yourself
a story of why you fail and tell yourself
a story that you’re a disappointment, because
then you don’t have to actually step out and
try because you’ve already told yourself a
story that “I’m a disappointment,” but that’s
why Jesus went into the wilderness: not only
to be tempted by the Devil but to rewrite
a story.
What Moses couldn’t do in 40 years Jesus did
in 40 days.
He wasn’t just fasting; he was directing a
new story.
The gospel is a new story.
The cross is a new ending.
You don’t have to turn stones into bread,
and you don’t have to trade truth for lies.
You don’t have to own the story you were handed
if it does not match the reality of what God
has spoken.
Not another day.
We say things that locate us and let us know
we’ve embraced our story and turned it into
truth.
Something bad happens and we say, “Oh, it’s
the story of my life.”
You need a new editor.
You’ve been letting the Enemy edit the story
of your life, but it is also written…
This tension between two truths, what I feel
and what I know, what I was and what I’m becoming…
This tension between two truths is exactly
how faith grows.
I’ve been waiting to preach this message for
a year and a half, and today was the day God
wanted me to preach it, perhaps so you could
hear and be set free from your old story.
Are you trapped in an old truth when God has
given you a new one, a higher one, a greater
one?
The law was true.
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God.”
But in Jesus was given grace and truth.
Both are true.
I don’t deserve the blessings of God.
Nothing I could do could earn it, but it is
also written that I am the righteousness of
God in Christ through faith in him.
God brought you here today to give you a new
truth, and to receive your new truth you’re
going to have to let go of your old story.
When you let go of that old story, you will
know the truth, and the truth will set
you free.