Struggling with anxiety, frustration, or disappointment? THIS might be why you don’t have peace. In this message, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church shares how you can still find peace in the middle of the storm.
In order for God to bring something new, he
has to disrupt something normal.
When I was saying “Positioned for a miracle,”
I could almost feel you shouting through the
screen.
You were like, “Yes, Lord!
Pay it off.
Take it away.
Do it, God.”
But this passage is going to show us a different
way to look at it, that as we’re coming into
one new thing, we’re leaving another.
I want to read the Scripture to you, starting
in verse 1.
It says, “Early in the morning Joshua
and all the Israelites set out from Shittim…”
So they’re going somewhere.
Say it in the chat.
“I’m going somewhere.”
God’s hand is on me.
I’m going somewhere.
God is taking me somewhere.
God has not left me.
God will not forsake me.
God will not abandon me.
God will not let me see decay.
He will never leave the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging for bread.
God will feed me and lead me and guide me
and protect me.
He said he would.
He promised he would.
That’s what he does.
This God is our God forever and ever.
He will be our guide even to the end.
Holly was preaching the other day on Facebook.
She said, “We want God to be our ride, but
God said he would be our guide.”
I was like, “Girl, that Dr. Seuss anointing
looks sexy on you.”
That is so good.
We want God to be like an Uber.
Like, “Hey, I’m going to get back here, and
I don’t want to talk to you.
I just want you to take me here.
Here’s where I want to go.
I want a new job.
I want my wife to start respecting me.
I want my kids to get straight A’s, A+.
Why not?
Just go for it, God.
Get them into Harvard, Yale.
Harvard undergrad and Yale for the doctorate,
God.”
We want God to just get us there, but we’re
going to see something today about when God
says, “Stop.”
One thing we need to stop doing is looking
at God as a means and start seeing that he
is the end…his presence, to know him, to
be strengthened by him.
Even though I’m going somewhere, it’s not
so important just about where God takes me;
it’s what he shows me along the way.
This is a pivotal moment in my life and your
life, because we’re not really sure about
the destination or how long.
How long is the coronavirus going to dominate
our headlines?
Then even after that, how long is it going
to terrorize our economy?
We don’t know.
It’s interesting, because the Bible says…
Let me just read the Scripture.
I’m so excited.
Can you tell?
The Lord has really been speaking to me.
God’s Word never stops.
It never returns void.
It’s almost like the more trouble we get in,
the more of God’s presence and more of God’s
grace and more of God’s Word…
He just makes it available to us.
The Lord has really been overflowing in my
heart.
It said, “Early in the morning Joshua
and all the Israelites…”
This is good.
The first thing God said “Stop” to me about…
He said, “Stop acting like you’re the only
one.”
Like I’m the only one scared right now, like
I’m the only one struggling right now.
Or even for America.
We have a global family.
We call it eFam.
It used to stand for extended.
Now it stands for everywhere, because we’re
all eFam.
Even our local congregation is having to experience
God’s Word from a distance.
One thing people keep saying that bothers
me is, “Well, we’re all in the same boat.”
No, we’re not.
We’re not all in the same boat.
This storm we’re going through, if I can use
that analogy, affects all of us in different
ways.
While one man in my church right now might
be thinking, “Well, this is good for me.
I get a break.
I get a break from the stress of life,” and
maybe the shutdown of commerce and industry
to that man represents a break or a sense
of relief or a welcome interruption of the
rhythm.
About the time he’s feeling relief, somebody
else in my church just laid off 150 employees.
That happened this week.
This is not theoretical, hypothetical.
As a pastor, I get to see how something affects
all of the people.
I think it’s really arrogant when we put ourselves
at the center of a struggle.
Another thing it does is it increases our
anxiety, because we start thinking we are
the first ones to ever go through anything.
Then, if you get that self-centered, you get
shortsighted, so then you start thinking,
“This is the only thing I’ve ever been through
like this.”
I heard someone say that the other day.
They said, “We’ve never been through anything
like this before.”
Hello!
In 1918, the influenza that killed…
Look.
Somebody from 1918 is watching us from heaven
right now go through this.
Not understanding our frame of reference can
be detrimental to our revelation of God’s
power.
When we think we’re the first ones who ever
went through anything, before long, we start
thinking this is unlike anything else we’ve
ever been through.
So I want to remind you today that you are
not the only one.
I’m not the only one scared.
I’m not the only one uncertain.
I’m not the only one with questions.
We are going through this together.
Now here’s what’s interesting.
We are all always going through something,
but right now it kind of feels like we’re
going through the same thing.
Yet although we’re going through the same
storm, we’re not all in the same boat.
Some people are going through this current
crisis in a battleship, barely feeling it.
You can almost see them on Instagram all the
time.
They make you sick.
They’re like, “I’m all out of Cheetos.
Got to move to Doritos now.
#quarantineproblems.”
Like, whoa!
Somebody else is in a kayak going through
the storm, and they’re like, “I’m thinking
about feeding my family on minimum wage.”
When I said we’re positioned for a miracle…
I think God is positioning us for the miracle
of empathy, to really be able to stop for
a moment disagreeing about petty stuff, stupid
stuff, stop arguing for a minute about stupid
stuff, because they all had to go through
together.
Now, this is the passage to the Promised Land.
We’re not going into a geographical land here.
We’re talking about the promises of God, everything
he has promised you…peace, provision, protection…all
the stuff we want.
Right?
But they all had to go through together.
That really touched me.
It touched me, because I have three kids.
This is two million people.
I can’t even get my three kids to get in the
car to get across South Charlotte to get to
school before 7:30 a.m. together, and now
Joshua has to lead…
It says in the Scripture, “…all the people.”
Well, this is a miracle.
I can’t even get my kids to agree on what
show to watch, and Joshua has to get all of
the people across.
This is a miracle.
You know, Graham asked me the other day…
This is funny.
Actually, this was several months ago.
He came up to me.
He was in a Bible class.
He goes to this Christian school.
He was asking me a theological question.
He goes, “Dad, why do you think God stopped
doing so many miracles like he did in Bible
times?”
I said, “I don’t know.
Why do you think?”
He said, “Maybe because he was younger back
then and had more energy.”
I love it.
This is the Old Testament.
Right?
And we’re all like, “Oh, I know this story.
Joshua 3.
God parted the waters, and all of the people
went through.
Why doesn’t God still do miracles like that?”
Yet you are holding a phone in your hand right
now or you are watching on Roku or Apple TV
or some newfangled technological device.
Thank you, Steve Jobs, for making this moment
possible.
We will sit in a miracle and not recognize
it as a miracle, because we have a very difficult
time appreciating a miracle when we’re in
it.
We have a very difficult time appreciating
a good moment when we’re in it.
So then we start looking back at old times.
“Oh, those were the good ol’ days.”
You know, Flashback Friday and Throwback Thursday.
It’s like we want to be anywhere but here.
So God gives us a moment where we have to
stop and be here because March Madness was
canceled.
The whole NBA just stopped.
That’s when I knew this was bad.
When the NBA stopped, I was like, “Oh God!
This is real.”
There’s a moment in this Scripture…
I was reading it word for word.
It’s amazing how the little things in Scripture
come alive when you stop and think about them,
just go through them.
Since this message is called When God Says
Stop!
I want to stop on something that’s significant.
“Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites
set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan…”
Which is the place where God always reveals
identity.
You remember.
That’s where Jesus went to be baptized: the
Jordan.
“This is my Son…”
That’s where God always shows you who you
really are by what he brings you through.
That spoke to me.
When we’re going through something, the goal
isn’t just to get through it; the goal is
for God to show us something in it that will
make us better on the other side.
I’m going to be better on the other side.
It may look different.
It’s not going to be normal.
We’re not going back to normal, but I’m going
to be better on the other side of this.
You have to go in with that assurance or else
you’re going to stand…
The Israelites stayed for 40 years on the
wrong side of the Jordan.
I’m going to tell you something else.
God didn’t stop them from going into the Promised
Land.
God didn’t stop them.
I used to preach that they got stuck in the
wilderness and how some of us get stuck in
temptation or we get stuck in unbelief or
we get stuck in fear.
One day I was preaching that, and the Lord
slowed me down and said, “They didn’t get
stuck; they stopped.”
There was nothing keeping them in.
There’s nothing keeping us right now from
being grateful.
“You haven’t seen my bank account.”
I’m not talking about your bank account; I’m
talking about your belief system.
I’m talking about you believe that God is
good at the bottom and you have this hope
as an anchor for your soul.
That’s a rock.
That’s a foundation.
It can’t be shaken by a storm.
The winds can come, the streams can rise and
beat against the house, and it didn’t fall;
it only showed the foundation for what it
was.
When they crossed the Jordan, they were doing
what the previous generation could have done,
but they stopped.
Sometimes we tell ourselves we’re stuck when
the fact is we just stopped.
“Oh man.
I’ve just been depressed lately.
Everywhere I look is bad news.”
Stop watching it!
I feel an anointing on one word.
I preach so many sermons on “Go!”
You know, God told Abraham, “Go to the land
I will show you.”
He said, “Go and make disciples.”
That was the Great Commission.
“Go!
Go!
Go!”
But what about when God says, “Stop”?
I believe God is issuing…
Like I yelled at the top of my lungs the other
day.
“Stop!
Stop scrolling.”
“I wonder why I don’t have any peace.
God, give me peace.”
But you have a leaky bucket you’re asking
God to put peace in, because you won’t turn
off your phone.
It needs to charge.
It’s getting hot.
It’s burning your hand.
You’re going to feed yourself fear and then
pray for more faith?
God says, “Stop.”
“Yeah, well, I need to be informed.”
Hey.
Nobody knows right now.
Nobody knows.
I mean, you know everything everybody knows
right now.
You know enough.
I want to tell you something else.
You know enough about God to get you through
this valley.
We talk about going through.
I know I’m going to get through this.
I don’t say that in a callous way or a cliché
way or a hashtag kind of faith.
I’m saying the Lord is my shepherd.
I know that.
He’s my guide.
I know that.
I shall not want.
Hang on a second.
There’s a weird part of this passage.
It says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall
not want.
He maketh me lie down in green pastures.”
It’s like he’s saying God will guide you,
and sometimes, in order to get you to green
pastures, he has to give you a red light.
He makes me lie down.
It’s right there in Joshua 3, how God is leading
his people.
He has led them 40 years in the wilderness.
They’ve been through things before, but now
they’re standing at something new, just like
we are.
Some of you God has seen through divorce.
He has seen you through a miscarriage.
He has seen you through a suicidal impulse,
that you almost took your own life, and then
you didn’t.
He saw you through the worst decision of your
life.
He saw you through financial mistakes.
He saw you through all of that, and now you
are standing at this, and you’re like, “I’ve
never been here before.”
In that moment, what you know has to take
over what you feel.
That’s what I want to illustrate in the text:
when God says, “Stop living by feelings and
start living by faith.”
Stop living by sight.
I feel the Holy Spirit.
When God says, “Stop.”
It’s so important that we listen to the Holy
Spirit when he says, “Stop.”
Stop playing out all the worst “What if” scenarios
in your brain.
You’ve gone way past planning.
“I’m just getting a plan.”
Is that what you call it?
A plan?
When you’re projecting every possible scenario
and trying to predict…
You think you’re Miss Cleo or something like
that?
You ain’t a prophet.
You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.
I prophesy Pepto-Bismol in your future every
night before you go to bed if you don’t stop
it.
I love what God gave them and how the presence
of God sometimes will tell you to stop.
All this in verse 1.
Don’t y’all get scared, but I have 17 verses.
But I will stop at some point so the next
service can run.
It says, “Early in the morning Joshua and
all the Israelites set out from Shittim and
went to the Jordan…”
The place of identity.
The instruction was, “Camp before crossing
over.”
Isn’t that cool, how God was bringing them
into something new, and before he could bring
them into this new space, he told them to
stop and camp?
What he tells them to do next I want to give
you as a prophetic word for what God might
be saying to you for this season of your life.
We’re all going through this at the same time,
but we’re not all going through the same thing.
Some people are making real decisions right
now.
Like our church…
All week, it was just decision after decision
after decision.
The problem is we’re all trying to…
Okay.
I’ll go ahead and give you the next point.
Are you ready?
Stop wasting today’s strength fighting tomorrow’s
battles.
Stop!
Stop trying to defend yourself against doomsday
that may or may not happen.
Make decisions.
God will give you the wisdom for the decisions
you need to make right now.
I believe he will.
I’m believing that for every health care worker.
I’m believing that for our leaders.
I’m believing that God is going to bring our
country together in a way right now that we’re
going to figure out some stuff we’ve needed
to fix for a long time.
And your nation.
God is going to bring us together.
We’re positioned for a miracle, but we have
to go through together.