Steven Furtick - Staging Your Celebration (01/29/2026)
From Nehemiah 8, the pastor preaches on "Staging Your Celebration," emphasizing the need to intentionally celebrate progress in stages rather than waiting for completion. After rebuilding Jerusalem's walls, the people gather to hear God's Word, weep over their failures, but are told to rejoice because the joy of the Lord is their strength—celebrating small victories sustains us for the journey ahead and shares joy with others.
Introduction: The Power of Celebration
Nehemiah chapter 8. I'm going to read like a verse or two and then I go back and summarize some other ones. But yeah, so this passage is a passage about celebration. And yet there's some things that I saw in it this week. The Lord gave me this sermon right after I preached last week's sermon. This one hit me. And it's a very simple sermon. I'm calling it staging your celebration. Staging your celebration. A very important life skill.
And for some of you, this will be intuitive. But there's this one scripture that I really love. It's well loved. A lot of people have heard this scripture before. But in Nehemiah 8 verse 10, Nehemiah said, Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks. And send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve. For the joy of the Lord is your strength.
I want to talk about staging your celebration. So, before you take your seat to hear this message. Just find three people around you. And tell them the party has started. You better get in on it. Just tell them the party has started. You better get in on it.
Greetings to All Campuses
Thanks worship team. Big greetings, big love to all of our locations. Weddington, Lake Norman, Matthews, Gaston, Concord, Providence. I want to single out the Providence campus this week. I love you guys. You're amazing. You're OG. You are all that. You have a place in my heart that cannot be replaced. Cannot be defaced. Cannot be erased. And will never be misplaced.
Uptown. University City. Did any of you get to see the sermon from University City last week? Lots of fun. Lots of fun. Love you guys. It was a real pleasure to be with you. Really was. Love you. Good to see you. We've got some people in Toronto joining us. It's not a holiday for them. And also Rock Hill. And we greet you from Blakeney. Feels good at Blakeney.
They were putting my makeup on and I was running a little behind to get up for the worship. I wear makeup for the... Anyway, that's another thing. Just a little bit. You have to for the cameras. They make me wear it. But I don't like it. I don't wear it on Monday. It's just on Saturday and Sunday. But... I had the worship coming in my speakers and I wanted to jump up so bad because it felt so good in here. You could feel it. You could feel it. Amen. Something's happening in here today. Touch somebody and say something's happening. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
Learning Celebration from My Wife Holly
If there's one thing my wife has taught me... Okay. There are many. But one of them would be the art of celebrating other people. She just does this really well. I always thought I was good at celebrating other people and encouraging other people. But Holly is like that person that... I don't know if you ever go in the gym and you think you're in pretty good shape. And then there's somebody in the gym that makes you, you know, feel like Homer Simpson. And you felt good before you saw them.
Holly is like that when it comes to the art of celebration. To where she has this amazing ability. And yes, I'm scoring points. She's on the front row and I wanted to hear me say these things about her. But I'm also being very honest with you that when it's a birthday... Birthdays are really big around our house. And she just has this way of making the world stop on our birthdays. The children and... It's very expensive for me as the underwriter of these activities. But she does good.
It's not always about the money she spends. We don't bring in horses and stuff like that. It's just all the little touches. She's just really good. One thing that Autumn Leinberger told us about... She's a church member who's been here forever. And they have a red plate. I brought ours because Autumn gave us one. And on your birthday at our house and at Autumn Leinberger's house... You get to eat off the special... You are special today plate.
You got one of these? Did you get one? It's awesome. And the plate... Holly's birthday was this week. Which is a lot of pressure. Because now you're celebrating the master celebrator. And it's a lot of pressure. And I did pretty good. I'm a good gift giver. I understand her brands that she enjoys to indulge in. And the activities that she enjoys and the restaurants that she loves. And having an understanding of that, I'm able to celebrate her to a degree.
But the intimidating part to me was like the decorations that she always does. I don't know where those come from when she puts them up. I have no part in putting them up. So when it came time to put them up for her... Thank God I have some staff members. Because I was like, can somebody find these decorations? So I'm talking to the babysitter. And the babysitter hangs the decorations and stuff.
And the morning of her birthday... Now, the morning of her birthday was hilarious. Because when we wake up on our birthday... Okay, so for instance, last year on my birthday... And I'm going somewhere with this that has to do with Nehemiah. But just chill. You guys are so edgy. But I put a high expectation on it because of what she does for me.
Last year on my birthday, it was pictures. Like the big pictures that you put. The year before that was the scavenger hunt. With the kids where I had to go around the... No? All in the same year. So in the same year, there's pictures... This is all in one day. You see what I'm saying? So it's intimidating because there's pictures of me... When I woke up, there's pictures of me and the kids everywhere in the scavenger hunt.
And at our house, we celebrate to the real Happy Birthday song, which was written by Stevie Wonder. That's the real birthday song. That little... That's not a birthday song. Stevie Wonder wrote the real birthday song. And so when you wake up in our home, Stevie Wonder is playing and the kids greet you and all of that.
But I had not really thought everything through because I'm not... Although I wanted to celebrate her, it's just not my specialty to stage a celebration. It's just not... How many of you struggle with celebrating things in your life? Just celebrate... You struggle with stopping to celebrate your victories.
So me and Graham, we were hilarious. I wish you could have seen us. He's seven. I'm like, Graham, buddy, do you have any idea where a candle might be? And so I send Graham to look for the candles. I found the plate. I found the plate. So I got the plate. I found something that looked like a cupcake. This is the morning of her birthday.
I put the cupcake on the plate. Five minutes later, I don't see Graham. I hear Holly starting to move around. I'm like, Graham, where's the candle? And I go back in the pantry. Poor Graham is just standing on the stool in the pantry. Just staring, like a man. Just staring. Not moving anything. Not using his hands.
So... Holly comes out. I'm like, Babe, we're totally ready to sing happy birthday to you. If you could point me in the direction of a candle, we'll get this whole thing started. I've got Stevie, I've got your plate ready. I just need a candle. Everything else is covered. And it's harder than she makes it look. That's what I'm trying to say. It's hard to pull all that off. And I appreciate it.
And I'm thinking, our kids, their poor spouses, they're gonna have this expectation of celebration. Well, I bring it up because... I'm in this series about stretching, growing, changing, transforming. I talked about goals in this series. Hold it, I might need it back. I talked about goals. I've talked about many different things in terms of strengthening your life.
And... All of that is wonderful, but... You know what's weird as a parent, as a pastor, or if you're a coach or a business leader? There's always this tension between celebration and correction. And all of us who are leading someone or in charge of something or trying to move something forward, even if it's just our own life, we're silently kind of wondering, how much should I celebrate? And then how much should I correct?
I am not a master celebrator, I am a master corrector. So, my skill sets, if you need me to straighten you out, I do that. This is what I hold this thing for. This is what I do. I can tell you what's wrong and stuff like that. But I found out that if you're always stretching but never celebrating, you'll eventually break.
And as a parent, if you're always correcting and never celebrating, you will eventually lose credibility with your child. Now, even as a coach, even the most hardcore coaches, if it's always correction, correction, correction, correction, correction, correction, correction, and no celebration, people lose their confidence. Then they don't have the confidence that they need to perform at the level of their calling or their true competency.
You know what I'm saying, is this resonating with you at all?
The Context of Nehemiah: From Correction to Celebration
We have a situation in Nehemiah chapter 8 where Nehemiah came to Jerusalem because there was a situation that needed correction. If you are, by the way, a business owner, or if you're trying to build something, or if you believe that there's a vision that you have that's coming together in your life, go to the book of Nehemiah.
Because I can't preach everything that came before chapter 8 today, but it'll show you what it looks like to know what you're put on earth to do, how you can figure that out. Often you figure out what your ministry is by following your misery. Because often God will put a void in you that he intends for your life to be a part of filling.
And you'll find out if you read Nehemiah how to get things set up for success and how to recruit a team and how to build a team and how to motivate a team. You'll find out about sacrificial leadership. You'll find out about how to deal with opposition. Because if you think you're just going to build something for God and grow or something like that and everything's going to fall into place as you do it, you're delusional. Delusional.
But Nehemiah overcame all of that. He did something amazing. He accomplished something significant. He took a city where the walls had been down for 150 years and he built him back up in 52 days. That's significant. That's a reason to celebrate. He did something that nobody before him in a century and a half had been willing to do or able to do. And he did it so quickly, Gaston, that the scripture says that when he did it, everybody knew God had helped him. Because there's no way that they could have done that that quickly on their own.
And I would love to talk about that. And I have talked about that before in the church. But what got me in this chapter that we just read is that after the wall is completed, they have a sort of celebration. It's kind of a strange celebration. It's kind of weird because this is how they party. This is how they get down in J-town.
All right. The people of Jerusalem, they rebuild the wall. And Ezra, who is the priest, gets up on this platform. Let me just read it to you. It'd be better if I read it to you. Can I read it to you? All right.
The People Gather to Hear the Law
It says in verse... Let's go all the way back to chapter 7, verse 73. Did you know there's a verse 73 in Nehemiah, Lisa Turkus? Isn't that powerful? There's not a lot of verse 73s in the Bible. So I'm just saying if you ever need one, there's that one. It says, put the scripture up there. When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, had settled in their towns.
So they're moving back in because the walls are rebuilt. Now, while the walls were down, they were vulnerable to attacks from their enemies. But rebuilding the walls was the first step in correcting what was wrong. So all of the things that they weren't able to do with no walls that had caused the city to be in a weakened state, they now have the opportunity to do because they're moving back in. They're moving back in.
Hold that right there. Put it right there. Move it to the back. Go to chapter 8, verse 1. All this was many years before the Nixon administration. So I'm not even sure why they put that detail. It's pretty obvious. But he said that they told Ezra, the teacher of the law, to bring out the book of the law of Moses. It's called the Pentateuch or the Torah.
They would take the section of that that pertained to the regulations that God had for the new community. And it had been around for a while, but they hadn't read it in a long time. And they hadn't studied it. And they hadn't lived by it. And that's part of the reason that they had been taken away from Jerusalem and their enemies had destroyed the gates.
Let me teach a little bit. Let me build the background. Because you have to understand something of this to understand the heart of what happened in verse 10. It said that they brought out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel.
So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra, the priest, brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. And he read it aloud. Listen how they party. He read the Leviticus and all those laws. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon.
How many of y'all would stand all day and listen to me preach for five hours? You know you're lying. Mess with me. I will test you. I'll hold this hostage and see if you're... But I got a weak bladder. I would. But no, there's something about this. I mean, he's just reading the law. It's kind of one of those things where you're like, really? They did that? Yeah, they were so moved by what they had seen God do that they wanted to know what was next.
And that's the thing, because I had somebody ask me last week, interesting question. We were having a little leadership panel thing with our 2K2, which is apprentices that serve in the church. And the question was framed up, how do you have a contentment in your life without becoming complacent? Let it sink in. That's the question of my life.
That's why I suck at celebrating. Because I'm scared that if I celebrate too much, it'll lead to complacency. And I'm afraid that if I stop too long to celebrate, somebody's going to get ahead of me. And so sometimes I just skip the celebration, just on to the next thing. Just skip the celebration, and I pick a point in my mind of arrival, and I'll celebrate then. Like, then.
We all have a then. It could be a weight. It could be a bank balance. It could be a GPA. It could be a relational status. But we all have a then. Ask somebody next to you, say, when is then? That's a great question to ask.
Because, you know, some of us are so far along in our life right now, we never thought we'd be here. We never thought we'd be here. We never thought we'd come as far as we've come. We never could have imagined it. But it's something about along the way we had to spend so much to get here that we don't have the strength to celebrate now that we are here.
And there's a secret fear, I think, that many of us have. I don't know if it's just a man thing. I don't think it is. I don't think it is. I think there's this thing inside of us. I think it was there in the Israelites, too, because they built the wall. And Ezra and Nehemiah, who were in charge of the people, Ezra was the priest, and Nehemiah was overseeing all the construction.
And they stop, and they say, we've got to hold a sacred celebration. And so look what they did. I love, the scripture says that they listened for five hours to the word of God. And it says in verse four, Ezra, the teacher of the law, stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. They built a platform for the occasion. They built a stage for the celebration.
So I see two things working in this text. I see sacrifice, and I see celebration. One without the other is not sustainable. It is not sustainable to have all sacrifice and no celebration. It's also not sustainable to have all celebration and no sacrifice. Because while you were dancing in the end zone, they're running the next play, and at some point you've got to get back out on the field.
All celebration with no sacrifice, this represents the person who expects life to give out awards before you've taken any action. This goes to the 23-year-old who wants to have everything your parents had without putting in the time that they put in to have it, and you're bitter at life because you're in a season of sacrifice and you want the celebration without the sacrifice.
This is to the pastor who wants for your church to be at a level of giving so your church can feel comfortable with the resources, but you've never sacrificially given. Nehemiah said, we've made great sacrifices, but now we need a moment of celebration, and it's an odd celebration, we'll admit, to read the law of Moses. That's not how most of us, you know, recreate.
But this is what they did, and it's interesting because they built a platform for the occasion. I love what they did, and this is a simple message. This is a simple message. Nothing deep coming at you today. I'm not spelling anything or connecting anything. I'm just trying to help you see today that you can't have sacrifice without celebration, and you can't have celebration without sacrifice, and you don't have to wait on a special occasion to celebrate how far God has...
Celebrating in Stages – God's Example
It says on the first day of the seventh month... We'll stop and celebrate. On the first day of the seventh month... What's significant about it? Absolutely nothing, except that was the day they picked. It was the first day of their civil calendar... There is nothing written in their law that they have to have this kind of celebration. They just decide to do it. They just decide to have a celebration that day.
Give me my plate back. They just decide, you know what? I'm going to eat off the red plate on Tuesday. I'm just going to declare this day a special day. I'm just going to declare... And what makes it significant is the fact that although they had completed the project of rebuilding the walls, they were just beginning the process of rebuilding the city.
But they knew, we've got to stop here and celebrate this, or we won't have the strength to do that. Here's the heart of the message. I'm trying to help you see that in each of our lives, there's a long way between where we are and where we would like to be. And that's good. So, if you ever lose that ambition, you become complacent. You stop sacrificing.
But if you're going to have the strength for the next stage, you've got to build a platform where you are and celebrate where you are and stand where you are. I'll never forget the pastor who came to visit me one time, and I was showing him around our campuses, and I was telling him our future plans. He listened to my future plans, but he interrupted me midway through.
He said, I love hearing about your vision for what's next. But if I were you, I'd park my car in the parking lot as soon as possible when you're all by yourself, maybe at night when nobody else is around at one of your buildings. And I would just stop and think about where you came from. And I would have a moment in my car where I would say out loud, this ain't bad. This ain't bad. This ain't bad. Where I am now. ain't bad.
And where I'm going next is even better. But the only way I'm going to have strength for the next step is to stop and stage a celebration. See, it's celebrating in stages. This is how God created the world. He created something on the first day. And if you're a Bible scholar, you'll know that God didn't wait till the seventh day when the whole world was finished before he celebrated the progress of what he made in each stage.
Don't you think it's significant that the Bible says that on the first day God created and after he had created in that stage he said it was good? And then he started again on the next day and after he finished on the second day what he had to do that day he said it's good? And then on the third day when he was making what he was making on the third day he said it's good?
I love the fact that God sets an example for us that you must celebrate each stage. if you are to have sustainable strength. You have to celebrate small steps. We all know how to do this instinctively Only because we do it with little kids when they're learning to walk, when they're stumbling toward you like a blubbering mass of incompetence.
I'm just saying it like it is, and you are so impressed. So impressed. That's so good. No, it's not. It's terrible. Okay, they are nowhere near ready to do the kinds of things that life requires. It's pitiful what they're doing. It is. We're not entering you in a race, but we're celebrating. We understand this.
How do we get this when they're really small, but then we can't see the same way that baby learn to take another step. It's the same way that we've got to encourage ourselves to take our next step. Because I read nearby eight for years, and I was like, well, of course they had a celebration. It was done. No, it wasn't.
The walls had been down for 150 years. That meant there was no educational system. That meant that the economy had imploded. That meant they had to re-inhabit the towns. Not everybody's back yet. There are still decades of work to be done. But Nehemiah and Ezra stopped and said, this ain't bad. Look at the wall. At least it's a star. At least it's a star.
It's a star. Touch somebody and say, it's a star. Touch somebody else and say, it's a star. Let them know that if they just got to church today, it's a star. Let them know that if you just download the Bible reading app on your phone and read one of those little verses a day, because you can put it where it'll give you a verse a day.
And I know you don't have two hours yet to pray, but if you read that verse, you start saying, well, I wonder what comes before that verse. You receive power and the Holy Spirit comes on you. Be my witnesses in Jerusalem. Ooh, that's Acts 1-8. What does Acts 1-7 say? Before you know it, you're in Acts 22. Why? Because you… See, the devil hates it when you celebrate a small start.
A small start. He gets nervous when you celebrate a small start, because he sees, oh no. If they ever figure out they have strength in their legs to take the first step, they might learn to steady themselves and take another one. And if they ever see that they have power in this one area of their life, it might transfer to a… If they look at the walls and see what God did with the walls, they might start rebuilding the towns.
If they rebuild the towns, they might rebuild the education system. If they rebuild the education system, they might rebuild the economy. If they rebuild the economy, they might strengthen themselves and be a force to be reckoned with. Please, I'm just teaching. No, I'm just teaching today.
I'm trying to teach you the power Remember of celebrating your start. Zechariah 4.10. Do not despise these small beginnings. That's why some of us can never get any momentum. Because I only lost two pounds. And then you celebrate the two pounds you lost by eating a doughnut. Now see, that's a... Touch somebody, say that won't work.
Oh, I lost two pounds. I'm going to take myself on a walk. You can't pay $20 off the credit card and celebrate it by charging $40. See, I need to preach this because we do as a culture, you understand. And maybe I'm speaking to a younger generation. We want to skip the sacrifice straight to the success.
It was only after they had rebuilt the wall up that they were able to build the platform. Some of us want to give our acceptance speech for the Grammy without the grind. I can tell I'm preaching good when it gets a little quieter. No offense to little league baseball and soccer and all of that. But Johnny doesn't need a trophy or a game ball if he didn't hit the ball once.
And I love Johnny. And I'm sure we can celebrate something else about Johnny. But I can't have Johnny thinking that bonus checks are like game balls. And you get one because you were cute. This is bad. This is UN-pastoral. But we kind of have a culture where everybody wants trophies without training. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on.
The People's Response: From Weeping to Joy
So on one extreme... Y'all, I didn't cry when David Letterman went off the air. But I was emotional. That man has been on TV almost my whole life. And there were several seasons of my life when I would watch him every night. And it was kind of weird for me to see him go. I just wanted to tell you that. I'm just kidding. I wanted to read you a quote.
They put an article about him in Rolling Stone magazine. And it was in a hotel room that I was in this week. I was reading this. They asked him, what about the celebration of your last show? Listen to what he said. I'm dreading it. Okay, fine. It's, you know, the end of your career. That's understandable.
Then he said, as Regis used to say, I don't like going down memory Lane. And I'm afraid that that's what this is all about. Okay, fine. You know, you can't live in the past. He said, after we get through with it, then I'll sit back and see what we've done. But for now, I just want it to be over with.
You know how many people live their lives like that? When I get through with it, then I'll celebrate. When I get to the seventh day, then I'll call it good. But if God himself celebrated in stages, you can't wait till it's over till you hit that Mark. You're sabotaging your strength by skipping the celebration.
By not just looking at what it is. We learned this when we were building our house. We would just go out and look at the fact that they had knocked some trees down. And have a picnic. The trees are gone. Cool. Not going to be in the house for another year. But those trees are gone. They were there. We've destroyed a little bit of the environment. Let's celebrate. You know, progress.
Oh, look, some dirt moved from here to there. Ooh, a foundation. A foundation isn't sexy, but it's something to celebrate. When you understand that everything... Oh, God. There's something on this, what I'm about to say right now. So prepare yourself. Lean forward, lean forward, lean forward.
See, the foundation isn't the part where you go, Ooh, ah, wow. Did you see that foundation? And that's what makes it so hard to celebrate the starting place. That's what makes it so hard to celebrate the place that nobody's going to see when the house gets built.
But sometimes you have to say, you know what? I know it doesn't look impressive yet. I know I haven't paid down much yet. You know, I know it's just a C, but I used to make Ds. And so if I made a C next time, I'm going to make a B because I got a foundation and I'm learning how to study and I'm learning how to get rid of some bad habits. So I got a foundation.
So, so I'm going to pick a date. I'm going to just call this day a day of celebration, even though I know I got a long way to go. Tell somebody, check out my foundation. I'm building a foundation. I know, I know you can't see the colors of the walls yet. But it won't matter what color the walls are if I don't get a strong foundation.
The walls weren't sexy, but they were what was required for what was within to flourish. So sometimes you just got to celebrate that the walls are up, you know? Just ministering to somebody. God told me if I would preach it, if I would just preach it just simple, right down the middle, that some of you would discover the power of celebrating yourself in stages.
Not waiting on someone else, by the way, to point out how far you've come. Not feeling sorry for yourself because nobody else celebrates you. And I'm going to tell you just how I do it. I tell people when I want them to throw me a party. I just do. When my book hit the New York Times bestseller list, I told them, y'all need to throw me a party.
Because I don't want to sit around disappointed that I didn't get a party. I don't want to pout about the part of my mind people didn't read. So I told them, y'all need to throw me a party. It needs to be a lot of people. Not a little party. It needs to be a big party. Because this is a big deal to me. And I expressed my expectation of celebration.
But I've got to tell you something. There are some other times in my life where I didn't hit the New York Times bestseller list, but I just made a step that I knew about. And nobody else could celebrate me because they didn't know how much it cost me to come that far. And there are days where you put up the streamers and the things and all the stuff that Holly keeps in different parts of the house and break out the candles.
But there are times where you just pull out the red plate just today. Just today. Just today. I'm going to buy myself some Tory Burch today. Today. Today. This is the day the Lord has made. So, any day that God made is an occasion for celebration. Isn't it? Any day. It's a special day today. Why? Because I breathed. It's a special day today. Why? Because the sun came up.
And Jeremiah said that his mercies are new with every rising of the sun. So, if the sun came up today, there must be a new thing that God wants to do in my life. There must be a new grace I can access for this season. Just stop and celebrate today. Okay. Let's just do it right now. Let's all eat off the red plate for five seconds.
How many of you have something in your life that God is rebuilding or building? Okay. Now. Good, good. Now I want you to pretend like it's already built and show God what you're gonna do when it gets done. That's how you're gonna do it. Like that. Yeah. Alright. Calm down. Calm down. Because my message really isn't about external celebration. There was no dancing in Nehemiah 8. It's about how you decorate your heart.
Look at yourself like this. I am the interior decorator of my own heart. Amen. And I wonder how your heart is decorated today. The people... Please, be seated. The people... They heard the words of the law read. And Ezra gets up and he reads all this stuff. And the people responded. They started shouting amen. And then it became a very somber tone because they bowed and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
And look at verse 7. It says the Levites, Jeshua, and others, instructed the people in the law. They read... Go to verse 8. They read from the book of the law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read. They could understand what was being read.
And the people started hearing God's ideal from the law. And it crushed them. So Nehemiah and Ezra and all the leaders of the religious assembly who were helping the people said, Hey, this day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep. For the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law.
They could only see how far they had to go. Nehemiah said, No, no, no. In order for us to move forward, we got to build a stage right here and celebrate. We got to... We're not going to move forward mourning. The time that we've lost, the decades we wasted, the recovery that's ahead. Yes, there's more work to be done. But we've got to celebrate in order to see it come to pass.
The Joy of the Lord Is Your Strength
So Nehemiah says, Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks. Come on. How much do you love this Bible verse? Go and enjoy... Verse 10, please. Choice food and sweet drinks. How many of you just found a new favorite Bible verse? Now you're talking, preacher!
But he puts another detail in there. He says, Send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord. He's your strength.
See, I started off this message saying that there's a tension between correction and celebration. Sometimes I tend to correct too much, and some people might tend to celebrate too much, and never correcting things. We just party, and we don't know why we're partying, but we're really just trying to numb ourselves to the messed up life that we have that we don't want to fix.
That's one extreme, but the correction is another extreme. It seems to be this tug of how to be content but not be complacent, and how to move forward and not get stuck but also not get overwhelmed when you look and see how much territory you have to cover.
And I started the message by talking about celebrating your strengths and yet correcting your weaknesses. And I wonder if the two aren't opposites, but maybe they're partners. I wonder if the way that God corrects our weaknesses isn't by celebrating our strengths.
I wonder if the way that he enables you to see past what you're looking at right now is to remind you of the grace that he's given you in the past. It's appropriate that they mourned, that they wept. It's appropriate that we look at our lives in light of who God is and say, God, I don't want to stay here. I don't want to celebrate dysfunction. I don't want to be okay with the parts of me that are toxic.
I don't want to carry around stuff that you died to take away from me. So I'm not stopping here. I'm starting here. My celebration is a starting point for my next step. And they said, while you're celebrating what God has done for you, it might help you to send some away for others.
It might help you to not just have a party in your own heart for everything God has done for you and everything you're expecting him to do. But you know, I found out that one of the most powerful things I can do is celebrate my small steps. An even more powerful thing that I can do is celebrate someone else's success.
Don't you just eat all the good stuff, he said, because your strength is going to come in what you send away. Your strength is going to come. Your encouragement is going to come by the encouragement that you offer to others. And sometimes when you're discouraged, you just got to get your mind off yourself. You just got to forget about yourself.
You just got to realize, you know, there's somebody in a circumstance much worse than me that is dying of dehydration. And here I am, drinking the sweet drink, eating the choice food. No, God, I'm not waking up today waiting for somebody to celebrate me or waiting for another reason to celebrate or waiting for another benchmark. God, who can I celebrate today?
Let me pull out my phone real quick. Just who? Who? Yeah, I need to send them a text. Yeah, I'm going to send them a text. I'm going to tell them. I'm not going to just make something up. I'm going to send something from my heart. So what do you want me to say to them? Okay, yeah, I'm going to say that. Who else? Okay, he's going through. Okay, yeah, man, he just released a new album.
You know, I've got to do this in ministry because ministry can be competitive. Just like anything else. Maybe more than anything else. Preachers are pretty messed up. And sometimes I just got to take a moment and celebrate what God is doing through someone else. And send something away.
You know how you have a joyful life? By sending joy into the world. By sending joy. See, we think joy is all about receiving something. What if the strength of God is not to be found in the joy that you grasp for, but the joy that you give away that he's already put inside of you?
I'm going to do it right now. I'm going to send somebody an encouragement text while I'm preaching. Just because... I want to set an example. This guy is taking his... Took his family on vacation this week. And I know he works real hard to try to keep everything in balance. Small kids, all that. Took his family on vacation.
So I just took a moment to say, you're a good man taking your family on vacation. Because I know that he could have had a million excuses why he didn't have time for that. But he made time for his family. So I'm going to just send that to him. It wasn't even a Bible verse or anything. I just said, good job on your vacation.
But I know what he struggles with is... So I'm just... See, that's... The devil can't stand. Because here's what he's going to do. He's going to stack you up with discouragement, not encouragement. That's not what the devil does. But if you want to, you can take the discouragement that he stacks up in your life and use it to stage a celebration.
Look at it like this. Look at it like this. Look at it like... When the devil starts reminding you of what you've lost and reminding you of what you're not, reminding you of what you didn't. Okay. I'm going to say, thank you for the raw materials, that I am now going to build a platform out of the pain, and I'm going to use what I've been through to stage a celebration to testify of the grace of God in my life.
So I know this might sound funny, but thank you, devil, for the disappointments, and thank you for the discouragement, and thank you for everything that didn't happen because I'm building a stage out of all of that. And when I get this stage built, I'm going to stand up on it like Ezra, and I'm going to preach and testify of the goodness of God in my life.
I'm going to testify that what was sent to destroy me was meant to deliver me. I'm going to stand on this stage and declare the goodness. Come on, lift up a shout of praise. Come on, church! Don't even worry about all the hard things that are happening in your life right now. It's just staging. It's just something that God can stand on and prove through your life that he is faithful.
That he is faithful. That through every season, he is stable. He is faithful. That he is faithful. What a faithful God. We are not there yet. He got so far to go, it makes me want to weep when I think about it. No, but if I stay here weeping, if I stay here mourning, I can't move forward.
If I look at what's within these walls too long in the state things are in, it takes my strength away. Ah, but if I rejoice at what the Lord has done, I can wake up tomorrow, and when I finish this day, I'll say, it's good. It's good. It's not done. I'm still in progress. I'm not... I'm not... I'm not finished. But God is faithful.
Closing Prayer and Praise
Let's take a moment in his presence. And just lift our hands if you feel comfortable. Lift your hands, lift your hands, lift your hands. I want you to repeat after me in this prayer. Say, thank you, Jesus, for how far you've brought me. I believe the best is yet to come. But here and now, I declare this day you are good. This day you are faithful. In this season, you are God. And all things are working together for the good in my life.
Now give him a shout of praise if that's what you believe. Come on, if you're choosing to believe it. You know what your praise does? It creates a stage for a celebration. It creates a set up to say, God, I'm going to thank you while it's on the way. I'm going to thank you while I'm in transition. I'm going to thank you while it hasn't come to pass. I believe you.