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Watch 2022-2023 online sermons » Steven Furtick » Steven Furtick - How To Break Chains

Steven Furtick - How To Break Chains


Steven Furtick - How To Break Chains

This is an excerpt from: My Future is My Focus

Being controlled by your emotions will always limit your future to the level of your feelings, so you will only do what's right if you feel like doing what's right. "Oh, I just wasn't feeling it today". Well, those are the times to "faith" it. I didn't place my feelings in Christ; I placed my faith in Christ, who's greater than my feelings. Joseph said, after he finished weeping… They came and said, "We are your slaves," and he said to them (verse 19), "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God"? The obvious answer is "No," but to the naked eye, he kind of is, because he's so powerful at this point in his life. He's not the little brother they picked on anymore. This boy is so blessed they didn't even recognize him the first trip they made to Egypt to get food. He stood right in front of them dressed in Pharaoh's coat. Not the one his father gave him. The one they stripped from him was still in the house of the father, but God always has a coat for me somewhere if I keep my character.

If I keep my character, you can have my coat. If I keep my sense of who I am, I can go through things that would have killed somebody else's character. This is the word. This is the verse we focused on last week, and I'm going to break it down again. He said, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives". All right. I want to illustrate this. Who can I use? I need three strong men, three strong brothers. I need three. There we go. We'll do that. One, two, three. Perfect. I want you to see it. Last week, when I got on my knees in that sermon, that wasn't for a show. That was so you could carry the Word of God forward so that it would have an imprint in your life and you could ask the question, "Am I in the position to make the decision or am I letting my pain get the best of me"?

Okay. Y'all line up from strongest to weakest. All of these campus pastors. Stand up. I'm done with that image. This is a different image. I did that last week. That was last week. Y'all watching online, Youtube.com. I want the strongest one on that side and the weakest one on this side. We'll start with the weakest. I did this last week, but now let me illustrate it. Let's call him bad. Jeff Bates. Let's call him bad to represent not that he's bad…the bad things that happened in Joseph's life. Remember, "You meant it to harm me. You intended it for evil". So, let's say he's the bad thing. What I endeavor for you to see today is that at this point in Joseph's life… When something bad happens to you, when something bad is done to you, when the bad thing is because of you…all of it… I'm trying to get you to see that all things fall under the sovereignty of God. Sovereignty. It means God uses sinful men to accomplish saving purposes.

That's the whole book of Genesis in a nutshell. God uses sinful women to accomplish saving purposes. "You intended to harm me. God intended it for good for the saving, salvation, of many lives". So, sovereignty, salvation. But it was bad. We said last week that that's so important. It was bad. Now, if Joseph spends the rest of his life in the first part of this sentence, "You intended to harm me," then the bad thing that happened becomes a chain to who he blames for it. (Chet, you're blame.) "You intended to harm me". Then he starts name-checking them. "Reuben, Simeon, Issachar, you rawboned donkey…" He starts calling them names. He didn't call Issachar a rawboned donkey. He could have. He could have spent the rest of his life describing how they harmed him. It's such a small thing to say. "Harm me".

How much time do you give to that? I'm telling you, some of us would have spent the next 55 years describing the first part of that sentence. "Let me tell you what it was like. First I had to go down and be enslaved by the Midianites. I was picked up by the caravan. I was shoved in the back". He would have spent the rest of his life… Because if you start there, then you have to talk about "Then I excelled in the house of Potiphar, who I served, but then his wife was crazy, and his wife kept on trying to get with me. I mean, who can blame her? I am well built and handsome".

The Bible says that. He was well built and handsome. But he didn't go into any details about Potiphar's house. He didn't go into any details about what happened after Potiphar's house, which was prison. He didn't go into any details about being forgotten in prison when he was the key to one man's freedom. He didn't rehearse the lack of reciprocation. Now come into the story with me. Don't just sit there. I know Jeff and Chet are handsome together like that, and all that, but I want you to see yourself chained to whatever you blame. You gave your power away.

Now watch. Try to get away from Chet. Nuh-uh. It's not going to be that easy. This creates, what we called last week, the chain of events that could have defined Joseph's life. Even sometimes I think you can blame yourself and think that is somehow honoring to God. I thought you weren't God. Telling God you're worthless is an insult to the word he spoke over you. It is the opposite of worshiping God to tell him how worthless you are, because the focus is on you.

Watch this. This is a chain, and what it becomes… It's terrible, but it becomes bitterness, and now you have bondage. Walk with it for me in your own life. Something bad happens. "Oh, that's horrible. I didn't get to finish because of them. They weren't there for me". I mean, if we just named everything that's in this room… Forget about all over the world. If we just named everything that's in this room… If we named everything bad that happened in this room, I wouldn't get to preach another sermon until 2064. If we spent the rest of this day, we would spill over into tomorrow.

Yet Joseph, after everything he has been through… Genesis 50:20: "You intended to harm me…" That's all he said about that. That's freedom. He wasn't in denial either, because he still wept. There was a process. He didn't say it the next day. He didn't say it in the pit. He didn't say it in the back of the caravan as he was being sold and chained, but at some point, his perspective became "But God…" So, you break it with a but. Let me show you again. "You intended to harm me…" That was bad.

Now I could blame you, I could be bitter about it, and I could spend the rest of my life, but God… Let me show you again. Let me show you until you see yourself interrupting what the Enemy sent to destroy you, and you can break it with a "But God…" You can break it. So, now I'm looking… My future is my focus. I'm looking for everything in my life that has me in bondage, and I'm looking to put a but right here to see what God is going to do next. The power to break it is in your praise, in your perspective, in your purpose! That's how you break a chain.

"They left me, but God has somebody else for me. They hurt me, but God healed me. He's healing me right now". Somebody say it in the chat. "But God…" I feel like preaching in this room today! Like God is breaking chains… I'm serious, y'all! You can break it with a but. We were dead in our sin, but God… You meant it for evil, but God… The weapon was formed against me, but it didn't prosper, because I'm still breathing, living, walking, talking, moving! But God! I can break that thing. You break it before it breaks you.
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