Steven Furtick - Don't Follow Your Senses
This is an excerpt from: He's Still The Shepherd
It works to trust God. It works to give it to him. It works to step out in faith. It works to stay in faith. It works to speak faith. It works to hear faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word, and then you get stuck in the space of trying to figure out in the flesh what God started by the Spirit. Here's another time the Lord said, "I don't like this".
Somebody asked me, "Will you go do this certain opportunity to share the gospel"? and I started thinking of all of the reasons I would not be good at doing it. The Lord said, "I don't like this at all, because you act like you were so good to get here to start with. I don't like this at all. You're getting this thing backward now. What started by faith you're trying to finish in flesh". "I've got it, God. Thank you for the house. I've got it from here, God". You don't "got it" from here. That house is not a home unless God's Spirit is in it. You need God to fill what he helped you build. Did you hear me? I'm scared it got missed. You need God to fill what he helped you build or what he gave you the strength to build or what he built for himself.
That was David's thing. He said, "The Lord is my shepherd". David wrote that because of his experience. He was a shepherd himself, a shepherd who showed up to the battle lines just in time. How many of you have a testimony, "God put me at the right place at the right time for certain things in my life; it was not coincidence"? I was thinking about Joe L. He was up here singing "Million Little Miracles". They don't even know. They don't even know that when you recorded that song in this empty room during the craziest time in the world… We were all COVID testing to record, and you weren't even supposed to be here for the recording, but I said, "Stay around just in case. There's a song 'Million Little Miracles' that we wrote, and I think you can sing it". You said, "I love that song. I heard the demo". I said, "Stay around just in case".
He sang that song, and the glory of God… (You can download it now on YouTube, but don't turn off the sermon. Do it after the sermon.) It's just amazing how David had this perspective. Watch what he said to Goliath. This is the most important part of the message, because now I'm giving you the picture. That's the principle. You can't finish in the flesh, your own power, your own strength, your own delusional desires that will lead you astray. The heart is deceitfully wicked. You can't trust that. I need the Spirit of God. I have to stay in touch with him. I can't finish in the flesh what started in the Spirit. Here's the picture. When David saw Goliath… The commentaries vary. He was at least 7'2". He could have been as tall as 9'9". The measurements aren't exactly the same. Let's just all agree that's tall. Can we get consensus on that? Okay. Too big to beat.
David is like, "Perfect. He's too big to beat. That means God will have to do it. That means God will get the glory and I'll grow in my faith. So give me my shepherd tool". Wait, David. We're not talking about sheep here. We're talking about a Philistine warrior with a sword. David is like, "Nuh-uh. I know these weapons. God has used these weapons. I've been keeping my father's sheep". So, he takes the instruments of shepherding and applies them to the strategy of warfare. It worked for his advantage, because Goliath never even got close enough to use his weapon. David knocked him out. You know that story, don't you? I can tell. You look kind of bored, like, "Really? David and Goliath? Okay". I have to give you that because that's how David started. He was so full of faith. He said, "I'm going to come at you without a sword so that everybody will know it was the Lord".
Some of y'all had that kind of faith or have that kind of faith, have experienced those types of moments. "I'm doing this because God told me. I'm doing this because I believe God is with me. I'm 55 percent sure God told me to do this, and that's as good as it's going to get, so here we go, Jesus". That's Peter getting out of that boat. He's like, "I think so. Oh no"! Falling down. Jesus picked him up. Moving the right direction. That's David. David becomes a king. He deals with a crazy king. Crazy King Saul tries to kill him. He can't kill him because he can't kill what God has crowned. He can throw a spear at it, but if it ducks… Saul can't kill him because David was full of the Spirit of God and was anointed by purpose. He was the eighth brother, and he was left out, but God anointed him anyway through Samuel, because when God has something for you, it doesn't matter what people say about you.
So, stop trying to impress people, get voted in by people. People have no final say. Only God has the final say, because he's the Shepherd. He's the King. Whatever he says is going to happen. He's now the king, and he does the craziest thing we ever see David do. Everybody listening to this right now who grew up in church thinks I'm going to talk about Bathsheba, but I'm not. That is David's most famous sin. He slept with a woman who wasn't his wife and had her husband killed on the front lines of battle. In the spring, in the time when kings go off to war, David was walking around his roof, and he saw a beautiful woman bathing. He said, "Bring her to me," and he slept with her. Then he had her husband killed to try to cover it up, but he couldn't cover it up, because Nathan came and confronted him.
That wasn't the dumbest thing David ever did. The Bible records that although that cost one man his life and David his own baby, there's something else David did that I have done that cost much more, and I want to show you that. In 1 Chronicles 21… We're a long way from where we were last week when David was bringing the ark, which represented the presence of God, back to Jerusalem, the city of peace. Stay with me. He's now in a position of power, and God has given him victory from his enemies. What he does next is so dumb it seems smart. The Bible says in 1 Chronicles 21:1 that Satan (this is where it started) rose up against Israel and… Watch this. Not what you expect Satan to do…attack them through the Philistines? No. He incited David to take a census of Israel.
What's so bad about a census? That's not one of the seven deadly sins. What's so bad about taking a census? What's so bad about David saying, "Hey, I want to know how many people we have so I can be ready for whatever"? He tells Joab, "Go through and count all of my subjects". I'm just going to tell you the story how it goes down, and then you can figure out what's so bad about it. He says, "Hey, Joab…" He is his military adviser and wages the wars for him on the ground. He's like, "I want to know how many men I have who are good with a sword, so go count all of the fighting men". Joab says, "I don't think you want to do that, David. Are you crazy? Respectfully, king, sir, David. Are you crazy?
If you need more, God will give you a hundred times more. May God multiply your troops times a hundred, king, but don't do this". Because God had commanded… There were only two times where a king was supposed to take a census. One was if you were taxing people, and one was if you were putting together an army for a battle, and neither applied. It lets me know that now David has moved from power of the humility of trusting in the presence of God to the pride of saying, "How many do I have? Find out, because I might have to fight. And if I have to fight, I want to know how many fighting men there are".
See, now he's measuring flesh. David didn't get to be king by measuring flesh. In fact, he was the one his brothers didn't even think should be in the room. So, how did the king who got to the crown by trusting God's Spirit and taking a sling in his hand against a big, tall giant… How did he come to this point where he's being led by his senses? Senses…census. If he had used his senses when he was up against Goliath, he would have run. If you would have gotten to this point by your senses, you would not be in church. You wouldn't. It was God who snatched you. It was God who led you. Come on now. It was God who helped you. This is the moment where you affirm the word and confirm the word with your own praise. It was God. He breathed on it. It was God. He stepped in it. It was God. He cleared the path. It was God. He made them lie down in green pastures.
So, you came this far, and now you're counting? You came this far by faith, and now you're trying to figure it out? Listen. Hear the word of the Lord. You have to stop trying to figure this stuff out in your flesh and then praying for God to give you direction. You have to stop sizing up… I heard a country preacher, Pastor Charles Randolph. He said, "The rest of the nation looked at Goliath and said, 'He's too big to kill.' David looked at Goliath and said, 'He's too big to miss.' Amen"? So, how did you go… No, question for you. How did you go from God's grace being the fuel and the strength and the hope and the joy of your life, and now you're like, "No, God. I've got it from here. Thank you, Lord, for putting me on this path. I can do it now". You can't, and you don't have to, because he's a good shepherd, and he leads you, but not by your senses.
So then when you're sitting there all night long… This is what worry is about. We're taking a census. We're listing problems. Then in our lowest moments, Satan incites us. He says, "Start thinking about what you have. Start thinking about how strong you are, because if I can get you to see how strong you are, I can get you to believe how weak you are. If I can put you in the flesh, I can kill what started in the Spirit. Then I can get you to leave your kids, and then I can get you to quit your ministry, and then I can get you to leave your church, and then I can get you to stop praising and stop rejoicing. If I can get you in the flesh, I can make you fail". Joab said, "Don't do it," and David did.
The numbers were impressive. Men love to measure, by the way. Joab came back and said, "You have 1.1 million and then 470,000 in Judah that aren't part of the 1.1 million. There you go". He didn't even count two of the tribes because he hated so much what David told him to do. He knew it was a bad idea, and he wasn't even the godliest guy in the world. He was like, "This is crazy. Are you crazy"? Even the world looks at us in the church sometimes and says, "Y'all say you trust God…" Anyway… Oh, the third time the Lord told me, "I don't like that…" I was telling Holly, "That sermon didn't go good," and she said, "How do you know"? I said, "The people didn't respond". The Lord said, "I hate that. You preach from revelation, not for response. I hate when you use your senses". God hates when you use your senses to try to figure out what he wants to reveal by faith.