Steven Furtick - Not Dead Yet
We're starting a season today that I wanted to make you aware of all over the world for our year-end offering. That is exciting. When someone is new to our church, they're often surprised that we don't put a lot of pressure on people to give, yet God has blessed us so much. The reason for that is because we have built into this church people who, because of their love for God and because of their commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, give consistently. Not to build buildings (we build buildings), not to make videos (we make videos), but so that people who are far from God can be raised to life in Christ and so the kingdom of God can come on earth as it is in heaven. It is an exciting time. I always get a chance during this year-end offering where many will begin to tithe, give that first 10 percent to God… That's not what I'm going to talk about in my sermon today yet, so don't make up an excuse to leave.
"I have a very important meeting". That is so important that 10 percent belongs to God, that tithe belongs to God. Thousands of families in this church use this time in the year to say, "You know what? I haven't been honoring God with the firstfruits of what he gave to me, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life acting like I did this by my own hands. I need God, and I honor God". That has been a practice in my life since age 18. I'll tell you the story one of these weeks about how that happened for me…not this week, but I'll share it with you. Then there's the "above and beyond," where you say, "God has been good to me. Out of all that he has given me, I want to bring him an offering, a gift above and beyond".
We set aside this time of the year… On December 11, we'll do a big offering as a church. On December 11, we're going to be bringing our offering. We're going to be bringing it online throughout now and the end of the year. You can go to elevationchurch.org, click "Year-End Offering," and find out about that. It'll be amazing. We use that offering, that expansion offering, that "above and beyond," in order to do the outreach ministries we do in this church. This church is incredibly active in all of the communities we serve. This is not some performance-based church. We have hundreds and hundreds of outreach partners meeting the needs of people who need medical assistance, people who need food, people who have never had the Bible translated in their language. We'll show you some of that over the next few weeks so you can see what you're giving to.
I'm expecting by faith for thousands of you to join Holly and me in what we've done through the entire existence of this church: give until it hurts a little bit, and then expect God to move in your life. I refuse to let you end this year just putting on 10 pounds and running up credit card debt and not focusing on Jesus. We have to end strong no matter how we started. So we will do that, and I know I can count on you in that way to pray and ask God. Now let's go to the Word of God. Remain standing for a moment and turn to your favorite book of the Bible, Leviticus, the one you have memorized. I have been seeking God this week. Like, "walking in the woods, praying out loud, wondering if the neighbors think I've lost it finally" seeking God. Like, reading Leviticus and finding a sermon in it. That's how crazy I've been seeking God this week, and he spoke to me. Everything he teaches me I want to try to teach to you. He taught me something amazing here.
Leviticus, chapter 11. Full disclosure: I'm reading through the Bible with Elijah, my oldest, and Kelsey. We started coming up to Leviticus, and I was like, "Uh-oh". Usually, when people start a Bible reading plan at the beginning of the year, they get through Genesis, they get through Exodus, and then when they get to Leviticus… It's a lot of lists and dietary restrictions, which you'll see in a moment. So when they get to Leviticus, they leave it and cuss…Leviticus. (I've got to get y'all back tuned into my humor frequency. I've got to bring your expectations down.) I got to that, and I said, "Okay. We're going to do this differently. We're going to love Leviticus when we get done with it". So I got us some different books and things, and as we were studying, we came upon this, and the Lord spoke.
Leviticus 11:29: "Of the animals that move along the ground, these are unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon". "Pastor, we aren't sending you back out on the West Coast if you're going to come back with Scriptures like this. This is weird". Trust me. This is the Scripture we need today. Look at verse 31. "Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean till evening. When one of them dies and falls on something, that article, whatever its use, will be unclean, whether it is made of wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth. Put it in water; it will be unclean till evening, and then it will be clean. If one of them falls into a clay pot, everything in it will be unclean, and you must break the pot. Any food you are allowed to eat that has come into contact with water from any such pot is unclean, and any liquid that is drunk from such a pot is unclean.
Anything that one of their carcasses falls on becomes unclean; an oven or cooking pot must be broken up. They are unclean, and you are to regard them as unclean. A spring, however, or a cistern for collecting water remains clean, but anyone who touches one of these carcasses is unclean. If a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they remain clean". Good. You have a new favorite passage of Scripture now. Drop down to verse 44. "I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy".
This message today is called Not Dead Yet. Now look at somebody next to you and say, "God is not finished with me. I'm not dead yet". Let's clap our hands for the book of Leviticus, for the living Word of God. Of all of the times to preach a text with dietary restrictions, it seems strange that the Spirit would illuminate for me and for your edification a dietary restriction chapter of the Bible at a time of the year where everybody is starting their diet next year. Of course, people are very arrogant about their diets at times. "I do Paleo". "I do Keto". "I do vegan". "I do macros". "I do micros". "I eat clean". One guy said that to me the other day. He said, "I eat clean". I said, "What does that mean"? I hear all kinds of people say, "I'm trying to eat clean". I don't know what that means. One guy told me one time, "I only eat brown rice when I go to the Chinese restaurant. I eat clean". But he was talking about the fried rice. He heard brown rice was better for you than white rice, so he ate the brown rice and thought he was eating clean.
Wow. We need to learn. They brought a nutritionist over to me the other day because my cholesterol was high. We got it down, so you can take me off your prayer list for now. The lady started fussing at me the moment she walked in the door. She was fussing about my Diet Cokes. She was fussing about my Quest cookies. I'm like, "Hey, lady, this is the wrong approach for you to take. You need to teach me what I need to do. Don't just lecture me. How can you start lecturing me"? She started dropping f-bombs in the meeting, cussing at me. She didn't even take time to think, "This is a preacher I'm talking to, and if he says the f-word, he certainly doesn't say it much or admit it". Faith. Faith. Faith. I'm talking about faith, the f-word.
Now, what we're seeing in Leviticus 11… You have to come at it a little bit differently to understand the distinctions God is making for his people. He is not really teaching them to eat clean. He is teaching them to be clean, holy like he is. He's teaching them to be like he is, and he has to take them through stages in doing that because of where they've been. Let me give you a quick review of this, because I believe God wants to teach us to be clean…not perfect, but clean. Not that we just go around showing off how many Bible verses we can quote, but to be clean. To be clean is really not about eating clean. Jesus said it's not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him but what comes out.
So, we're not really here today to talk about eating clean. We're here to talk about thinking clean. God is teaching these Israelites to think clean. In other words, he's purging them from the past they've been through so he can bring them into the land he has promised them. He has promised them a place, but they're not there yet. They're not in Egypt anymore, but they're not there yet. A part of him teaching them what to do in the process of their transformation starts with these laws or regulations about "Eat this. Don't eat that. You can't eat the animal that moves along the ground unless it has a divided hoof and chews the cud. So, no rabbits, because they don't have a divided hoof and chew the cud. You can't eat the rabbit. You can't eat the pig. You can't eat these birds. You can eat these birds. You can't eat these insects. You can eat these insects".
So, apparently, there are some insects that were on the menu. Thanks a lot, God. I'm really glad about those insects. But you can't eat shrimp because you can't eat any animals that move along the sea that don't have fins and scales. No shrimp. Y'all, I don't want to live in that world where there is no shrimp. "Lord, why did you save me if you weren't going to let me eat shrimp? Just take me to heaven now". Of course, these dietary restrictions change, and we see in the New Testament that God tells Peter, "Rise, kill, and eat". It was never really about the food. It was about their faith. It was about their minds, not their menus. It was never about these exact things, but he needed to use these things. Why? Because they are his people, walking into his promise, but they are in between where…
Let me show it to you in four different stages. I put this together where I think we can all get it…how God is guiding his people to teach them who they had been all along, these people he's speaking to who are in the wilderness. They are people who have been brought from a place. They are brought from a place. I don't know where God brought you from, but I know that all of us who have the hope of heaven and the Holy Spirit inside of us have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and sin. God reached into the pit of our sin and the pit of our past and brought us from a place. Now, you may have prayed a prayer to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior when you were 7 months old, but you were still brought from a place, because "In sin and iniquity did my mother conceive me"; because "There is none righteous, no, not one".
For God to bring me into his kingdom, he had to transfer me out of another kingdom. In the text, there's this group of millions of people who had been brought from Egypt where they were slaves under Pharaoh. We have been brought from a place too, not necessarily a physical place of slavery, but we were slaves to sin. We were slaves to shame, and we were brought, when we accepted Christ, if we have accepted Christ, from a place. So, if I asked you where you came from, you'd say, "Brazil," but it's really not Brazil you came from. You came from sin. You came from shame. You came from mistakes. You came from the ground. You came from the dirt. You came from a mess. You came from a pit. Where you came from today is not so much of a physical issue as it is a spiritual issue. They are brought from a place. They got out of there quickly. They had to get out of Egypt quickly.
Do you remember the Red Sea? They're running through the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's chariots are coming up close behind them, and they're running from the chariots and the waters. God does this big, huge thing where he parts the waters and kills the Egyptians, and he says, "The Egyptians you see today you will see no more. The thing that was tormenting you the night before is going to be dead tomorrow morning. The thing that cracked its cruel whip across your back and said, 'Get back here…' I'm bringing you out of that. I'm snatching you out of that. I'm taking you out of that. I'm delivering you out of that". I am rescued because the hand of God, when he heard my cry, reached into my situation and gave me a new heart and a new mind and a new attitude and a new possibility. He is making me what he created me to be. I'm not staying in the image of what I came out of. I am brought from a place. I've come a mighty long way. I'm not what I'm going to be, but thank God, I'm not what I used to be.
You should see what God delivered me from. You should see what God snatched me out of. You should see what the blood of Jesus covered. Which brings me to the second point. Not only am I brought from a place, but I'm bought with a price. It's not the blood of a lamb. It's the blood of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world, the pure, spotless Lamb of God, the only one who is able and worthy to open up the scroll. I'm bought with a price. Not $5. Not $10. Not a million dollars. One drop of his blood cost him his perfect life. I'm bought. I'm brought. I'm bought. Let's shout 22 seconds about that! I'm not worthless. I'm not nothing. I'm not trash. I'm not done. I'm bought! The Lamb that was slain for my sin was perfect and eternal. Now, these people… When they were leaving Egypt, God had to kill every firstborn in Egypt to get them out. When God wanted to bring you out, he allowed his firstborn Son.
Do you see the parallels? So, we think, "Leviticus? This has nothing to do with me. I'm eating shrimp. I don't even want to eat insects. Why are you telling me? I never in my life thought, 'I want to eat a weasel.' Why did you preach me a Scripture when I have real bills and real health issues and real challenges and real side chicks"? I want to bring this text into our time so we don't see this as a list but a lens of the God who brought me from a place and bought me with a price. The truth is, as much as I love to shout about that, I'm brought from a place and bought with a price, but I am caught in a pattern. Can you tell I've missed you? I've been studying ever since the last time I saw you just to give you something of value, because I know sometimes you feel trapped in that past that you were shouting like you got out of.
You know the blood of Jesus bought you, but you still feel worthless sometimes. You know he brought you out of sin and shame, but you still do things that make you ashamed. I always like to give a moment where, even if you yelled at your kids on the way to church, God can still speak to you today. For some of you, something that happened on the way to church is keeping you from even hearing what I'm saying right now. Do you see that exit sign? Tell the Devil to point his big, long Pinocchio-lying nose in the direction of that exit sign and get out of here. We are all caught and conflicted in something. Even though we are in Christ, we are in conflict. The patterns of this world, Romans will call it. Or 1 Peter is an even better one. He calls it the empty way of life that was handed to you. Wow! We have hand-me-down habits. We have hand-me-down hang-ups, things we learned.
God is teaching his people in Leviticus 11. They're in the wilderness. Not the Promised Land, not Egypt…the wilderness. God works in your wilderness. He does. God works in your weakness. God works in your waiting. It's not the promise. It's not the past. It's the wilderness. The Lord sent me to somebody today who has been in a wilderness. Not physical. He brought me from a place (Egypt), but I'm not already all the way to the place (heaven), and I'm still here. I think this might be the best way to say it: I'm out of Egypt, but I'm not sure Egypt is out of me. I'm in the world. I'm not of it, but there are some patterns. One day I'm going to be with Jesus, and I'm going to sit around his throne and sit at his feet forevermore, and I'm going to play a harp, but I'm not there yet because I'm not dead yet. The only time I'm going to be free from this conflict is for me to be free from this body, but as long as I'm in this body… Yeah, I'm brought from a place (I'm rescued). I'm bought with a price (I'm redeemed), but I'm caught in a pattern (I'm wrestling). I'm wrestling between "This is where I came from. This is where I'm going. This is what I've done. This is what he's doing". I'm caught in a pattern.
So, this is what I needed to tell the nutritionist. "Stop cussing at me. Stop criticizing me. Stop acting like I don't exercise six days a week. I work really hard at this. I need to be taught through a process". Clap your hands and praise God for his process. God doesn't drop an f-bomb on you just because you messed up again. He could, but he didn't. He is taking his people through, and he is taking you through a wilderness experience. There's not much water, and there's the same old scenery, and it's not exactly my home. Here I am living this life, and he's teaching me. The book of Leviticus is actually amazing, y'all. That's why it's "Love-iticus". I love it. I love it now. I love this book of the Bible. He gives them the offerings they need to make, whether it's a thanks offering, whether it's a fellowship offering, whether it's a peace offering, whether it's a sin offering, whether it's a guilt offering…any of those five offerings. He shows them how to do it.
"Hey, here's how you do it. Hey, here's how you cut it up. Hey, here's where you offer it. Here's how you offer it. Here's who offers it. Here's the priest. Here's what they wear. Here's what they do. Here's when they do it". All of this is not to limit them but to liberate them. He's a liberator. He brings me into places. He brings me into spaces. He brings me into challenges. He brings me into dilemmas to set me free from my flesh, to set me free from my feelings, to show me, "This is how you do it". I need him to teach me. I need God to teach me a different way to do it, because, honestly, the ways I tried without him do not work for very long. Oh, they can get me what I want right now, but they actually leave me in greater bondage than I was before. I love the Lord, because he's a teacher. He has been teaching me lately. Not about shellfish. Definitely not about monitor lizards and wall lizards. What did it say? You can't eat the skink? What is a skink? I've heard of the gecko.
I see his commercial during football every single Saturday while I'm studying. But the skink? He said, "No, don't eat that". What if you see it not about eating clean, because we know those dietary restrictions were for that time, but the way you think about you, the way you think about God, and the way you think about your life? Isn't this what God is always teaching me…how to think like he thinks about what I'm going through, how to think like he thinks about what is best for me? One of my favorite Scriptures says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord". That means there's a big gap between great big God and little bitty Stevie. That means what he thinks and what I think are not automatically aligned every morning.
I have to get in sync with God so I can think like he thinks. He says, "Don't eat the skink". Why? "Because I want to teach you to discern so that when you go into these neighboring nations in Canaan, you won't do what they do. You won't think like they think. You won't try to win like they win. You won't fight like they fight. You won't worry like they worry. You won't respond like they respond. You won't react like they react". God is teaching me to think, and if I don't let him teach me how to think, but I just quote the promises of the Bible verse… To have confidence in God's promises but not commitment to his process is delusional. If I have confidence in God's promise ("Oh, he can do it"), but I don't have a commitment to his process, that is not depending on God. That's called denial, because we just want to believe over top of all of our behaviors that don't line up with the Word of God. Yet he loves me, and he's not waiting on me to act better for him to love me, but I don't love him like I should if I don't get taught the process of figuring out, "Is this what God wants for me"?
I don't have to do that with fish anymore, but I do have to do it with feelings. I don't have to do this with shrimp, but I do have to do it with contacts in my cell phone. "Is this good for me"? When is the last time we really let God speak? "Is this best for me"? If he tells you, "That's not best for you. I don't want that for you…" "I didn't bring you out of Egypt for you to bring Egypt into your future. I want that out of your life. I want that out of your heart. I want that out of your mouth". God keeps telling me I'm too negative, and I keep telling him, "No, I'm just realistic". God keeps saying stuff like, "Okay. That would be great, since you want to do my job and tell me what's good and what's bad". I'm like, "Well, God, this is kind of the way I think". He's like, "But it's not the way I think, because I can face the facts but speak in faith".
So, the Lord has been interrupting me a lot lately, telling me, "This is unclean for you. This is hurting you. You're not getting to heaven because you're holy; you're getting to heaven because I'm holy and because of what I did for you. I brought you and bought you, but the Devil has caught you, so now it's time that somebody taught you". I feel bad for Moses. He's the one who had to teach these people these things. Y'all, I find it hard to stick to my diet for myself. Now you have to get two million people to study insects in order to eat in a place where there's already not much water? It's harder than we make it sound, isn't it? It's not hard to say certain things. Okay. The Lord said, "Don't commit adultery". It's harder to discern sometimes in your attitude. "Is this really how God wants me to think about this? Is this really what God wants me to say about this? Is this clean or unclean? Is this God's will for me or is this the way I've known that feels familiar to me"?
Am I going back to Egypt instead of following Jesus forward? They were out of Egypt. The Egyptians were dead, but guess what: the things they learned in Egypt were still alive. "I'm dead to sin. I'm alive to Christ". Great, but we still have to deal with these little things. I love the contrast. God did a big thing for them. He parted the Red Sea. That's a big thing. How many agree that watching a major body of water part is a miracle? How many agree that's big? Oh, come on. You clapped better than that over your parking space this week at the gym. "Oh, the Lord gave me a parking space". He parted the water! That's big! God has done big things for me. If there are three people that God did something big for you since last Sunday, give him a big praise right now on the level he blessed you on. He did a big thing for me. Guess what it was. He woke me up. "That's not big".
If you didn't then it is. He woke me up. He started me on my way, and he watched over me so I could be in the number one... I praise him. He did it big. He didn't do it small. He did it big so that everybody would know it was the Lord. He made a way! High-five like we won something, and tell your neighbor, "He did it big". God is a show-off. He doesn't give you a boat. He parts the water. He said, "I want you to know this one is on me, so you'll give me the glory, so you'll give me the praise. Pharaoh is not going to let you go unless a mighty hand compels him, so guess who has a mighty hand". My God has a great big hand and a long arm, and he can do big things! Don't ever let people make you feel bad if you're an exuberant praiser. A big God gets a big praise. On the level that he did it, that's how loud I want to let him know I appreciate. Big things! He opened a living way.
Do you understand how much I survived? Do you understand how many times I almost gave up? Do you understand what I went through? It's a miracle I'm sober. It's a miracle I'm sane. It's a miracle I'm preaching. It's a miracle you're praising. It's a miracle! We survived it! Because he brought me, and he bought me with his redeeming blood. Big things. It might not be big to you. Maybe you grew up in a different household. Maybe it's no big deal to you, but it's a big thing to me. The breath is a big thing to me. It's a big thing to me. Don't you love him? After he did a big thing and kept them alive, he has to teach them about the little things so they can live.
Now let's praise him for the little things. Shh! The little Levitical things, like geckos, chameleons…little things. He said, "I'm going to do a big thing…the Red Sea. I'm going to do a big thing…bring you out of Egypt". Big things. "Then I'm going to get you in the wilderness, because I'm bringing you into something even bigger". Don't just think about money. Don't just think about houses. Don't just think about cars. That's great. "I'm going to use you to be a blessing to the whole world". That's what he has prepared. These are the people of God. We are the people of God. We are brought out of the kingdom of darkness and into the marvelous light. That's who you are. So, he said, "I have to teach you what to do with the little things so you can know as you go in your life who you really are and what I called you to". Yeah, you're going to get to heaven one day, and you're going to be perfectly awesomely perfect or perfect "imperfectful". But here, I need to be taught in a process, because I'm not dead yet, and neither are the things I struggle with, and neither is the Devil.
Now one day…spoiler alert…that weasel is going to be cast down into the lake of fire. No, no. I saw it. You were like, "Wait. The Devil isn't a weasel. The Devil is a lion. He's a roaring lion". He is like a roaring lion. He's loud, but compared to the God I serve, he's little. He's loud ("You're not going to make it"), but he's little. If God drowns him in the Red Sea, I bet you will make it. I bet I can make it. I bet I'm going to do it. I'm not dead yet! So, now we are in this mortal plane, dealing with little miracles and mechanics of trying to figure out, "Should my kids go here? Should my parents do that? Could I put them in a nursing home or should they come live with me"? I need God to teach me in the process of my life, just like he taught them. I was comforted that the God of the dramatic (Red Sea, 10 plagues) is also the God of the details.
The God of the dramatic is the God of the details. Teach me, Lord. Teach me what to do with the weasels. I can't pick on all of these animals. I'm not trying to turn this into a science class. I hate science. (Delete that out of the tape. That's going to go viral somehow.) Look at all of these little vermin in the text. Verse 29: "Of the animals that move along the ground…" This word is saras. It means they move and multiply. These animals he lists… He already talked about the hooves. He already talked about the cud. He already talked about the fish. He already talked about the insects. He already talked about the birds.
Now he says, "About these saras, the animals that move along the ground…" Listen to what this means. This is awesome. Leviticus is so good. It means they're commonly found, and they multiply rapidly if not dealt with. My hand to heaven, while I was trying to decide, "God, is this sermon stupid or should I preach it?" a little frog started hopping across the room I was studying in. I said, "All right, God. I'll preach it. I've got you. I don't need a whole plague of frogs. I saw that happen in Exodus. Nah, God, you don't have to send any more". It was a confirmation. It was a confirming word for me. That little frog… It's true. Right, Abbey? The frog jumped. I called her down. I said, "I just need a witness to this". Leviticus 11 is saying, "Don't eat the gecko, and don't eat the chameleon," and here comes a little frog.
We got him out safely. We didn't eat him, and we didn't kill him. He's off somewhere repopulating and replenishing in my backyard. What's the point? It's the little things. It's the little things in your life that you remember as great moments. It's the little things in your life that lead you down dark paths. It's the little things. God does big things and little things. "You can do all things. You can do small things as well". What about it? "Of the animals that move along the ground…" You know, the ones that multiply, the ones that run around and reproduce, those little animals on the ground. God said, "I'm going to show you what to do with these. Don't eat them". "…these are unclean for you: the weasel…" That's the one I want to use: that weasel. God said, "Don't eat the weasel. You can't eat the weasel". It's like, "Okay. I'm good, God".
I mean, look at this guy. I don't want to eat this. We picked out a picture of the weasel. I'm not trying to eat him. Isn't that awful? I put that up because I thought you might be getting hungry, and I wanted to spoil your appetite so you can listen to the rest of the sermon. Look at that weasel. Little sneaky… That guy is a serial killer. I looked him up. He can get in a small place. Oh, look at it. He has those eggs. Look at what he's trying to do to those eggs. Look at what he's trying to do to that thing that hasn't been born yet. Look at that weasel. Y'all are on board with Leviticus now, aren't you? You do need to know how to deal with the weasel, don't you? You have a weasel called worry that while God is speaking his word to you… That weasel… He's not just leaving you alone. He's trying to steal what God spoke.
Now I know you think I'm out of context. It's not talking about that kind of weasel. It's talking about everything in your life to try to distinguish… The Enemy will plant a seed in your mind. Right? He'll say, "Okay. This is going to go wrong, and have you thought about this? Did you hear what they said about that? It's a recession, a recession, a recession, a recession, a recession". You haven't thought about resurrection in about three months, because all you've been reading about is recession. So now that weasel got right in there in your space, your little space where God does great things, and he eats through the potential of what God speaks. What do you do with the weasel? God said, "Don't eat it". What do you do with the weasel? God said, "Put it off limits". What do you do with those little thoughts that come up a million miles an hour? You know, that's a good question to be asking.
The Enemy will weasel his way into your marriage. He'll weasel his way into your business, get you to start cutting corners and stuff like that. I know he works. I'm a weasel expert. The weasel will try to keep you from worshiping God. The Lord said, "I'm going to list a lot of things that will multiply rapidly in your life…small things, moving things, saras. I'm going to show you what to do with them so I can keep doing big things". God still has big things for me. I felt chills on my body when I said it. God still has big things for me, things that are bigger than my intellect, things that are bigger than my imagination, exceedingly, abundantly above all I ask or imagine. The seed of God's potential lives inside of me. I'll say it again for the people who really believe what the Word of God says.
The seed of God's potential lives in me. I mean, think about it. Here are people in Leviticus who have been through Egypt, have been through the Red Sea, who started with a man named Abram. All out of one man came millions of people, because God said, "I will bless you and multiply you". Abram was waiting. We preached about him for two weeks awhile back, how he was 99 and God gave him the promise when he was 100. I preached on "Keep it 100". But can I keep it 100 with you? Abram said, "My wife's womb is as good as dead, and so is my body. My body is as good as dead because I'm 99". Then something got inside of Abram and kicked inside of Abram.
See, the seed that was inside of him was greater than the limitation that was on him. Something got inside of Abram. He looked in the mirror, but then he looked at the stars. He talked to himself and his situation, but then he talked to God, and God reminded him of the promise. Abram said, "I'm old, but I'm not dead yet". I think he said it with no teeth. "I'm not dead yet". I'm not done yet. I'm not dead yet. It's not over yet. I'm not dead. God is not done. If I'm not dead, God is not done. Greater things are still to come! Do you believe it? Thank you, God! Think about everything that the seed survived. That's what he said. The seed of Abram became the nation of Israel. We've been through the Red Sea. We've been through the wilderness. We're going to the Promised Land, but watch this weasel.
Now I'm ready for my key verse. Verse 37: "If you see a carcass…" A dead thing. The rule of thumb is "Don't touch dead stuff," and that's a good idea, just in general. "Why do you seek the living amongst the dead"? When you go to send that text to that relationship you know God has brought you out of, don't touch dead stuff. I worked for a pet cemetery when I was 16. A lady called and said, "Can you come get my cat? My cat is dead". We said, "We'll be there in 30 minutes". She said, "No. I want you to get him tomorrow morning. I want to spend one more night with my cat in the bed". Why are y'all acting shocked? You're in the bed with some dead stuff too. Don't make me pull up your search history. Don't make me do it! I'll come down there and snatch your phone. What do I do with the dead thing?
Watch this. I'm almost done, but I'm not done yet. If a dead thing, a carcass, a carcass of a saras, a thing that moves and multiplies… If a dead thing falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they (the seeds) are still clean. So, God said, "Have you ever had something die on you"? Have you ever had a dream die on you? Have you ever had an idea die on you? Have you ever had an opportunity die on you? Have you ever had your body start to fail on you? Have you ever had your hope start to die on you? Have you ever had something you idealized for your future die on you? Have you ever had a plan die on you?
If something has died on you, God wants you to know that what dies on you is nothing compared to what God put in you. The seed still has what it needs to go into the ground and come up better. God said you're coming up better! I know what you've been through, but you're not done, because you're not dead yet. It's still a seed. It's still a gift. It's still a breath. It's still a praise. It's still going to happen! The seed is bigger than the weasel! It's not dead yet! My dream…not dead yet! My vision…not dead yet! The church…not dead yet! Your children…not dead yet! Give him praise! You are a chosen people. You are a royal priesthood. To declare the praises of him who brought me from a place and bought me with a price! I was sinking deep in sin. I was caught in a pattern, but he taught me that the seed will survive. He's going to do it! He's going to do it. He's got to do it. He's God. He has been God a long time. He has been God since Abraham started wobbling. He has been God before you started walking, and you're not dead yet.
Let everything that has breath… You know what to do. If he brought you and he bought you and he led you and he fed you… The best me is yet to be, because the seed is incorruptible. You couldn't die because God is not done. COVID couldn't kill this church because we're still called to be his people. No weasel, no devil, no rejection, no anxiety shall be able to stop what God started. So, tell that weasel, "Get off my word". Jesus said in Luke, chapter 8, "The seed is the word of God".
So, if the weasel touches the seed, it doesn't spoil the seed. No dead thing. We've all had something die on us…all of us. We've all had something die on us, but will you let what died on you keep you from believing and moving forward with what God put in you? If the weasel touches the seed, get the seed. Snatch that seed back from that dead weasel and go forward and sow it. Go forward and build it. Go forward and believe it. Go forward and achieve it. Go forward and do it in his name. Not dead yet. The weasel is dead, not the seed. As a matter of fact, the seed hasn't even been planted yet. That's why it's still clean. Because God has been saving you. That's why he brought you and bought you.
I don't care what little thing in your life… As a matter of fact (I don't mean this to be corny), I want to wage war against whatever it is, that dead thing, that weasel. The living Word of God is greater than that dead thing. You don't believe me? Ask Lazarus. When Jesus said the word "Come forth," the dead thing got up again. Ask Ezekiel. "Can these bones live"? "You alone, Lord, know". Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. You're not dead yet. God is raising an army. God is building up believers. God is breaking generational curses. God is moving his covenant forward in the earth. We are the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail!