Steven Furtick - An Overview of Your Future (02/14/2017)
In the final Functional Faith sermon, Pastor Steven uses Revelation 4:1—John sees an open door in heaven and hears the trumpet voice say "Come up here" to show future events. God wants to give you an overview of your future from above: pay attention to what's ahead, rise higher in spirit over daily struggles, and rest knowing He's firmly on the throne, so kick fear and worry out of your heart's control.
One Last Week on Functional Faith
Now I want to share the Word of God with you. I wanted to ask you something. Would you be terribly, terribly inconvenienced if I spent just one more week talking about functional faith? I promise you this will be the last week. After this, I will never bother you with the subject of functional faith again. But I want to use one verse today that I think is appropriate for what we have been singing about and what we are experiencing right now. And it is in the book of Revelation, chapter 4, verse 1. Give me just a moment while I set up my office. Maybe you want to open your Bible and get ready to receive the Word of God.
How many of you are blessed just to be in church today? How many of you are blessed to have your sins forgiven? I said, How many are blessed to have your sins forgiven? Me too. I am always blessed by Mike and Brian. Good to see you guys. Love those guys. They stand out head and shoulders above the rest. Look at this verse real quick. Just one verse. Just one verse, but very powerful. Very powerful. John says, After this, I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.
Reading the Verse Twice for Emphasis
Now, that's the only verse I want to read you today, so I'm going to double down on it and read it again, just to make sure we've got it, because this thing has really been a blessing to me. I have really been praying about what God wanted me to give you today. And he said to tell you, After this, I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.
So, in this final installment of Functional Faith, praying about it, God said that he wanted to give you an overview of your future. Are you ready? God said that he wanted to speak to you today very specifically and give you an overview of your future.
Getting Ready for What God Has Next
Now, I need you to nudge your neighbor and tell them, I'm getting ready for something. I'm getting ready for something. God is preparing me for something. And today, God wants to give you an overview of your future. I need you to hear me in Rock Hill because Jeremiah said that he knows the plans he has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Paul said, In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And neither life nor death nor angels nor demons, neither the past, the present, nor any other, shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ himself said, In the world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
So, God wants to give you an overview of your future. Would you hug seven people and tell them, It gets better from here. It gets better from here. It gets better from here. You may be seated. Thank you. I feel like the atmosphere of our hearts is ready and the Word can be deposited.
Diving into Revelation 4:1
Let's go to the book of Revelation, chapter 4, verse 1. Now, some of you are expecting me to bring out my charts of the end times because the book of Revelation is, of course, an apocalyptic book. This is the genre to which the book of Revelation, written by John the Beloved, belongs. It is an apocalyptic book, not an apocryphal book. You know what? I'm not much of… I'm not really an apocalyptic guy. I tend to be more on the practical side. So, I guess you could call this not an apocalyptic but an apracalyptic message. Amen.
Keeping It Practical Instead of Speculative
My wife can't stand to hear people preach about the book of Revelation and act like they know, you know, which president represents which beast. And I'm kind of with her. My oldest son, he's pretty sharp in a lot of ways. I wonder where he gets it from. I'm just kidding. He's in a Christian school. So, he asked me the other day, Do you understand the book of Revelation, Daddy? I said, No. I said, Nobody does, Elijah. I said, You know, it's really a symbolic book in a lot of ways. A lot of what they write, what's written there, is poetic. And so, some of it is not meant to be taken literally. I mean, it's a very serious book.
And he said, Well, one of my friends in the class said that his dad understands the book of Revelation. And he's not even a preacher. So, I said, All right. Well, okay. Well, if it's like that, let me give you an overview of the book of Revelation. We win. Come on, somebody. I need you to look at the person next to you and summarize the outcome of their current battle. Look them in the eye like you know what you're talking about. Look like you're Marty McFly coming with a sports almanac from another year. Look at them and say, I don't know what you're going through, but you win in the end.
Seminary Insight: Evil Is Real, God Is Greater
I did take a seminary course on the book of Revelation. The professor said, After studying the book of Revelation for over 40 years, I have come to this overview. Evil is real. God is greater. I said, Man, because he told us this at the end of the whole class. I said, We sat here for three and a half months. I paid tuition for that. You could have tweeted that. But we didn't have Twitter back then.
Now, what I want to do today is a little bit different than kind of telling you everything that it means. I would like to use this model whereby John saw a vision of God and use it to help us approach God in our own lives in a way that he might become real and relevant to us. Within the book of Revelation, there are several lessons for us to learn. But I just want to go, not necessarily to what John saw. I want to talk first about how he saw it.
Key Thought 1: Attention
And I'd like you to write down a few key thoughts today. And the first one is attention. Attention. Because John says in Revelation chapter 4, watch this. After this, I looked… And you know, it's interesting because everything that happens after that wouldn't have happened without that. Everything that John saw after this would not have been revealed if he didn't pay attention.
And so I bring it up because sometimes we're asking God to reveal his presence in our lives, his provision in our lives, his purpose in our lives. And sometimes we even pray about it, and we pray like we're trying to get God's attention. But I've come to believe that prayer, rightly done, is less about me getting God's attention and more about him getting mine.
See, I live my life from the foundational belief that I already have heaven's attention. I mean, if I didn't have heaven's attention, the Son of God certainly wouldn't have stepped down the spiral staircase of time and been wrapped in flesh, made in the appearance of a sinful man to be a sin offering so that I could approach God boldly and come before his throne with confidence because of a drop of blood on the mercy seat to make a way of access into the presence of God.
So when I come before God, when I worship God, when I need God, when I call on God, I'm not trying to get his attention. I'm not trying to get him to notice me. Maybe as I go through my life, a better question isn't, is God paying attention to me? The question might be, am I paying attention to him? Help me out today. Shake your neighbor awake and say, pay attention.
Missing God for the Same Reason We Miss Other Things
Maybe the same reason we don't experience God sometimes in our lives is the same reason that we flunked the math test in seventh grade. Same reason for that Fender bender on Tyvola. Maybe it's the same reason that we burned the dinner. Maybe the reason we don't experience God's presence, maybe it's the same reason that we didn't see our kids were hanging out with bad influences until it was a little too late. Because we weren't paying attention.
John says, after this, I looked, and there before me was a door. It was open in heaven. I want you to know today that you have a standing invitation to experience God's presence, but you have to pay attention. You have to pay attention because attention creates access. Let me teach you a little bit. Attention creates access.
If negative emotions have access into your heart, it's because you gave those emotions your attention. If memories of pain and hurt dominate your thought life, it's because those memories have your attention. How can a memory hurt you? It already happened. It can only hurt you if it has your... I'm preaching good.
And there are some things that you've been giving your attention to that if you would turn your attention from them, you would take the power of them. God wants to know today, what has your attention? John said, after this, I looked, and there before me was a door. It was there all along, but I saw it when I looked.
Access in Exile – God Reaches Anywhere
And John could have been looking at a lot of things. I mean, the guy was an exile on a little tiny island called Patmos. He had been sent there because of his testimony of the Word of God. He calls himself a fellow sufferer and a patient endurer in the kingdom of God. It's interesting to me that God gave the greatest revelation of himself to a man who was in exile.
I want to stop for a moment and announce that God is a God of access in exile. He is a God of access in exile. It means that even if you feel like you're on a little island today all by yourself, you still have access to the presence of God. There is nowhere that life can take you that God's presence cannot reach you. There is nothing that people can do to you to keep God from getting to you.
So we see a pattern in Scripture that God is a God of access in exile. Ask Moses. He was in Midian, in exile, running from his act of murder. But when he turned aside and saw the bush, when he turned aside and gave the bush his attention, he heard an announcement, and God said, I've come down to deliver my people. I know you've been in this desert a long time. I know you've been on this island by yourself. I know you feel like nobody hears you, but I am the God of access in exile. You're not alone. You're never alone. And the God who was and is and is to come is with you in this moment.
Ask Daniel. He was a Babylonian exile, and he saw a revelation of Jesus Christ. Before Jesus Christ was born, Daniel saw him, and he saw him in exile. And I thought that might encourage somebody to know that you have access even in exile. But you have to pay attention. You have to pay attention.
He said, After this I looked, and there was a door. After this I looked, and there was a door. The door represents the revelation that God gave him. After this I looked, and there was a door. I think it's important what the door means, but I also think it's important where the door was. He did not say, put the verse up. After this I looked, and there behind me was a door.
See, the open door is never behind you. See, the open door is always before you. It's before you. Look unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising his shame. The open door is before you. The open door is not in 10 years ago the opportunity that was missed. I know there's some stuff behind you that you can't get back. I know there's some things that happened to you that weren't fair. But you're not going to get access by giving your attention to what happened back there. The open door is before you. It's in front of you. Your best days are not behind you. What God has for you is in front of you. Look ahead. Help me preach. Find three people. Say, look ahead. It's right in front of you. It's right in front of you.
Keep It in Front of You – Baseball and Life Lesson
Maybe we've been at the baseball field too much, Coach Dave, because I keep telling Graham what I hear you tell him. You always tell him, keep it in front of you. This is what Coach Dave tells Graham, because he coaches some eight-year-olds, and eight-year-olds don't have the best attention span. So they'll be standing out there in the field in the fifth inning, acting like the ball's not going to come to them. So then when the ball does come, they've got to come back like this. But Coach Dave said, I want you on your toes, so when they hit the ball, you'll be... Now see, not every pastor can do a lateral movement with that velocity. You ought to feel blessed you come to church here. Can I do it again?
He said, I want you to be ready, because you've got a better chance to stop the ball if you keep it in front of you. You know you've got a better chance to have joy and a better chance to have success and a better chance to have hope if you keep it in front of you. That's what Coach Dave said.
And I heard the Lord say, where one door shuts, another door opens. They might have you on an island called Patmos, but you're not stuck here, because if you can't find a way out, God will give you a way up. Come on, touch somebody and say, we're going higher. We're going higher. We're going higher. We're going higher. We're going higher. We're going higher.
I might be down here on this island in my body. I might be down here on this job I don't like in my body. I might be in a bad situation in my bank account, but you can't chain my mind to the ground. I'm coming up higher.
Key Thought 2: Altitude – Come Up Here
So let's talk about altitude. Altitude. The invitation is to see the open door before you. Before you. And I heard the voice. John's revelation is interesting because in apocalyptic literature, when they saw a vision of God, they had to go through an arduous journey to get to him. If you read some of the Old Testament revelations of God, usually in the prophetic books, they would have to make a difficult journey to get to God.
John's vision is a little different because he says, I didn't get there by effort. I got there by invitation. And the invitation goes like this. It was a voice like a trumpet making an announcement. And it said, Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. At once I was in the Spirit.
You know how quickly God can lift you if you let him? I mean, he really can. He really can. John didn't say that he went into a trance for 43 minutes. because, see, I'm doing some practical work on my life right now. I'm just trying to be a better person, not a better preacher. I mean, I want to be a better preacher too, but I think that a better person makes a better preacher. So I'm just like working on things because I'm a little on the grumpy side by nature. Especially before, let's say like 9.45 A.M. I do not feel saved, sanctified, and Spirit-filled until about 9.45 A.M. Eastern Standard Time.
Another thing is that not only do I kind of start my day sometimes in that grumpy place, but I notice I end my day in an anxious place. And just observing my patterns lately, I figure that that can't be the best way to wake up and go into my day and then end my day. So I'm working on that. I'd like you to work on it too. because your altitude is going to determine your access.
So where you start your day is kind of important. Where you start your day really does matter. So you have to start your day with some caffeine. The Lord said that you could. I shouldn't tell you this, but I drink a cup of coffee every morning. That's not the part I shouldn't tell you. The part I shouldn't tell you is I chase it with a diet Mountain Dew because I like the contrast of the warmth and the cold carbonation. It blesses my soul. Don't judge me. Go away. But it helps me think about higher things. Anyway. Anyway.
Then I've been practicing just the voices that I pay attention to early in the morning. Can we talk not apocalyptic? Let's talk apractical. Because it's real easy to get excited about Jesus comes on a horse and wipes out the world. But what about till he gets here? What about till that happens? Because he left us here in the meantime. So we can't do his work if we're at the wrong level.
So I have to get up in the morning even if I'm mumbling when I first start. Even if I have that stuff in the corner of my eye. I have to flick it out when I get out to bed. I have to flick that stuff on the devil's head and say, I'm awake. You should have killed me in my sleep. I'm awake. I'm awake. And I'm blessed. I'm awake. And I'm a blessing. Listen, I'm awake and I'm a river. I'm awake and I'm a giver. I'm awake and I'm alive. I'm awake. I'm redeemed. I'm awake. My eyes are open. I'm awake. My heart is open. I'm awake. My soul is ready.
I've just been trying to get myself up to a higher level because I need some runway because I don't know what I'm going to run into when the day gets started. I don't know what kind of crazy person is going to be driving in traffic trying to cut me off. And if I'm at the wrong level, I might not pray for them, so I gotta get a little runway. I gotta come on up higher.
Isn't that what the announcement said? Come on up here to a higher place. Now, I know we don't have the same invitation John had to see the unfolding of end-time events and the history of the world before it happens, but we do have a standing invitation in heaven that any time we want to lift our eyes to the hills, we can look to our help. We can look to our God. We can look...
Come On Up – The Invitation Stands
I'm gonna stop screaming in a minute. You gotta understand, I'm just excited about the invitation that God has given me to come up higher. Does somebody say, come on up? When I was a boy, they used to have a show called Price is Right. Now, they still have a version of it, but it's not Bob Barker, so it's not the real show. Can I get a witness? Yes. Bob Barker had that skinny little mic, and when Bob Barker would throw it to Rod Roddy, y'all remember Rod Roddy, and Rod Roddy, all these people were in the audience, and the difference of Price is Right is, at any moment, you might go from the crowd to the front, and if they call your name, you might win a washing machine. You might win a vacation trip for two, four nights, all expenses paid to Cancun. You might win a new car.
So when Rod Roddy grabs the mic, people listen, and they lean forward. And Rod Roddy had this thing he used to say. I don't know if they say it anymore, but Rod Roddy used to announce a name, and he would say, Hey, Stephen Furtick, come on down. You're the next contestant on The Price is Right.
Now, Rod Roddy wasn't available for church today, but the Spirit of God is here, and I hear him saying, If you want to listen to Providence, if you want to listen to Matthews, if you want to listen to Butler High School, if you want to listen to Blakely, if you want to listen to Lake Norman, you might want to jump up on your feet for what's next. Because I hear the Spirit say, This is Rod Roddy in reverse, come on up, come on up, come on up, where the peace is, come on up, where the blessing is, come on up.
You've seen that sunrise. My mercies are new with every rising of the sun, and I want to let you know, you can come on up. Somebody shout, I'm coming up. No, you got to shout it like a trumpet. I'm coming up.
Overview of Your Future from Higher Up
So I'm going to start my day at the right altitude, and, and, everybody say, and. Touch them and say, But wait, there's more. Yeah, God said he wanted to talk to you today about your future. He said he wanted to give you an overview of your future. He said, Come up here, and then I'll show you what happens next. I want to give you an overview of your future.
I don't want you to look at your day through the lens of everything that might go wrong. I want you to get up high. See, sometimes when we travel, we take these little planes. We probably shouldn't take them. They're probably not safe, but sometimes we have to get somewhere real quick, and we take a little plane, and when we take that little plane, I always know that if the weather is too bad, they're going to cancel the flight because the plane isn't big enough to get me above the weather.
But when I fly with Delta or U.S. Air, I might have to go through security, and I might have to shove my bag in the overhead bin, but there's one good thing about a big plane. No matter what storm comes, no matter what turbulence we encounter, no matter how cloudy it is in the sky, I'm in something that can get above it.
Now, I need to let you know that the size of the plane doesn't change the weather, but it gets me above it. Now, I need you to know that the size of your faith might not change the weather, but it'll get you above it. Natural, but I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I saw a vision of him who is, and was, and is to come, and I see my future from heaven's perspective.
Take 15 seconds and praise him for your future. Come on, praise him. Come on, you ought to praise him, Concord. You ought to praise him. You ought to praise him uptown. Come on, praise him, Blakely. Let's get up higher. Let's lift him up. He said, if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men. Lift him up. Lift him up.
I see the Lord seated on a throne. A train of his robe fills the temple. Let's get practical. I want to start my day at the right altitude, and I want to finish my day on a note of praise. See, I figured that the way I start my day will determine how I experience my day, and the way I end my day will determine the way I start the next one.
Practice Gratitude to End High
Sit down. I've got to show you something. Everybody say, practice. This takes practice because we are used to living at a low altitude. We're not used to coming up. We're not used to the air up there. We're not used to interpreting people through the idea of grace. We're not used to coming up. We're used to having our stomachs all tied up in knots. We've learned to depend on it. Anxiety is like our needle. We need it.
At the end of the day, we almost put the welcome mat out for the Devil to just take over the next one. Okay. Going to bed, thinking about everything that went wrong. I just had enough of it. A little while back, I saw in the kitchen this little notebook my mother-in-law gave me. She gave me like five of them, and they were just sitting around. I picked up this orange one, because it's the color of God. It says that she got this notebook for $7.49. It was originally priced at $9.99.
But what I've been putting in here is priceless, because I put on the front of it, I put G.P., gratitude practice, and I decided to start ending my day on a high note. But it only takes me like five minutes, and it's not fancy. So you might not be very impressed, but it's really been blessing me to, at the end of my day, to fill up just one page. I picked a small notebook so it wouldn't be very intimidating. Just one page on this little notebook.
How many of you are already planning your trip to Target or Walmart, because you need one of these? At night, I've been doing this. It's been helping me a lot, and that's why I thought I'd share it with you. I write at the top of the page, gratitude practice, just to remind myself that I don't have to feel grateful to be grateful.
Sometimes the pen doesn't start writing real quick. Sometimes it takes me all of the first five minutes to even get the pen moving. But it's amazing, once I get the pen moving, what I remember from that day. It's amazing. It's like giving me a different overview. I go to bed so focused on what might happen tomorrow and what didn't get done today, but it's just been helping me.
If you want to try it, you can. Put your picture on social media, and I'll see your little journal. We'll talk about it, and you can hashtag it. You can hashtag it, come on up. You can hashtag it, you can hashtag it, overview.
When I'm looking my day over, I want to look at it from the perspective of all the things that I might have missed and didn't pay attention to that day that God did for me. Because what that's going to do is when I start tomorrow, I'm not going to start down here. I'm going to start it up higher.
Now, if I start tomorrow here, maybe I can end here. And maybe if I end that day here, I can start the next one up there. He's taking me from strength to strength and glory to glory.
So I just write down little dumb stuff. It's nothing fancy. It's nothing poetic. It's nothing they're going to publish if I die. It's nothing that anybody's going to read at my funeral. Just little old dumb stuff. Just stuff that wouldn't mean much to you. Just stuff that I remember from the day. Open doors. Ways that God made. Moments that I had. A car wreck that I didn't get in. You know, all the stuff that didn't happen sometimes is a good reason to praise God too. Just little stuff.
Christy brought me a coffee yesterday before I preached. I thank God for the coffee. I thank God for a new season of a show that I wanted to watch. Well, why not thank him for it? Why not? I can praise him over Netflix. You don't have to, but I can. Every good and perfect gift comes from above. Maybe that's a stretch. I put down some shells in the ocean that my kids brought. Amen.
That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for that awe, because I might have missed that. I might not be paying attention just to remember that your kids are healthy and they played on the beach today. And while I'm at it, why don't I thank God for the ocean? You know, the ocean was there before I got there. It's going to be there when I'm gone. And while I'm at it, why don't I thank God that he's bigger than me? And why don't I thank God that I have windows? I mean, just thank God for whatever you can think of.
If you sit there and try to make it too fancy, it won't work. I thank thee, thou Lord God, that thou didst create the heavens and the stars, and by thy mercy was the firmament. No, none of that. I thank God for my new book that I read. It's called Shoe Dog, about Phil Knight from Nike. I enjoyed it, so I put it in the notebook, because I wanted to remember something good that happened that day. Amen.
I could just go through this notebook, and I'm not beating the devil with some big rocket grenade launcher. I'm just going to beat them with some paper cuts. I'm going to beat depression with some paper cuts. I'm going to beat despair. I'm going to make my way up a little bit at a time. I'm going to increase my altitude one thought at a time. I'm going to do it one night at a time, one day at a time. Touch somebody, say, I'm coming up. I'm coming up. I'm coming up higher. I'm coming up higher.
I'm not going to end my day as a victim, I'm going to end it as a Victor. I have an overview. I have a place in heaven around the throne of God, and I see my situation from above. When I see it from up here, I notice something. I notice something about authority.
Key Thought 3: Authority – The Throne Perspective
After this, I looked, and there before me was a door. You got nine minutes? That's all I need to tell you about authority. Standing open in heaven, and the voice I had first heard speaking to me was still speaking to me, and the door that was open for John is still open for you. Jesus Christ opened the heavens. They haven't shut.
Why? Abby came to me the other day and said, Daddy, this door is broken. We were at a store, and it had automatic doors, and she said, The door is broken. She's five, so I had to explain to her, Baby, the door isn't broken. You just didn't get close enough to open it. There are some sensors up here, and you stopped five feet short of where you had to stand, and the doors would have opened it.
After this, I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven, and the voice I first heard said, Come on up, and I will show you what must take place after this. He saw a door, and I will show you what must take place after this. He saw a door, because he looked ahead. He heard a voice, because he got above.
So preach my sermon to your neighbor. Tell him, Look ahead from above. As you look at your future, look at it from God's perspective. Even as you think about November, think about November from God's perspective. I'm preaching to all of you Fox News junkies and MSNBC, too, because the next thing John saw will set your heart free from anxiety.
Can I give it to you? We're down to seven minutes, so we'll have to work quickly. But he said, I saw a door, and I heard a voice, and at once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven.
I wish I had time to tell you about this throne, man. I don't have time to tell you, because there's a whole other group that's coming to church. I would tell you about everything that's around the throne. There is a rainbow around the throne of God that encircles the throne to represent his brilliance.
I would tell you about the 24 elders who sit on 24 thrones around the throne, little lowercase t thrones around the capital T, big throne, and how they have crowns of gold, and gold represents dignity, and they wear robes of white, which represent purity, because the Lamb has washed us clean.
I would tell you, if I had time, about the four living creatures who are sitting around heaven one day, and one of them looks like an ox, and one of them looks like a lion, and one of them has a face like a man, and one of them has wings. Well, in fact, all of them have wings. They have six wings each, and they're covered with eyes because they can see God perfectly, and their job is to get around the throne.
They wrote a song for God one day, and it said, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Then one of them said, I don't think that's good enough. We should do, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. If we say it twice, it'll get the point across because it's as God we're speaking about, and they sang that for a couple thousand years.
Then eventually one of them said, I don't think we're doing it right because he's not just Holy, Holy. He's Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. He is and was and is to come. See, he is Holy. He was Holy. He will be Holy. He's Holy, Holy, Holy. He is the God who stands in your future, redeeming your past from your present. He is Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God Almighty.
I wish I had time to tell you about the throne. I would tell you about the seven lampstands that are before the throne that represent the seven spirits of God that have gone out into the earth. I'd tell you about the sea of crystal that's before the throne, clear as crystal, because God sees everything that happens on earth from his vantage point in heaven.
There's no tear you cried he hasn't seen. There's no heartbreak you've suffered that he didn't witness. There's nothing you're going through he's not aware of. He sees it from the throne.
I wish I had time to tell you about 10,000 times 10,000 angels. You'd be so excited if you could see those angels. They're not stressed out in heaven. They're looking at the future, and they know that God is on the throne.
I wish I could tell you about the throne. Is anybody grateful that there's still a throne? Come on, I need you to thank God for the throne where mercy reigns, where love rules.
I'll tell you about the throne. I would tell you about how, from the throne of God, John heard the peals of an earthquake and the flashing of lightning and the Rumble of thunder that came from the throne. Because that lets me know that God is awesome, and when he stomps his foot, and when he puts his foot down, the earth shakes.
John said, I saw the future from the throne, and it changed the way I thought about it.
Closing: The Throne Is Occupied – Not by You
Now, I would like for you to stand because I'm closing my message, and I'm closing my series, but I want to tell you my favorite thing about the throne. And this is for all of you who have anxiety in your heart about your future, okay? What's going to happen to you? What's going to happen?
Faith is anticipation minus anxiety. Faith gives me the ability to say, whatever's next, I'm ready. If it's Hillary, if it's Bernie, if it's Donald, I'm ready. Because they might sit behind the desk, but they don't sit on the throne. Come on, church. We don't watch the polls. We watch the throne. Get your eyes up. Look ahead. Get your eyes up. Get above.
And the last thing I wanted to tell you, I wanted to tell you, look ahead, get above, and step aside. Because John said, I saw a throne... And watch this. This is my favorite part. This is my message. This is my message. This is my message. You ready? Verse 2. I saw a throne with someone sitting on it. And here's the good news. There is a throne. Someone is on it. And it's not you.
I thought you'd clap over that. You've been staying up late worrying about how it's going to happen. But God just gave you an overview. He wanted to let you know about your future. I rule. I reign. I am. I rule. I reign. I am. I was. I am. And I will be forevermore.
There is a throne. I'm not on it. And whatever is on the throne of heaven needs to be enthroned in my heart. So, if Christ is enthroned in heaven and nothing that happens on earth happens without his permission and his purpose, then that means there are some things that are on the throne of my heart that have to go.
So, look at fear. How long has fear been on the throne in your life? You need to make an announcement to fear, and you need to do it today. And tell fear, get off the throne. This seat is taken. You got it? And don't ask nicely. This seat belongs to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Come on, lift your hands. His presence is here. Enthrone him in your praise. Some of you need to look at failure. You've been dominated too long by what's behind you. God brought you here to give you an overview of your future. I hope you're standing. The King is here. I hope you got your hands lifted. I hope you got your hopes high. The King is here.
We enthrone you on our praise. Feelings, get off the throne. Selfishness, get off the throne. He who is, and was, and is to come, is seated on the throne. And we crown Him now. We're going to crown Him now. Come on, crown Him now.