Steven Furtick - The Faith To Get Back Up
This is an excerpt from: Keep It 100.
You keep trying to build on the wrong foundation. "O God, I'm fearful. O God, I'm anxious. O God, I'm depressed. O God, I messed up. O God, I'm not that smart. O God, I'm not prepared. O God, I'm not experienced. O God, I'm crazy. O God, I'm addicted". That is not the basis of the faith of Abraham. God said, "It's all by grace. I brought you into this world by grace. I spoke you into existence by grace. I made you born in the time you were born so that the promise would be by grace".
Listen to me. If it started with God, it's guaranteed. I have a guarantee from the manufacturer that everything he intends to bring forth from my life shall come to pass, and no mistake, no Hagar, no doubt, no laugh can stop it. This is only good news if you need some grace. If you got it all right, see you. Go on home. Keep getting it right. But for everybody who is here by faith, by grace… If you gave me enough time, I could hit everybody in this room and show you why you need grace. "Oh, no, I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I don't do any of that". Yeah, but do you know what you do? You control. And what else do you do? You judge, just like I'm judging you for judging me. So, don't stand there like you don't need grace. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. I'm not the one in the middle. I'm that thief saying, "Remember me, Jesus". Give me that grace. Give me that good news gospel grace!
The promise comes by faith. Faith in what? Not my faith, because I might fall facedown and laugh, but God still said, "You have to have the faith of Abraham". What's that? The faith to fall down and get back up. I feel somebody getting up today, getting up in your spirit. You didn't just get up and get in your car. You got up and walked into the promise of God. You are right smack in the middle of the fulfillment of God's promise on your life. The danger is you have to stay in faith so God can do everything he wants to do through you. Abraham turns 83. It's a bad thing when you're having your 85th birthday still talking about, "You know, I've got potential". That's supposed to be when you're 18, not 80. "I've still got more I'm going to do". I don't think you do. I love this verse.
Did you ever hear me preach this back in the day? I did a whole thing on this. Romans 4:19: "Without weakening in his faith…" All of the pragmatic people are going to love this. "…he faced the fact…" I always love that, because it gives room for the skeptic to get some grace too. I can almost see it when I preach. You say, "Romans," and some people jump up and shout about Romans. "I love Romans. Give me Romans". Some people… It doesn't matter how much faith you feel in a room, you can kind of see it. They sit back there like, "That's good, but bills. That's good, but bursitis in my knee. That's good, but custody battle. That's good, but I have some pills in the bathroom I haven't flushed yet". "He faced the fact". Do you think God gave you the faith of Abraham to escape reality? He gave you grace to empower you for reality.
So, you could look at the scoreboard… Graham had a football game the other night. They were down 20 at halftime. They came back and won the game by two. I said, "That must have been one heck of a halftime speech Coach gave". I'm in the motivation business, so I asked him when he got home, "What did he say at halftime"? He said, "He only told us one thing: 'Stay in it.'" Because you don't know yet! You say, "Oh, I'm just keeping it real. I'm just being me". Which me? The me you see or the me God spoke from eternity past that is uncorrupted by this mortal body? Which me? God speaks to the me that's going to be if I stay in it. Come on. Channel your inner football coach. You know you want to. Pretend like you're Coach Taylor. Tell Tim Riggins, "Stay in it. Stay in it. Stay in it".
I'm going to preach this until it breaks through that artifice of your hardened heart. Stay in it! Abraham was given a promise when he was 75. How old was Abraham when God made the promise? How old was he when he saw God keep it? What is my message called? Oh, you thought all I was talking about when I said, "Keep it 100" was just "Be real". No, I'm telling you what's real to you right now may be a ceiling God is trying to break you through if you can believe by faith for the grace for the caps in your life that cause you to laugh in the face of God when he shows you what's possible.
I'm concerned that this phrase in our vernacular, "Keep it 100," has become an excuse for us to never improve and never grow. If all I do in church is say, "Hey, you're a drunk. I'm a drunk. Let's drink. Everybody gets a 20-ounce Communion beer. Let's go," then I have not appropriated the grace of God in your life, as a preacher of the gospel, to show you that the me you see right now is not the core of who you are, and God is not through with you yet.
Some of the promises he made you it's going to take you your whole life to see, but keep it 100. If it takes me all night, if it takes me my 30s, if it takes me my 40s, if it takes me going to meetings, if it takes me going to therapy, if it takes me changing my friends, if it takes me staying up late, reading my Bible, praying on the edge of the bed… If it takes it, I'm coming. I'm going to keep it 100! I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord!
Come on, find 99 people, high-five them, and tell them, "Keep it 100". God is looking for you. God will leave the 99 to find the one. Keep it! You got a promise from God. Keep it! Snatch this word and keep it! You have grace. You have Jesus on the inside, working on the outside. Keep it! Abraham believed and so became. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen the first year. It didn't happen the second year. It's not going to happen as quickly as you want it to, but this is not a five-minute faith. That's a Hagar hookup, that five-minute faith where you try something. This is the faith of Abraham, and you already have the grace of God.
Stay in it. For the 300 of you who are receiving this message at a deep level… Do you feel that faith you feel right now in your heart? Stay in it. When you don't feel it, stay in faith. When you can't prove it, stay in faith. When you look at your body like Abraham did… He faced the fact that his body wasn't doing too well. Not as good as he once was. "I can't do it like I used to do it". But he was fully persuaded because he had faith in God. What God? You're so good at listing problems. When I ask you what problems you're fighting, why are you so much better at that than when I ask, "What God are you believing"? The Lord told me, "When you preach this, make sure the message they get is not what faith they have but what God they have".
Make sure your faith isn't in what promise you think he made you, because you might have heard him wrong. I love what he said. Verse 17: "'I have made you a father of many nations.' He is our father…" I'm preaching about the faith of Abraham today, not Hulk Hogan, not Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. Abraham is the father of many nations. Isn't it crazy that it took him 100 years to actually become what God called him all along? He said, "I made you the father. I gave you the seed. Nobody can do it but you". What God called you to bring into the earth nobody can bring but you.