Steven Furtick - God's Not Through With You
This is an excerpt from: Don't Fight Your Future
I see a lot of us. We're in a battle right now. We're in a battle with depression. We're in a battle with anxiety. We're in a battle for our sanity. We're in a battle for our money. We're in a battle for our families. We're in a battle for our relationships. We're in a battle for our peace. We're in a battle right now. When you are in a battle, be careful not to attack, because of the battle, the thing God wants to bless you with in the future, so that the very help God sends to you becomes the thing you reject, so that the very lesson God teaches you becomes the thing you resent. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Buck. Go back to your seat. You're in my way. That's what you've been doing with God. He was my fruit tree. He was coming to help me. The Lord said, "You go in this land, and you're going to be chopping at stuff sometimes that you really are going to need in the future". Wasn't that an interesting thing he said? "Are the trees soldiers"?
Look at how Eugene Peterson put it in The Message. The Message translation makes it so clear. "When you amount an attack on a town and the siege goes on a long time…" How many of you have been struggling with something for a long time, praying for something for a long time, believing for something? Okay. Three people in this whole section. Everybody else, just go to heaven. Why do you come to church here? Just go to heaven. You've struggled with something for a long time. All right. Don't start cutting down the trees, swinging your axes against them. These trees are your future food. Don't cut them down. The battle you're facing today is your future strength. Don't run from it. The thing God is doing in your life to draw you closer to him is teaching you… You said, "God, teach me". Okay. God said, "This is your fruit tree".
If you keep chopping down everything God sends to strengthen you, you will live the rest of your life down when you had the power to get up. So, I came today with a prophetic word: stop fighting your future. Those trees that are barren right now have the potential in them, just like you have the potential in you, to bear much fruit. In fact, Jesus said when something is fruitful, he prunes it so it can be more fruitful. Let me speak a word about not fighting your future. Some people God keeps trying to remove from your inner circle, and you keep chasing them down so you can have friends, but God is leading you into a future with some different friends. God needs you to reach out to some different people. It doesn't mean you hate them, but you can't hang on to the relationship just because you liked it. God might be moving them, God might be moving you, but he's not through with you. He's just moving you into a new season of effectiveness, productivity, purpose, and growth.
Stop fighting your future. Stop getting offended every time something comes your way you don't agree with. This current offense is your future wisdom. How will you learn a new point of view if you don't listen to anybody? Stop fighting your future by being trapped in your past. Stop fighting your future by wishing it was how it was. It's not, and it never will be again. So, I commend you to the Lord today to put on the new self, new fruit, new opportunities. "I've lost an awful lot". New fruit. New opportunities. "I have 285 pounds of pressure on me". New fruit. New opportunities. New strength. His mercies are new with every rising of the sun. The fact that you took a breath a couple hundred times while I've been talking, and you didn't even have to think about it, is proof to me of what I started my sermon saying: God is not through with you. Stop expecting angels to look cute when they come.
Have you ever read about an angel in the Bible Bible and seen somebody draw what they would look like? It will scare the crap out of you when an angel comes. Why did the angel have to say, "Don't be afraid" when it came if it wasn't scary? It's scary to step into a new season. It's scary to do it a new way. It's scary to let your guard down and say, "I'm struggling, and I need to talk about it". It's scary to apologize. "If I apologize, they might walk all over me". Or God might come help you and defend you. So, what do I keep cutting down that God wants me to continue in? Every time I get uncomfortable, I go run for something that's going to ruin me later.
Moses said, "I have to prepare you for this or you'll start cutting down stuff now that you'll need later". I mean, in every area of your life, you need to be nurturing now so that what you need later will be waiting when you get there. If you're a parent, and you have kids who are running around doing all the sports, and y'all never get to know each other because you're so busy trying to champion them all the way to their glory of the high school whatever sport, high school swimming… They're going to leave you. They're leaving your house. If you do the job right, they will leave one day. They might boomerang back, but you try to get them out of there. You just keep throwing that thing. I told the kids one time… They asked, "Are you coming to this thing tonight"? I said, "No. Your mom and I are going on a date".
This was a couple of years ago. I said, "I'm going out of town next week, and we haven't had any time together. So, you're going to go do the thing, and we're going to go out, and then I'll see you after". It's like, "Oh, you're a bad parent". No. I'm nurturing now… Holly is going to be in the house after they decide to go leave, and they can come back when they want. I need to know her in the next season, so I need to nurture it now. I just set somebody free to not go to the basketball game Thursday. Go to Bonefish. I know it's balanced, but don't you see that you are fighting your future when you don't nurture your now? You're going to have to deal with that. I have to accept where God has me now. I am so tired of people saying, "Oh, he's just an old head". An old head? An old head is full of wisdom. Oh yeah, I'm an old head. I know things now I didn't know then. I'm going to make a tee shirt of this. There probably already is one. I'm going to make one too. It's going to say, "Old is the goal".
You make fun of me because I'm old. What did you do? I didn't die yet, and I've been not dying for 30 years longer than you. You can make fun of me. I've been doing it a long time, like the Lord. I'm not apologizing for the fact that I'm getting a little older. I have to embrace that. See, when you won't embrace where God has you because you wish you were where you were, you fight the future he's bringing you into. I think you're getting it. I think you've been getting it ever since I was down here on the ground. I think you liked Graham choking me out, and I think you liked it when I called somebody's name who came to help me, because it let you know you have a name that is above every name. You have a name that is above your old nature. God is not through with you. What you've been through won't be wasted. God is not through with you. People throw you away, but God is not through.
People talk about you like a dog, but God is not through with you. I want to speak to a pastor right now. You've been canceled. You lost your church. God is not through with you. You get down to a rescue mission, and you open your Bible, and you talk about God in the wilderness and water from a rock, because God is not through with you. He brings new things from dry places. God is not through with you. They might be, but look up and stand up and put on the armor of God. Now unto him who is able to do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine! For I know the plans I have for you! Don't fight it. Don't faint from the battle so you miss the blessing. It's here. It's now. You are more than you've become yet. God is not through with you yet. You haven't made it through the waters yet to even see the Egyptians drown. Oh, get to the other side. God is not through. Stop making excuses and exchange it for the expectation of greater grace.
Father, we have been taught today by your Spirit. What good is it to be taught what we will not walk in? I bring each and every man, woman, boy, and girl who you put under the sound of my voice for this hour. I bring them and place them in your capable hands. We are the bread you desire to multiply. We are like the staff that parts waters when the Master touches it. We want to ask you, first of all, Lord, that you would help us to see where we've been so comfortable being stuck that we have cut down what you were trying to use to grow us. We admit we've done it from time to time. We keep on doing things in the short term that, long term, hurt us. That's what your grace is for.
We're learning now, and we're changing now, and it's different now, because this time we're not doing it in the strength we have apart from you. We're leaning into your strength, your power, your supply. We're going to call the name of Jesus this week. We're going to do it right now and get some practice:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me deal with this. Jesus, help me. I have this meeting Tuesday. Jesus, I have this ulcer. Jesus, I keep on going back to the doctor. They don't even know what's wrong. Jesus, Jesus, help me get out of worry. Help me not play it out again and again in my mind and make it worse. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, help me resist that temptation. God, I can't do it in my own strength. I keep on giving in to it, but I believe you're calling me to stand up.
Stand up in the name of Jesus. Stand up in the name of Jesus. Throw it off. Put it off.
Lord, some of us have been in a certain struggle a long time, but before the struggle ever was, you knew who we were. I speak to the spirit of every man and woman today. I speak to the truest part of them, the part of them that is wrapped in love and called by God.
I admonish you, and I lift you up to the Father. I remind you that he knew the plans he had for you before you did. He knew the pain would be bad, and he promised the power would be greater. He knew you'd be here. Listen to me. He knew you'd be here. He knew you were going to screw that thing up, and he loved you and called you anyway. He knew you would feel abandoned and let down. He called you anyway. That's why he said, "Even if your father and mother and closest friend forsake you, the Lord will take you up". He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is able to be touched by the feeling of your infirmity. He really knows you. He really sees you. He really called you. He really chose you. He's not through with you yet. Don't fight it. Welcome it.
"Holy Spirit, do a new work in my life. I welcome it". Don't reject it. Don't repeat the mistakes because you refuse to believe you deserve a blessing. Welcome it. God wants to bless you. He wants to heal you. He wants to keep you. Receive it. Don't call on him and then resist him. He's coming right now. Stop thinking about lunch. God is here. You prayed. You asked him, "Give me a sign it's going to be all right," and he sent me to tell you, "I know the plans I have for you". He's not through with you yet.