Steven Furtick - Holy Spirit, Help Me Make Sense of This
This is an excerpt from: Page Turner
These are the moments, my friend, when you need the Holy Spirit, because you can do something so stupid while you are waiting 10 days that it'll take you 10 years trying to undo it. You will tell yourself a story. Have you ever texted somebody who didn't text you back quickly enough? The bubbles came, and the bubbles went, and the bubbles came, and the bubbles went. Every time the bubbles came and went, you told yourself a story about why they weren't texting you back.
"Oh, God, they were texting while driving, and they drove off the road, and the bubbles went away. Oh, God"! Really, it was nothing more than the fact that they got distracted and you weren't that important to them to text you back right away, but you had them dead in your mind because you told yourself a story. Now do you see why we need help? Not only telling the gospel story, not only that our lives would be a testimony to the Savior who shed his blood for us, but so that we tell ourselves the right story in the space of 10 days. I wonder if somebody is in a 10-day space between what you know God promised you and the help you believe he'll send you, and you need the Holy Spirit to make sense of it.
So, they go back to Jerusalem. They start praying, which I think is very important. They start praying with their prayer partners, which I think is even more important. Then something very cool happens. Luke gives us a cast of characters. Since we're going to be in the book of Acts, let's see the opening credits for the church. Now, remember, the church is being born, and it's a messy moment. Here's what's messy about it. The apostles return to Jerusalem. All they see is a suitcase. Jesus is gone. They don't know how long it's going to take. He said a few days. "Did anybody hear him say…? Did he say two days"? "No, he said a few days". "Is a few 20? Is a few 12? Is it a year? I mean, to the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day".
Holly said something very profound the other day. She said, "I could go through trials easier if God would give me a time clock on them, if I only knew it's just 10 days". "Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter…" We won't read every name again. I already read them once. But notice who's not there: Jesus. The last time they were in this room, maybe Jesus was with them. He's not now. What they have been guided by is gone. You're like, "Well, Jesus is always with me". I can see somebody clipping this right now and saying, "Steven Furtick said Jesus was not with the disciples".
I don't see his name on the list. He doesn't have a physical body at this moment on the earth. They can't hear his audible voice. That's what they're used to. All of a sudden, they're joining together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers. They're there. There are about 120 of them. We have two elements that are in every great story. One is that everything is messy. That makes a great story. The second is something is missing. Whenever you see a great story… One of my favorite shows that ever came on Netflix… I don't remember the original network. The opening scene of the series, you see a pair of khaki pants fly through the air, and then the next scene, you see a guy in his tighty-whities behind the wheel of an RV with a gas mask on.
I've got to know, "How did he end up in his tighty-whities? How did his khaki pants fly through the air? Whose pants are these? Why is there a gas mask? What's going on on this show right now"? I've got to watch, because it's messy, and there's something missing. Is it possible that the messiness in your life right now and the missing thing in your life right now is the birthplace of a story that is just about ready to unfold for God's glory in your life? I think so, because the Bible says, "In those days Peter stood up among the believers…"
Now, let's take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the moment that Peter is standing among the believers. Maybe you wouldn't appreciate the beauty of this moment if you didn't read Luke's other book. In Luke's other book, we see Peter when Jesus was going to the cross to be accused and condemned and hung and mocked and whipped. As Peter is watching Jesus go to the cross… I want to show you this in Luke's other book, the gospel of Luke, chapter 22. As Jesus is going into the court of Caiaphas to be tried… "And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them". Now do you understand why it's so amazing that by the time Luke writes his sequel…? Tell somebody next to you, "Wait till you see the sequel".
By the time we get to the sequel, the same Peter… This gives me hope, because there have been times in my life where I sat down by the fire. There have been times in my life where I compromised my convictions. There have been times in my life where I denied Christ with my actions even though my lips said I loved him. But isn't it good to see Peter, who in Luke 22:55 was sitting by the fire, and the Bible says… I don't care what your past says. The Bible says… I don't care what Bartholomew thinks about it. The Bible says… I don't care what the accuser of the brethren says. The Bible says, "In those days Peter stood up among the believers…"
So watch this. We have the one who was sitting by the fire, and now he's standing with a fire on the inside, declaring the word of the Lord. I speak a new sequel over your life. I speak a new season over your life. I speak character development over your life. I see someone who was sitting down last night, sitting down in front of a computer watching porn, but God brought you to stand you up on your feet to praise God today, because the story… My story doesn't end with me sitting by this fire. My story doesn't end with me sitting in this failure. My story doesn't end with me crying over who left. My story doesn't end with my weak moment, causing me to relapse. My story doesn't end with the fear telling me to stay out. My story has a sequel. Shout if you have a sequel! Oh, this is the sequel.