Steven Furtick - Don't Let Disappointment Stop You
This is an excerpt from: There's Another Door!
Sometimes God lets something in your life die, but don't worry when it dies. Resurrection is who he is and what he does. If you can get the stone rolled away long enough to believe for a little while, I hear a voice calling Lazarus out of the grave. See, the graveclothes wrapped up the revelation of who Jesus was. When he got on the scene and said, "Lazarus, come forth," the graveclothes had no choice but to fall off, because the voice of the Lord unwraps death to present resurrection. The greatest opportunities are not always obvious. The greatest opportunities are often hidden. Jesus even taught in parables to hide the wisdom of God from the people who wanted to understand it with their human minds. He didn't want the elite to get it, so he put it in parables. He hid it. He hid the kingdom. The kingdom didn't come announcing itself with trumpets and red carpet. It wasn't obvious. It came looking like conflict.
Now Mark, chapter 2, is the first of five conflict dialogues where we see this carpenter from Nazareth doing ministry in Galilee, having to confront the wisdom of this world to reveal the wisdom of God. He's teaching one day, and so many people have come to see him… A crowd has gathered. In Mark's gospel, the crowd is not necessarily a positive thing. We would think if Jesus was trying to build a ministry he would need a crowd. Jesus is so savage sometimes if the crowd got too big he would start running people off by saying stuff they didn't want to hear. He really would. You'll have to read how he fed people and they were happy, but after they ate their "Happy Meal" he turned around and said, "I'm not your Burger King". (I know I'm mixing restaurants, but go with the illustration.) He said, "If you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then you can have this kingdom," and they said, "Whoa! I was into the miracles, but this took a dark turn. This cannibalism thing…"
Even the disciples couldn't understand it, but Peter did after. When he was recounting to Mark so Mark could write this gospel account, he talked about the crowd. The crowd had gathered, and they were listening to Jesus preaching. The Bible tells us about four men who brought their friend, and they could not get in because of the crowd. They had high hopes. You could say their hopes were through the roof, but then they were met at the door… By the way, there are four doors in this passage and in our lives that are not obvious, because life's greatest opportunities are not always obvious. So they come to the front door, and they can't get in. This represents the door of disappointment. How disappointing it must have been that you have carried your friend all this way, only to find out at church that not only is there no room in the main auditorium but they're not even seating in overflow.
"Thank you very much. You can watch live stream". These men were met at the door with disappointment. If they had subscribed to the theology many of us live our lives according to, they would have turned around and gone home, because, "Obviously, it's not God's will for our friend to get healed today. If it were God's will for our friend to be healed today, we would have gotten in the door". But these boys said, "We did not carry you all this way with your heavy self to turn around and go home now". I think these boys had a little bit of… Well, maybe this is the Moncks Corner in me, but I picture their conversation… These boys didn't drive a Prius. That's what I'm trying to say. They're met at the door with disappointment, not to mention the man's disappointment. He has learned to deal with disappointment. His entire life is a disappointment. He can't walk. He can't dance. He can't do what other people do. But they've come this far, and they didn't come this far to go home.
So Bubba says to Tommy, "Hey, man. I was looking around. I didn't see no security cameras back right around the south entrance, man. I reckon wonder if you could, uh…" Bubba and Tommy. Who else? Rufus. Roof. (That's the last one. I promise.) He said, "Whatcha reckon if we get around there…" They're whispering because they don't want the man on the mat to know what they're about to do. Don't tell everybody all of your plans. Sometimes you just have to do stuff. You don't always ask permission. Sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness. "What if we went up…? I know we can't get in, so what if we went up"? Sometimes you have to change levels. Sometimes the reason you can't get in that door is because it wasn't your door. God is calling you higher. Sometimes the reason you got rejected is because it was the wrong level of relationship, and if those people would have liked you it would have actually limited…
High-five somebody and say, "Go higher". When they go low we go high. He's calling me higher. So they go up, and they do not find a door; they make a door. Have you ever had to make your own door? Nobody gave me money to start this church. Nobody sponsored me officially. I wish they would have, but I'm kind of glad they didn't, because I had to learn how to dig. Sometimes one of the greatest things that can happen to you in your life is to be turned away at the front door, because you discover another door. There's another door. This is not the normal door. This is not for normal people. This is not for people who want to quit because the Wi-Fi was a little slow or skip church because it was 43 degrees. No, this is for the people who have determined… We have a froufrou view of faith.
We think of faith as being something to fall back on. Not Mark. Mark mentions faith four times in his gospel, and none of them represent an attitude; they always represent actions. Faith to Mark is something you can see. Actually, it's something you can see in response to something you cannot see. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen". It is something you can see in response to a hope you can't see. (That's a series right there.) There's another door. Verse 5: "When Jesus saw their faith…" Not heard their faith. It wasn't that they talked about how much they trusted God. It's that they refused to go home that easily. I'll tell you this real quick. Just a little side thing. Chris and I were trying to write a song the other day, and I said, "I know this is the fifty-first revision on this song, but I want the Devil to know I'm going to keep coming, because I feel like we're supposed to finish this song".
Chris Brown looked back at me and said, "If that joker doesn't know that by now about us, he hasn't been paying attention". Because I'm going to tell you something. I'm not always the smartest, but I don't turn around the first time somebody tells me, "You can't come in this door". That's just not how I'm wired. Now it's fine. If you don't like me, you don't have to, but I'll find somebody who does. It's fine. Some people when I started Elevation didn't want to come because they said it was a cult, and that's fine, but I'll find another way. See, if you just have four good friends… Sometimes if you don't have four… Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and me…that's four. We're going to do this!
Those boys were like, "We ain't going home. He's heavy. No, sir. We're going to put him up on that roof and we're going to dig through that mud and we're going to make a door". "I'm going to get through to my kid one way or another. I'm not just going to give up on them. Not that easily. I'm going to find a way to get through. I might have to shut up. I might have to speak up. If that doesn't work I'll do the other. I might have to hug them. I might have to try some different ways".
Now we come to the door on the ceiling. There's another door. If you can't get in the front door, go up. There's another door. You have to make it. It doesn't look like a door; you have to dig through it. There's a door, but you can't see it. It's not visible. It's not something you can see. It takes faith. Faith is something you can see in response to something you can't see, so you have to make a door. Jesus respected their carpentry. Jesus liked their work. In verse 5 he's preaching, and there's a distraction overhead. He's not even healing this day. It's not even on his agenda to see sick people.
Some of life's greatest opportunities are not always obvious, and some of God's greatest invitations will show up in the form of interruptions. He's preaching, and he's probably doing a really good job, just going off context clues. He is the Word, so if he preaches what he is it's probably pretty good. He has a big crowd, and all of a sudden… Peter says something Matthew doesn't say. Matthew describes the incident. He simplifies in Matthew 9:2. "Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic…" What did Matthew leave out? The fact that they ripped off this dude's roof. It sounds so nice when Matthew says it. It just looks so easy. "And they brought their friend, and Jesus healed him". No. "Did you hear that"?
Jesus is preaching. "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock". Right about the time he's making his point, here comes a sound. Remember that Mark is writing what Peter told him to write, and consider that most scholars believe it was Peter's house Jesus was preaching in. So Matthew remembered the healing; Peter remembered the roof. It's funny to me. It's perspective. "Did you hear that? Keep preaching, keep preaching, keep preaching. We're going to check it out".
About the time the dirt starts falling from the mud on the ceiling… Are you willing to get your hands dirty, by the way, or are you too afraid to mess up your manicure to go after your miracle? I could preach manicures or miracles. The choice is yours. And they had to drop him. You can't get him all the way down. Here comes the dirt, and here comes the man. We'll call him Matt. We don't know his name. Jesus says, "I like your style, boys. That's what I did when I came down through your dirt, through your shame, through your sin. I like it, boys". Rufus, Bubba, Willie, and Jimmy are all looking in now. What's going to happen next?
Jesus leans down and says to the man, "Son, your sins are forgiven". Willie says, "What did he say"? Jimmy says, "It sounded like he said something about sins". Willie says, "Did he say anything about healing"? Jimmy says, "No. Just something about sins". Rufus says, "That's good that he forgave his sins, but can he fix his legs too while he's at it"? Because they did not bring the man before Jesus to get him forgiven; they brought him before Jesus to get him healed. The question is…What do you do when God bypasses what you want to give you what you need? The most obvious thing to do is to heal the man. But sometimes before God can do what is obvious and change your situation he wants to work within you so that when he changes your situation you will be ready to receive it.