Steven Furtick - Blessing Is Coming
This is an excerpt from: Places Everyone
Now I want to preach to everybody who's not where they want to be yet. Now I want to preach to everybody who hasn't mastered what they want to master yet and still feel kind of yanked around by some stuff right now. I want to preach to everybody who doesn't have the stability in their life they want to have right now and are in between here and there to let you know that God is on the way. I don't mean he's coming; I mean he's on the way. He's Alpha, he's Omega, and he's every letter in between. He's everything in between. He's God.
High-five your neighbor and say, "Stay open". On the way to where you think you're going God might do something greater. Are you open to that? I've had this happen so many times. I was reminded of one this week. There was a Sunday seven years ago. I was washing my hands in the bathroom, coming out to preach. Somebody was out here talking. "Okay. I'm going to get out to my seat". All of a sudden, this melody came into my head while I was washing my hands. Worthy is your name, Jesus, You deserve the praise, Worthy is your name. I stopped and thought, "I kind of like that, but I don't have time for it right now. I've got to preach. I've got to get out there". God said, "Yeah, you do have to get out there, but why don't you get out there and get something here before you go out there, because what if I want to give you something on the way to where you're going"? You know what's crazy? I can't remember to save my life what I preached that day, but watch this. "Worthy is your…"
How is it that what I thought wasn't even worth stopping for we're still singing seven years later because God gave it to us on the way? I pronounce… Places everyone. God is on the way. Places everyone. In the name of Jesus, rise up! Take my hand and rise up! It's on the way. Cry if you have to cry, but through your tears testify. It's on the way! We trample on God's purpose sometimes, trying to get to our plan. John might have said, "Peter, you can't help this man. You're going to make me late to temple". But Peter knew something. "Wait a minute. Jesus said he was coming to send his Spirit to live in us. What we're trying to get to is right here. Wait. This man is a temple, waiting to be restored". The thing that's right in front of you is as beautiful as the gate you're walking through if you can stop and see it. Hallelujah!
So stay open. That's what gates do. Right? They open. Stay open. I know you prayed your child would marry a missionary and serve God. They might not marry a missionary. They might not get married at all. Stay open. God doesn't have to ask you what age they're supposed to be married by, because you didn't get married when your parents wanted you to get married either. Now we sit here like gatekeepers of what God can do and when God could do it. Stay open. Can I preach a little more? It felt like I was closing, didn't it? That was just the gate opening, the opening of the gate. Oh, I'm going to need some help today. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Places everyone". Almost like God called Gabriel that morning. The disciples have been seeing God do amazing things, but this is the first healing miracle they did without Jesus.
Do you know how you can tell? Because Peter was doing so much. I read several times in the Bible… I thought this was kind of funny. Jesus would heal people who couldn't walk, like this man couldn't walk, but how Peter did it was so dramatic. Jesus would say, "Get up, take up your mat, and walk". His word was so powerful because he's the perfect, spotless, living embodiment of the Word of God. I can tell Peter is not so sure about this. It's so funny. Verse 6: "Then Peter said, 'Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.'" Then verse 7. "Yanking him up by the right hand…" I almost feel like Peter is like, "You're not going to make me look stupid. You're getting up one way or the other". And that's all right, because you progress and mature into it.
You grow into it. It's an amazing thing here because this man isn't even looking at them when they first walk by. We understand that. How many people have walked by and despised him? How many people have walked by and muttered under their breath about him? How many people did he ask, "Can I have some change? Can I have some change? Can I have some change"? and they said, "No. No. No"? So, Peter actually has to start with the man's expectation. The first thing God is going to have to heal for some of us is our expectation, because we have learned to live in a place of disappointment as our emotional home. If anything would come along and violate your expectation of disappointment, you would sabotage it and send it away unless God healed your expectation. "Look at us," Peter said. "Look me in the eye, and then I can give you something".
Change your focus. If you keep looking at everybody who has walked by and told you "No," everybody who has not recognized you, everybody who has not helped you, everybody who has left you… If you look at that even mentally, you will not get what God has for you. You cannot receive a present blessing living mentally in a past experience. Places everyone. This is the day the Lord has made. You have to get what God has for you in this day.
Now the Bible says the man is looking at Peter and John, and he goes, "So, you got some change"? "Oh, yeah. I've got some change for you. I've got some change for you that you will not… I've got some change for you that is so great you won't be back at this gate tomorrow unless it's by choice to walk through it". God said, "I'm going to give you your autonomy back. I'm going to stop having you beg at places just for the crumbs of somebody else's approval, because you're going to know in this season, 'I have a purpose from God, so I'm not sitting here at this gate tomorrow. If I come to this gate tomorrow, it will be my choice to walk through it.'"
That's what makes addiction such a sin. It's not the thing you're doing; it's the fact that you have to. It has become your god. It has become the thing you have to do. God doesn't want you to owe anything to anyone but him except love. I'm going to break something off somebody today. I'm getting somebody up today with the help of the Holy Spirit, even if I have to yank you up. I've had to yank some people up before preaching. Yeah, just start yanking people up. The thing about it is when you've been rejected that long, the possibility of a different direction is almost unthinkable. The possibility that they could really like you for you when the last person used you is so unusual. The fact that God could use you is unfathomable, because look at all of the reasons you think he shouldn't.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you didn't know you? Then when I said God could use you you'd go, "All right," and you wouldn't have all of the reasons I'm wrong. Rejection. I know it isn't explicitly mentioned, but come on. He's put there every day. How many people walked past that man and told him, "No"? Here's what I love about the Lord. God can send one person to bless you in such an amazing way it will make every rejection that came before it irrelevant in comparison. Say that again, Pastor Steven Furtick. Say it for the one who was told "No". Say it for the one who knocked on the closed door until their knuckles bled. Say it one more time. God can send one person… It didn't take everybody in the temple to get the man up; it took one person. It took one name, and it wasn't Peter; it was Jesus.
God can send one person to bless you in such an amazing way it will make every rejection that came before it seem irrelevant in comparison. God can send you one mentor in your life to teach you everything your dad didn't teach you because he was too busy. God can send one experience in your life that will give you a lifetime education all in three days. God can send you one idea, and that one idea, if you incubate it… If you set it before him and trust him in it, that one idea can make up for 15 failures, 500 failures. Every rejection can be made irrelevant. It doesn't matter who told this man "No," because one person, one change, one hand, one moment…
Get your expectation back. It doesn't take everybody. It doesn't take everything going right. It doesn't take a stadium full. It doesn't take 10,000 followers. It doesn't even take long. The Bible said he got up instantly. One blessing. One blessing, one word, one pivot, one new path, one new song, one new thing… Places everyone. Do you know the only way you don't get it? If you're not there.