Steven Furtick - God's Not Frustrated With You
This is an excerpt from: The God Of Again
God is into repetition, and I'm glad he is, because the fact that he's into repetition means he will keep on sustaining me and keep on blessing me over and over again. That's why I read you the Scripture I read you. "Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples". I prayed today that he would show up again to you. I assume you want to be his disciple and you want to see him, so I prayed that he would show up again. That's the thing about it. He's resurrected from the dead, and he already showed up two other times to his disciples. They were kind of scared, so they were hiding behind locked doors, and he just walked through. He shows up again to see Thomas, because Thomas wasn't there the first time.
Then John said, "Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples," which kind of makes you wonder. How many times do you have to show up after you're raised from the dead to get somebody convinced that you're the Son of God? We were remembering a funny memory with Elijah this week, because he turned 18, and we were talking about all of his birthday parties in the past. That got us talking about family pictures, and that made me traumatized. I hate nothing more than taking family pictures. I'm telling you, man.
Well, I'll just tell you one example. There was one time when they were really little, and Elijah kept picking on Abbey. Holly looked at him and… You know, when Holly is in front of y'all, she's very sweet. There's another side. She looked at him, and I was scared, and she wasn't even talking to me. She said, "How many times do I have to tell you to keep your hands off your sister"? He's terrified. He was only, like, 7 at the time. He's terrified. He looks at her and goes, "Three times"? Like, "I don't know". We thought it was so funny. "Three times"? Like, "How many times will it take for you to hear the words that are coming out of my mouth"? He's like, "I don't know. Maybe three"?
I wonder how many times God has to tell us certain things. Maybe God has been trying to tell you something. This is a central question I really want to ask. This will probably send some of you off, and you won't hear anything else in the sermon, but it's fine, because I want to give it to you. What does God keep repeating that you keep resisting? (He said, "Say it again". I love when people say that in my sermon. Sometimes they'll say, "Say it again," and I'm like, "I don't know what I just said. I was just following the Holy Spirit". But I will say that again.) What has God been repeating that you have been resisting?
In the passage I read you, Peter has gone fishing, even though God is going to call him to be a great apostle. Peter is going to go on to be kind of like a pope to the church. In that day you would have seen it that way. Peter is going to go on to preach on the day of Pentecost. None of that has happened yet. The Holy Spirit hasn't come. He has already seen Jesus, but Peter still needs something else, and it's called restoration. Not only does he need to see that Jesus is resurrected but he needs to personally be restored. The Holy Spirit said I would be ministering to people today who have seen the revelation of God. Meaning, you know him. You've experienced him in your life. He has seen you through certain seasons. But you are finding yourself in a season today, as I speak this message, that things have been so different and so difficult you need to see him again in order to go forward.
The good news is he is the God of again. He's the God who will show up once and walk through locked doors and show up twice so Doubting Thomas can believe. If that's not enough, he'll show up…how many times? Three times. If that's what it takes to get Peter to see… Not who Jesus is. Peter already saw that. But what if what Peter needs to see in this moment is who Peter is? There are times in your life where God needs to show you again who you are because you forget. God needs to show you what you're capable of because you've talked yourself out of it. God needs to show you that there's a future ahead of you greater than anything that is behind you. He's the God of again. He will tell you as many times as he needs to tell you in order to get you to see this truth. That's because he's full of grace and mercy, and he will bless you again and again.
The same thing that is true of the blessing of God is also true of the lessons of God. He will do it over and over again until you get it. God will teach you things over and over again until you learn them. I don't know if you want to hear that or not, but he will. God will allow certain things in your life to stay that way until you finally learn what he actually wants you to learn. God doesn't cancel the class because you burn the books. God doesn't advance you to the next level because you're tired. There are certain things in our lives God will teach us over and over again. This passage here is a pretty cool example of that. Let me read you a little bit more of it. It said, "Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way…"
I read you that verse, but let's hear what happened. "Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 'I'm going out to fish,' Simon Peter told them, and they said, 'We'll go with you.' So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, 'Friends, haven't you any fish?' 'No,' they answered. He said, 'Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.' When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved…"
That's John, who's writing this gospel. "…said to Peter, 'It is the Lord!'" You think? "As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, 'It is the Lord,' he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, 'Bring some of the fish you have just caught.' So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, 'Come and have breakfast.' None of the disciples dared ask him, 'Who are you?' They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them…"
This wasn't the first time they'd seen him do this, by the way. "Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples…" How many? Three times. "This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter…" Here's the moment. "'Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?' 'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'you know that I love you.' Jesus said, 'Feed my lambs.' Again Jesus said, 'Simon son of John, do you love me?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.'"
Is this a riddle or something? Pete and Repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. Who was left? Pete and Repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. Who was left? Pete and Repeat were on a boat… "Are you messing with me, Jesus? Is this a riddle"? No, it's not a riddle; it's a restoration. Follow me. How many times did Peter deny Jesus? So, how many times does Jesus restore him to his first love? I hear God saying "Again" over your life. Again. "We're going to do this until you get it. I'm going to prove I'm powerful until you believe me to be faithful. I'm going to show you there's nothing too hard for me until you stop worrying about stuff I'm already working out in your life". Shout, "Again". Shout, "Again".
I'm using the message to preach the message because I want you to get this word in your spirit. He's not the God of "One time you'd better get it right". He's not the God of "Well, if you haven't learned it by now, I guess you're just stupid". Isn't that what we tell ourselves? That's what I tell myself sometimes. "How do I not know this by now? How am I not over this by now? How can I not do this by now"? That's usually why we stop getting smarter. We stop asking stuff because something in us thinks, "I should know this by now". That's why we stay broke. We think we should know this about money by now. So, we pretend like we know rather than admitting that we don't know, and because we think we should know by now, we never know because we won't ask, because we think God is frustrated with us.
You know, we get this for a good reason…because we're frustrated with us. So, then we project the same attitude on God that we carry within us. For many of us, the figure of God we have is an exasperated father, saying, "Really? Again? You're praying to me about this again? You lost your temper again? Really? You're asking me to help you with this again"? That's kind of how God sounds in my mind when I'm in a bad place, when I haven't been spending time in his presence, when I've just been letting the Devil get the best of me. It's like I want to go to God for stuff, but I almost picture him going, "Again? You need me to fill you again? You need me to walk you through this again? How many times are you going to come to me and ask me to forgive you for this"?
But I found out that every time I come to God, it's a compliment to him. This changed my life. When I come to him and say, "Oh, I need more grace," he goes, "I'm good at grace, and when you ask me for grace, you presume my power, that I'm good at what you asked me for". When I come to God, he's not up there going, "Again? I've got to show you again how to go and apologize? I've got to show you again how to work through this insecurity? I've been teaching you this since you were 15. Are you stupid"? That's not the language of heaven. God goes, "Again". Hear the difference? Jesus appeared again. One of my kids, who shall remain nameless, asked Holly when they were really little… She was asking them, "When's the last time you changed clothes"? They said, "Four days ago". She said, "Does that include your underwear"? This particular kid of ours said, "You mean I have to change my underwear every day"?
When you do something over and over again in behavior, it's called a habit. When you do something again in music, and it's a pattern that is pleasing, it's called a hook. When you do it again and again and again and again, it's a hook. It just so happens that I'm preaching today about fishing. They weren't fishing with a hook; they were fishing with a net, but the principle is the same.
God wanted Peter to know, "I've hooked you. I've got you. I'm not letting you go. I'm not letting you off the hook". You keep coming back to God, telling him over and over again in your mind why he should choose someone else. As many times as you give him an excuse, he's going to give you a truth again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. "How many times are you going to say it, Preacher"? As many times as it takes for you to respond to this word that I'm feeling in my heart. And again and again and again.