Steven Furtick - God Knows What's Next For You
This is an excerpt from: God Knows You Don't
A lot of times, when we talk about the promises of God, what we mean is the positive outcomes we want. So, we'll say, "God never breaks a promise. God always keeps his promises," but in our mental paradigm of what that means, it's that God will always give us the outcome we consider positive. What I've learned about God's promises… God's promise will often be… I'm going to give you three things. Write these down. God's promise will often be different than you pictured, slower than you wanted, and farther than you thought. I thought I'd mention these three things today. God's promise will be different than you pictured, slower than you wanted, and farther than you thought.
So, Abraham gets to the Promised Land. God speaks to him. He's like, "I'm going to bless you. You're going to be a blessing. I'm taking you to a place. It's going to be amazing". Abraham gets there, and did you notice what the Scripture said? He lived in tents in the place of promise. That's where I left off last week. It is a picture of a man who is living smack dab in the place God promised him, in the place God would give his descendants, but he's living there temporarily in tents. I was trying to get you to see that sometimes you can actually be there but not feel there, be blessed but feel stressed.
You say, "I'm too blessed to be stressed". No. You'll be blessed and stressed. You live in tents. You live in tension between the truth God spoke and the things you don't know. So, to say I have joy as a promise from God does not mean I will not have depression as a human experience. One time a lady said to me, "I don't want to listen to a pastor who preaches that it's okay to have depression. My Bible says, 'Rejoice in the Lord.'" My thing about that is to have the joy of the Lord, to claim the joy of the Lord, and to know the joy of the Lord and still feel depressed from time to time is not hypocrisy; it's humanity. We live in tents. And the tent you live in will often, especially when you have a great big calling on your life, contradict the truth you're believing. Your situation will challenge your faith. In these moments, it could be as if you feel you are an imposter.
I imagine Abraham rolling up on the Promised Land like, "Hey, God told me he was going to give me this," but none of the Canaanites who were living in the land knew about that. None of the Jebusites knew about that. None of the Hittites, Amorites, or Perizzites (and since it's Thanksgiving, cellulites) got the memo that this land belonged to Abraham. Do you know what blew my mind? As long as he lived in this land, it was never really his. Technically speaking, there was never a transfer of the deed of the land in his lifetime, or Isaac's. It would not be until the time when, many generations later, these nations would possess this land that the promise God made Abraham would evolve into the bigger picture he had all along.
So, don't judge your life by the frame; judge it by your faith. The Lord was speaking to me about some things that are different than I pictured right now. I'll give you an example. I've shared it before. I remember when we said we were going to have 100,000 people in the church. We do, but most of them don't come to buildings. I'd like to welcome our eFam all over the world, joining us online right now. See, maybe in my mind I saw that looking one way. It looks different. As a matter of fact, do you know the first time we had 100,000 people on one Sunday? When there were five people in the building for COVID. That was different than I pictured. So, God told me something he was going to do, I believed it by faith, and it was different than I pictured. When you get there, it's going to be different than you pictured. When you get to impact and influence… Everybody wants to be an influencer.
Influence does not always look like followers. Influence does not always look like sponsorship. Influence does not always look like friends. Sometimes influence looks like something you invest now for something God is going to bring to pass later, but you have to sow it by faith. So, I'm framing this situation by faith, knowing that I don't see everything God has called me to see. Even this Ballantyne building… I said it's different than you pictured and slower than you wanted.
We were on a two-year delay moving into this building. A two-year delay from when we thought we were going to move in. One of the issues in the delay was a mussel that the Environmental Protection Agency said might be on the property. The Carolina Heelsplitter mussel, if I remember correctly. They had to check for six months to see if there was a mussel on the land before we could build this building. The mussel wasn't even here, but we had to clear the land of the potential of a mussel. I never thought a mussel would cost me six months. We already paid for the land.
Now I'm just paying on something I can't even participate in because of a mussel, because of a little thing, because of something I never saw coming. You know, you can get one text that will back up your whole timeline. One virus can shut down a whole… But watch this. We got in the building two years later. It was slower than I wanted. It was different than I pictured, but when I welcome people online from nations all over the world, it's going farther than I thought. God says, "I've got a blessing for you, and when you get to it, be ready, because it's going to be different than you pictured. It might be slower than you wanted, but it's going to go farther than you thought. This is a big blessing. This one is going to ripple. This one is going to reach farther than just your house. I'm going to use you to bless others".
Doesn't being a grown-up feel different than you thought a grown-up felt? I'm just keeping it real. Isn't it different than you pictured being a grown-up? "Nobody is going to tell me what to do". Except your boss, the IRS, and, depending on your marital arrangements, maybe the person you sleep next to.
The verse touched me because it said, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going". God knows where you're going. Let the one who set the destination control the ETA. You've been needing it to happen sooner, wanting it to happen sooner, thinking it should have happened sooner. It happened for all of your friends sooner. God knows. A lot of times, even when we compare ourselves to others we have no idea the burden they carry for the blessing that we envy.
One of my buddies has this saying. He says, "A lot of the people you envy are secretly miserable". You don't know. You don't know what the people you are jealous of juggle, and you don't know how they're judged. Remember that young man who was saying he was suicidal the other day? We couldn't believe it because he is so envied, so influential, but deep down in his heart he seeks the peace that many of you possess. You would envy him for where he is and not know that where you are is where he's trying to get.
I just want to talk about this today. I want to talk about the lies of arrival, that it's out there somewhere and that when you get there it's going to feel a certain way. Maybe I should say it like this: there are no penthouses in the Promised Land. Abraham journeys hundreds of miles. He has a caravan of hundreds of people. He's responsible for a lot. He's carrying a lot, not only in the sense of the nations that will come forth from him but also the uncertainty he's walking in. He must feel a little bit like an imposter. Then he gets there.
I said this last week, but I said it shouting so I don't think anybody really heard it. So now I'm going to say it again, but I'm not going to shout it; I'm just going to say it. He's a father of many nations, but he looks like a nomad. You can look like a nomad and actually be carrying a nation. You can look like a nobody but actually be carrying something. See, God knows what's in you; you don't. God knows who's important; you don't. God knows what needs to happen next; you don't. You just don't. You think you do, but you don't. And neither does ChatGPT.
Hold on. I did an experiment. Hang tight. I asked ChatGPT, "Who is coming to church today on the fourth row in the third seat"? ChatGPT said, "As an AI, I don't have access to real-time or location-specific information, including details about who might be attending your church service or where they might be sitting. This kind of information is typically not available publicly and would be known only to those present at the service or those with direct knowledge of the attendees". So, I just want to echo what ChatGPT said. Nobody around you really knows what you need from God today. Even if you told them, it still wouldn't scratch the surface, because sometimes you don't even know. How can someone know a man except the spirit of a man? And the Spirit of God has direct knowledge on you.
Oh yeah. Not only what you struggle with but why you struggle with it. Not only why you struggle with it but how you can be set free from it. Not only how you can be set free from it… I'm preaching to somebody…fourth row, third seat. The Holy Ghost knows you're sitting there today for a reason, for a revelation, for a release of the Spirit of God that will lead you into a ripple that might be slower than you want, but it's going to go farther than you thought, because if he spoke it… God knows something you don't know. He knows something you don't know.
That's why you didn't die, because he knows something you don't know. That's why you came to church even though you didn't fall asleep until 4:00 a.m. But you got up sleepy and flicked those eye buggers off the corners of your eyes and grabbed your Bible and said, "Devil, God knows what I need. I've got to get in the presence of my Father". "In my Father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, he would have told me. But he's going to prepare a place for me". ChatGPT doesn't know that. Oh, by the way, the people who rejected you don't know that. Sometimes we think we need something, and God knows we don't.