Steven Furtick - Why God Brought You Here
This is an excerpt from: Concealed But Not Canceled
One of my best friends said three phrases describe how he has felt his whole life: left out, looked over, and less than. Understand this, church, for the historical context. If you were left-handed in a right-handed tribe, they didn’t let you serve in the military except in a special position, and it wasn’t the best position. So, imagine all of the times Ehud got looked over, left out, and felt less than. The Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer from a place they weren’t looking. He gave them what they had looked over. He gave them someone who had been left out. He gave them what they considered less than.
When we regard Christ according to the flesh we miss his glory, because God will always wrap his favor in flesh. When we look for God to do something only from the right hand of what we consider a blessing, we miss what’s on the left every time. I’m trying to say God is trying to give you stuff, but you’re watching the wrong hand. You’re waiting for everything to go right, but sometimes God wants to bless you from the left.
Now do you see why I invited myself to preach this message? It has been 18 years they’ve been struggling. For 18 years they’ve been suffering. For 18 years God has been blessing this ministry, and for 18 years it was nothing but his hand that kept us going. For 18 years. Then they cried out, and God sent them a blessing from the left. Watch what happens when he goes. «The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab». I want you to picture this in your head…this loner called a loser, looked over, and left out. That’s not always just the way people talk about you; sometimes that’s the way you talk to yourself. This left-handed warrior, this left-handed judge. He takes the tribute to the enemy king, but verse 16 says something kind of interesting.
«Now Ehud [the left-handed deliverer] had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing». We call this conceal and carry. I’m not making a political statement. You know, they would have canceled the Bible. Isaiah would have gotten canceled. Paul would have gotten canceled. Jeremiah definitely would have gotten canceled. Some of the prophets were walking around naked. Cancel. Cancel. Cancel. Cancel. Some of us have cancel culture in our hearts. Anything that doesn’t look like… Oh, yeah. I’m coming for them this morning, Mama. I’m coming for them on my eighteen birthday. I didn’t come here just to blow a kazoo; I came here to break a chain. Every once in a while you have canceled out something God came to give you, and you keep canceling. He carried a weapon in to deliver his people. First of all, it was concealed. He put it under his clothing.
Watch what he did. Verse 17: «He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man». I didn’t call him that; the Bible did. Don’t cancel me; cancel Judges. He was a fat man. You couldn’t even read the Bible if it was written today. He was a fat man. So, Ehud presented the tribute. «Here’s your stuff. We hate you. Eighteen years of slavery. Keep going». And he sent the rest of them on their way, because sometimes you have to do what God gave you to do, and nobody is going to get it, but you still have to do it. So he sent them away, and they carried it out. «But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal he himself went back to Eglon and said, 'Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you.' The king said to his attendants, 'Leave us! ' And they all left. Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, 'I have a message from God for you.'»
The king gets up from his seat, knowing nothing. If they came in from the tribe of Benjamin, they were probably searched for weapons, but the warriors always carried their weapon on the opposite leg they intended to draw it from. So, if you come in here from a right-handed tribe, we’re going to check your left thigh. But God told him to strap it to the right one. That was the unchecked leg. That was the one nobody thought to look for. That was the thing they didn’t even see as a threat. That was the thing that snuck in unexpected. There are some of you who are in here today, and you are checking the wrong leg. You are checking the wrong source. You are checking the circumstance, but God, when he gets ready to deliver his people from 18 years of captivity, uses somebody who can conceal the weapon on his right leg.
Why his right leg? Verse 21 tells us. Because when the moment came, Ehud reached with his rejected hand, with his weak hand, with his left-out hand, with his looked-over hand, with his less-than hand. You keep thinking God is going to use your special strength. He’s going to use your secret weakness as a secret weapon. Ol' fat Eglon never saw it coming. He didn’t check that right leg, did he? Verse 21 says he took that sword that he made himself from his right thigh and Boom! plunged it into the king’s big ol' King Hippo belly. He walked out, blew a trumpet, got 10,000 Moabites dead, and the land had rest for 80 years. Why? Why did God give them the victory? How did God give them the victory? It was from something concealed.
Not only was it concealed; it was crossed. It came from the other side, which was the right side. You don’t get it. You’re the right one for this, and what you think is wrong with you is what makes you right for this. Hey, work on yourself. Get yourself better. Do what you can do to increase your strengths, but know in the meantime that you serve a God who gave a victory to a nation over an 18-year problem, and he used a left-handed warrior who nobody saw coming. So, turn to your neighbor and say, «Look to the left,» because in this season it’s going to come from an unexpected place. It’s going to come from an unexpected blessing in this season. It’s going to come from an unexpected experience in this season. It’s coming from the left. It’s a concealed weapon, and he crossed it, but I have to show you one more thing.
Not only was it concealed, not only was it crossed where it came from the other side, but the Bible says in verse 16 that this dagger, this sword, was about a cubit. I had to look up… I’m just being honest. I don’t remember. They probably taught it to me in seminary, but I forgot. I had to look up how big a cubit is. Actually, what I Googled was «How big is a cubit in American»?
I don’t want no meters. Do I look like international anointing? No. How big was the instrument that ended 18 years of oppression? Google told me something, and God told me something. Google told me a cubit is 18 inches. I said, «What now»? We’re celebrating 18 years. Eighteen years, and on his eighteenth… No, that’s another Bible verse. Eighteen years of captivity ended with 18 inches of faith. So, you mean to tell me that for every year they were oppressed Ehud made a weapon an inch bigger. An inch for every year.
Do you know how long 18 years is? That’s as long as my oldest son has been alive. Do you know how long 18 years is? Eighteen years is 72 summers, springs, winters, and falls. That’s 18 years. Eighteen years is a long time. It’s 6,574 days. That’s 18 years. That’s 157,788 hours. That’s 18 years. That’s 9,463,280 minutes. All of a sudden, 10 million minutes of oppression ended. Eighteen years of oppression ended because of 18 inches in the left hand, not the right hand. So, God said on this eighteenth-year anniversary of Elevation Church, «What do you have in your hand? It’s enough».
Eighteen years is long. Eighteen inches is short. But isn’t this what God always does, to use the small thing to take down the big thing? Isn’t this what he always does? Taking the mystery of the gospel to mystify the scholar and the wisdom of this age to confound it to be brought to naught. So, I came to remind this church that God called me to pastor this year: this is a church that believes in 18-inch miracles. Hallelujah, Jesus! Eighteen inches is all it took for 18 years to come to an end. Eighteen inches. They say the greatest journey and the longest trip in human experience is 18 inches from the head to the heart. These numbers are approximate, but the truth is very relevant. Some of you are 18 inches away from faith.
Isaiah said, «I know he called me in my head. I know he chose me before I was born, but sometimes my heart gets discouraged and I say to myself, 'I spent my strength in vain. It was all for nothing.'» Have you ever felt that way? I feel that way sometimes talking to you, but I have to remember and you have to remember 18 inches takes time. Some of the things you believe in your head haven’t made it to your heart yet. When they do, when you really believe, «I’m not less than; I’m left-handed. They say I’m weird; God says I’m wired by him, the master workman…»
If I can find a way to preach to you over the next few weeks as I launch my book Do the New You, I’m going to try to get you to see that God has brought you to this moment of your life because you are a weapon in his hand to do good for his kingdom. So, the next time you feel like Isaiah and you feel concealed and you say, «God, I can’t see how it’s going to work out, I don’t see how it’s going to happen, and I don’t see why I have to go through this,» remember it’s concealed, but it’s not canceled. It is still active in your life.
This weapon of the double-edged sword of the Word of God is in your hand today. For Isaiah said and I echo, «Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand». Stop looking at how small it is in your hand and start realizing how powerful his hand is. He’s got you in his hand. Church, he’s got us in his hand. I’ve seen it in the baptism tank. I’ve seen it in the boardroom. I’ve seen it at the bottom. I’ve seen it in the breakthrough. I’m still in his hand. If you know you’re in his hand, lift your hands and give him praise!