Steven Furtick - God Is Trying to Speak to You
This is an excerpt from: God's Got Your Back - Part 1
God’s got your back. We get so distracted by what we’re walking into and what other people have and what they look like. Come on, man. They didn’t even buy that Gucci bag with cash. They put it on a credit card that’s maxed out, and it’s the fourth one. Now you feel insecure because you don’t have what they have. I’m just talking from my heart, y’all. I told the Lord after last week’s sermon, «I will never…» After how God convicted me about David taking the census. I will never go by how many views a sermon gets to verify and validate whether or not it was the word of God. I will never do it again. When I get up here to preach, I only need to know one thing. Did God say it? Is it true? If he did, that means what he begins he backs. What God begins he backs. The Bible says that before you were born in your mother’s womb, God fashioned you. That’s right. Before you got here, God spoke it. You stepped into this world, but God spoke you before you stepped into it.
So, at the moments you feel too weak to walk on, you have to remember this truth that the preacher gave you on this Sunday morning, on this Tuesday night, on this Wednesday afternoon. Whenever you are listening to it, God is speaking it, but he is going to speak it now for when you step into it later, that you remember he backs what he begins. He finishes what he starts. He does not procrastinate. He’s right on time. He’s not running behind. He didn’t forget about you. He said, «As soon as I hear you, I’ll help you. As soon as you call, I’ll answer you. In the day of trouble, I’ll reach down and do it». «Come quickly, Lord! Come quick and help me. Come quick and do it. Come quick with a Red Sea miracle. Come quick move a mountain. Come quick make me strong. Come quick break these chains». He said, «I’ll do it».
God is strengthening me. Watch verse 20. He said sometimes you get the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. He calls a fight food. Isaiah 30:20: the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. Adversity, affliction… That’s the fight. God said, «That’s the food. That’s how I’m building you. I’m bringing you through things right now, and even the things that are coming against you are going to work for you». Because God’s got my back. You don’t need the king of Egypt for this fight. When Hezekiah got serious and prayed to God (look it up), God sent angels into the tents of the enemy and slew 185,000 of them. All you get when you lean on Pharaoh’s staff is a splinter. So why didn’t you say something sooner? Why don’t you say something, not after they ruined your day. Stop letting people ruin your five minutes. Say something to God.
«Okay. I’m off track now. Do you see how they looked at me, Lord»? I will do it to an extreme. You may not need this extreme, but maybe God sent you an extreme preacher because you are extremely dysfunctional. I don’t know. I can tell you how I do it. I have to drop on my knees sometimes just right in the middle of stuff, just sneak off and get on my knees. I think that’s better than to fall flat on my face because I didn’t get on my knees. You have to get a style that works for you, but God said you’re not talking to him enough. That’s why the Enemy is busy… That’s what worry is. It’s the substitute for the prayers you didn’t pray. That’s how the Enemy fills the space with the things you won’t pray about. He gets your faith in reverse so it starts working against you, starts tearing you apart. He’s got you now. But the Lord said, «As soon as you cry… I hear you, and I’ll help you». You can’t make that stuff happen.
You know what? That was an illustration. We didn’t work that out, but God’s got my back. God said, «You need an illustration? I’ll make a baby cry at that moment. I’ll set it up. I’ll make it work. I’ll bring it together. I’ll connect it. I’ll hook it up». Just like that, you can trust in the knowledge and the wisdom of God. I can quit right here or we can keep going. It’s up to you. That was the setup. We did a little who, what, when, where. Right? We did who. The Lord said, «I want to help you». We did a what will he do. He said he will hear you. We did a when: as soon as you cry. As soon as you cry, the Lord will quickly deliver you, but then he will also direct you. Now this is what I had to meditate on, because verse 21 upended a lot of my understanding. It messed with me.
In verse 21, he says, «Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'» It sounds like wherever you go, whatever you do, God will be with you to tell you when to turn, if you’re not stubborn. If you’re stubborn and you won’t pray and you just stuff it all down all the time and you won’t join an eGroup (that’s called a callback), then the Lord can’t direct you. Look. I’m not a bad driver as long as I don’t have to find where to turn. Holly is much better, and usually I listen to her, but the other night I didn’t. We were coming home from my mom’s. I’m going in a traffic circle. She said, «Nuh-uh. Not this one. The third one, the third one, the third one».
Watch what she didn’t do. She didn’t grab the wheel. She didn’t yell at me. She didn’t reprimand me. She just said very softly, which is usually not Holly’s normal gear for talking… She said, «Not this one, not this one, not this one. The third one, the third one, the third one». I was like, «Woman, do you know how many times I’ve come back from my mom’s house? It’s the second one. It’s the second one». She said, «Okay. This is not the same circle. This is the one they put in since the last six months, since we’ve been going the other way to go to your mom’s house on Wednesday night to eat dinner and watch Wheel of Fortune». (We do that every Wednesday night. I love it. It’s one of the highlights of my week. She cooks so good. It’s so nostalgic.) She said, «This is the new circle. This is not the same circle».
Your challenge in your life is going to be that you are going to try to memorize the miracles God does for you and the ways he takes you, not to realize that things are always changing, and the way you raise your kids or approach your life in one season may not produce success in the next season because this is not the same circle. If you don’t have the voice of the Holly spirit or the Holy Spirit (either one will do) to tell you where to turn, you miss it. Sometimes even when the Lord tells you… My friend the other day said, «I had a really bad marriage, but God tried to tell me so many times not to marry that person, it was crazy». I said, «What kind of little signs did he give you»? He said, «Not little signs. She cocked a gun and pointed it at me. I still married her. That was the first sign».
So, that might be God saying, «There are other fish in the sea». Even if there are not other fish in the sea, go kill a deer. Eat that. Get out of the sea. But the passage was so powerful to me. It said whether you turn to the right or to the left, whether you go to Elon or Chapel Hill… I was thinking of a college student right now. You are so stressed about if you made the right decision to go to school here. It’s your freshman year, and you’re thinking, «Is this the right school»? It really doesn’t matter right now. What you have to do is find the right people. We can get paralyzed in decision-making about things that don’t matter as much. I was telling them one time in church how in the town I grew up in, there weren’t so many schools to choose from where to put your kids. I mean, there weren’t so many schools like that, so you just did it, and you got along with it, and you made peace with it.
Sometimes our options are the enemy of our peace. «Oh, I should have done this. Oh, I should have done that. Oh, I could have done that». The Lord said, «Whether you turn to the right or to the left…» The important thing isn’t necessarily the road you take. The important thing isn’t necessarily… I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think you have to come to church here for God to bless you. You can go to another church, and God will speak to you there. You can go to another church, and God will have a word for you there. That’s fine. The important thing is not necessarily about that initial decision, is it? The important thing is not necessarily which way you go but how you walk on that path. The important thing isn’t necessarily which church you go to.
Y’all, I think this is an amazing church. As a matter of fact, this is my favorite church in the world. As a matter of fact, if y’all run me out of this church, I don’t think I will go find another one to preach in, because what could I ever do after pastoring Elevation Church that would live up? All I’d spend my whole time doing was comparing it to this. I mean, if God told me to, I’d have to do it, but I wouldn’t want to. I would do it with a bad attitude if the Lord made me pastor another church. Yet the important thing isn’t what church you go to. You could sit in the back of this church and never get involved and never get helped and never get hooked up and never get connected and never be successful and never be set free, and it’s a great church. You came to the right church. You turned to the right. Okay. Good job. But how are you walking on that path? Whether you turn to the right or the left… Give me verse 21. It’s so anointed.
The Lord said, «You will hear a voice». God will speak to you there. God will speak to you in your rebellion. Even when you turn your back on him, he’ll still speak. Even when you walk away from him, he’ll still speak. He is always speaking. He’s still speaking. He’s still talking. He’s still directing. God didn’t stop talking when you graduated. God didn’t stop talking when you got the job. God didn’t stop talking when you got saved. He’s still talking. Are you still stepping? Are you still growing? Are you still going? Are you still maturing? Are you still changing? Or are you going around in the same circle, missing your turn, because there’s something God is speaking, but you can’t see it?