Steven Furtick - Same Lies New Loops (04/28/2018)
In Lamentations 3, Pastor Steven Furtick introduces the series "Same Lies, New Loops," showing how the enemy repeats the same lies ("it's not enough" and "you're not loved") in new cycles to trap us in despair. Jeremiah, amid national tragedy and personal pain, shifts from circling hurt and past-tense hope ("I had hoped") to present-tense hope ("I have hope") by calling to mind God's unfailing love and new mercies every morning, breaking free through God's truth and faithfulness.
Same Lies, New Loops – Breaking Free from the Enemy's Cycles
When you give them a hug, let them know we're in this together. Let them know God is good. Bring my screen out, would you? Let them know he's still on the throne. Let them know I've got a king named Jesus, and I'm going to be all right, no matter what happens. He already showed me the worst can happen, and he's still great.
Somebody shout, God is great. He's still great. Shout, He's always great. If your God is that great, give him a great shout of praise. Praise the Lord.
Love you, Stacey. Love you, Timothy. I'm looking around for people I love. Love you, Brad. You do? She said, we love you.
I want to tell you something. If we ever got to know each other, we would be best friends, I promise you. Man, we would be texting each other all the time. Silly stuff, stupid stuff.
You feel a sense of love for those you lead, even if you don't personally know them. It's a strange thing to describe.
On Monday, I was praying for you. Now, I was half hung over from my sermon on Sunday. It's a holy hangover, and the Lord started showing me stuff. It was amazing.
He gave me a phrase I want to teach on for the next six weeks. As different events were unfurling and whirling about our heads this week, I was so glad that God spoke to me and gave me this for us, because it's exactly what we need for right now.
I want you to stand to your feet and remain standing until I've read my Scripture. We welcome our EFAM around the world. Although it has been an incredibly difficult week in our nation, we understand that in parts of the world, there are tragedies that we never mention from this pulpit.
But we want you to know that wherever you come from, whatever you're going through, we are here to bring Jesus into your situation. We believe that if Jesus comes into your situation, anything is possible.
The Scripture I want to set up this series with is in Lamentations chapter 3. Did you say, uh-oh? Lamentations is not the party book of the Bible. The name kind of gives it away.
And I think that the Lord, in the way that he does, has something hidden in this for us today, for the questions that we've been asking inside of ourselves, for the isolation that we've been dealing with and not knowing who to reach out to.
And the prophet Jeremiah was writing from a difficult time in the history of the nation he lived in called Israel. In fact, their temple had been destroyed. Many of the people had been carried into exile in a place called Babylon by a king called Nebuchadnezzar.
He had the difficult task of preaching through his own tears into the tragedy of the people. In Lamentations chapter 3, we receive a poetic collection of some of his thoughts after he revised those prayers.
And I want to share with you from verse 17 as he writes about his feelings from this place. Here's what he says. Lamentations 3, 17. I have been deprived of peace. I have forgotten what prosperity is.
In one translation, he says, I have rejected peace. He says, I can't let peace in. I've got so much anxiety, so much fear. I can't let it in. I have rejected wholeness and peace.
And in the ESV, he says, I have forgotten what happiness is. I've forgotten not only how to be happy, but I don't even really remember what it feels like.
Now, after he says that, he gives a little bit of his internal monologue. He says, So, so I say, my splendor is gone, and all that I had hoped from the Lord.
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet, this I call to mine, and therefore, I have hope. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. For his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
One more verse. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. God said, somebody needs to change what you say to yourself. You need to change what you say to yourself.
Somebody shout, the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will wait for him.
Now, the word God gave me for us over this season of our church, he said to talk to you about. Same lies, new loops. Same lies, new loops.
His mercies are new every morning. So are the devil's temptations. Same lies, new loops.
Father, help me give it to them just like you gave it to me. Don't water it down. Don't weaken it with my opinion, but preach it like your word. Help me do that. I give you glory in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may be seated.
The Holy Hangover and God's Timely Word
I have been waiting to worship with you. I can tell when the sermon really gets a hold of me, because I start just drawing stuff and scribbling stuff everywhere.
Whenever I start pulling out napkins in restaurants and asking the server, would you please bring me a napkin and a pen? The napkin they understand, but the pen they look at you kind of funny.
I've been writing all over the house. Same lies, new loops. Let me draw it for you. And the Lord still hasn't healed my handwriting, so we're dealing with it.
Same lies. Somebody say, same lies. Same lies. New loops. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Like an infinity symbol, you know? Yeah. Same lies, new loops.
Holly's Honesty and the Danger of Unseen Lies
Now, Holly is hosting Reflect on Friday, September 19th. It's going to be an amazing time. Holly is an amazing preacher. She's an amazing teacher of the Word of God.
You better be here. It's going to be amazing. She's an amazing wife. Even better wife than she is a teacher of the Word of God.
She's so good at so many things. She's my favorite cook. She's a great kisser. She's a great affirmer. She's a great mother. She's a great encourager. All of these things are true.
There is one thing she is not, though. She is a horrible liar. Holly is a horrible liar. She is the worst liar.
Therefore, you have to be very careful what you ask her about, because if I show Holly one of my songs I just wrote and ask her, how do you like it, I better really want to know, because she is a horrible liar.
How do you like it? She'll do this thing. She'll go, is it finished? Thought it was. Maybe not.
She's just supposed to say, yeah, babe, I think that could be the next gyro. I think that could be the next great… Just lie to me long enough to give me the confidence to put it out there in the world.
No, but she's a horrible liar. Even when she tries to be polite, she's a horrible liar. Should I wear this? Does this look good?
And you can always see it in her eyebrows. You can always see the lie in her eyebrows, because she's going to look at you so, so distinctively before she tells you, yeah, it looks great, that you're not going to believe it, because she's a horrible liar.
There's a game that our kids showed us called Out of the Loop. I think that's what it's called, Out of the Loop.
The way the game works, you have to be a good liar to win it. You pass the phone around the table, right? Everybody gets a category, like animal, and then within the category, there is a certain animal. We say, like, hippopotamus.
And then one person doesn't get to see what the animal is, but they have to pretend like they know what it is. And then you go around the circle and ask questions and say, is it this? Is it that? Could you have this animal as a pet?
And then the person who doesn't know what the animal is, they have to pretend like they do, so nobody will know that they were out of the loop and didn't know it's a hippopotamus.
And so when we play this game with Holly, it's the moment that we ask her, can we have it as a pet? And she'll go, well, and everybody will go, it's mom. Mom's out of the loop. She's such a bad liar.
And I'm glad she's a bad liar. I'm glad for that. I don't want her to get any better at lying.
But there's a problem. When you're not that good at inventing lies, sometimes you're not that good at identifying lies either.
And so sometimes it's hard for you, if you have a hard time telling a lie, to tell when someone is lying to you.
And the problem with this isn't that I think she needs to become a better liar. I don't want anybody in this room to become a better liar. That'd be a horrible thing to want for your church.
But I do want you to become better at identifying the lies that the enemy has been telling you all your life that have kept you lost in a loop of his lies.
God Cannot Lie – The Devil Cannot Tell the Truth
The truth of the matter is, ladies and gentlemen, that God is the creator. He summoned light, said, let it be, and light was. If he called light darkness, it would change and turn out.
God cannot lie. If God said that blue shirt was red, you would watch a transformation, and it would be washed in the blood real quick.
God cannot tell a lie. It is impossible for him to lie. He is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.
As impossible as it is for God to lie, it is impossible for the devil to tell the truth. Because Jesus said in John chapter 8 that when he speaks, he speaks his native language. He's a liar from the beginning.
He's been lying a long time. He was lying before you got here. He was lying over your life when you were just a little baby. He has been planting lies in your mind before you had a conscious thought.
He has been lying to you a long time. It is difficult for you to identify those lies, because rather than tell a whole bunch of different lies, I have noticed that the enemy just hammers the same lies over and over again.
Why? Because the enemy is not creative. God is. He has no light to create, no stars to breathe forth, no sun to put in its place, no waters to cause to recede and bring forth fish in the sea.
And he is not creative by nature. He is created and fallen. He is fallen. He's fallen.
And because he's not created, he cannot be creative. And so, since he can't make anything, he has to make something up. But since he's not creative, he has to be consistent.
The devil is not very creative. If you look at your life, he says the same things to you over and over again. He's not creative, but he's consistent.
He'll tell you the same thing over and over again until you can't tell the difference between his voice and your thoughts. And that's what makes it so diabolical.
The lies come in disguise. If he said it with a big, big voice up here, like Holly, oh, your song is great, man, I would know he was lying because his voice changed.
But did you ever notice that the devil's voice doesn't change when he starts lying in your mind? It sounds just like your own thoughts.
And because you are an honest person, you have a very difficult time identifying the lies that he tells you.
But if you can ever find the lie that he is telling you, you can flow in the truth that God has given you.
And if you can ever find the lie he's telling you, you can begin to fill yourself with what God has spoken and received the peace that is your birthright and inheritance as a child of God.
And you can get your happy back and you can get your home back and you can get your heart back because the devil has hijacked your mind, your heart with lies long enough.
The Two Core Lies – It's Not Enough and You're Not Loved
And the reason that I know that it's him is he is not creative. He only has two lies that he tells over and over again.
And the prophet Jeremiah is believing both of those lies in Lamentations chapter 3, and he's going to a very deep, dark place.
See, there are really only two things the devil ever tells you, and you might want to write this down. So the next time he slithers up to you, that ancient snake, the next time he slithers up to you, he's under your feet.
The next time he starts speaking to you, the next time he starts suggesting to you, the next time he starts tempting you, the next time he starts to make you move your feet, the next
If you feed off the solid rock of Jesus Christ and the Word of God, you can find the lie. There are really only two.
One is, it's not enough, and the second is, you are not loved.
Every lie you've ever believed from the Enemy and every pit of self-pity you've ever dug for yourself and every relationship you've ever reached to that wasn't good for you but it felt good to you was because of one of these two lies.
The Enemy told you so consistently and so convincingly. He told you, it's not enough, and you're not loved.
Am I right about it? Now, I prayed on my knees this week. I said, I'm not going to get up in front of my church and tell them there's only two lies and just say a bunch of stuff.
You have to show me, Lord, what are the two things or three things or four things. He said, there's really only two. There's really only two things.
From the time your mind is conscious and choosing, the Enemy is whispering to you, it's not enough, and you're not loved.
So, I began to search the Bible to see if that was correct, because I don't trust my impressions. The Devil is a liar.
I went all the way back to the book of Genesis and all the way forward to the book of Revelation, and I found out that the snake only says one thing. Did God really say? Did God really say?
That's why he's a snake. He's shaped like that question Mark. Did God really say? To get you to question what God clearly said.
To get you to step outside of how God identified you. He's a liar.
So, he'll tell you it's not enough. He'll tell you it's not enough for you to just believe in Jesus. You have to have a whole bunch of other beliefs. You have to have a whole bunch of other dependencies.
It's not enough just to call on the name of Jesus and be saved. You have to work your way to God. Try to get you so trampled down with shame.
The Devil is so good at lying. He's nothing like Holly. Let me say that for the record. The Devil is nothing like my wife.
He's so good at lying that he'll do it like this. When you're tempted to sin, he'll say, it's no big deal. He'll get you to believe that the power of God to resist temptation is not enough.
Then, when you sin and you need to come to God and confess your sin so he can cleanse you from your sin and purify you from all unrighteousness, he'll try to tell you it's not enough.
He'll try to get you to think that the blood of Jesus is not enough, that the grace of God is not enough.
So, before you sin, he'll try to get you to think that the power of God inside of you is not enough to keep you from sin.
After you sin, he'll try to get you to think that the price that Jesus paid for your sin is not enough to take that sin off of you, to teach you, to roll your shame away, to bring you into a new beginning, to give you new mercies with every sunrise.
And every day the sun comes up, you're waking up in not enough, because the devil is very effective through repetition.
The Infinite Loop of Scarcity and Rejection
It's not enough. Think about everything you have to do today. You start thinking this before the covers come off in the morning. I know you do.
It's not enough time to get it all done. It's not enough money to pay every bill. It's not enough sleep that I got last night.
It's not enough people that I want to see at work to make me want to throw these covers off and get out of these comfortable pajamas with the footies on them and put my uncomfortable shoes on and stand up for eight hours all day, because when I get home after eight hours at work, there's not going to be enough of me to go around for all these people.
And since Since it's not enough, I'm not loved, because if I don't show up enough, then everybody in my life feels like a demand and nothing feels like a supply.
So now the Enemy has got me in an infinite loop of scarcity, because it's not enough and you are not loved.
Now he's got you thinking that you are what you do, and so if what you do isn't enough, then you are not enough.
Never mind that Christ is enough. Never mind that he wouldn't have created you, planned you, brought you into this moment in your life, spoken you into the earth at this time, put you in that family.
Yes, that family, the weird family, the dysfunctional family. Every family is dysfunctional. Stop lying to yourself, saying, if my family wasn't dysfunctional, I wouldn't be.
If your family wasn't dysfunctional, you would be an angel. That's the only nondysfunctional family God ever made. They're called angels. They live in heaven. We live on earth. It's called hell. Get used to it.
Bring heaven to earth and get on with it. The family of God is dysfunctional, but we are here. Do not be deceived.
From "I Had Hoped" to "I Have Hope" – Jeremiah's Turnaround
I was scribbling this down on the napkin, and I was thinking, same lies, new loops.
What I want you to do is pull back up Jeremiah, the prophet in Lamentations chapter 3, and I want you to go all the way from verse 18 to verse 21. This is what we're working on in our lesson today.
Somebody say, same lies, new loops.
Now, if a person lied to you as much as the devil does, how many times would you keep letting them in your front door? If every time they came through they stole something, if every time they came through they tracked mud all over your beige carpet, how many times would it take?
Yet we go through the same lies over and over again. Don't feel bad about it. Jeremiah did, and I am looking for lamentations on this screen. There we go.
Oh, I was stalling. I was stalling bad just now. But look at this. In verse 18, I want you to circle this. He said, "'So I say my splendor is gone, or my glory is gone, or it feels like God is gone, or it feels like my imagination is gone, or my happy is on hiatus, and I can't find it.
I forgot what it is to be happy.' He said, "'So I say my splendor is gone, and all that I had hoped from the Lord. '"
Now, I want you to circle those three words. I had hoped. Put it in the comments, please, if you're watching online. I had hoped.
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
This is the verse we felt so excited about when we read it, because it gives us a new loop. I'll explain in a moment.
"'Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.'" I want you to circle those three words now. I have hope.
The question is, Jonathan, how do we get from here where hope is in the past tense? I had hoped to hear where I got it back. I am preaching better than you're saying amen. That's the truth.
How do I get from I had hoped to I have hope? It's not as easy of a journey as you may think.
By the time you've been going around the same lies over and over again in your mind and you've been looping… I've been teaching a lot on looping in church.
It's the number one thing I've been having people send me texts about. They said it was so helpful how you explained to us that sometimes we don't get in the loop of the Word of God.
Because we don't continually meditate on it, we just consume it, and then we go out into the world and we get consumed. And we get in a different loop.
Now, the problem with the things Jeremiah was saying in Lamentations chapter 3 is that none of them were outright lies on the surface. They all sounded true.
The temple had been destroyed. That was true. Many of his friends and family had been taken away. That was true.
It would never be the same again. That was true. There may be some things that are true of you today, but just because they're true of you does not mean you have to be trapped in them for the rest of your life.
This is where it's difficult, because the Devil would talk to you so good. He's such a good liar. He'd be talking about hippopotamus and trying to describe a hippopotamus, and he's not like Holly. He's a good liar.
He'll start talking to you, and he'll say, you know what? You have been afflicted. You are lost. There have been a lot of people who have left your life.
There is a lot of evil in the world. You ought to be scared to go out in public. Everybody is crazy. Everybody is against each other. Everybody is fighting against one another.
Part of that is true, but you have to be very careful what you say to yourself as you go through what we all go through.
When he said, I am afflicted, when he said, my splendor is gone, when he said, verse 19, please, on the lower thirds, I remember my affliction and my wandering and the bitterness and the gall.
We begin to understand that you cannot be full of bitterness if you expect to be filled with peace. Let me teach you for a moment.
If I am filled with bitterness, I am going to be empty of peace.
Verse 17, he says, I have been deprived of peace, but it's not exactly that somebody took your peace away. Sometimes it's that you rejected it.
Sometimes you reject the peace that God wants to give you about the situation because you believe the lie the devil told you about the situation.
God really wants to give you a peace, but you push the peace away. How? By going around the same loop.
Many times for me, I find myself replaying offenses, replaying movies in my mind that I didn't even like the first time I saw him.
Why would you buy a ticket back to the movie when you hated it the first time? But Jeremiah is in a desperate place, understand.
Not a flat tire. Not a failed class. Not a dropped college offer. Not a little ache in his pinky toe. He has lost everything.
I had hope. I don't have hope. And he goes around and around, and I'm going to tell you what he's doing in this situation. I've done it before myself.
He is circling his hurt. Have you been circling your hurt? Have you been going around and around it and around it and around it?
Now, God left this book in the Bible for a reason. I'm glad God didn't edit it out, because then I would feel like being an overcomer in Christ means I feel no pain.
I would think being afraid was a lack of faith if he didn't leave it all in. He said, I've been afflicted. I've wandered. I've tasted bitterness and gall.
I am so filled with it that I even began to wonder, not only am I not enough, but is God enough?
The Devil won't tell you God isn't enough. You know too many Bible verses for him to do that. He'll start to tell them that he's not enough for you and your situation and how it's different with you.
You start circling how bad it hurts, and it hurts, and it hurts, and it did hurt. It hurt for Jeremiah to lose everyone he loved.
It hurt for them to walk out on you. It hurt for them to say that about you. It hurt for them to criticize you.
It hurt in your body when you were diagnosed with the illness, and then you found out it was worse than you thought.
It hurt, and it hurt, and it hurt, and if I were the Devil, I would keep you circling your hurt.
As long as you remember it more than you recognize God in it, he can keep you going around and around and around and around and around and never get to verse 21.
God Waits for Our Voice – Jeremiah Speaks and God Shows Up
Now, what happens in verse 21 of Lamentations chapter 3 is very powerful. I wrote down in my notes, when you say this point, walk down and make sure they're paying attention.
That's what I'll do right now. You would expect that with Jeremiah, who is a prophet for God… What is Jeremiah? Not a bullfrog.
He is a prophet for the old-timers. I know you don't know about it. You don't need to know about it. It's the same stuff. It works every time.
He's a prophet for God, which means he speaks for God to people. You will think at this moment, and you are understandably wrong, that God is going to speak to him because he speaks for God.
But what blew my mind… I don't mean mind-blow emoji. I mean cold chills up and down my body while I was praying about some of the hurts I keep circling in my life, some of the abandonment I keep reliving in my heart, some of the trauma, if I can use an overused word, that enters my body during high stress times and I don't know what to do, because I am expecting for God to speak to Jeremiah.
But in Lamentations 3, God doesn't speak. Jeremiah does. That changed my life, because I'm expecting him to say, my hope is gone. God is gone.
And I'm expecting God to stand up and say, no, I'm not Jeremiah. I am here, and I am he.
But God doesn't say a word. Jeremiah does. And when Jeremiah speaks, God comes.
God is waiting for you to change what you say, and you are going to see what he spoke when you change what you say.
Show three people. Tell them, change what you say. And if you change what you say, you'll change what you see.
And God will walk in the room. And God will show up in the hospital. And God will show up in a broken heart. And God will show up at your job.
And God will show up in your emptiness. And God will show up in your loneliness. And God will show up in your doubt.
And Jesus will come Jesus will come into your storm, and Jesus will step into your boat, and Jesus will make a wind and a wave die down.
When you speak, call him right now. Somebody say, Jesus! I need you right now. Not five years from now.
I don't have five years for therapy. I need you right now. I need you right now, Jesus.
Please believe me when I say that I know it hurts, but you have to make a decision, don't you? Am I going to keep circling my hurt, or am I going to summon my help, O God?
When you call Jesus, help is on the way. When you say, Come, Lord. When you say, I'm empty and I need to be filled, Jesus shows up.
Yes, I have hurt. That's an old story. Yes, I have hurt. It's human. Yes, some people suck. They're human, but some don't.
God said to remind you that the longer you circle your hurt, the less you can summon your help.
From Circling Hurt to Declaring Help – The Power of New Loops
Let me draw you this. I just pictured somebody in here today, and I was like, you've been circling hurt, circling hurt, circling hurt, circling hurt, circling hurt, but the moment….
I've been drawing on that because I'm trying to fight that Devil that's been beating you down and let him know I lift my eyes to the hills. We're done! We're done!
My hell! All our hell! Hell! Hell! Hell! I've been through hell, but I've got hell! I've been hurting a long time, but I've got hell!
Tell them the world's real crazy, but I've got hell! Tell them the darkness does its best to try to keep us down, but we have hell!
Our God is a very present hell in the time of trouble. The Devil is a very present devil in the time of trouble, but for every lie the Devil speaks.
There is a new loop of the truth of the Word of God that is flowing to his people, and this rock is Jesus! He's the one!
This rock is Jesus! And the wind came, and the storms blew, but my house did not fall, because it was hell! I have hell!
I'm not enough, but I have help! They don't love me, but he does! I'm not enough, but I have help! They don't love me, but he does!
Sing lies! Say all you want, Devil! Keep on talking, Devil! Wear your voice out, Devil! Get laryngitis, Devil!
Talk to me in the night, Devil! Tell me you're going to kill me, Devil! Tell me not to preach this, Devil!
And I just open my mouth and help ten people on the left side of the church. Who am I preaching to? Who am I helping?
The Lord sent me to remind you you have hell! There's more! There's more with us, than with them!
I have angels all around me. I have family all around me. I have Jesus all around me. I have help.
That's what the prophet said. Elisha said, there's more with us than with them.
Same lies. The Devil's got you surrounded again, but whatever is surrounding you, God made a loop surrounding it.
Same lies. How did the prophet Elijah end up hiding in a cave from a woman named Jezebel? He forgot he had help.
He sat down on a broom tree and said, Kill me, God. And God wouldn't kill him. God wouldn't kill him, because he had a new loop for him.
God wouldn't even let you die. God wouldn't even let you abandon the faith. God wouldn't even let you not come to church today.
Hey, you had a bad attitude when you walked in, and God dragged your bad attitude in with your worshiping mouth, and now you found out I have hell.
But you don't know that when you're in the valley. Bring me that Bible in 1 Kings 19. I already sat down. I don't feel like getting back up to get mine, and this was mine before I gave it to you.
Somebody help me. Come on. Help me preach, y'all. I'm not up here by myself. I'm not in this by myself.
Elijah's Loop – "I Am the Only One" and God's Gentle Whisper
The Bible said that Elijah ran 40 days, 40 nights into the cave, and I want to show you the loop he was in because it might be very meaningful to you.
The Lord came to him, and the Lord shows off. When God comes, he comes and does all kinds of stuff.
See, the mountain he's at is Mount Sinai. You remember when God gave the law to Moses at Mount Sinai, and the earthquake came, and the fire of God and the glory of God.
So when Elijah goes to hide in the cave… Because he called down the fire from heaven… But sometimes the thing that makes you powerful on the mountain can make you crazy in the cave.
He begins to say this thing to himself over and over and over again. I mean, it's written two times in 1 Kings 19.
The Bible says that the word of the Lord came to him when he was in his cave, and it said, What are you doing here, Elijah?
And he replied, I have to get up now. I have to draw it. I really want you to get this. I really want this to help you.
I don't want you just to hear me. I want to help you. I know the devil has been lying to you. I know he's been telling you there is something incurably wrong with you.
I know he's been telling you that it's your fault from what happened five years ago that you can't apologize for again, but you can only move forward.
I know what he's saying, but here is Elijah in the cave, and the Lord asked him, What are you doing here?
He's not happy either. He said, I am the only one lie. 1 Kings 19 verse 17. I think that's the right one. Verse 18.
God said, Yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal.
Elijah said, I'm the only one not serving the false god. I'm the only one. Boy, he's got that song on a loop too.
I'm the only one. I'm the only one. Say it long enough, it'll feel true. Treat people that way long enough, it'll become true.
Now it's not just a lie. It's a loop, and it's your life. You say, I had hoped, but I lost it in the loop.
Read the story, saints. 1 Kings chapter 19, verse 10. The Lord said, What are you doing here, Elijah? What are you doing here?
He replied, I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant. True. They did. They did.
Because humans hurt you. They torn down your altars. True. They did that. They put your prophets to death with the sword. That's true. They did that.
And I am the only one left. Lie. But the devil had convinced him so much with stuff that was true that once he got him in the loop, it was easy to convince him of what wasn't true.
Now Elijah is giving this speech to God. How are you going to start telling God how God's people abandon God?
How do you think it hurt you more than it hurt God? But he's been circling this hurt for a long time.
When you circle your hurt long enough, you don't summon your help. You forget how to reach out to who you do have.
You forget to pray how you know how to pray. You forget to be grateful, don't you? You stop saying those gratitude things in the morning.
You stop saying them, because you got up on not enough and not loved, and that got on the loop.
Now watch what the Lord does. He is so kind. Elijah says, Now they are trying to kill me too.
And the Lord said, Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord wasn't in the wind.
And the wind came, and then after the wind there was an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord. The Lord came in all of those ways in Moses' time, but he's coming a different way to Elijah.
Can you let God come to you a different way and not think that he left you? I feel this thing going deep.
If y'all have a lunch appointment, please feel free to leave, but I'm going to finish this message for the hundred people who need to hear it today who have been on the loop.
After the fire came a gentle whisper. I've done whole messages where I whispered for ten minutes.
When the Enemy is lying to you, he's loud because he can't get to you. When God tells the truth to you, he whispers because he's close.
That's why the Devil is so much louder. That's why you have to draw near to God to hear him.
The Bible says, When Elijah heard that whisper… Verse 13. Boy, this font is so small. I can't believe I used to preach from this Bible.
When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Ain't that a crazy phrase? The mouth of the cave. The cave has been talking, just bouncing around.
You're the only one. You ever heard the mouth of the cave? But then comes the voice of the Lord.
I cannot draw God, but I make him bigger than Elijah. I make him happy. I'm going to give him a crown. That's the best I can do, Lord, but that represents you.
God says, Watch this. God says, Watch this. New loop. I say. I say.
The Lord God of Elijah brought you here today to open a new loop over your life, a new way of thinking, a new way of being, a new way of handling adversity, a new way of processing pain.
It's as small as a whisper, but it can change your world. It can break you out of the cycle of thinking that put you in this place all alone, that made you feel shut off and cut off and forgot your help and circling your hurt.
Jeremiah said it 250 years after Elijah learned it. He ministered in a different place, but it's the same lesson.
This I call to my mind. Therefore, I have hope. It is because of the Lord's new loop. It is because of the Lord's voice.
It is because of the Lord's love. It is because his compassions are infinite. It's a new loop.
It's a loop of his love that never stops. It means he's got me in his hand even when I don't understand it in my mind.
It means he's got me in his plan even when I can't prove it with my math. It means he's got me in his sovereign will even when I rebelled and got off course.
The Bible says he asked him a second time, What are you doing here, Elijah? And Elijah replied, verse 14, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
The Israelites have rejected your covenant and torn down your altars and put your prophets to death with the sword. I'm the only one left.
He's still in the loop. Ah, but give me verse 15, where the Lord said to him. .. New loop.
The Lord said to him... New loop. Go back the way you came, and when you get to the desert, I've got somebody in Damascus for you to anoint.
His name is Hazel, and he will take care of the international affairs. Verse 16. After you get done anointing Hazel, go anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel.
He will handle the national affairs. Then when you get done anointing those two government leaders, anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat, from Abel-Meholah, to succeed you as prophet.
Jehu will put to death any who escaped the sword of Hazel, and Elisha will put to death any who escaped the sword of Jehu.
Yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.
Verse 19 is the happiest verse I read you all day, because it says, So Elijah went from there. New loop.
Not, I've been very zealous, and the Lord abandoned me, and it's not about what they did. It's about what he said.
It's not about what they didn't do. It's about what he still can do. It is not about circling your hurt. It is about summoning your help.
The Dragon Cast Down – Victory Already Won in Revelation
If you go all the way to the book of Revelation… Not revelations. It's not Walmarts either. It's just one Mark on this wall, and it's one revelation from John on the island of Patmos.
Not many revelations. I was reading how it ended, and I realized something very powerful in verse 7.
He said that a great war broke out in heaven, and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.
See, we say crazy stuff when weird stuff happens in the world and horrible things happen in the world, and we're like, It's never been like this before.
It's in the first book and the last book of the Bible. All of it. He said there was a war that broke out in heaven, and the angels started fighting for God against the dragon.
The dragon and his angels fought back, but he was not strong enough. And they lost their place in heaven.
Well, if y'all shouted over that verse, you really like nine. And the great dragon was hurled down.
Let me remind you who that dragon is that's fighting against you today. That ancient serpent. He's been lying a long time, and he's real good at his job, but God has been creating longer than he's been lying.
God is better at his job than the enemy is at his. So, I came to remind you today the dragon was cast down, so the next time your soul gets downcast, God has called to your mind the victory that Jesus already won for me.
And verse 11 says, and verse 11 says, and verse 11 says, If you have a testimony, stand up straight. Let the devil know, great is his faithfulness.
Great is his faithfulness. Morning by morning, I've got new mercies, new loops.
Same God, new loops. Same lies, new loops.
We watched the movie A Beautiful Mind, and the man in the movie always heard voices. He always heard voices.
He was explaining to somebody after he had recovered and gotten treatment. He was played by Russell Crowe, the great John Nash.
He was playing this man who suffered from a terrible condition, and he heard voices. They asked him at the end of the movie, did the voices go away?
He said, no, but you just learn not to listen to them.
So, we will journey together over these next weeks not only for your sanity but for your sanctification so you can be set back apart for God from the Enemy.
We will labor together. We will find out how to get from Lamentations 3. 18, where the prophet said, Man, I just kept going over and over in my mind everything I've lost, and while I was going over everything I lost, I was in a loop.
Then in verse 21 he says, Yet I call this to my mind. Oh, I didn't even get to preach that to you. Good. You come back next week, right?
You come back next week, right? I really need you to tune back in next week, because this word is going to be a reversal for some of you.
It's going to be a reversal. This season is going to be a season of reversal to where everything the Enemy has been speaking over you is going to give way to what God says about you.
I have so many napkins around my house with these little loops. Don't make me waste one. Don't make me waste one.
The week I might give the napkin you need, don't be sleeping, because there are some things God wants to show you that are really true.
Invitation – A New Beginning in Christ Today
But today I feel like there is somebody the Lord brought here who has never begun this journey of following Jesus.
You never even took the first step to follow him. Maybe you thought you weren't enough and he wouldn't love you.
Maybe you thought you didn't need him, but you have found in this season of your life that you do need his grace and his strength.
Right now we have a very special tradition at our church where we all bow our heads and close our eyes together. This is for you online, too, and at every location.
The Bible says that it is by grace you are saved through faith. This is the gift of God, not of work, so that no one can boast.
The grace of God is enough to save you. All you have to do is place your faith in him.
The Bible says that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
He'll come get you right now. He's already running your way. God is arms wide open. Just come to him.
With your head bowed and your eyes closed, our entire church family is going to pray out loud for the benefit of those who are coming to God, or maybe you're coming back to God.
This is going to be a new day, a new beginning for you right now. If you want to give your life to Jesus today, you don't have to wait another day.
You can do it right now. Repeat this prayer out loud after me. Everybody praying together.
Heavenly Father, today is my day of salvation. I am a sinner in need of a Savior, Savior, and I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, and today I make Jesus the Lord of my life.
I believe he died for my sin and Rose again to give me life. I receive this new life. This is my new beginning. I am a child of God.
If you prayed that, shoot your hand up on the count of three. One, two, three.
I want to celebrate you all over the room, all over the church. God bless you. We have a Bible coming your way.
This was all worth it if it was just for you. Come on. Welcome home. Welcome home. Welcome home. Welcome to your full circle moment. Welcome. Welcome.
I like it, LJ. Let's sing it a few times. Jesus be the name. Say it. Every location, say it. Say it. Jesus be the name.
Jesus be the name. That gives all the glory. Every location, say it. Jesus be the name.
Jesus be the name. Jesus be the name.
Grab the hand of the person on either side of you. Link up with somebody. Get across the aisles.
And look them right in the eyes and say, I know it's hard. I know it hurts. I know it's heavy. But you have help.
Squeeze their hand real hard so they'll know how strong their help is. Squeeze it until the circulation cuts off.
Let them know how strong their help is. Squeeze it until they realize that God won't let you go, that God won't let you down, that God is able to do.
Exceedingly, abundantly, above all you ask, think, or imagine. In Jesus' name, I dismiss you.