Steven Furtick - Making Headlines (01/29/2026)
This sermon from Genesis 50:20 uses the metaphor of news headlines to discuss how we frame our life stories. The preacher emphasizes that while we can't control the events (the "story") that happen to us, like Joseph's betrayal, we have editorial authority to choose the "headline"—the perspective and purpose we assign to those events. He urges listeners, especially students, to write headlines based on God's purposeful sending, not on pain or circumstance.
God is Building: The Power of Perspective
Thank you, worship team. I want to get right into the word today and the students behind me. Why are they up here? Well, there's a couple of reasons for that. It is student takeover weekend at Elevation Church. A little something we do every year just to remind you that the kids are all right, that we believe that God speaks best to people sometimes when they're too naive to know what God can't do. And I've operated off of that core conviction as a pastor, and I've always tried to speak in a way that didn't under-challenge the students that choose to attend church here. So there will really be not a lot of difference between how I preach today and how I preach most weeks, but just kind of a good visual reminder of who I'm speaking to.
And hopefully, if I do my job, the word of God transcends time. So what I would say would... It's kind of like this. I brought this stool out. It's like, because I've told them to bring a stool so I could be more conversational and sit down on the stool. So I might turn around and talk to them for a minute, and then I might turn around and talk to you and talk to them. Rough crowd this morning out there. Last night's crowd was better, but it'll be all right. And they turn around and talk to you. And what cool thing is, they've got cameras everywhere. So if I'm talking to them... Ah. See how I... Or if I go here... We're ready for this. That's what I'm saying. Are y'all ready for this? That's what I want to know. All right.
And it's just kind of a way for me to share some stuff that you need to hear and stuff that some of you wish you would have heard. But it's never too late to dream a dream. In Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, there is one of the most profound statements that a human makes in the Bible. To me, it's more than just one person's statement. It's really a picture of how God works in our lives. How many know that God is working in your life right now? You say, well, I don't really see evidence of anything that he's building or it feels like things are being torn apart.
Often what God deconstructs is just as important as what he develops. And so you're either in one of those phases right now where God is building something that you can see, or he's digging something out that will make room for a foundation that he wants to pour. But either way, he's building. Touch somebody. Say, "God's building." God is building. And so in the context of Genesis, we see God not only building people, but he's building a collective nation. And in order to do that, he has to select individuals. And so we see simultaneously how God protects and preserves as well as provides, and he does it all through purpose. He does it all on purpose.
God's Good Intentions Overrule Everything
In fact, that's what Joseph said toward the end of his life when he's looking at the cast of characters that for much of his life kept him in all kinds of conflict. But when he wanted to say what he had to say to the people that he had to say it to, here's what he chose to say. He said, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." God's intentions are good intentions. Don't let anybody ever convince you, because of the portrait of God that they paint, that God is out to take the fun out of your life, or that God is out to take the adventure out of your life, or that God is somehow out to sabotage your success. God's intentions are good intentions.
And we live on the level of what we believe about the way that life is oriented, and you either kind of believe that life is randomly happening to you or that it's designed. And so Joseph chooses here to take a view, looking over a very painful period, of a divine design that was guiding his life all along. It is one thing for your life to be driven by your good intentions. It is another thing for your life to be guarded by God's intentions. Because a lot of us have good intentions setting out, but get stopped along the way. And what Joseph said, and I love it because I've experienced it, is that when your good intentions fail and when the intentions of others toward you are evil, God's intentions are always the final word.
I'm saying this for somebody who's been through something today, that no matter what people intended it for, or no matter what the original intent of an event was in your life, God's intentions can overrule and create something beautiful out of something broken. Joseph states it, not theoretically, but practically. Now, I know you heard this message already last night, but I'm doing it different already. Can you tell? I'm not going to let you get bored up here, so this is going to be a little different today. But the idea here that he says is that "God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
Making Headlines: How We Frame Our Stories
I want to speak to you for a few moments on this subject, Making Headlines. Have you been watching the news lately? I know you guys are all news junkies up here. That's what you do every morning. You look to see what's going on in the Middle East. I know. I know. It's the most urgent and pressing in your life. I didn't watch the news when I was your age. I don't watch it much now, but what I've been doing lately is kind of cool. I watch the news on mute, so I turn it on while I'm doing something else. Usually, just if I'm exercising, I'll put the news on. Wade works out with me, and we'll put the news on mute, and then we listen to great music, music you know nothing about, music that is too fine for your taste.
You will never understand the beauty of Pearl Jam. You will never understand the beauty of Nirvana, but I do. But I do. I do. You will never understand the mythical elegance of Axl Rose, but you don't need to. It's a different day for you, so we all have heroes. Well, I'll listen to music, and I'll watch the news, and it makes the news more entertaining if you just watch. If you just watch it, because when you just watch it, you don't hear all of the story. You just see the headlines, and then you can kind of guess at what the story is based on the headlines. But the problem with that is the headlines can be a little misleading. A little misleading.
Not that the news would ever put anything out there that was not 100% true, but it's an interesting thing about headlines, because we live in a world of clicks, and so in order sometimes to get your eyes to not turn away from a channel or to get you to click through on the link. Have you noticed that they're having to make the headlines more and more sensational? How they're just having to say the craziest things? And I get it, because we're all so busy, and there's so much vying for our attention that they can't just put the actual story on the headline. Nobody would look. We're just used to that.
So they have to make it so crazy in how they say it that you can't look away. And it usually works. It works, for me at least, is that if I see the headline, and if the headline is crazy enough, I've got to keep reading. I've got to keep watching. Who has my headlines? Oh, Ellie. So I just brought a few of these just to demonstrate. You can hold them up. You can be Vanna White. You have no idea what that means. Some of y'all, that broke your heart. This will be the moment that you realized how old you are when I said Vanna White, and she said. It's all right, Ellie. Just hold up this first one. Here's an example. This is a while back, but it just shows you. "Ebola in the air. A nightmare that could happen."
Decoding Sensational Headlines
Now, that headline may be true on some level, but they are arranging it in the most frightening way that they could possibly construct words in a sentence so that you have to what? Read on. You have to keep watching. Because what this doesn't tell me is, where is this Ebola? So it's in the air. Never mind. It's on another continent, but they're not going to put that in the headline. They want you to think it might be in your car. Why? Because if it might be in your car, then you have to continue to look or to listen or to read. So it's a nightmare that could happen. The implication is it could happen to you. So now you're studying about it. Now you're buying surgical masks. Why? Because the headline was so horrible. "Ebola in the air." If you read a headline like that, you can almost smell Ebola because of the way they put it. It's like it could happen to your kids. It could happen to your pets. It's probably happening to you right now, but that's just the headline.
Put the next one up. This one has a religious implication, so I thought you would enjoy it. This was a few years ago as well. "Killjoy Pope crushes Christmas nativity traditions." So the actual story behind this was that the Pope was questioning some of the historical accuracy of what we traditionally believe as the Christmas story. Like Jesus wasn't technically born in December or the actual time period that we celebrate around the birth of Christ is probably not historically actually when it happened. And so the Pope was sharing a few of those scholarly insights, but they can't print that in the headlines. "Pope raises scholarly insights as to the historicity of the account of Christmas and some slight modifications that may be..." You're not reading that. Touch somebody, say, "I'm not reading that."
But if the Pope is crushing baby Jesus and strangling the wife... I have to find out about this. Oh my God. How can we say it? "Pope alters Christmas." No, no, no, no, no. "Pope questions Christmas traditions." No, no questions. "Pope crushes Christmas traditions." Okay, that's one. Now, here's the stuff that your parents forward on Facebook. This is examples of the stuff that your parents share, okay? And this is the kind of stuff that they put out to get you to read on and then pass it on. And I might get back to the text in a minute, but this is way too much fun, so I don't want to stop right away. But this is an example of the… They call it clickbait. Clickbait. They're baiting you to click it, and they have to say crazy stuff.
"Dying for a coffee. How too many lattes could lead to an early grave." Not that they could affect your health adversely, because we're all doing stuff all the time that affects our health adversely. That's not going to stop us in our tracks. But if my latte is killing me…. And I read that. This is my favorite one of all of them. I don't know why. It just makes me think of all the people that run to their refrigerator after they read something like this. "Ten deadly foods you probably have in your kitchen." You probably have them. You probably had one for breakfast. I've got to know. They say that five times as many people read the headlines as actually read even the first sentence of a story. Thanks, Ellie. You can put that down for a moment.
The Devil Wants to Be Your Editor
The interesting thing about headlines, and I know this even as a preacher, is that if you don't get the right title… It's kind of different when I'm preaching to you because you're stuck. You're already committed to be here. You might not come back next week, but you're at least going to politely sit through. So if I give you the title, it's not very good. But when I put my stuff online, I've noticed that because there's such a fight for attention, I have to think more about what to call it because people really won't click on anything that doesn't revolve around their personal interest.
So if you put a title out there, "How to Honor God," the people that you really want to reach… I'm going to read that because they're not walking around wondering, how can I honor God? But if you said "the real reason you're stressed…." Then when you get into the teaching, you talk about how when we give weight or honor to things that are not God and treat them as they are God, they cannot hold the weight of our expectation, and so our hearts are heavy with stress. So what I did is… I didn't… I guess I did. I kind of baited you with the thing that you're thinking about to get you to the thing that you need to know. And all effective communicators do it. But I would say that the news media sometimes abuses it. Abuses it. Not all the time, but sometimes.
And I learned my most valuable lesson about the importance of headlines from when I was personally the subject of a headline. They had run a series of reports about our church almost two years ago now. And at the center of it was about the home that Holly and I had built. A nice home, an expensive home. And so I talked to the church about it the week after the stories ran. So the stories ran on maybe Thursday and Friday or something like that. And I talked to the church on Sunday. Monday, on the front page headline, they had taken what I said and produced a headline out of it that I didn't say.
In fact, one of my friends said, "I'm so glad I was there to hear what you actually said. Because if I just read what they said you said, I would hate you." Anybody would hate you if they thought you actually said what they said you said. But I didn't say what they said I said. What they said I said is what I would have said if I had smoked crack before I came up to preach. Nobody would say what they said I said. But they said I said it, and they put it on the headline. So most people aren't going to go back and watch and read what you said. They're going to read what they said. Tell somebody, "I see what he's saying." That's right. You see what I'm saying?
They put the headline, and they take this out of context, and they skip that, and they put that, and they put that. So I was so mad about it. I wasn't really mad about it until my friend said, "You know, I would hate you if I hadn't heard what you actually said." I was like, really? Some other people might hate me. And I am not hateable, people, of all things. I am not hateable. That's not one thing I am. So I wanted to call the paper, and I wanted to tell the writer what I thought about her little article. But before I did it, and her headline especially, because the article was one thing, but the headline was another.
You Are Not the Author, But You Are the Editor
So I was about to call her, but before I did, I called my friend who had been through something like this before, who had been in the news before and wasn't always positive, and I said, "I'm going to call the writer because listen to this headline." And I read the headline, and I said, "This is what they said, and I'm going to tell her that that headline is not accurate." And my friend someone said, "Don't call the writer then, call the editor, because the writer doesn't choose the headline, the editor does." This is like a journalistic secret. A lot of people don't know this, but the journalist may write an article and hand it to an editor, and then the editor decides what headline to put over the story based on what will get the most people to go, "Did he really say that? Did they really do that? Did I really eat that? Is that really true? Did the Pope really hate Mother Mary?" You know, whatever.
So, it's to stop you in your tracks. And the editor's job is to try to figure out what will stop the most people. And I think the devil's job is to try to figure out in your life and in my life, and in the lives of these students. What can I put in big, bold letters across the top of their story that will mislead them away from their ministry and away from their purpose and away from the real meaning of life? I believe that if you let him, the enemy will sit at the editor's desk of your life. And he'll take the facts of what happens to you and the facts of what you've been through. And what he'll do, he's really good at it too. He'll suggest all of this in your mind, by the way. You're not looking for a guy with a pitchfork. You're looking for a guy that looks an awful lot and sounds an awful lot like you.
This is how he does it. He gets inside because they're both running the same organization, you understand. It's your brain and then it's the enemy, and so the enemy, if you let him, he'll take everything that happened to you. And he won't necessarily tell you stuff that didn't happen. He'll arrange it in such a way to get you to click through. And he'll hit you with such a thought that seems so conclusive. He'll hit you with such a thought that is so gripping. See, that's what he's trying to do. That's what they're trying to do on the bottom of CNN, the bottom of Fox News, and the top of whatever paper that you want to read above the fold. What is the thing we can say at the top that will keep them from reading on to find out the real story, that will cause them to click through? What can I tell them?
Maybe I can tell them that because they were abused, they're worthless. Maybe I can tell them that because they struggle in this one subject that they're learning disabled. Yeah, that's what I'll tell them. I'll put a headline over their life when they're young. It'll say, "Tina has a learning disability." And so when Tina thinks of herself, she'll think of herself in terms of one limitation in one area, but I won't let her see that it's just one area and that she's really got gifts in other areas that can shine if she can stick with it and if she can focus on what she's good at. But I don't want her to see that. I want her to read the rest of my story instead of knowing the real story.
Choosing Your Headline Over Your History
Maybe if I convince... What's your name? Zion. If I convince Zion... That's too biblical of a name. What's your name? Huh? Micah! My God! What have you got up here? The disciples? Freaking all the prophets. Where's Jeremiah? Who has a normal name? Lauren. Lauren. Maybe if I convince Lauren that nobody loves her. That nobody loves her. There will, in fact, be a lot of people in her life who love her. But if I can put her loneliness as the headline over her life, I can get her to do things to try to experience the semblance of love that will keep her from ever really understanding the substance of it. I just said a whole lot with just a little… The semblance can keep you from the substance.
Maybe I can convince them that they're an addict, and then maybe they'll think they have no control, and then maybe they'll think that they're not accountable for their actions because it's just who they are because it's who their dad was. Maybe then I can convince him that he'll never be a good dad because he never had a good dad. Maybe I can take the fact that his dad walked out when he was seven, and if I print that big enough and say it often enough and drop it off at his doorstep every day as a reminder… Maybe then I… But the devil is a liar. See, here's what I found out. Here's what the Charlotte Observer taught me. Here's what I learned from Huffington Post, and here's what I learned from Joseph.
You don't get to control your story, but you do get to choose your headlines. You don't get to select the script of your story. Ask Joseph. He wouldn't have chosen to be thrown into a pit by his brothers when he was 17 years old. He wouldn't have chosen to be falsely accused of rape and thrown into a prison as a reward for his excellent strategic management of Potiphar's house. Yet all of these things happened, and all of these things were traumatic, but they were not defining. Just because it happened doesn't mean it has to make the headlines. The one who writes the story is not the one who chooses the headlines.
You know, life is going to put some stuff in your story that you wish you could change and some stuff in your story that you didn't choose. Yet Joseph, with a rape charge, false imprisonment, near death at the hands of his brothers, at the end of it all, as he is publishing the proclamation of what his life has been all about, has the editorial authority to look at everything that he's been through and see all of those events that could have marked him and in many ways probably did shape him, and I'm sure pained him greatly. But when he said at the end of it all that you meant it for evil, and if you were writing my story, you would have had me as a slave. But I'm not a slave.
And if you were writing my story, you would have had me as an arrogant 17-year-old who didn't know any better than to keep his dreams to himself. But I've changed from that. And if you were writing my story, and if life were writing my story, I'd be a victim. But I refuse to let what happened to me when I was 17 be the headline of my life when I'm 30. And I refuse to let the divorce that I went through when I was 30 define me when I'm 40. And I refuse to let the parenting mistake that I made when I was 40 define me when I'm 50. See, in other words, I'm not just allowing life to write my headlines. Now, things can happen to me, but there's a big difference between what happens to me and what I headline.
Same Event, Different Headline: "You Sold Me" vs. "God Sent Me"
I'm trying to say, and maybe I should just say it because I'm afraid it won't come across if I don't put it this plainly. You are not the author, but you are the editor. Now, that's a different relationship. I write books. I just finished my fourth book. Guess what the editor does not do in the role that he has? He doesn't determine what the book is about. In the same way, I don't believe God has really called us to determine what our life is about. I think he's already given us that. I think Joseph illustrates it clearly. He said, I was put here. In fact, he uses a word. He says, "I was sent here to save lives." I was sent here. I know, devil, you're trying to tell me that the reason I'm at this new school is because my parents suck and they never should have moved, and I was happier in Ohio. I know you're trying to tell me that. That's fine. That's fine.
When you can tell me that, you can suggest that, but I ultimately get to decide the reason I'm here, and I choose to see it, that I was sent. You need a dream to drive your decisions. You need a dream to drive you toward your destiny. What you don't need at this point in your life is the details of that dream. Joseph was 17 when he saw a vision that he didn't understand. He saw something that was beyond his maturity to comprehend or really even handle, in that he saw himself surrounded by 11 sheaves of grain, bowing down to his sheave of grain. He was seeing a picture of how one day his brothers would come and bow down before him, followed up by a second dream.
When God is doing something in your life, he'll reinforce it in various ways. You see a little here, there, a little, and you see a little, and you do it a little bit, and you read this, and you see that, and the pastor will say this, your friend will say that, and your mom will say that, and God will start speaking. And you'll start to feel something, but you won't really know the details. You'll just know that your dream is in development. The second dream he sees, he sees some stars, and he sees the stars and the sun and the moon bowing down to him. So this time it's not only his brothers, but his parents that are going to be dependent on him.
He almost sees it in a way that's very ambitious. At the end of his life, when we met him at the beginning of the sermon, where he's speaking to his brothers, who hated him so much that instead of leaving him for dead, which would have actually been a kindness, they sold him. Now, I was reading something, and I want to go a little deeper into this. Is this good preaching? I want to go to this real quick because you get a little more insight into how Joseph refused to let the enemy be his editor. Why in the world would you let your enemy be your editor? Why would you let your doubt and your cynicism and your negativity and your past tell you where you're going?
Choosing Your Point of View: Victim or Sent?
So Joseph is explaining to his brothers the point of view because everybody writes from their point of view. That's one of the things you have to decide if you're writing a story is, what's my point of view? Joseph is explaining to his brothers his point of view that allowed him to come to this place where he could say, "I know the story should be they sold Joseph out, but that's not what I'm going to call these chapters of my life." It says in Genesis 45, verse 4, "Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'Come close to me.'" Now, I would have called them close so I could get my hands around their neck after what they had done to me. But he understands that he is only responsible for his response. You are not responsible for all of the events that occur, only your response to those events. Your parents' divorce was not your fault. The devil is a liar. If he's been telling you that, kick him off the editor's desk and tell him, "I refuse to see it that way. That's the wrong lens. That can't be true. That is not God."
But he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, the one... Watch this. You sold into Egypt." You got it? You sold. And that's the headline. "Joseph's brothers sell him as a slave." Cruel brothers sell cocky kid with a colorful coat, I don't know, as a slave into Egypt. That's the headline. That's the clickbait. That's how most of us in the room would have written it, by the way, from Joseph's point of view. You sold me. He says it. It happened. You sold me. You did it. It happened. You sold me into Egypt. Now, don't be distressed and don't be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me. Now, we've got two possible headlines here that we can choose from.
Remember that Bible that your parents used to have? It was some inductive method study Bible. I went to seminary. I don't even know what that means. But one thing I remember about a big old, thick Bible. I'm telling you, the Bible was like that. It was big print, and I think that's why your parents had it. Can y'all hear me okay? So, this big, thick Bible…. It was cool because it had all the same chapters in the Bible, but you know how, like, in this Bible, before each chapter, it has a heading that tells you what that chapter is about? This Bible was cool because it had a blank space where normally the heading would be. The idea of it was because it had big old margins where you could write notes in the margins, but my favorite part was that you got to choose your own heading.
Write Your Own Heading: "You Sold Me" or "God Sent Me"?
So let's play a game right now. Let's choose our heading for Genesis 45. We're just going to do two verses. We can't do a whole chapter right now, but I'll just get you started. Maybe this will give you a new way to look at your life. Maybe this will give you a new way to look at bankruptcy. Maybe this will give you a new way to look at the child you didn't plan to have but you had him, and you're a little older than you thought you were going to be. And maybe this will give you a new way to plan for the thing that you flunked and the thing that you failed at and the thing that embarrassed you. Maybe, just maybe. In Genesis 45:4, it said, "You sold me." In Genesis 45:5, it said, "God sent me." Same event. Different headline.
And the headline you choose about an event determines whether you stay stuck in what happened or if you move forward to where you're headed. Wow. I don't write my headlines about what happened. I write my headline based on where I'm headed. That's why it's called a headline, because I'm heading somewhere. I have a dream and I'm going toward it. Come on, praise him if you want to. You don't have to. But if it makes you feel good to know that even though you can't control the story, you do get to choose the headline, make some noise. Yes, it happened, but it's not where I'm headed. Yes, I did it, but it's not who I am. Yes, it's my history, but it has no place in my destiny. I have editorial authority over everything that comes into my life. Thank you, God.
Don't even worry about it, because while you sold me out, God was setting me up. I am not writing my headline according to the pain I felt. I'm writing my headline according to the purpose that I believe. I'm not writing my headline out of my pain. I'm writing it out of my purpose. I used to say it was the biggest regret of my life, but if I keep the headline "regret," it paralyzes me, because I can't really do anything about a regret. Once I click that bait, instead of taking me forward into the future, it leaves me bound. So, I don't call it a regret anymore. I'm changing the headline. Now, I can't change the story. The story is the story. Facts are the facts. The thing is the thing. But wait a minute. I might rather call it a lesson. See, if I call it a regret, I have to live in it. But if I call it a lesson, I can learn from it and move on.
"You sold me." "God sent me." Same event. Different editor. Why would you let your enemy edit your life? Why would you hand him the pen? Why would you submit your story to the devil and ask him what you should call it? Yeah, we do it every day. We do it every day. It's in the way we talk. You want to know what somebody's headline is? Ask them this. "How are you?" And you'll get their headline. What most of them are going to say, and it may be true, and it's probably true, and I feel bad for you because I know it's a hard world, but we'll say something. "I'm tired." How are you doing? "Tired, man. Just tired." I just want to ask a question. Is that really what you want to lead with? Because you might be tired, but do you really want to lead with that? Is that what you want when people see you? Do you want to wear the badge of tired? Man, what I really love about Susie is she's always tired. It lets me know she's busy, which means she's valuable. Is that the headline you want?
Write the Headline of Your Difference
Because if you headline your thinking like that, if you headline it like that, then, well, it's going to stop you from seeing the rest of the story. I don't know what you would change "tired" with. I don't know. I mean, how are you doing? "Man, I'm good. Life is really full." I like that headline better. Life is full. That means whatever was put in my life was put there on purpose. If something is full, that kind of means it's like a cup or something. I like that better than "tired." That means I'm drained. I don't want to headline the hole in the bottom of my cup. I want to headline the blessings that are running over. If you start talking like this and you start thinking like this, it'll give you the idea that I'm sent. I'm sent. Touch three people, tell them "God sent me." I have an assignment.
What I love about Joseph's life is that God even used his ignorant ambition to lead him to his ultimate assignment. At the beginning of his life, it was all about status. Man, I saw the sheaves of grain, and they were bowing down to me, and it was awesome. After the grain bowed down to me, then all of the solar systems started bowing down to me. What did you guys think about that? It was ambitious. What time taught him and what trauma taught him and what events taught him is that the headline of the dream was never about your status. The headline of your dream was the difference that you were sent to make.
I wanted to challenge a group of teenagers before the school year ever starts to go ahead and write the headline for the difference that you're going to make this year before the first bell rings on the first day. Go ahead and write the headline now. Write the headline now. I was 16 when God started stirring me to start a church, and a lot of stuff happened between now and then that I wouldn't have expected or couldn't have the scripted. Some good, some bad. Some was faster, some was slower. All of it was different, but God put the ambition there. And so the ambition to do it was more important than the details of how it would be done. I didn't know what the first line would be, but what I love about God, what I love about God. The Bible says, "This is the day the Lord has made. We rejoice and be glad in it." Now, we always talk about that verse in praise and worship, like, everybody rejoice, everybody rejoice. But the part I like is, "This is the day he has made." That means he authored it. That means he authored it.
Knowing the Last Sentence Changes Everything
I read about one of my favorite novelists. He writes these big, long novels. I only read two of them. He's one of my favorites because two of the only ones I've ever read. I don't know. There's probably better ones, but he's the one I happen to have read. But I wanted to find out all about how he wrote. You know how he writes? He said, "I don't start writing until I finish the last sentence." And they said, "Really?" He said, "Never. I've never started a novel until I've figured out the last sentence. Because once I figure out…." Genesis 50:20. He didn't say this. Now I'm making it an application to the Bible. He said, "Once I figured out how it's going to end, then whatever happens to the characters along the way, because they're going to get tangled up, and they're going to have tension, and they're going to have dysfunction, or it's not even going to be a good novel, and everybody's going to put it down. But if I have that last sentence…."
What Joseph gives us in Genesis 50:20 is the power of a good headline and a hopeful conclusion. God says, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah wrote that to people who would be in captivity, to people who would be taken away, to people who would be ravaged, but he said there's a hopeful end. There's a hopeful plan. This is headed somewhere. And when you know that your life is headed somewhere, when you know that it's going to end somewhere with you fulfilling purpose, no amount of pain can cause you to stop your progress, because you've already seen the last sentence. And I want to give you the last sentence of your life today. I want to give you the last sentence of your life, and a lot of things will happen, and a lot of stories will be written, and you'll go, "Whoa, I didn't see that coming, and I had no idea this would be that hard, and I never could imagine my heart would be broken," or you'll have, "I never thought I'd have this opportunity, I never thought I'd have this blessing."
But the last sentence goes like this. "And we know that in all things..." Is there a church that helps preachers? Is there a church that helps preachers while I'm trying to preach to young people? "We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose." There's the word again. Purpose is the last word. Purpose is the headline. Purpose is the last word. Purpose is the headline. Purpose is... You didn't sell me. God sent me. You sold me out. God set me up. I'm writing a new headline over this chapter. And I'm calling this chapter "victory." I'm calling this chapter "conquest." I'm calling this chapter "growth." I'm calling this chapter "maturity." I'm calling this chapter "a new beginning." Come on, write your headlines, church. Get your Sharpie out.
I don't know what's going to happen to you this school year, but go ahead and write the headline, not according to what might happen and who might like you and who might let you sit with them at lunch and who might ask you out and what party you might get invited to. And we're going to get those J's and we'll do something to jump. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's the fine print. But write the headline. Melchizedek, wherever you are, Bible names. Write the headline. Write the headline. It's something you do daily. You know, it's in the small things. I'll just write one down for you. If you will write that headline just at one. There's a movie y'all never saw called Back to the Future, and he went and he got the sports almanac, and he got to see the sports results and come back and bet on sports that he already saw. So you might want to write a headline if you read the back of the book.
The Headline is "I Win"
Now, listen, it's going to be battles this year, but some kind of way, somehow or another, through hell, through difficulty, through challenge, through adversity, whatever it may be. The headline is not how hard I fought. The headline is, "I win." I win. That's my headline. And please, as a generation, please, as a generation, don't let this world write your headlines for your, what kind of character you have. I am so sick of hearing pundits talk about what this generation is and what they're not. "Ah, they're the most biblically illiterate generation in history." I heard somebody say that the other day. "We are now, our teenagers now," and they said it just like this, "and our teenagers now are the most biblically illiterate generation in history." And I know the book of Ruth from a baby Ruth.
Let's make headlines this year in our communities about some students who went to school like they were sent, who were deployed for destiny. Joseph said, "You didn't drop me. God deployed me." I'm changing. I'm waiting on you to shout, jerk. I'm waiting on you to shout. Shout about it. Shout about it. Shout about it. Lift your hands and pray.