Steven Furtick - Even If You Can't Feel God... (12/17/2021)
Pastor Steven Furtick delivers a stirring Christmas message on switching the picture—refusing to let current struggles or unmet expectations define your story when God is framing something far greater. Like Joseph accepting Mary and the unexpected child, or Elijah trusting through famine, faith means building on God's unseen purpose rather than visible circumstances. What feels like an ending or disappointment is often God positioning you for His bigger picture; don't let fear zoom in too close—lift your eyes, trust His frame, and walk forward knowing He's with you, turning shadows into glory.
Switch the Picture God Is Framing
I need to preach an anointed word for somebody who has a gift inside of you. It's not yours to hide. You don't get to tell God what you will or won't do with the 750 million breaths he gave you. In fact, the Scripture says, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord". Because he put it in you, it is only right that you utilize the breath he gave you to serve the Giver who gave you the gift to begin with. He entrusted them with his wealth. The God who speaks oceans with a syllable of his word. They separated from the dry land. He said, "I'm going to give you something. I'm going to give you five. I'm going to give you two. I'm going to give you one".
And the one with one… I did a little research this week. I asked a few people, "You know the parable with the five bags, two bags, and one bag? Which one are you"? Nobody said, "Five". A few said, "Two". Almost everyone I asked… And it was a small sample size. I only asked four people. I mean, it's not like a Barna research poll. It was really informal. But they mostly said, "One". I get that, because I have had people misunderstand our ministry who did not see where we started. Can I preach this? If you did not see where I started, please do not judge where I'm at. I've always considered myself kind of a one-talent man. I can't fix anything.
My mom… I don't know what was up with this. She was texting me pictures of my ninth-grade report cards today as if to give me sermon material for the fact that I'm a one-talent student. The thing about it was I didn't go to Harvard. I didn't go to Princeton. I didn't go to anything like that. Even in preaching, a lot of times I will feel an insufficient vocabulary to communicate the vast riches of the expanse of God's glory, and when I think about how to put into words what I want to say, the Devil will try to get me to downplay the deposit God gave me in order to diminish the gift in my eyes.
But I found out something, and this is what we really want to unleash on insecurity today. This is what I want to give you to help you flip the bag. It's not about how many bags you start with; it's how quickly you can flip it, because God is a multiplier. If God speaks to you today through this message, the very best thing you can do about it is to flip it quickly before the Devil snatches it back. When you come to church or when you watch on YouTube or however you consume this message, the best thing you can do…
To link a few parables for you, in Matthew 13, Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a man who scattered seed, and some of it fell along the path. Some of it fell on shallow ground. Some of it got scorched by the sun. Some of it got choked by the thorns. Some of it fell on good ground, but it said that some of it immediately got snatched. Hold that thought of all of the times God has spoken to you and distraction snatched it or a confrontation snatched it or a fight in the car on the way home snatched it or just the next thing you have to do snatched it or a text message coming through while you're trying to read on your Bible app snatched it and got you another place.
Faith Frames God's Bigger Picture
Think about that, and let's read it again. It said it's like a man going on a journey, and it said when he went on his journey… Verse 16: "The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work". It doesn't say that about the one who got one bag. It doesn't say that he went at once. I never noticed it said at once, but I think it's very important for what becomes of what God speaks into our lives and what God does. If I preach today and before you go to sleep tonight you share with somebody… Before I even get done saying this message, if you are already thinking, "Wow! I could share that with someone", what that does…
You take the word you were given, you multiply it so quickly before the Enemy can snatch it, and it begins to bear fruit in your life because you treat it as seed. When you treat the word as seed and you invest it back, either through sharing it with someone else or acting on it… You have to act on what God gives you before you talk yourself out of it. You have to act on it. There will be no amount of notes you can take from a sermon that will give you the victory in your life. It is when you flip it. That is to convert it from word form into flesh form. There are so many things God has spoken to you that got snatched before they ever did what they were intended to do. Here's the principle: it is not how many sermons you hear that determines how much you grow.
Some people are professional sermon-hearers, professional Bible-highlighters. You should see their highlighter array. They have 48 flavors of highlighter. They have blueberry-scented highlights, but it is not the amount of bags I get. That's why you can see a professional athlete or musician end up broke after making millions. You're like, "Dang, man. Are you serious right now? That guy is broke? That guy made $23 million when he was 19". Yeah. If you would have made $23 million when you were 19, you'd be dead with your dumb, foolish self. You would have killed yourself. At least that guy is alive.
So I started thinking. When I went through it, I was like, "Wow! The one with five went at once". He flipped it quickly. "I'm going to do it right now. I'm going to open my Bible right now, not after I read Facebook, because after I read Facebook for five minutes, I will lose my faith in humanity and God. I have to read it right now, first thing when I wake up. I have to flip it right now". When he did it at once… He went to work at once, but the master stayed away a long time. It took time for it to mature, but he acted on it immediately. That's what the guy with two did.
Now, the beautiful symmetry of the passage is that the man who handed his master four talents experienced the same joy as the man who handed him ten. I'm really blessed by that. It's not about how many bags they handed the master. It was in the process of trusting that joy was born. It means that regardless of what you've been given in your life… Because you're like, "I'm the one-talent guy. You haven't talked about him yet". I'm about to. I'm about to talk to all of the one-baggers. One Bag Billy. Let's give him a name. One Bag Billy.
At first he's kind of excited. He's like, "Oh, cool, man". Remember, only three servants got any bags. This dude is rich. He's going on trips and stuff. This guy has much property, but he's one of the three who got trusted. Remember, when you attach your security to stuff or your significance to status, it's never enough. I wonder if One Bag Billy was happy for a little while, but then he runs into Tommy, Two Bag Tommy. Billy is like, "Oh, Tommy, what's up, man? This is the best day of my life"! And Tommy is like, "Me too"! "Did you get the bag"? Tommy is like, "The bag? No, I got bagsss". "Bagsss? There ain't no bagsss. I got one bag".
Well, here comes Freddy. Freddy is coming up. "I got five bags from the master"! Five Bag Freddy, Two Bag Tommy, One Bag Billy. See, the reason Billy got afraid and hid what he had is because he went on Instagram. I'm going to preach like it's 2020. I'm going to bring this parable to modern times. He went on Instagram on Tuesday, and it was Two Talent Tuesday on Instagram. Five Talent Friday on Instagram. Ol' One Bag Billy starts thinking. "I wonder why I only got one bag. I was feeling pretty good about my bag until I saw your bagsss". "I was feeling pretty good about my little vacation until you started talking about Italy. You went to Italy, huh? Hmm. I went to Myrtle Beach. I used to like Myrtle Beach. You went to Milan. It's all right. Cool. No, I like Myrtle Beach. I'm more of a local kind of guy".
Now I have this bag. Now I'm feeling bad about the bag the master gave me, because it's how we count it that matters. When we hear this, we feel bad for Billy. We're like, "Oh, man. Poor Billy. He's walking around with this bag". Let's look in the bag. Can we look in the bag? We live in a world that worships the bag. We never even look at what's in it. So, what was a talent? It's a weight. How much money do you have to have of silver coins (let's not even talk about gold) to weigh a talent? That is 6,000 days of pay for a day laborer. One talent. Now, you can't convert the economics from Palestine to Ballantyne. It would be somewhere around, what we would call, 1.4 million, because we have words for this. Right? Million.
So I was reading this and I was feeling bad for Billy. I was like, "Dang, man. I probably would have hid it too. I would have been ashamed to work with a million if I was friends with Tommy and Freddy. I probably would be hiding mine too". Until I realized something. It's still a million. That's a lot. Oh, not to you? A million is not a lot to you? How many of you know a million is a lot and you will take it if somebody wants to Cash App it? It's still a million. When you start thinking, "I don't have anything to feel good about right now. I don't have anything to be proud of right now…"
I just want you to look at the Devil some this week when he's telling you you don't have anything and you are not anything. Only you and the Devil will know what this means. Say, "It's still a million". I got really arrogant one time, because the church was growing, and we had a holiday weekend, and there were only 8,000 people in church. One staff member showed me my million. They asked, "How many people lived in the town you grew up in"? It was 6,000. What I needed was to break down my blessings, to break down my bag and remember, "It's still a million".
Here's what I mean. If God never does anything else for me, he has been so good to me. Let me explain it to you. He canceled my sins. He did not treat me as my sins deserve. No, I'm serious. He gave me a purpose for living. He gave me a hope. He called me. He brought me into the kingdom. He put a crown on me. He gave me 750 million breaths, and I ought to use a few to thank him while I still can! You ought to thank him right now for your million! You ought to thank him right now for your bag! You ought to thank him right now for your blessing! It's still a million. Break it down. You have a lot once you start counting it. Come on, let's count to a million. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten… See, when you break it down, it doesn't sound so little anymore.
The Message of Christmas: His Presence Over My Picture
If the Enemy can keep you from seeing the blessings, he can keep you stuck in a place of brokenness. If he can keep you from seeing the advantages or the opportunities, he can keep you running. That's a very important thing. When your vision of who God is is obscured by what you're going through, something very small can block out something much bigger. Something very small can block out something much bigger.
How could I illustrate this? I'm going to try to illustrate this real quick. This is very small, but what you're supposed to see you can't see. This is very small. Right? Something very small can block out something much bigger. Now you can't see anything that's supposed to be seen. Something very small. Maybe it's no coincidence that I'm using this iPhone that has got some of y'all with stomach ulcers because you won't come off of it and see what's right around you or you won't use that Bible app. You have that other app open. What's it called? Insta…what? It's not Instagram right now. It's like Insta-gross.
It just makes me feel… If I stay on it too long, it's like I'm in an alternate reality, and now I can't see what is invisible. Something small can block out something bigger. Okay. Is that camera on? We didn't plan any of this, so pray for your preacher right now. Pray for the cameramen. I'm still six feet apart, by the way. I want y'all to know that. I'm just showing you this illustration, how something small…
This is what 1 Kings 19 says about it. Elijah, who was the great man of God who taught Elisha everything he knows in 2 Kings 6, because this is nothing new, because the same God who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine too… The only reason Elisha knew what to see in the situation he'd never been in before was he had followed the great man of God, Elijah, the prophet, the one who called down fire on Mount Carmel. Do you remember that Bible story?
He said, "If God is God, serve him. If Baal is God, serve him. Choose this day who you will serve". God answered by fire. Eight hundred fifty false prophets, the prophets of Asherah, had to bow their knees. When Elijah got done with that miracle, he went up on a mountain and prayed.
Now listen to this about perspective. We're talking about perspective. He said, "I hear the sound of the abundance of rain. I hear something I can't see. I know something I can't see". When his servant went to check the sky, he said, "I know you said you heard something, but there's nothing there". Elijah said to his servant what we need to say to our souls. "Go back and look again. Go back and look again". "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice". Say it again. Check it again. Look again. Go again. Look again. Say it again in the chat. Say it again in the comments. Say it again. "God is good". Say it again. "The Lord is my shepherd". Say it again. "God is with me". Say it again. "He has not left me". Say it again. "I've never seen the righteous forsaken". Say it again. "He is the Bread of Life". Say it again. "He's a way maker". Say it again. "He's a miracle worker".
When he checked the seventh time, he saw something very small, a cloud the size of a man's hand. Something so small. Three and a half years of drought came to an end because of something very small. But do you know what's weird? When Jezebel, Ahab's wife… Ahab was the wicked king. Jezebel was the one really running the show. One preacher said the last decision Ahab ever made was "I do", because after that Jezebel took over. She would kill the prophets. She was much more ruthless than Ahab was.
When Jezebel heard what Elijah had done, she sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them". "I'm going to kill you". But she couldn't. There are certain things the Devil can't do to you, but if he can get you to believe it, he doesn't even have to do it. If he can get you to get so blocked by something small… How could something so small…? Look at what Elijah, the great man of God, did in verse 3. Elijah was afraid, so he fled, and he ran, and he ran, and he ran. Jezebel couldn't kill him. So since she couldn't kill him, all she could do was convince him.
I believe this message is prophetic in the sense that you are allowing something small to block out something bigger. I promise you right now: God's calling is bigger than any crisis. Trust me on that and read your Bible if you don't believe me. That's how I can go through it: because I know God's calling is bigger. Why would I let something small block out something big when he hung the stars and named them? Why would I refuse to lift my eyes to the hills when I know where my help comes from? There is something bigger. There is something greater. There is something other on the other side of this. I wonder what's on the other side of this that is so big the Enemy sent a storm to disrupt your peace, to destroy your joy. God is with us in this place right now. Do you feel that?
The prophet said, "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them". He must have went to public school. This dude is bad at math. Elisha is bad at math. The servant is like, "Huh"? Because he's counting. Right? He's like, "Those with us are more than those with them. All right. So, one, two", and then he starts counting the enemy. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve…" I know somebody is sitting there listening, like, "Well, Preacher, this is cool. This is neat. But have you seen the news"? I'm like, "Yeah, I saw it". I see the statistics, but what good is it going to do for me to be afraid? I want to be aware, but there's a fine line between aware and afraid.
Let me just say this, and we can edit it out if it's too strong. I think it's dangerous when we start watching a death count on a ticker like it's a score in a baseball game. I think that kind of crosses a line. I think it puts us in a state where we have made entertainment out of misery, and then we become addicted to being afraid, and it kind of feels comfortable. It's like, "Oh, this is normal". Do you know one of the reasons Elijah ran from Jezebel? He was used to running. He had been hiding for three and a half years, so he did what came naturally.
A lot of us, when we get in a fear state, it's because it feels familiar to us. This is like group therapy, isn't it? To know that sometimes we feel more familiar in a state of fear than we do in a state of faith. What the prophet gave him was a different way to do math. I wrote in my notes, "This is miracle math". Miracle math is like this. Are you ready? "There's more of us than them". Huh? Close your eyes and you'll see it. I'm not talking about what you can see; I'm talking about what's more real than what you can see. Close your eyes and you'll see it. This is miracle math.
It's like Gideon. "You have too many men". "Too many men? I'm going to fight a battle. That's exactly what I need: soldiers". "No, you have too many, because if you go in with this many men, you will think it was you who won the battle". When he gets down to 300, God says, "Now go in the strength that you have". "Now go". It's miracle math. It's like Jesus. There are 5,000 men and women and children. What do you have? Five loaves and two fish. It's not enough. Right? It depends on whose calculator you're using. This is not Texas Instruments; this is the Son of God.
"Put it in my hands". "What do you have in your house"? "A little bit of oil". A little bit of time, a little bit of sanity, a little bit of praise, just a weak Wi-Fi connection, but I'm hooked up, hooked in to the presence of God, and God is a multiplier, and God is enough, and God is with me. This is miracle math! "How long has he been dead"? "Three days". That's just right. This is miracle math! God said, "Do a recalculation". I thought I was outnumbered, but I'm not. I thought it was over, but it's not. I thought it was done, but it's not. This is miracle math. He prayed after he encouraged him, "Don't be afraid". He said, "Open his eyes". There's the prayer. That's not a physical statement. His eyes were working just fine.
That's why he was scared. He was like, "My vision is 20/20, bro. I don't know what you're looking at". He was like, "No, no, no, no. Open his eyes". Paul called it the eyes of your heart. Perspective. Now, when the servant looked again (verse 17)… This is the whole message. He opened his eyes after the Lord granted Elisha's request. "…and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha". Let me tell you what's really wonderful about that verse. When Elisha prayed, help did not come; help was already there. When he prayed, "Open his eyes so that he may see", the Lord only had to show him what was already there.
We can pray for provision, and that's wonderful. We can pray for healing, and we should. We really need to pray for everybody who's a nurse or a doctor or a clerk or a law enforcement officer, our first responders, all of it. We need to pray for each other, but the thing we need to pray for more than anything else is perspective. We're coming into a time where what is invisible is more valuable than what is visible, when everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that that which cannot be shaken will remain. We're coming to a time where peace is more profitable than Bitcoin. We're coming to a time where joy cannot rest on external circumstances.
When he looked, he saw the hills full of horses. They were already full. He just couldn't see it. He saw the hills full of chariots of fire. The fire was already burning. Do you know what didn't happen when he prayed? I don't know if you want to hear this or not, but it's true and I need to say it. God did not answer Elisha's prayer by eliminating the enemy. Instead, he illuminated his presence. Faith is not a lever I pull. "God, make it stop".
Faith is a lens I look through to see that God has been there the whole time. He's with you right now. "But I'm still scared". Abbey said, "I'm still scared". "Then just stay with me, and whatever is going on up there…" Whatever is going on out there, you need to stay with your Father right now. You need to stay in faith right now. The only way we can really deal with fear… If we stay in fear, we stay in frustration, and then we get stupid, because you are not very strategic when you're scared.
So don't be afraid. The only way to do that is to change the focus. The situation did not change in 2 Kings 6; the focus did. The only way I know to stop being afraid is to change what I'm focused on. I just need us right now to begin to ask the Lord to illuminate. Not eliminate. "O God, take the fear away". It doesn't work like that. "O God, give me all of the answers. Tell me the plan. I need the strategy". God said, "Before I give you the strategy, I want to give you your sight and shine light on your situation".