Elevation with Steven Furtick - Bonus Episode: Protected By God's Presence (Praise Party 2019)

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

When what you’re facing seems too big to handle, God will see you through it. In “Protected By God's Presence,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church reminds us that the proof of the presence of God is not the absence of problems, it’s in the middle of them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to the Elevation Church podcast. Today, we wanted to share a message with you that Pastor Stephen preached at our annual praise party on New Year's Eve, 2019. We never could have known the hardships that would be ahead, but we believe this message will still encourage you that no matter how big our problems may seem, we serve an even bigger God.

Enjoy the message. I believe that God has given you strategic influence and he's positioned you. And I want to help in this new year to set a trajectory for your faith that you can believe that God is going to use you to make a difference wherever you are. Tell somebody next to you, you're a big deal. Ask them, can I get a selfie with you? In fact, pull out your phone right now. Would you do that?

Just real quick. Real quick. Pull out your phone. up your camera app, put it in selfie mode, and point it right at that beautiful face of yours. And when I say three, I want you to take a picture. Are you ready? Come on, we're going to do this together. And there's a reason for it.

When I say three, I want you to get a picture real quick. Are you ready? On every location, if you're ready, say ready. One, two, three. Cool. I just wanted you to have proof. I just wanted you to have proof. Because all this year, the enemy is going to try to get you to think that you can't make it.

And that your faith isn't strong enough. And that you don't have what it takes. And that you can't survive the storm. And when he does that, I want you to pull that picture up and remind him that he told you that same BS at the beginning of 2019. I'm sorry, it's late. My filter comes off at 10.30. And I want you to have proof that the weapon may be formed, but it didn't work last time, and it won't work this time. And so when he comes in your face trying to make you think this is the end and you can't do it and you're not enough and you are not significant, I want you to show him that selfie how.

you were in church for the last hour of 2019 and all through the next 10 years just flash it at the devil and say I've got proof. You know, we so easily confuse the presence of God with the absence of problems. The goodness of God with the absence of problems. I'm preaching already and I haven't read my verse. Kings chapter 6 verse 8 how many of you this is your first New Year's Eve ever in church how many of you if I knew what you were doing last New Year's Eve I'd be really proud of how much progress you've made wow you're my favorite in second kings chapter six there is an illustration

of what happens in these moments where we must make a decision whether we are going to view our life through faith or through fear. And I want to share it with you from Second Kings Chapter 6, beginning in verse 8. And please pray for me because I take these moments seriously. Not so much just to give you a lesson where you can write a few things down or a few tweetable, quotable lines, but to really speak something over your life that will bring to closure some of the conflict that you've been going through so that you can transform. it and convert it into power for what's ahead of you. That's why we came tonight, and that's what we intend to do.

In 2 Kings chapter 6, verse 8, the Bible says, now the King of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, I will set up my camp in such and such a place. The man of God sent word to the King of Israel. Beware of passing that place because the Arameans are going down there. So the King of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again, Elisha warned the king so that he was on his guard in such places. This enraged the King of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them.

Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the King of Israel? Do you know how mad you made the devil just by showing up tonight? I mean, he set so many traps for you this year. Tried to make you bitter, tried to make you envious of others, tried to keep you in a depression. I know you've been going through things. He tried, he couldn't get you to go crazy, so he started messing with your kids. He thought if he could get your kids to go crazy enough. Maybe you would lose your hope in God.

Even some people in your life left this year that you were counting on. And after all of that, here you are. The Bible says it enraged the enemies of Israel because no matter what they did to try to bring down the king, God had someone on the inside to warn them about it. Tell the person next to you, I got somebody on the inside. And it makes the devil mad and it makes them a little bit confused. and honestly it makes him nervous to see you praising God like you've been praising God tonight. I mean this, that some of you just by lifting your hands tonight, you caused all kinds of confusion in hell.

Not only have angels been watching you this year, but the demons have been watching you too, the ones that were assigned to wreak havoc in your mind, and they thought surely by now you'd be tired. They thought surely after all you've been through, you would skip church and sleep in. But look at you in the presence of God to confuse the enemy. Now we need to take 19 seconds and embarrass the enemy to let him know that what he did, it didn't work. Then what he did, it hurt, but it didn't work. You still got 11 seconds on the clock. Read my scripture.

I'm reading my scripture. This is a dignified moment, you chaotic church members. Well, he was mad because everywhere he wanted to attack Israel, God's chosen people, there was a I don't want to call him a spy. He was a prophet. Elisha. He had an ability to see things. And you think Siri is scary? Really, Alexa scares me how stuff starts showing up on my phone. And I think Alexa is talking to Siri, and Siri is talking to Google, and Google is talking to Instagram, and I'm terrified that they're listening to me. Now watch this. This is interesting. Because the spirit of God in Elisha would give him a location where the enemy was going to attack God's people.

And when they called together all of the different high-ranking officials to see who is the one who is spoiling our ambushes and causing our attempts to attack the people of God not to work, the response came in verse 12, none of us, my Lord the King, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom. Yikes. So everywhere that Israel travel, God would send a word through Elisha to tell them where they needed, verse 10 says, to be on their guard in such places. Tonight I want to tell you that for this year 2020, you know, like 2020 vision, yeah. For this year, you need to see some things with your spirit that you cannot see with your senses.

And the reason this is so important is because if you don't recognize where the enemy is attacking you the most frequently and ask God to give you insight into the places of greatest vulnerability. You will spend all of your energy this year fighting battles that you could have avoided if you would have learned the lessons of last year. Y'all don't like this part of my sermon. I know. Makes you mad when you realize that a lot of the battles that you fought you could have avoided if you had listened to what was on the inside instead of responding to what was on the outside. So I want to spend this year with what Paul called open eyes in my heart. It sounds grotesque when you describe it like that. But he was saying that there is a kind of sight that

does not revolve around external stimuli and it is more based on internal processing. If I could break it down even more for you, I would use this phrase, on his guard in such places to describe how I think God intends to protect you as you go into this next season, this next decade of your life. And that requires self-awareness. There's a theological term, progressive revelation. It means that while God never changes, our understanding of Him unfolds over time. Not necessarily chronologically, but as we experience different things in our life, we come

to see God in different ways. Even the Bible is constructed with the progressive revelation in mind, so that you see concepts introduced in the book of Genesis that are mirrored in the book of Revelation, that's the first and the last, and by the time you get to Revelation, you get a full picture of what was hinted at in Genesis. So you see types and shadows in the Old Testament, which ultimately point to Jesus Christ. they're pointing to something that you have not clearly seen yet. Life is this way.

It is that many of us in this season of our life are going to see things that we only saw a shadow of in a previous season of our life. Progressive revelation means that God wants to show you some things about himself and even about you that will cause you to be able to avoid what I call unlawful. unnecessary roughness. It's a football term, but it also applies when we're going up against the devil. And let me help you with something real quick. Some of the battles that you fought last year were in places that you never should have been. I know it's supposed to be a praise party, but before we party, can I preach for a moment?

I got 24 minutes to tell you about this, that there are certain things that there are certain things. places that you need to stay away from this year. Because if you go there and then ask God to protect you in those places, I don't know whether to start with Facebook or whether to start with CNN or whether to start with Fox News. But we have to be very careful about where we go. Watch this. Not just with our bodies, but with our minds. Because it is very possible. that God is trying to warn you about certain places that every time you go there, you start feeling judgmental. Or every time you go there, you start having comparison.

Or every time you go there, you start feeling like your life is missing something. And if I were you, I would put that Bible app on the front screen of my iPhone this year. For those of you who aren't saved yet, you might have an Android, but you could put the Bible app on there too. And I would find that thing that delete some of the other apps. And can we all just make a covenantal agreement in the presence of God on this, the last sermon of 2019? Let's all not post our workouts until we have been doing them consistently for at least four weeks this year. Can we do that? Look at somebody and say, I don't have to post it to prove it. Because if I do the work, you will notice the results.

I won't have to screenshot my sweat on the floor. Nobody wants to see your spandex. Thank you very much. Do a rep in the secret place. We'll know. We'll know. And it's really interesting how certain places bring me into vulnerability. And I just want to ask the question, have you lived long enough to know yet where you're most vulnerable?

There were certain places where you're most vulnerable. places where the enemy intended to attack, but because the king had somebody on the inside, wouldn't it be nice to have somebody on the inside that could tell you, like it can tell you where there's traffic and it can show you on the GPS where there's going to be traffic? Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody on the inside like Elisha was on the inside and he was feeding information to the king saying, don't go there. Wouldn't it be nice to have somebody on the inside? It'd be cool if you didn't have to go into this year alone, but you could have somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it be awesome if when Jesus Christ went to heaven, he sent down his spirit to live in those who would believe in his name?

Wouldn't it be awesome if you had somebody on the inside, the spirit of truth, the spirit of righteousness, the spirit of God, telling you, don't go there, don't think that, don't complete that, cut off that conversation, don't give them all that information. Here's the beautiful thing about it. God will show you where to be on your guard if you will give them the opportunity. Even this. God will even show you what days of the week you will. are more susceptible to discouragement so you can plan around it. Y'all don't believe in God?

You don't think he's in you? You don't think God can show you about yourself what he knows from the inside of? You don't think the one who created you knows how to counsel you. And yet we all the time, we go into states of discouragement and then we try to pray our own. way out of them. But we got discouraged because of a mental game that we play. And no cliches can rescue us. New year. New you. Because if we told the truth, it doesn't sound us cute. What really has to happen for you to change is that Romans 12 says you have to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So that means that you have to do things a different way for a long And so the pathways that were in your mind called neural pathways that were causing you to do the things that you don't want to do anymore

Whether that's an addiction to pornography or whether that's an addiction to a substance or whether that's an addiction to food or whether that's an addiction to gossip or whether that's a Addiction to judging people who struggle with pornography food or substances because I can preach to everybody in the room I'll tell you Pastor Steve I don't I don't I don't don't struggle with these sins that you mention. It's actually great because I'm starting this new year with a pretty clean slate. I'll tell you, I've been walking with the Lord for a long time, and I don't really have any of these struggles except the one with self-righteousness that I am expressing by saying that I don't need anything new from God this year. But to really have a new year, New Year, New Year, New Year, You, doesn't really work like that.

New Year, new neural pathways. See, it doesn't preach. It's good. Who's going to put that on Instagram? But the fact of the matter is, for God to do something new in your life this year, you will have to save your strength for the things that matter. And that means you are going to have to listen to the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God will tell you, don't return that phone call.

Don't return that text. Don't even go there. You'll start thinking something in your mind, and the Spirit of the Lord will show you you can't afford to play with that. You can't play around with the devil and then ask God to deliver you from the devil that you were playing with. There are some places you cannot afford to go this year. Your soul cannot afford it. Your joy cannot afford it. Your peace cannot afford it.

And I've got somebody on the inside that can show me where the attack is. Wouldn't it be cool if some of the battles that you fought last year you could avoid this year? So you'd be singing, this is how I fight my battles, and you're just sitting there, and they're expecting you to be swinging. But you're not fighting your battles by swinging. You're fighting your battles by staying away from the places. I know this is heavy for a party. but I got to preach it

because God will not strengthen you for a battle that he did not call you to fight. So you've got to let go this year of the need to prove things to people because that is not a battle God has called you to fight. You've got to let go this year of trying to make up for things that are in the past and that God has already forgiven.

That is not a battle God has called you to fight. It is over, it is gone, the old is gone, the new is come. You have got to ask the Spirit of God what areas to avoid in this year. Okay. So, Elisha is giving the information for the military attack. And I wonder if the Spirit of God is trying to give you information for the spiritual attacks that you're under. But you keep going to old places. And when he found out about it, not only was he mad, but he was determined to get rid of this guy.

Because Elisha was a problem. Elisha was a problem. Are you a problem for the enemy? I'm going to tell you how you can know if you are. If nothing ever goes wrong in your life and you never burn the toast, if everything is so nice and neat and orderly, and you never face any kind of resistance, it means that the devil isn't threatened by you at all. And here's how I know that from the text, because, again, we often perceive that the presence of God is proven by the absence of problems, right? Wrong. Couldn't be more untrue. Because when Elisha was giving the word of the Lord to prevent the attack for the people of God, watch what the king did.

In verse 13, go find out where he is. The moment that you begin to fulfill the purpose God created you for, the enemy will dispatch special forces. Raise your hand if you had some things happened this year that made you question if God even loved you. Raise your hand. Be honest enough to raise it. I suggest to you, keep it up. I suggest to you that the reason you had some of your problems is because you are such a problem for the darkness because of the light that you carry. Somebody shout, I'm a problem.

So let me tell you how you can prove that God is with you, okay? The way that you can prove that God is with you is not by the fact that nothing bad ever happens to you. The proof, my mom used to say, the proof is in the pudding. Well, I found out when it comes to the things of God, the proof is in the problem. How do I know that God is using me and that he has great plans for me? How do I know that God has put a big calling on my life? How do I know that God has something outstanding for my future? I know the size of my calling by the size of my problem.

Y'all shout if you've been through something this year. When Elisha started telling the king where to look for the attack, the king of Aram said, you've got to find him. He's a problem. The enemy sent special forces for you this year because you are right on the verge of breaking a generational curse and changing a bloodline. You're a problem for the darkness. You're a problem.

He said, go find out where he is so I can send men and capture him. And the report came back. He's in Dothan. Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. And they went by night and surrounded the city. Now, verse 15 is really what I want to preach. Y'all get ready. Are you ready?

Are you ready? Because I only got 12 minutes to preach this, and I'm going to need a little bit of help. Are you ready for verse 15? No, you're not. You can't be. Because when the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots that surrounded the city, oh, no, my Lord.

What shall we do? The servant asked. Now, this is something that I need to illustrate. Wait, get me like six men. on the stage real quick and six men that are not very big the team captain yeah he's too big he's too big I need six men that are not very big six men that are not very big and don't be insulted if he chooses you six men that are not very big come on up six men that are not very big six men that are not very big six men that are not very big I want you all to form a circle around me and look intimidating all right

Not too close, just like how the servant woke up, get around me, six men that are not too big. Six men that are not too big. We may need two more. Give me eight men that are not too big. One, two, three, four. Y'all get all around me. Get all around me and look ferocious, like, arg! Look at me like, ah, we're going to kill you.

You're that prophet that's been, you know, messing up all over. Come on, er. This is a problem. Come on, give me all the way around, all the way around. Six men that are not too big, eight men that are not too big. And the servant, I want to show you something, this is going to be so helpful for you to understand what you go through in the next 12 months and in the next 10 years and for as long as God's hand will be on you. The servant woke up, right? And the first thing he saw that morning when he got up, he saw something that he didn't know how to handle.

Hmm. Hmm. And I think everybody here, personally speaking, has something that they're looking at, that they don't know how to handle. It's usually not a military thing. It's a mental thing. So I've got maybe like, I got a decision. I don't know how to make it.

I got bills. I got this. I got that. I got transition. So he's looking around. And he's like, oh no, my Lord, what shall we do? Now, Elisha is the prophet that would tell the king where the enemy was going to attack. And here's my question.

If he knew where the king was going to be attacked, why did he get attacked? If you have the ability to know when other people are going to be attacked, how can you not see it when you're going to be attacked. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to give other people advice for their marriage, for raising their children? Oh, but mess around and have one of your own and you will shut your stupid mouth when it happens to you. And the servant goes, oh no, my Lord, what shall we do? Now watch what Elijah says. Give me next verse. Put it on the screen, please. Don't be afraid the prophet answer. Oh man, this sounds like great. advice don't be afraid that now these are chariots and horses these are not you know

no offense but this is not you this is trained Syrian soldiers and the prophet says don't be afraid those who are with us are more than those who are with them James get me 12 men who are real big 12 men who are as big as you come on right now I need 12 big men, 12 really fierce men, 12 men that are on CrossFit and creatine and protein and TRT and H-GH and steroids. Come on, I need 12 big men. And I need you to come here because I'm going to be Elisha, I'm going to stand here in the middle,

and I need y'all to come surround me because the Bible says that when Elisha pray, come Get real close. Get real close. Come on. I don't have any proximity issues. Not that close. Back up a little bit. Come in close as we can get, and I can still have functionality. Come on, get in close. Get in close. Because Elisha said, Elisha said, don't be afraid. Those who are with us, come on, surround me all the way. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. It not only means we've got more in quantity, but they are greater in strength because those who are with us. us are more than those who are with them. So I'm going to show you something real quick.

So he said, don't be afraid those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And then the next verse, verse 17, says, and Elisha prayed, O Lord, open his eyes so that he may see. Okay? Now, one jump. If I'm the servant, I'll be right back. Stay right there. Stay right there.

If I'm the servant, I'm thinking that God is about to do something so awesome, and he's going to make all the enemies, the first ones that came to attack, I'm going to close my eyes, and he's going to pray, and when I open my eyes, all the enemies are going to be gone. So y'all leave real quick. Just leave. Just go somewhere. Not the good ones, the bad ones. Yeah, yeah.

That's what I'm expecting. I open my eyes. Wow! It's a miracle. But come back, come back, come back, come back, come back, come back, come back, come back. Instead, get back in position. Quickly, quickly, it's almost midnight. I'm going to show you something.

So, Elish is praying, right? He's like, oh Lord, open his eyes that he may see. And he opens his eyes, and what does he see the same enemy that he's saying? that he saw before the prayer. In fact, go to the next verse, verse 18. As the enemy came toward him, now stop. How did Elisha pray and the enemy still came toward him? How did Elisha the powerful man of God?

How did Elisha who had the work? How did Elisha the prophet that struck the water? How did Elisha, the successor to Elijah? How did Elisha, who led an entire nation into a time of revival, who could purify the waters of the Jericho? How could Elisha keep praying? But the attack kept coming? Well, the proof of the presence of God is not the absence of problems. The proof of the presence of God is not that the problems disappeared.

The proof of the presence of God is that he kept. me surrounded and the enemy came, but he couldn't kill me. The enemy came, depression came, the panic attack came. I could barely catch my breath, but somehow the Word of God sustained me through every season of my life. I almost lost my mind. I almost gave up. I almost let go. But there were more for me than against me. And I didn't. declare into the darkness of your life. Greater is he that is in me. And the proof is in the problem.

If God sent you a really big problem, he's about to demonstrate that he's a really big God. I got a really big God. I got a really good God. I got a really faithful Savior. So I got a really real. Great praise, not because of the absence of problems. Hey, stand up as two minutes and 43 seconds until the next decade of your life.

It's two minutes and 38 seconds until the next decade of your life. And tomorrow morning when you open your eyes, guess what's still going to be there? Your problems. Guess what's within you? Y'all got my back? When I say this, get ready to rejoice. Get ready to rejoice. Bigger, the problem, the greater, the opportunity for the presence of God.

Y'all don't even need me to finish the sentence. You know what I'm saying? The devil sin everything he could to track you down. He put a target on your back. He aimed right at your head. But look at your praise, look at your purpose, look at your praise, look at your God. And I say, I'm going to put it up to a vote. What say ye elevation?

Let's stop telling God how big our problem is and start telling our problem. I got an even bigger God, greater is he. Greater is he. Be for you who can be against you Thank you for joining us Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry

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