Elevation with Steven Furtick - Getting Ready For What’s Next (The Basin)

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Not sure how things are going to work out? God’s getting you ready for what’s next. While you wait to see it, keeping moving forward in faith and do what you would do if you believed that God was with you. If you’ve just made a decision for Christ, please respond HERE: http://ele.vc/tIepfr To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: http://www.elevationchurch.org/giving/ Scripture References: Joshua 3, verses 15-16 Matthew 4, verses 12-17See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Pure prime time in the basin today. One thing only that we're focused on with the teaching today. And that's priming the pump, cleaning out the pipes for the word that God wants to bring on Sunday. It's been an amazing flow in my life this week. And I thank God for it. It thinks that he has spoken to me and shown me.

and enabled me the experience, and I'm full of gratitude about it. And also the things that I believe he's, you know, getting ready to speak through me. There's so much that I want to share. And trying to get it all in would be ridiculous. But let me go to Joshua 316 because I'm pretty sure that this week I'm going to work from the text that I shared weeks ago when I was kind of getting this teaching bit by bit chapter by chapter reading through the Bible. And I'll go visit that and study it out as the weekend progresses, but particularly verse 16, the water from upstream stopped flowing,

piled up in a heap, a great distance away the town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarathan, where the water flowing down to the sea of the Arabo, that is the dead sea, was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. And starting the teaching here for you and kind of continuing what I taught Sunday in the pulpit was this phrase, do the thing that you would do. Now, taking that phrase at a surface value, it's kind of like an incomplete sentence, feels a little Yoda. do the thing that you would do. Tell me what to do. Do the thing that you would do.

I saw the phrase in a double meaning. I saw the phrase as being a strategy to break out of lethargy. I saw the phrase as a focus in times where we feel conflicted. I saw the phrase as a challenge. to come up higher, and I saw the phrase as a summons to faith. I saw all those things in that phrase, do the thing that you would do. Now, Joshua is leading the people to cross the Jordan River. That's not something that they would do if they didn't believe God was with them. So it takes faith. And one of the things that I want to speak about on Sunday and today is the nature of faith.

faith has a very peculiar nature in the Westminster Confession where they met in Westminster Abbey during the Civil War in England in the 1600s and they gathered the theologians to write out the doctrine of faith they came away with a document that was referred back to by a lot of different denominations especially in the reform theological tradition as a basis for what they believed.

You know, we say faith these days, it can mean anything. Like, it's going to turn out okay, I have faith. I don't know, you think that's faith. That's just optimism or maybe delusion. When we say faith, it can mean anything, you know, like, I have faith in you. And that means that I have confidence in you as a person. But faith in God is different. Now, we're not going to get into some deep, dark theological hole here.

don't worry, but it says that by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ to you, God saves you in the Westminster Confession. And it talks about our part in being saved and our part in having a right relationship with God. It's not that our faith is so great. It's that God is so great and that Jesus is so faithful and that the faith of Jesus is living in us. Look at this. It says,

they receiving and resting in him by faith and his righteousness, which faith they have not of themselves. It is the gift of God. So I love that distinction that faith isn't something that I have to work up. Faith isn't something that I have to manufacture. Faith isn't something that I have to formulate.

Yes, I have to stay in faith, and yes, I have to walk in faith, and yes, I have to grow in my faith, and yes, I have to nurture my faith, because I taught last week faith is a focus. But the nature of faith is that it was given from someone else, that someone being God, that my faith is in what already happened because of Jesus' death for me, his resurrection, and his presence in my life, All of that is something that has happened for me, is something that God is doing in me,

and it results in what God is doing through me. That's the nature of faith. And the nature of faith in a physical sense is seen in Joshua 3. Amazing. The nature of faith, because the waters were cut off, remember, in Adam, 20 miles away from where they crossed. So the nature of faith is illustrated here by the Jordan River.

Not a big river, not impressive river, not a mighty river, but a significant river. The Jordan River is very significant in Scripture. So get this in your heart. As Joshua is leading the generation that will inherit the land across the Jordan River. I know Jesus is going to be baptized in that Jordan River. River by John the Baptist in the future. But that's not yet. That's not yet. That's not yet. That's still to come. That's still to come. And as they're going across, the Bible says that the waters that were flowing upstream from upstream were cut off in a great heat. And that's the part

that drew me to this text. And I have been holding myself back, especially when I first saw it from preaching this for a couple weeks now and saving it so I can move through the journey the way that I felt like God wanted me to. And so now I'm just days away from being able to preach it. God is up to something upstream. God's up to something upstream. Say that loud. God's up to something upstream. I can barely contain myself as I think about it, how that God did something in Jesus that now flows to me, that God put his wrath, anger on Jesus, and satisfied the justice of his holiness when Jesus died for me. And his faith is now the basis by which I relate to God. Not my faith. My faith is kind of fickle. I wish it weren't. I wish it weren't. I wish it were.

But it's not always firm. But Jesus' faith is firm. So I lean on him. I build on him. I rest on him. I come to God through him. Now see how this works? So upstream to downstream. It flows. The nature of faith, it flows from Jesus to. me through me. It doesn't come from me. It's the gift. It flows from him to me. The grace of God, the gifts of God, flow to me from Jesus and then flow into my life. And then I walk in it. And I move in it. And that is the nature of faith in Jesus Christ, biblical faith. and in the book of Joshua of course we have a picture of how Jesus is our leader but Joshua being an imperfect leader has to really believe what God spoke to him that nobody else could see that I'm going to bring you across this Jordan and yeah the people knew that God was bringing them into

the promised land but Joshua had to believe that and lead the people watching us to cross over something that God had not changed yet. And here they are standing at the Jordan River. And I pray to you break this down because if I go too fast, it will be confusing and it won't have the full meaning. And I really want to bring it across how it says that the people had to follow the Ark of the Covenant

and go across to Jordan. And the water from upstream stopped flowing, piling up in a heap a great distance away at a town called Adam. I already mentioned it, but that town is 20 miles away. I'll probably save that little detail.

Maybe I'll just mention it, and then come back to it because it's significant. Is that what God was doing 20 miles away was not visible to the Israel's. In other words, they couldn't see, hey, the water is stopping in a dump so we can cross now because the water's stopping up here.

They saw no visible proof that God was going to do it until the moment their feet touched the water. Now, the moment, think about the timing of God, the moment that their feet, touched the water, the waters stopped flowing where they were. But, but in order for that water to stop flowing where they were, it had to be cut off upstream hours before they got there. And God was up to up to something in a place they couldn't see.

You know, we like to think that God is going to give us a good feeling and then we can obey him. We like to think that God is going to show us on paper how everything's going to work out and then we can trust him. We like to think sometimes that God is going to take a certain desire away from us and then we will walk in freedom. But the nature of faith is the ability to believe that God is, up to something upstream where I can't see. And the key for me to experience that

is to walk toward the thing that stands between me and what God has called me to. Now, this could be anything. This could be walking toward freedom, recovery, service, purpose, discipline. We could name a lot of things that God is calling you to. A lot of things that God is calling you to do, today. Last week I said, what do I know God spoke that I can obey today? What has God said? What did God say that I can obey today? And do the thing, one thing that you would do if you knew God was with you,

in it with me, working through me, fighting for me. If you believe that, what thing would you do? Now, the double play on the phrase, do the thing that you would do, is when I talk about that you, do the thing that you would do, I'm saying that there are at least two U's in Scripture. There's the old you, which is programmed by the patterns of sin. There is the new you which is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Remember, that's the true you. That's the one that flows from upstream. that's the you that was spoken by the mouth of God before you were formed, he knew you, that you.

So when you're caught between the two, like, this is what my selfish desires want, this is what the part of me that knows God and hears from God wants. Do the thing that you, which one, the new one, the one that God is speaking to, the one that God is flowing through, the one that's in harmony with him, the one that is kept, the one that is sustained. the one that is full of the faith of Jesus Christ, do the thing that you would do. And you got to sometimes do it when you don't feel it, when you don't see it,

when you don't understand it, when you can't explain it. But you've got to do it. You've got to walk toward the Jordan believing that God's presence, like the Ark of the Covenant was with them in the middle of the Jordan. God's presence is with you, guiding you, but I'm not certain how it's going to turn out.

We'll do the thing that you would do if you were certain that God was with you. Are you saying I could just start anything and assume that God is with me? No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying you have to be guided by his presence. And you have to do the thing that you would do, that you would do in spite of the fact that you can't see the waters cut off 20 miles away. When Jesus baptized or was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan, John never could have imagined, never could have seen,

never could have dreamed that he would end up in prison. John would. John ended up in prison. Jesus, of course, gave his life for our sin, but John was in prison hearing about the great things that Jesus had done. and he sent some messengers to ask Jesus, is it true? That you're the one or should we expect another? Because he heard about all the great things Jesus was doing. But he himself was in prison.

And really the kingdom that Jesus was preaching was a little bit different than the one that John had expected because, hey, the healing blind eyes is great, but he's like, man, you know, you got to separate the wheat from the chaff. I'm in here because of a wicked king and, you know, the judgment of God has got to come. And Jesus said, go back and tell John what, you see the blind here. Or the blind here, the blind seed, the death here. The kingdom of God has come and blessed as he who doesn't fall away on account of me.

He was telling John, you got to believe in what I'm doing upstream. You got to believe in business, the term upstream. means something different than what it means in nature. In business, if you talk about marketing, upstream refers to the activities and strategies associated with creating and developing a product, while downstream refers to activities and strategies associated with promoting and selling a product.

You see the difference? The upstream stuff in marketing, you mean you want to market a shoe. Well, the activities and strategies associated with creating and developing it, that's upstream. Downstream is promoting and selling. I think we live in a culture where we're all doing downstream things to try to market and and promote ourselves rather than focusing on the upstream stuff, which is being like God, developing character so God can work on us.

We're so busy trying to, am I so busy trying to market myself that I'm not spending time with my maker? That's a downstream distraction, you see? That's a downstream distraction. But I got an upstream God. I got a God who sent his son, Jesus, who sent his son, Jesus. not from 20 miles away,

but he sent his son Jesus from eternity and he spanned the distance between His holiness and my sin. I got a God who is an upstream God and Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem

and raised in a town called Nazareth but he didn't stay in Nazareth. He didn't stay in Nazareth because he had to go to Galilee so he could begin to preach and teach. Now listen what it said in Matthew chapter 4 verse 12. When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee,

leaving Nazareth. He went and lived in Copernia, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulan and Naftali to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah, land of Zebulin and land of Naftali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people living in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of the shadow of death,

a light has dawned. And from that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. God is up to something upstream. He left Nazareth, verse 13, lived in Copernium, which was in the area of Zebulon by the lake, to fulfill what was spoke by the prophet. Think about this. Think about this. You may not know this. I didn't know this.

I had to look it up. That Nazareth is about 20 miles away from Copernum. Copernium is where Jesus did most of his ministry. It was his base. You know, he healed a lot of people in Copernium. by the Sea of Galilee. He opened blind eyes. I wonder

did the blind people whose eyes he opened in Galilee have any clue that 20 miles away 10 years earlier God was up to something upstream while Jesus was sawing logs into bedside tables for lamps

alongside his father, the carpenter. God was up to something upstream. 20 miles away, getting Jesus ready for Galilee, getting him ready for Galilee, getting him ready for miracles, getting him ready for signs and wonders,

getting him ready. God is getting you ready. 20 miles away. Do you have the faith to trust him that he's up to something? 20 miles away. I wrote a song with the guy this week, so excited about the song

and his name is Brandon Lake. Y'all know Brandon? Y'all know Brandon. Y'all love Brandon. He told me a story that I never heard before because he grew up near Charleston, South Carolina and went to a church called Sea Coast. Oh my God, I'm just getting this revelation.

He said, I never told you this before pastor. We just wrote a song. We written a lot of songs together. Me and Chris and Brandon and also with other people, but we wrote a song this week. I can't wait for y'all to hear it. Oh man, we wrote three songs this week. I can't wait for y'all to hear all of them.

But it's amazing because he said to me, I never told you this story before. But when I was a teenager, I sent an email to elevation saying I would love to come learn. And somebody that was responding to the email said, ah, no, we don't really do that right now. You could come move here, whatever.

I thought it was so funny. Isn't it so funny? how somebody else told him, no, you can't do that. And here we are today working together, and God is using you in a great way. And we've written some really cool songs together, like graves into gardens and rattle and talking to Jesus and lying, and the water is wild and might get loud and million little miracles.

And, oh, my God, we've had some amazing times together, make a way. and oh man all these songs some new some old we're writing songs together i never knew when i was growing up in monk's corner south carolina that 30 miles away it's almost 20 there was a boy named brandon and we would get together and write music together you know chris i had no idea that you were in hampton south Carolina, God was getting us ready to write songs like, oh, come to the altar and do it again. God was getting us ready to go to arenas all over the world. God is up to something upstream. I had never met Brandon. I didn't know Chris until I was a teenager. I had no idea that God was up to something and you don't either. You don't know what God is up to upstream. That's why you can't die

downstream. That's why you got to cross that Jordan. That's why you got to do the thing that you would do if you believed that victory, healing, breakthrough, second chances, and new beginnings were on the other side. I'm telling you, God is up to something upstream. Let me go a little deeper with this. When Jesus heard that John was in prison, that is the significant event that I mentioned where John was doubting downstream in the prison, what he knew upstream when he baptized Jesus into Jordan. We're all going to come to these moments. We're going to have downstream doubts.

I can't see God doing it. I can't feel God doing it. I don't even know if he's going to do it. There's some thoughts going through my mind making me think that maybe I'm crazy for trusting God. Ah, but God is up to something 20 miles away. It might not happen in the next 20 minutes. It might not happen in the next 20 days.

I'm not one of these weird preachers who thinks I can tell everybody the time frame. That is God's business. But if you can obey him and do the thing that you would do if you believe that he was with you, you're going to see it. You're going to see it.

When did they see it? When their feet touched the water. When they did the thing. Nike said, just do it. Just do it. when they did the thing, when they did the thing, when they did the thing, when they did the thing, when they did the thing. Look at verse 15.

As soon as the priest who carried the art reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, when their feet touched the water's edge, that is when they saw what God had already done upstream. I believe that there are some things that have you to see. distracted today downstream. How are we going to get across this? Do the thing that you would do if you knew God was with you. Do the thing. Do it like you would do it. Walk in the room. You know, I was talking Graham last night. He said that when he's in a crowd and it's awkward, like a event and he doesn't know how to stand or anything, he said he starts jumping up and down like a player, excuse me,

like a character on Madden. Some people use the term in PC. I don't like that term the way kids use it. A non-playable character. I don't like that term because I think sometimes I hear it used to say that some people are like NPCs and like I'm the main character in life. No, Jesus is the main character.

God is the main character. The Holy Spirit is the main character. And Graham said sometimes I just start doing like this. this, boom, boom, bump it up and down. And I think that's good to do in church too. When you don't know how to stand, when you don't know what to do, start doing the thing that you would do if you were excited about God's promise. You're not going to always feel it.

Do the thing. Move toward the thing that you know God spoke that you can obey today. And we'll apply this. I'm going to keep this stirring. I got it. I can feel it. I got it fresh. So God is good.

I'm excited to preach it that he's up to something upstream. And as I work this sermon together, I'm going to be praying, or as God works this sermon together in me to preach it through me for others, I'm going to be believing that whatever you're walking into today, this season of your life, that you'd have the accompanying faith to know that far away, far far away, long ago. No, not long ago, right now, in a place far, far away. God is piling up the waters.

He had to do that hours before they got there. God does things sometimes years before we get there. We don't see it until we step into it. I'll stop now. I don't want to stop, but. I feel like I should because, hey, I go all day. Thank you, Jesus, for the things you're doing upstream. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for me.

Thank you that my righteousness comes from upstream. It comes from you. It comes from you. It flows from you. Only you. Thank you, Jesus. Say, thank you, Jesus. For blessing me. For letting your mercy flow, your grace flow.

It flows from you, not from me. It flows from you, not from me. You're not against me. You're not counting my sins against me. You give me the righteousness of Christ. I believe that is the gift of God. Even my faith is a gift. And now by faith I step toward this water.

Just like Jesus told John the Baptist, blessed is he who does not fall away on account of me. Blessed is he who believes in the downstream of doubt and disappointment, what I spoke in the upstream. of revelation. Believe that thing. Do that thing. Continue to do it.

And when their feet touched the water, they saw the result. You don't see the result until you take the step. You don't see the result until you make the commitment. Do the thing that you would do. I know there are two U's talking right now. One you that is talking is the one that's saying,

I can't. And the other one that is talking to you says that God will. Do the thing that you would do. Bless you. I can't wait to share this with you. Flesh it out and see how it goes. But I know it's good to me. Because I can say God is up to something upstream in my life right now.

And I hope you feel the same way too. If you don't feel the same way, I pray you will believe it by faith. And go forward. In Jesus' name. Amen. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.