Elevation with Steven Furtick - Go Back For Your Benefit

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Don’t just go through things, grow through them. Reflect on what you’ve been through assuming that God is for you. Join Pastors Steven & Holly Furtick for a behind-the-scenes conversation about the sermon "Challenge The Shadow." Hear the parts that didn’t make it into the sermon and get God’s Word into your heart in a deeper way. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. It's like June and I don't care. Are we rolling? Welcome to a special edition of the basin, but not in the basin. This is like a new thing that I'm trying. It's another effort to put God's words in people's hearts. That's right.

In a beautiful space. So yes, this is one of our studios and this is one of my wives, my favorite. In the Bible, it says like, Do I have a sister wife? No, but isn't it always funny in the Bible where it says, like, where you're reading about that in the Old Testament and you just gloss over it? Yeah, like, they just did. Yeah, no, no, his other wife. No, no, that was his other wife.

Okay, so I actually don't gloss over it because I watched this reality show about sister wives. Yeah, I remember it. Uh-huh. And so I- I-bushed a sermon called Sister Wives about Rachel and Leah. You did. It was a brilliant title. You're so good at titles.

But anyway, I always think about Sister White. So speaking of titles, that's what I want to do right now. Okay. I throw away more titles per sermon. Are you going to give us some of your titles from this past weekend? Yeah. Yeah. I want to do a cutting.

I love that. I want to do a cutting room floor title. Okay. And tell you where the sermon started. Okay. Okay. So we're talking about this past weekend sermon. I preached a message called Challenge the Sheta.

Which was phenomenal. Thank you. And it was pretty obscure because Hezekiah is a king that you don't hear about too much. Right. And the prophet Isaiah, who you hear about a lot, comes to him and says, you're going to die. And he has these painful boils all over his body. And Hezekiah prays and cries. And God says, okay, you're going to live 15 more years.

Gives him an extension on his life. Right. And to prove it, he makes this shadow that had stretched on the steps of the temple go back 10 steps. And so challenge the shadow was the idea that just because it seems to be going one way, just because it seems like you're all out of time, just because it seems like it's too late for you,

just because it seems like this is the way you've always been, just because it seems like everybody in your family, just because it seems like doesn't mean that that's the reality. Right. So I got obsessed early in the week studying about this idea, idea of go back. Okay. All right, because Isaiah asks Hezekiah, you can look it up, if you want to look it up.

I promise it's in there. But he asked Hezekiah, do you want the shadow to go forward or back? Right. And forward was the way it was already going. Right. But for it to go back, well, God would have to do that. Right. Yeah.

So that would show him that God was going to heal him. Right. All right. So I got obsessed with the idea, go back, because it's over and over in the passage where Isaiah tells Hezekiah, you're going to die, there's nothing I can do. And then it says that the Lord spoke to him, go back and tell Hezekiah, I've heard your prayers. And then he tells the shadow, go back. Okay.

You left all this out of the sermon. Yeah. So this is why when I'm done preaching and you say, you feel good about it, I'm like, oh, there's so much I didn't get to share, which is why I'm doing the basin, which is why I'm doing things like this. Yeah. Because I think there's power in going back. And I almost called the sermon, Go back for your benefit. Ooh.

Go back for your benefit. And it's the idea that not only did God tell Hezekiah, you can live and send Isaiah back, but the shadow went back. But also, and this is what I thought was so cool, in Isaiah 38, and we're reading through the book of Isaiah right now with our Bible club. We're definitely not at 38.

No, but we got to six today. Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy. I haven't read yet. Seraphim and cherubim. Yeah, I already did. I already sent the key verse today. I know, I haven't read yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great.

I can't wait. But 38, I never read before. It records more in detail. Oh, it's like the parallel to that story or the prophecy that way for that story? Yes. It's a parallel. So, like, when you read Second Kings, right, when you read the Bible, like, sometimes you get a Bible on your phone where it'll put the reference and it'll show you, oh, this is also

recorded in this other book and that will give you a different point of view or this is quoted by Jesus or Jesus is quoting Isaiah, right? Can I ask you a dumb question? Is that in the column of the Bible, all those little references? Is that what that is? Well, cross references in the center of your Bible can show you also related verses. So if you're reading something about shadow, it may say, yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death or these things were just a shadow.

And when Christ came, the reality, you know, there are, there are so many ways to use the tools that we have. So I was clicking around and I found how Isaiah's book, which is, you know, written about many events and different kings that he prophesied to, has what Hezekiah wrote after he recovered. Okay. And he starts pouring out his heart to God. Okay.

Not when he was still sick, but after he was made well. Okay. So it's another example of going back. Yeah. He's going back. And he's looking at what he went through, through the experiences of what he learned because he went through them. Wow. So he is looking at what he's been through, through the lens of the benefits.

Now watch this. This is cool. He says, and this is Isaiah 38, verse 17, surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. Isn't that crazy statement? Wow. Surely it was for my benefit that I got a new house. Surely it was for my benefit that I got a promotion. Surely it's for my benefit that God gave me the child.

That's great, too, but this is definitely. different. Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love, you kept me from the pit of destruction. You have put all my sins behind your back. That's amazing. Yeah. So the question that it makes me ask, huh? Did you know all this? Like, before you got up to preach? Yeah, yeah. So I had the scripture ready to go when I preached, but it was just a time issue. Wow. Yeah. And I think a lot of times, the enemy attacks us and we survive the attack, but we don't go back and get the benefits through reflecting and healing.

And so we just walk around with the trauma of what we've been through, but we don't grow wiser from the wounds. So another potential title that I wanted to use was wisely wounded. Like when you go in for surgery, they wound you. Right. But they use wisdom. Create a wound. Had you ever been wisely wounded?

That at the time it felt like God was allowing something to be taken out of your life that you couldn't live without. You look back and realize if you had kept living with it, it would have killed you. Wow. That could be a relationship or that could be a certain responsibility you thought you were ready for and you really weren't. Right. Or maybe sometimes God lets you go back a little bit because, If you don't learn what you're doing wrong and you just keep going forward in your life,

you keep repeating those mistakes. Right. So I think this applies. I'm thinking about, like, a lot of the painful things that I've been through in my life and how even the ones that you can't even make sense of, you still can say, I came away stronger. My prayer life is stronger. Yeah. A relationship that I leaned into at the time.

is stronger, you know, by, I started going to church more during that time because I was so, like, even the things that you still can't make sense of when you look back, you can think about how they benefited you. Yeah, wow, this is great. I used to say about a few things in my life, I wouldn't choose it, but I wouldn't change it. Yeah. And that really helped me because it's acknowledging, you want to go through that again? No.

if God gave you door number one, door number two, door number three, and the suffering was door number one, would you choose door number one? No, I wouldn't choose it. Right. But after you've been through something that you can't really control anyway, it's good to take that perspective, like, all right, what are the benefits? So to me, that looks like going back for my benefits, accepting it, it's what it is. You know, this is what it is right now. But then after you accept it, it, you kind of glean the good from it that you can. You know, you glean the good from it. Right. And this is not a psychotic charge to you to just suffer as much as possible. And the more you suffer, the more benefit. Like, no pain, no gain.

No, sometimes just no pain, no pain. Right? Like, watch this. I like that one. Much better. Oh, oh, no pain, no gain. Like, stop being stupid. Right?

So we're not like glutton's for suffering and we think that all suffering leads to growth. some suffering suffering some suffering in your life is a symptom of something that you won't deal with and so when we get into those situations that's when it's time

to challenge the shadow and change our course okay because that's what I was going to ask you because you're just talking about acceptance and now you're talking about challenge because the message was challenge the shadow and one of the things that you said was there are some things that we accept and there are some things that we challenge.

So how do you know the difference? How do you know the things that you're supposed to accept and the things that you're supposed to challenge? You know that serenity prayer that they use in, they use it in AA, they use in church. It's actually one of the most beautiful prayers. And it's written a few different ways and nobody knows who really wrote it because there were like copyright disputes over it. I know this because I looked it up when I was studying about what do you accept and what

do you try to change? And the idea that God will give me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I can't and the wisdom to know the difference can only come from God. Like God, is this you wisely wounding me and in this situation I need to stay, stick it out and learn what I need to learn. Because sometimes if you don't learn from it, you will keep losing. And praying and losing and going to church and losing

and wondering why am I losing because you refuse to learn. So there can be times in my life that I don't even stop to say, wait a minute, God. Is this you? Right. Now, I assume in everything that happens, in my life, that even if God didn't cause it, he'll still use it. Okay.

And that's where my faith comes in because I think even if I cause it or my uncle caused it or my boss caused it, and I'm not making light of the things people go through. Or an accident happened. Yeah, in our ministry, we have people who are paralyzed because of a drunk driver, people who are traumatized because of molestation. Our message is not, well, God put you through that so you could learn something because that's how God teaches you. That's evil in the world.

That's common to all men. The difference for us as Christians is that we can put it in the hands of God so that he can make something out of it in our future. Okay. And so I don't always believe that everything came from his hand. But I do believe that everything has to pass through his hand in the end. Yeah. And so that's what I mean when I say, it was for my benefit that I suffered. I almost see that not as Hezekiah is saying, God made me sick to teach me.

something. Yeah. I think he's deciding if I had to go through it, I might as well grow through it. Yeah. You know what I mean? I love the way you talk. Yeah, I mean, that's not original to me. I'm sure that's already a book and a sermon, but I like that way of thinking because it just assumes that God is for you. Yeah. So go back for your benefit, even reliving your past, that can either be very destructive or it can be creative because sometimes like when you go back to your past when we do this all the time I say man you remember that person and I thought they betrayed me yeah and you'll get kind of mad and remembering that we thought they let us down and stuff you know and and then we'll be like maybe they didn't betray us maybe God had something for them and he had something for us right

and maybe we didn't even handle it that good like we've grown too. too. Right. So that's what I mean, go back for your benefit, because if you just live your experiences and never reflect on your experiences, you leave a lot of wisdom. Yeah. On the cutting room floor. And then it is, so you said, no pain, no gain. It's like the pain and you didn't gain anything. All pain, no gain. Yeah. I want to, I don't want to live like that. Right. If I got to be wounded, let me get wiser. Yes. If I got to get pruned, let me bear more fruit. Yes. That's how I feel.

And I think that is a choice that you can make too. Like, you don't have to just suffer for nothing. Right. And I thought it was really cool how at some point in the 15 years that God gave Hezekiah to live, he took the time, and Isaiah thought, I'm going to include this part too. And he walked through what he went through, and without denying how bad it felt, because he says some pretty dark stuff. You can go read it on your own time.

I don't want to bring the mood down. But then he goes, surely it was for my benefit. But then he said something else. I don't know if you caught it or not. He said it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love, you kept me from the pit of destruction. You put all my sins behind your back. Now, that makes me think that there's something that God taught Hezekiah spiritually

while he was suffering physically. Because he says, you put all my sins behind. your back. What was the secondary title? Go back for it. Go back for your benefits. Go back for your benefits. So there were some things that Hasakaya needed to put behind him that he was still dealing with. I think you might need to preach this this weekend. I will. I think you. Or just put out like this. But that's the word for you today. Go back for your benefit. You know what else I thought about? And I'll stop after this. We went back to Shelby a couple weeks ago to take our men's middle child, Graham, to a wrestling camp.

We're actually picking them up. And we lived five minutes from Gardner Webb University when we first got married. And it just so happened that we were going back to Shelby, going back to Boiling Springs, to be exact. Like, on probably the exact day that we had moved to Shelby as newlyweds. Right. 21 years earlier. Because we had calculated it. Yeah, it was like, I think this was the day we were pulling into Shelby.

Right around this day. Yeah, yeah. And so... Which is pretty cool. We're driving around, remembering Me Pobito in Monterey and, you know, all the restaurants where we shared,

shared chips and got water. Yeah, we didn't get queso back then. That was a different time. You were in the queso season. This was the free salsa season. Casso on my birthday. Koso on special occasions. Koso on Easter, Christmas, and Valentine's Day.

But with all the memories that we had, like, how our, furniture that we moved in with, half of it was from my best friend's dad who would repossess furniture out of mobile homes. He would repossess the mobile home and then take the furniture. And he had all this repoed furniture. And we actually still have some of that furniture. You brought it out the other day. Yes, I did. Yeah, yeah. A little table. But going back was so good because we're like, remember pulling up with the repoed furniture for Mr. Robb? And for me, like, like we didn't get to share every little memory, but remember when I went out to the church by myself

and wrote the song, Who I am in the middle of the night, and like him, and was learning how to write music. Yeah. And so today, we're in this studio where we've written so many other songs that some of them people have heard all around the world. Yeah. And going back and just driving past that church building and remember and sitting there, learning to lead songs in that church, and how bad those songs were, and how nice the people were to

try to sing them along. A few of them were good, but my point is it helped me see and feel my development and our development and how far we've come and how far God has brought us. It made me grateful for God's grace. It's the benefit of going back and either physically or just in a moment mentally remember, hey, man, I have come a long way. And sometimes we don't get that perspective because we're in it. Right.

But sometimes you have to just mentally. or physically go back to it and go back. Wow. God has done a lot. Yeah. I want you to share, as our closing thought, what you said about what you would say to those two kids who started back in Shelby. You said you would go back and tell them something. Do you remember what you said?

I think I said I'd go back and tell them you're doing a good job. Is that, isn't that what I said? Yeah, you said, I'm proud of those two kids. That's right. Yeah. And I was. We were just reflecting on. Talking about us.

Talking about us. In the third person, it's kind of weird narcissistic exercise. Well, we were reflecting on. I mean, like, that was a, it was a very monumental place for us because we just graduated college, just gotten married. And so it was our first apartment, our first jobs. I was a school teacher. I was teaching fifth grade. And, I mean, we had to, we had to.

We had to get our own dial-up internet and set up the electricity. You had a cable modem? That's dial-up. I was doing business. Dial-up is different. Dial-up is... Dial-up will kick you off if somebody picks up the phone. Dial-up will take you 44 days to download a song.

We didn't have that? No. That was like the backup, though, right? No. I would add you on cable modem from day one of our marriage. All right, all right. So we had to set up our own cable modem. And we had to set up our own, you know.

Repoed furniture, but a cable modem. Yeah. You have priorities. But like, looking back, we did it. And we, we, and I was proud of us. I think what I said was if one of our kids in a couple of years got married and did exactly what we did, I would be so proud of them. Yeah. And so it was a good moment to look back because when you're in the moment, you don't know what you're doing.

You don't know if you're doing it right. We didn't do everything. That's what I was going to say because if you're sitting there going like, I don't feel that way. I didn't do it all right. Neither did we. Yeah, we didn't do it. And that's why sometimes you need to go back from that perspective of grace and go, hey. Look at those two kids.

Y'all did all right. Yeah. You know, you were dumb and you were broke and you would do it differently if you did it again. you can do it differently now because you've learned. Right. And even things you didn't get right, you can learn from. And that's the spirit of the message. Go back for your benefit.

And so I just want you to live with the power of reflection at your disposal, but not just any kind of reflection, reflecting on your current circumstances with God's presence as your lens, just to know, like, he was with you, he is with you, he will be with you. Yeah. And I hope you go back today. and some of the things that the enemy did to you, go back and kind of demand, you know, like,

I refuse to let this make me weaker. I am going to be stronger from this. I refuse to let this turn into bitterness and resentment in my heart. Right. I'm going to turn it into wisdom. Right. So do what Hezekiah did. No matter what you've been through,

or even if you're still going through it, go back for your benefit. Remember another time that God did something awesome in your life. apply that same faith that you grew in that season to the current one, go back for your benefit. And put in the chat real quick, I'm going back. I'm going back. And we'll see you back soon.

Bye-bye. Hey, thank you for watching the Elevation Church YouTube. I want you to subscribe. That way you can know when we go live and post new content. Make sure leave me a comment. Let me know what spoke to you today, where you're watching from, and what we can pray for you about. And if you'd like to support the ministry financially,

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