Elevation with Steven Furtick - Something Good Is Here Right Now! (Holly Furtick)

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Sometimes, we need to slow down to see the good that’s right in front of us. In “Something Good Is Here Right Now!” Holly Furtick reveals that hope and joy may be closer than we think.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Come on, put it in the chat right now. If you say, I'm a giver, I'm a giver, I'm a giver, I'm a giver. Thank you, Lord, for all these faithful givers, for the seed they've sown. Thank you for Holly. Thank you for the life that she lives, the woman that she is. Thank you for how beautiful she is, inside and out.

Today, God, would you speak through her the exact thing we need to hear? We are listening. We are. ready for a holly, jolly Christmas. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, y'all thank God for Holly as she comes. To say welcome to those of you who are watching online and that all of our campuses today, I am so glad to know that you are prioritizing the Word of God in your life and in your family during the busiest season of the year. And I believe that God is going to multiply your time Today, you're going to accomplish everything you need to accomplish in the next six days,

roughly 150 hours till Christmas. But who's counting? Not me. Before you sit down, I just want to read my passage really quick. If you have a Bible, I'm going to be in Luke chapter 2, verse 8. If you don't have a Bible, it's going to be on the screen there for you. Luke 2 says, and there were shepherds living out in the first. fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them,

and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be assigned to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Let's pray. Lord, would you speak to us today? God, would you help us to clear our minds of all the thoughts that are flying through our heads, the things that we need to do, the burdens that are on our shoulders? God, we set it all aside right now, and we ask for you to speak to us. We are listening. We know you have a message for us today.

And God, for all the delivery men and women out there, would you bless them? Would you help them not to get lost, driving around? Would you keep them safe? And would you bring our packages safely to our doorsteps? Jesus' name, amen. You can be seated. Thank you, worship team. Anyone out there tracking a package?

Let me see your hand. Are you tracking a package? I don't know if it's a gift or a curse that technology has allowed us to literally see where our packages are at all times, except for some of these apps that are not quite accurate and they're driving me crazy. I thought that I was doing really good this year when I started Christmas shopping in October. I'm telling you, never ever have I Christmas shopped before Black Friday. This year I was like scared. The Today Show had me nervous and nothing was going to get here. And so I started in October, but I got to tell you, it has been no less stressful for me

because I have spent the entire month of December obsessively tracking my packages. I currently have one package that I know is not going to make it here by Christmas, and I have three that I keep hitting refresh on, and it's going to be a Christmas miracle if they arrive in time. How many of you believe in Christmas miracles? Yes. Okay. So last week, one of the things, one of the things,

things that I had ordered for Stephen hadn't come in yet. And so I went and found the email and I found the tracking number. And when I clicked on it, my heart sank because it said Canada Post. And I didn't realize that my package was coming from a foreign country. Nothing against our Canadian friends. Shout out to those of you watching at our Toronto campus, but my package sat at your border for three days. How do I know? Because I checked it every day. I kept the Canada Post tab open in my browser, and I just kept clicking refresh. And on day two, I started to panic, and I imagined my package getting lost in a giant pile of boxes at customs, because I know Canada is really much more strict about COVID and all these

things, and maybe my package had COVID. And so I started thinking of backup gifts. And then on the third day, I refreshed in the item. The thing said, item has arrived in foreign country, USA. How many of you thank God for the third day? We're believing God for some third day packages this Christmas. I think one of the best and the worst parts of Christmas is male, because on one hand, I'm constantly tracking my packages. but on the other hand, the relief and the pure joy that can be felt when you pull into your driveway and you see a pile of boxes on your front door. Some of the men in here are like, I do not feel pure joy when I see all those boxes. But, sir, Eric Phillips, happy birthday, you were not waiting

for a Christmas miracle. And the feeling when you start to read those return labels and you realize that your gift is here. It's amazing. It is a great feeling. Amen? Anybody know that feeling? Okay. Last week, Stephen taught us, something good is coming from this. Were you here? If you were here, do the motions with me. He said this. He said, something good is coming from this, remember? And he told us that if anything good can come from Nazareth, then something good is coming from this. And I loved it when he said, don't leave Egypt without going through the gift shop because he made fun of me. But you guys, I love a gift shop. I have loved gift shops since I was 10 years old. I don't know why. I love a gift shop. If you don't buy the mug, were you really even there? You had to have proof that you

were there. Something good is coming from this. What a problem. he gave us to hold on to, and I thought about it all week. And I kept thinking about how so many people are going through a dark season in their lives right now. You might be watching and thinking, I wish my biggest Christmas, my biggest worry this Christmas season was making sure that my packages got delivered on time. I've been thinking a lot about my friend Kimberly, who's 14-year-old son, has cancer, and he has been fighting for his life in the hospital and how she hasn't seen her 12-year-old son for two months. And I know that many of you are going through maybe a divorce, or you lost your job or you lost a loved one this year, and you don't even want to celebrate Christmas.

And I just want to say to you that if it feels dark to you this year, I want you to know that I'm praying for you. And I'm also so thankful that you are here with us. in church today. Because God can handle your disappointments and your doubts. And when you come to church where you log on to your computer and you take time and you worship God even in the midst of a difficult season, you're sending a message to yourself and to the enemy that you may be under attack, but you are not going to go down. And I believe I'm pleased I'm praying that you are going to go out of here today full of faith and joy and hope in your heart, because God has given me a message for you. So this week when I was reading this passage,

Luke 2, about the shepherds, and I kept praying about what God wanted me to say to you. And I had all these things, but they weren't all coming together. And I was thinking there's only six days left till Christmas. And God, what do you want me to say? And I finally figured out, He wants me to give you part two of Pastor Stephen's sermon from last week. All right. So last week we learned something good is coming from this. This week, part two, we've got some new motions. It goes like this.

Something good is here right now. Okay? Let's do it one more time. One more time, ready? Because now you got it, okay? Something good is here. right now. Right now. Today I want to take the story of the shepherds and show you that not only is something good coming from this, from your situation, but also something good is here right now.

Romans 828 tells us that God is working all things for good. But what I am learning is that while I'm waiting for God to do this good work, there is good to be found in every situation, in every person, in every moment right here. So in our time that we have together, I want to show you three things to remember this holiday season that will help you focus on the good in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of the loneliness, in the middle of your dysfunction, in the middle of every single situation that you face. Are you ready? Let's go.

Let's look at the first two verses that we read. Luke tells us in verse 8, and the shepherds were living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them. The first thing that I want to point out to you is that God is, here, not there. One of the themes that I love about the Christmas story in the Bible is how God

chooses the least likely people to carry out his plan. It's not just in the Christmas story. It's all throughout the Bible, but when we think about the Christmas story, Mary was, she was not an experienced mother. She was just a girl. Joseph was not the son of a prominent community leader or a Bible scholar, yet God chose them two ordinary people to care for and protect and raise Jesus. And then when it came time to spread the news of the birth of his son, God chose the shepherds. Now, when we picture the shepherds, I think that we picture this. I just grabbed this little case, just the book was better. The book is always better. If I have any book lovers out there, I think that we picture this. I took this from my foyer. For some reason, my nativity said only has

one shepherd. I'm not sure why I never noticed that before. There were shepherds in the field. But anyway, I think we picture this guy. And, you know, he's got this peaceful, these peaceful little lambs that are, you know, looking up at him. And he's got this baby lamb in his arms. And he's got this beautiful white robe and the shepherd thing on his head. And he just looks so good and peaceful. I mean, he's holding a lamb, right? That's my perception of what the shepherds were like. But actually, during this period of history, shepherds were some of the lowest in society. First of all, just purely because of their work with animals,

they were considered unclean by Jewish law. And just because of the nature of their job, this made them an outcast from the community on a regular basis. But not just that, they were also commonly assumed to be dishonest and untrustworthy people. Now, if I was God, I mean, if you're glad I'm not God, my kids are glad I'm not God. If I was God, I would have chosen the priests, right? They were the ones who knew all about the ancient prophecies. They were the ones who had experience in spiritual matters and they were respected in the community.

Why didn't the angel go to the temple? But instead, the angels went to the field. And I think it's funny how God works because most of the time, in my experience, he doesn't show up there, the place where you think he should. He shows up here, the place where you are. The shepherds are some of the least respected people in the community. they were going to be the first to receive the announcement of the birth of the king of God's son, not in the temple, but out in the field. And I believe that God is sending you and I the message today, that you don't have to change anything about yourself for God to reveal himself to you. You don't have to get clean.

You don't have to be successful. You don't have to be a Bible prophecy expert. You don't even have to be an exceptionally good person. Your accomplishments, your status, your appearance do not qualify you in a spiritual sense. Now, obviously, as we grow in our relationship with God, we do change and we do matured. God doesn't want you to stay where you are, but who you are right now is all you need to be for God to reveal himself to you right now in this moment. It's your position that's important. God reveals himself to those who have space to hear him, who have room to receive him.

The shepherds didn't have a high position in human terms, but in spiritual terms, they were perfectly positioned because they were in the field at night. Outside of the hustle and bustle of town life. They were not sleeping comfortably with a roof over their head and warm blankets. They were outside in the dark. I don't want to have to remind you about being kept in the dark. I hope you were paying attention two weeks ago. If not, you go back two weeks. And hear Pastor Stephen talk about being kept in the dark.

But I got to tell you, if you feel like you are outside and in the dark this Christmas, if you feel lost and confused, if you feel like no one sees you, you just might be in the best position to hear from God. I think that God knew. He knew that he could get the shepherd's attention because they were away from the noise of the town. In my experience, God does not need me to be a certain way in order for me to hear him speak. But he doesn't, he doesn't not shout and he does not compete with all the other things that I have going on in my life. And for me, the biggest hindrance to my relationship with God is my schedule. When my life is busy and hurried and rushed, I have no space for God to speak to me.

I have no time for God to speak to me. And every time the holiday season comes around, every single time, You think I'd get this figured out, but I get so caught up in the rush of everything that I have to do, everything that I've committed to do that I end up limping into the new year, feeling depleted. Because I've just spent the last month trying to worship Jesus. And this year, I feel like God is saying to me, hey, Holly, I didn't ask for all of that. Decorating your home with beautiful decorations, that's great. and all the delicious meals and all the gifts that you buy for people, that's great.

But what God wants from me this Christmas is my attention. The message, can you give him your attention? The message that the angel delivered was, the king is here today. And I want you to know he's here. He's here in this room. He's here in your car. He's here in your kitchen. He's here at your desk. He's here in your thoughts right where you are, just how you are. You don't have to wait until you get there to experience God. Don't wait until Christmas Eve to experience Jesus. It's not about there. It's about here. This present moment, take a breath. Can you make some space for God?

in your life because something good is here. Not when I get over it, not when I get through it, not when I get past it, it's here right now. Okay, I can't wait to tell you this next part, because God gave me this next part first, and I have been waiting for several weeks to tell you this next part. I don't want to like over, over promise and underdelivered, but it's really good, Okay. So look at what the shepherd, look at what the scripture says, but the angel said to the shepherds. Verse nine, an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid and bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. Are you ready for this? Here's number two. God has good things to say to you. Don't be afraid. I bring you good news. Now, I grew up in church. In fact, I would challenge anyone who is in this room or watching online today that I have spent

more time in church than you. Some of you heard me say this before, but my dad was a pastor, my whole life. I rarely missed a Sunday or a Wednesday church. In fact, the same is kind of true for my kids. Abby has strep throat. She's backstage right now watching. But then when I was in high school, my parents joined this traveling revival ministry where we held services almost every night. and then I went to a Christian college. And then, as you know, I married a pastor. And I'm so grateful for the foundation that my parents gave me in my faith. It made me the person that I am today. But somewhere along the lines, and no fault to you, mom and dad, hey, my parents are watching at our Greenville location, somewhere along the lines, I spent a lot of my teen years and my

young adult life missing what it means to actually have a relationship. with Christ. Because I thought that most of the time, when God speaks to you, it's because you have broken a rule. In fact, I remember a Sunday school lesson where we memorize Numbers 3223. This is what it says. Behold, you have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out. Remember it. Oftentimes, when I would think about my relationship with God, I would think about the things that I'm not supposed to do as a believer in Christ. And I would imagine that when God would speak to me, it would be about something that I needed to stop doing. Now, listen, before I get to the good news part, sometimes when God speaks to us, it is to correct us. Sometimes it is to direct us or redirect us or stop us from doing something really dumb.

And when God speaks these things to us, like be kinder to your spouse, be honest in your schoolwork, be faithful in your job. It can be really hard to receive. Nobody wants to hear, hey, you need to change this. So yes, that is a part of having a relationship with God. But listen to me say this. This is so important. If you only hear me say one thing today, I want you to hear me say this. Jesus came so that you and I do not have to be afraid of God.

Even when God speaks to correct us, he does it as a loving father, not a condemning judge. Four times in the Christmas story, the characters are told not to be afraid. I got to tell you about him. The first time is in Luke 113, and the angel says to Zachariah, fear not your prayers have been answered. And I believe that God wants you to know today that he hears your prayers. You don't have to be afraid that your prayers are going nowhere. God hears you. Then in Luke 30, Luke 1 30, the angel told Mary, fear not, you have found favor with God. And I believe that God wants you to know today that you are blessed and highly favored. You are his child.

and he is proud of you and he has good gifts that he wants to give you this Christmas season. And then in Matthew 1.30, the Lord said to Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. God wants you to know that you don't have to be afraid to do the things that you know that he is calling you to do. Don't be afraid to forgive. Don't be afraid to give of your time, of your gifts, of your money.

Don't be afraid to love. When God directs you like he did Joseph, he's going to be with you the whole way. He's going to send you the wise men and give you the gifts that you need to carry you on to Egypt. And then the fourth time is the angels to the shepherds. And the angel says, do not. be afraid. I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all the people. I read a quote this week that said, all fear is the notion that God's love ends. And I want to tell you today, don't be afraid of what your loving father wants to speak to you today. 1 John 418, there is no

fear in love because perfect love drives out fear. Fear has to do with punishment. And Jesus did not come to earth to punish us. He came to earth to save us. He came to earth to atone for our sins, not to condemn us again and again and again about them. The funny thing about that verse in numbers, it said, your sin will find you out. And I think that my sin does a pretty good job at finding me out. Most of us are doing a great job feeling ashamed of the mistakes that we have made. Most of us are well aware of the consequences of our poor choices. The message of Jesus is repentance, not shame and condemnation.

And God did not send his son to rub your mistakes in your face. He sent his son because he loves you. And his love for you is endless. It's beyond anything that you can fathom. There is nothing that you can do that will make God stop loving you. I got to say that again because I want it to sink in. There is nothing that you can do that will make God stop loving you. And what God wants for you is to have a relationship with you. That is the gospel.

You know, it is actually literally translated? Good news. He has good news that he wants to speak to you. Does anybody need some good news today? There's a lot of bad news out there. There's a lot of scary news. I'm scared about my packages. A lot of these, my husband will come home and I'll tell him, oh, I've got something to tell you.

And he'll look at me, he'll say, is it good or bad? And I'm not an angel, but I do have some good news for you today. and I believe that you came to church today because God wanted to speak some good news to your heart. So listen to me. Here's some good news. You are loved and accepted just the way you are. Good news. Good news. God sent his one and only son to earth for you. Good news. God is for you, not against you. Good news. You are not alone. Good news. You are not alone. Good news. Good news. You are not alone. Good news. news. You are more than a conqueror. Good news. God has put his spirit inside of you to comfort you and to guide you. Don't let fear keep you from receiving the good news that God has for you because this news will bring you joy, an unexplainable knowing that makes you smile from the inside out, no matter what's going on around you.

Something good is here. Good news and great joy. That's what God wants you to experience this Christmas. The Bible tells us that when Sarah, Abraham's wife, finally held her son in her arms at the age of 90, and she saw the promise of God fulfilled in flesh, you know what she said? she said, God has brought me laughter. I want you to laugh this Christmas season. I want you to smile,

not because everything's great in your life, but because you have heard good news and it caused you to feel great joy. Joy is the secret of Christmas. And it is here for you right now when you receive the good news of Jesus. Look back at what the angel said. Just keep going. Verse 11. Today. Something good is here right now. Not tomorrow.

Today. The town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be assigned to you. You will find the baby wrapped in clogs and lying in a manger. And suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, glory to God in the high.

and on earth peace to those to those on whom his favor rests. And when the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger. All right. So something good is here. right now, but it might not be in plain sight. That's my last point to today. God wants you to find the good. The angel says to the shepherds, you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And the shepherd said, let's go find it. And they hurried off. In the Bible, says they found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger. How many of you know that you will find

what you're looking for this Christmas? If you're looking for drama, you're not going to have to search very hard. If you're looking for a reason to be annoyed, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding that. You're looking for a fight? If you're looking for the negative, it's going to be right there in plain sight. But I came today to tell you six days before Christmas, 150 hours, something good is here right now. Are you looking for it? The first Christmas that Stephen and I lived in Charlotte, Stephen's parents came to our house to celebrate Christmas. In the past, we had always driven down to their house. But this particular year, we had a brand new baby, and we were busy building the launch team of elevation,

which would begin services, Sunday morning services, the following February. And Stephen was providing for our family in that season by traveling and preaching at every little, picture this, church basement, picture that. Every little youth group speaking event that he could fit into his calendar and then spending every free second of his time planting this church. We were stretched thin in every way with time, with money, with everything. And so his parents generously came to us. And on Christmas morning, one of the gifts that we opened was a $100 gift card to Walmart from Stephen's uncle. And this was a big deal to us. And we were super grateful for that gift. His uncle had never really given us a gift that big before. And so it was just a wonderful, pleasant surprise.

And a few weeks later, Seam was headed out the door and he said, hey, where's that gift card that Uncle Russell gave us? And I got a bad feeling. And so, you know, I casually said, started looking in like the normal places you would look like, you know, my wallet. I was like, was it in your wallet? And we couldn't find it anywhere. So then we both started looking. And we looked, and we looked, and I'm not going to lie to you, we got into a fight. I was going to say a little fight. We got into a big fight over it. This was not my finest Mrs. Better Half moment. We fought over who had the card last. We fought over who saw. We fought over who fault it was missing. We fought over why we couldn't be more responsible human beings. We're

like grown-up adults now. And why didn't we value the card more? And it wasn't good. And eventually, we stopped looking and we went our separate ways. And I just decided it must have accidentally been thrown away. Two years later, I was decorating our house for Christmas. And in the bottom of the storage bin of decorations was that $100 gift card to Walmart. It had been in the house all along. Now, guys, I've got to tell you, I looked in empty suitcases, diaper bags, wallets, drawers, pockets, cars, everything that I could think of to look. But I never thought to look in the Christmas decoration bin. And it just made me think that a lot of the things that we're searching for are at the bottom of places that you don't think to look.

Three times in 10 verses in the Bible, Luke tells us that the baby would be found in a manger. Why did he say manger three times in 10 verses? I think it's because a manger is the last place that you would think to look for a baby. That's how they were going to know it was the right baby. The angel didn't say, go look for a newborn baby because, quite frankly, all newborn babies look the same. They're scrunchy and goopy and crying. They looked like little aliens. I'm not really a baby person.

Look for a baby in a manger? Now, that's not something that you see every day. Because a manger was a feeding troth for animals. A manger was an ordinary, mundane, glorified dog bowl. And throughout time, there are a lot of places that people might put a baby. A crib, a cradle, a basket, a drawer, a person's arms. But the last place that you would think to find a baby would be a feeding troth. And the message to the shepherds is the same message to us. Something good is here right now,

today, but it's not going to be where you expect it. But when you find it, it's going to bring you great joy. And you're never going to be the same again. Last week when Pastor Stephen was ending his message, have you ever the people who like to take notes, sometimes when Pastor Stephen says, stand up, put your notebooks down. And then he says like the best things. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. So last week at the very end of his message, he just like shoots off things that I would make a whole message around. And he tells us, he says, be looking for the good. And he said, you're going to find it this Christmas in dirty places, annoying people, and simple moments. When he said that, I was like, whoa, I think that's my sermon.

So I wrote it down. And I just want to just, you know, expound on that. Because I like more words than him. Right now, today, can you find the good in the dirty places of your life? The places that you don't want anyone to see. You know, the unfiltered places. that no one's going to see in your Facebook feed or in your Christmas card. We all have those places.

Your marriage is a manger. It's messy. It's imperfect. And there are places in it that you don't want anyone to see. But there is good to be found in your marriage. Can you find the good in annoying people? There's good in your teenager. there's good in that annoying co-worker that you sit next to or work with every day.

What if this Christmas season you went around looking for the good in your family? Now, this might be actually, this is harder to live out than it is for me to just say it from the stage. But let's all together try to, rather than seeing the things, that drive you crazy about people. Maybe you can focus on the things that they do well. Surely you can find something or the things that they have been through that can give you compassion for the way that they act or the way that they treat you or treat others. There's good to be found. And then there's what he said, the simple moments. Can we just spend some time over the next few days, seeing, finding, looking for the mundane manger moments?

This week, I started thinking about the simple moments in my life. And I want to see the good in the ordinary moments. Because you see, when I said at the beginning, God wants you to have space to hear him. God wants you to have space in your schedule. I'm not saying that you have to get up earlier or stay up later or cancel something. I'm saying, can you see the good in everything that you do? Like driving my kids to school, simple, every day. And let me tell you, the Ferdic children, they do not have a mother who is a pleasant morning person.

And most days, we leave our house 7.10. That's the goal. And most days, traffic is bad, and now I'm dropping them. We're, like, peeling in on two wheels at the last second, and I'm like, run! So don't get any ideas. They're not beautiful, meaningful conversations going on in your pastor's wife's car in the morning. But I know that one day, I will just, I will miss just breathing the same air as them for 25 minutes in the car in the morning. It's a simple moment.

Simple moment. Like, I need to do a better job at smiling at people. If you have a mask on, some people love the mask because you don't have to smile. Smile with your eyes. See the people that are around you.

Simple moments, like staying a little bit longer at the dinner table. It wasn't a perfect meal that we had this last Monday and no one went back for seconds. But I told everyone, we are eating together at 6.45 on Monday night, and I want everyone to be there. And we sat down and we ate together. And it wasn't about the food. It was about the time around the table. You've got simple moments in your job, simple moments in your laundry. God comes through mangers, the ordinary, the places that you don't think to look. major moments. It's an opportunity to look for God in the unexpected, to see him in your work, to see him in all your roles, in all your mess. You don't have to deny the dark. You don't have to pretend like everything is amazing. I know that this didn't turn out the way that you expected.

But what I want to say to you today is don't let your unmet expectations, keep you from seeing the gifts that are all around you and the greatest gift of all. Matthew 123 tells us, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. The gift of Christmas is that you are not alone. God is with you. he's here right now something good is here right now it is Jesus Emmanuel

God with us he is with you in your pain he is with you in your disappointment he is with you when you feel like you're being kept in the dark he is with you in all of the ordinary moments and tasks of your day something good is here right Right now. Now, I don't want to end on a down note. I want you to walk out of here, like I said, with a smile on your face that came up from the inside. So here's what we're going to do. Stand up. And don't you dare leave right now. Don't you dare turn your computer off. You're going to miss the best part, and I went a lot shorter than Pastor Stephen does every single week, so there's no rush to leave. All right. What I want you to do, first let's do our motions. Okay? Ready?

Something good is here right now. I want you to turn to the person next to you and tell them something good. It can be anything. Anything. I told you I was going to get you out of here. Turn to another person. Something good. Tell someone else.

Something good. Something you're thankful for a person and answer a prayer. If you're watching online, I want you to put it in the chat. Tell me something good. right now. Nothing good. We're looking for the good this week. We're not going to wait on there

because something good is here right now. Can I show you one more thing? One more thing real quick. Look at verse 20. Let me find it. Verse 20 of Luke chapter 2. It says this, the shepherds went back to their flocks,

glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, it was just as the angel had told them. They found the baby, was in a manger, just as the angels had said. They worshipped the baby. Then they went into the town of Bethlehem, and they told everyone what they had seen. And then what did they do? What did it say?

Put it back up. What did it say? Oh, I got it. Okay, there it is. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God. When you walk out that door today, you're going back to your flocks. But you're not going back the same. You're going back a new you with a new perspective because your eyes are open. You've heard the good news. It's brought you great joy. You're going to be looking for the good. You're going out of there. Today, back to your flocks, but a new you. Let's pray. Lord, we're going back to our flocks right now. Thank you for what you have shown us today.

Thank you for your word. Thank you for the good news of Jesus that brings us great joy. God, all day to day, would you just flood our hearts with good news, good messages? Flood our hearts with your love. open up our eyes as we close out 2021. We want to see the good that is here right now. We're looking. And God, we thank you that you are with us.

Emmanuel. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, if you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple things I'd love for you to do. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. You can also help us reach others by investing today. at elevation church.org

slash give. And thanks again for joining us on the elevation podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.