Steven Furtick - Ready For a New Perspective?
This is an excerpt from: Try Higher
It's not that I wasn't doing enough. It's not that I wasn't trying enough. It's that I wasn't trusting enough. I kept thinking if I couldn't get in the way I wanted to get in, it wasn't meant to be. No. It's not trying harder. I don't have to force it. I can make it by faith, trusting him who was and is and is to come. That means I don't go by what I see. I don't try harder. If I just had to try harder, then Christ died for nothing.
The gospel isn't "Try harder"; it's "Try higher". If you ever call his name, he will reach down and pick you up. Do I have three witnesses in the whole church? If you ever humble yourself and say, "Almighty Father, I need you right now," he'll look upon you with mercy, grace, compassion, and help for your time of need. That's the word I needed, because sometimes it gets heavy because I try harder and harder, but God said, "Try higher". Be like these dudes who said, "Can't get in. Can't get in. Can't get in. Got to go up". I'll give you the picture again. "Can't get in. Can't get in. Can't get in. Got to go up".
And you are saying to me, "Pastor Steven, what exactly does that mean"? Sit down. I'll tell you. I know there's a way, because with God there's always a way; by faith I will find it. What is faith? Faith is when I get my eyes above the waves and put them on the one who can speak one word to the waves and make them be still. You think God can't bring your kid back? You think God can't fix this thing? You think God can't turn an industry around? You think God can't raise you up in a famine? I said, "Try higher". Maybe you ought to close a news app and open a Bible app every once in a while and try higher. What does God say? What does his Word say?
I didn't come here to debate about it; I came here to declare it. God says I'm going over, not under. God says I'm the head and not the tail. God said I'm above and not beneath. He said I'm seated! Now high-five your neighbor again because I'm going to tell you five things. I'm going to tell you how to try higher, not harder, so you don't just go and go, "That was pretty good. I think he blew out his vocal cords trying to tell me something and all that. I don't know what I think about Preacher rapping, or anything like that, on the video. I don't even know if he had much flow or anything like that. I really don't know about that cardigan. What was that thing you were wearing? I don't know about that".
So you don't leave here with just some stupid stuff, I wrote down five things. God said it's going to take prayer. (Now you know why I came over here. They put on my sheet, "The online prayer team is coming today". I said, "I know I've got the right word". Forty-two of y'all. While we're having church, they're online praying for the people in the comment section.) Every time I tell somebody, "Put your thing in the chat and we'll pray for you," I know they go, "I already tried to pray".
Did you? Did you pray about it or did you worry about it and label it prayer? Those are different. I had to sit down on the side of the bed the other day. I was having shortness of breath about some things I was worried about. I put my feet down, and I said, "They're not moving until I say out loud to my Father who I remember he is and begin to get myself into a condition, because I don't feel that right now…" I felt blocked. Do you ever feel blocked? Anybody like me? Sometimes you get so blocked you can't even breathe right? Yeah. So, I had to put my feet on the ground. If you would have asked me, I would have said, "Yeah, I prayed about this," but I didn't pray about it today. You have to keep praying. You're going to pray once and say, "I tried; it didn't work"? Do you do that with restaurants? "No, I ate back there in 1997. I'm good".
Sometimes it's heavy because… Remember what they did? They brought the man before Jesus. I don't want you to just come out here and hear me preach and yell and scream and sing, and all this stuff we try to do, and then go home and wonder why you're blocked. It's going to take prayer for you to try higher. You need God. You need God in your situation. You need angels in your situation. You need the Spirit of God to make it through some of the things we're going through today. You need prayer. Not just pray louder, because that's try harder. Pray louder. "O God, O God, O God! God, I call on you now for peace! Peace"! And it's not praying longer. I hear people say, "Well, I try to pray. I fall asleep".
Did you try it walking? That would be really hard to do. If you fall asleep prayer walking, come see me, because you are a modern-day Lazarus, coming out like a zombie in prayer. But I'm serious. I'm talking about praying larger because, secondly, to try higher means God might need to deal with your priorities. Remember, it wasn't so significant who these men were because they weren't even named in the passage. It was what they were carrying. They were carrying somebody Jesus wanted to use. Notice something. I don't know if you caught this. When they laid the sick man down, thinking Jesus would heal him like he was known to be able to do, the first thing Jesus did was say, "You're forgiven". But they weren't looking for forgiveness, were they?
Sometimes God doesn't give us what we want the first time. Sometimes he wants to do something deeper before he raises us higher. A lot of times in my life, I've been more consumed with what it was costing me than what I was carrying. There was something significant about this man, and it was beyond any of their inkling of understanding what it would be. They thought, "Maybe our friend will get a miracle". They didn't know he would be a sermon illustration we'd be preaching about 2,000 years later. Now, is it possible that trying higher is just about you saying, "God, I know what I think needs to happen. I know where I think it's supposed to be. I know what I think was supposed to be the outcome…" Is it possible that the word of God for you today might be "Let go of the outcome and surrender to God in the process"?
That's how you try higher. Trying harder is you're going to force it, force it, force it. Sometimes you can even force something through the flesh that you'll be praying for God to take away later. Do you hear me? I'm anointed for somebody right now, and I don't know who it is. I hear God saying you don't have to pray louder or longer; pray larger. Priority. Who are you fighting for? They were fighting for their friend. If you're not fighting for anybody… "When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they gave up and went home". There was something after the comma that they cared about, and it was something they were carrying. It was somebody. There has to come a time in your life where you say, "I don't even want to do it for me right now, but maybe God wants to do something through me that's bigger than me. Maybe it's not always about me".
That's how you try higher. I should come back over here, because the third one I wrote down, if you're going to try higher, is partners. Put in the chat right now what you need prayer for, and they will pray for you before the next time you see me. Will you do that? I don't care how strong you are. One man doesn't get another man up on the roof like that. It's not going to happen without partners. Trying higher in this season isn't just you going into isolation and gritting your teeth and getting it done alone. That's why I want you in this church as much as you can get here: so we can get around each other, so you can pretend like you know how to sing because the person next to you can. I want that for you.
I don't want you to just try harder by yourself and the Devil just beats you half to death because you think you can do it all in isolation. You don't ask anybody, you don't join anything, and you don't listen to anybody. That's not trying higher; that's trying harder. Some men came carrying a man. Who is your crew to help you get it done, to carry it with you? You need to find somebody in your life who has figured out something you are frustrated with and tell them, "I'm coming up there. I'm coming up there with you. I'm coming up there because you know something.
You know something I don't. I'm not going to stay down here, saying I tried everything, when I didn't even ask anybody to help me. I'm not doing this one more day by myself. I need some real partners. Some of the people I thought were my partners were actually the problem, so I need some new friends". Sorry. I do need some new friends every once in a while. Then the Lord said something very interesting to me. The fourth one is permission. Permission isn't going to come from the Pharisees.
Permission to live the way of Christ is not going to come from the culture. They will always call you crazy. But some of the things you're praying about right now you could make decisions about before the day is over. When Jesus told this man, "Take up your mat and walk…" If he gave him the command but did not give him the power, it would have been cruel of Jesus. So, when Jesus told the man, "Take up your mat and walk," he was acknowledging the man's problem but giving him the permission to live above it. I declare to you in the mighty name of Jesus that he has defeated death, sin, and the grave. Sin no longer is your master. It no longer has dominion over you.
"How do you know that, Pastor Steven"? Because when the man came in, he was lying on the mat; when he left, he was carrying it, and he didn't need anybody to carry him. If you're ready to get over some stuff the Enemy said you couldn't move past, give God a praise. That's my fifth P: praise. God said if we're going to do it in this season, like we need to do it in this season… "If you want to see me make a way, give me a praise for who I am, for what I've done, for what I brought you through". Everybody who owes God the praise, give it to him right now! I will give you 30 seconds to open your mouth and "bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me".
Try higher! Give him the greatest praise you ever gave him. Why not? Hallelujah! He's high and lifted up. Give him praise! Because they went higher, he got healed, and everybody praised God…everybody from the brokest to the richest, from the shortest to the tallest, from the newest to the oldest. Everybody praised God. Because with God there's always a way, and by faith I'll find it. You're going to find it. You just haven't looked high enough yet.