Why Am I Anxious?

Published Sep 27, 2024, 8:00 AM

“Why am I anxious?” We’ve all had to ask ourselves that question, and thankfully, asking it is the first step. In this impactful message, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church walks us through seven reasons we might be anxious –– and ways to lean on God in those moments.

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and.

This is our podcast.

I wanted to thank you for joining us today.

Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.

Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message.

We want to shift gears a little bit this week and teach you a message.

That I taught our staff.

It's a different version of it, but I was sharing with our staff on the subject of anxiety.

And the reason that I did that's.

Primarily because our staff is very young. Many of our staff have never worked in another work environment than Elevation Church.

It's a fast paced.

Environment, growth environment, and a lot of performance pressure, and I felt like, as the under shepherd that serves to oversee our staff, I wanted to share some very practical principles on the subject of anxiety. Don't judge me for this, but sometimes I do a YouTube search of myself my own sermons.

The only reason I do it.

Hang with me for a second is when I want to spot check and see, you know how I can preach better, So do that. But also I want to see what people are looking for what kind of help they're looking for, what kind of subjects tend to draw people in so that we can tell them the good news about Jesus Christ. And in order to do that, sometimes I'll look and see what are the top sermons that have been watched that have been preached out of this pulpit. Because we give them all the way for free in as many different formats as we can, we kind of embrace the day that we live in. And so right now people are watching on Facebook Live and YouTube live and and the Elevation Church app and just watching you you'd be shocked, you would be so surprised how many people are up in the middle of the night in another part of the world and wanting to tune into your church. And they write me from time to time they tell me they're coming to church, like Morgan Freeman, on.

A bucket list to be here.

And always thought that was cool because growing up, for me, church was not a bucket list type thought what made me want to die, but it didn't make me well, I didn't want to do it before I die. So anyway, what I thought, what I thought I would do today for you to share from the top subject that I preached on because in the top three sermons that I've preached in terms of views, the subject was anxiety. And I want to share a message with you today on the subject of anxiety, and I want to do.

It from Psalm one point thirty nine.

So we're somewhere near the middle of this series looking at David's life and looking at the lyrics of the psalms that he wrote, and we're making comparisons. We're saying that David is the greatest rapper or MC of all time, and I stand by that.

I stand by that. I would say that David's.

Words in the songs are are divinely inspired to help us search within ourselves. And one song I didn't tell them this last night. The reason that I love Somealone thirty nine, where I'm going to share with you from today. The reason I love it is because the first time I tried to write a Christian song, I wrote it based on Someone thirty nine. And Holly's laughing because every once in a while we'll mention this song.

It's not a very good song.

I'm not going to go into it right now, but it was based on psalmone thirty nine and it had this cool little walk down in it. But other than that, the song really wasn't very good. But I was only sixteen at the time. And so it's a wonderful song because it gives us a picture of both God's all seeing I meaning that he is watching over our lives in every situation in season, and the intimacy with which God sees our lives. And so I want to pick up in verse seventeen today and bring you into the flow of the psalm a little bit. David says this someone thirty nine verse seventeen. How precious to me are your thoughts?

God? How vast is the sum of them?

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked away from me, You who are blood thirsty. They speak of you with evil intent, Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you Lord? And abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. Here comes the shift, because David is focusing on external fact, and all of a sudden he makes this move that we see him make over and over again in his life, from dealing with his.

Enemies to the inner me.

And as much as that sounds like a little preacher thing, let's see what you did there, it's really the most important life skill because David is about to take responsibility for his own anxiety. He's not going to put it on the economy.

He's not going to.

Put it on King Saul, who's trying to kill him. He's not going to put it on his teenagers.

He didn't have kids, but you know what I'm saying, not at this point. He did have kids, and we'll talk about them in a future week.

But he's not putting it on anybody but himself.

Watch it.

In verse twenty three, he says, search me, search me. Those two words would set you free from ninety percent of the drama because some of you borrowed trauma trying to look into.

Other people's lives. Clap like it's not you. No one will know that's good, pastor tell.

Them search me God and know my heart.

Did you notice the shift? Kill them?

He's fussing and cussing about the way things are in the world, these bloodthirsty men and all these selfish politicians and all this corruption, the systemic corruption. God do something about it. And then he shifts and says, search me. Nothing changes until I do know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. That's where I want to spend some time today. And I've been asking myself the question lately. This is my sermon title, Why am I anxious? Why am I anxious? Apparently, according to my non scientific YouTube study, all of you are anxious, and so I won't ask the question have you experienced anxiety in the last week? Because we live in the age of anxiety. Let's be honest about it. I mean, it is almost marketed to us through the stations that are supposed.

To be giving us our information, they actually.

Engage us using fear tactics so that they can sell advertising time, often promoting the same drug and pharmaceutical companies that are owned by the same conglomerates that push out the information that is design.

To make us anxious.

But let's be careful because we sound like David now in verse twenty two, kill them God.

But David came to a place.

Where he said, you know, it's not what's happening out there that makes me anxious. It's what I allow in here.

To go undetected and unchecked. It's my thought process.

He uses an actual Hebrew word that means disquieting thoughts. It's translated as closely as it can be into English anxious thoughts. So David is saying, now, it is not what is happening that is creating anxiety. It is the way I am thinking about it. Look at verse twenty four. I know that David didn't know about neural pathways, but it sounds like he did, because he said, I want you to look inside God and see you got twenty four. If there is any offensive way in me? And now we know that when we think something long enough, it creates a four eighty five in our minds, a seventy seven in our minds.

What's the highway in Toronto, l J the four oh one.

For our Canadian friends and Drake, there's a there's a there's a process by which I get stuck in a rut. And so David is saying, see if I've been thinking in a way that has allowed the enemy to traffic in my mind where I've just been letting him in. And that's what I want to do today. I want to take you through a seven point test answering the question why am I anxious and hopefully help us to get past this point of answering that question with somebody else's name, and hopefully get us past the point of answering that question by by mentioning something that is happening that is outside of our control, and hopefully to get us to the place where we can see that not only is God watching over my life. That's what David understood, is that when Saul is trying to kill me, God is watching over me. God has this surveillance system every situation of my life.

He will not suffer my foot to be moved.

The Lord which keep a thie, He's got twenty four to seven surveillance on me. To somebody say you better be nice to me. God is watching how you treat me. God is watching how you talk to me. And God likes me. How do you parents like it when somebody talks about one of your kids. God feels that way about you times a thousand, and he's watching out for you. So why am I anxious? If my father knows my needs? Why am I anxious? If he's numbered the hairs on my head? Why am I anxious if he promised to supply every need and I got to get honest about it. I'm not necessarily referring to this in a medical sense. Please don't take this to mean that I'm saying that your sin or or behavioral choices are always responsible for anxiety. But what I want to show you today, regardless of where it's coming from. Because I'm not a doctor, you have to talk to Stacy if you want some help with that.

But maybe there are some ways in me.

That are making me vulnerable to the way that things are and allowing me to remain anxious when the Bible says do not be anxious. I don't think it means that we can never feel anxiety. It is when we stay anxious. It doesn't mean that there won't be moments and seasons.

In your life where your hands are shaken.

Dimi Levado couldn't sing the national anthem without her hands shaken. I don't know if you saw it. She's sanging a lot in front of a lot of people. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this pervasive sense of when things are going right, you can't even enjoy them because it probably won't last long.

I mean looking around every corner for what's going to happen next.

And I want to take you through something quickly today. It's kind of a sermon slash seminar from Psalm one point nine.

It's a salmonar. I thought you'd like that.

It's a salmonar, and pay attention and write this down. If you don't write this down, you're not going to sleep any this week. And I have horrible stomach pains while you try to sleep. But write this down, and got to bless you. Number one. When I am anxious, ask somebody next to you, why are you anxious?

All right?

The first thing to check is your intake. The first thing that I consider when I'm anxious is how full I am of what? Because I found out that anxiety and cellulite have one thing in common. You can't pray either one of them away.

They are both about intake.

They showed me this new feature on my phone the other day.

Can I show you?

My kids are always showing me stuff, and so they showed me a feature on my phone the other day.

Oh, I got a text from Holly.

Okay, she just told me this should be my next book okay, but let me show you something else. Right now, you know all these great functions on the iPhone?

This is what is this? A seven?

A seven that the iPhone seven has this function? And I want to show it to you if you hit this button and hold it on the side, and then.

You'd be shocked. How many y'all don't want to y'all don't want to learn nowting today, you would be shocked because I'm gonna tell you a secret.

There is no way that we can take it to Somebody says too much. We can't take it all in and still have room for the piece of God you're praying for the peace of God.

God doesn't have anywhere to put it. Your mind is too fool.

You were not designed to have the entirety of the conversation of the whole human race buzzing on your back pocket, on your butt phone, just walking around like snipers.

What did they say?

Where did they go on vacation? What about that press conference? It was not supposed to be this way. Of course we're freaking out. Of course we're zombies. Of Course we're numbing ourselves and drinking and smoking and popping. Of course we can't stop it would the devil's got a shock collar on our back.

Pocket and we don't even know where.

Now are messing up my seminar, sithown my salminar. So you want me to give you inspiration for forty five minutes every week, and you're gonna lay it over top of seventeen hours of media that is designed to hardwire the way you think, Yes, what hope?

Do we have to have peace if we don't make a place for it.

And they used to teach me in youth camph this saying called garbage in, garbage out, and it was basically a way of saying, don't listen to rock and roll music and watch bad movies.

And there's some good to that too. I think you got to be.

In tune with your conscience in terms of what creates a sense of darkness, and you have to know that, and we should make rules for each other. But say, God search me. I think that's very good. But I also think that sometimes what we don't take in is just as fatal to our faith as what we do take in. I think some of us are on a spiritual starvation diet.

And we don't even know.

It, and so we have faith that we don't feed, and then we cannot access strength that we actually possess if we feed it. And so you've got to get your intake levels up.

You've got to buck.

When he first started trying to get me to work out more, he said, the first thing I want you to do, Because he was telling me the only way for me to get the result I wanted, he said, you got to.

Do two things.

What was that little cheesy motivational poster you had up in your gym. You can't out train a bad diet, is that what it said? And he was like, so I want you to keep a food law and write down everything you eat. And I didn't do it, but I thought it's a good idea because before I can change what I take in, I need to know track what I take in. I wonder what it would look like if you kept a thought log of just what you let in. So if you let the enemy in and then pray for God to drive him out, it creates a cycle where you are creating your own state of mind that you're trying to pray away. So there has to be a knowledge search me God. You have to let God show you. You have to let his eye see what it is that you're taking in. And I even mean this in terms of relationships. Some of the people that you are around are draining your faith. And I know you have to be around them a little bit, but you might need to put on a little protective yeah, like UVS seventy five, seventy five spiritual protection seventy five, just to get around them. And I think it would be good sometimes for us to check our intake levels. Oh well, you know what, I didn't read a Bible verse since the last time they put one on the screen for me at Elevation Church. I got all these apps on my phone, and ninety seven percent of them are empty calories A mastered Candy Crush. I'm not saying don't play Candy Crush because Hollywood leave me if I put that out there in the universe.

She loves candy Crush. But I'm pretty.

Concerned sometimes that we're filling ourselves with empty calories and then so we're weak in the battle, and we wonder, why check your intake. It's good, isn't it. It's good teaching because your intake, your intake levels have to be balanced. The second thing I want you to write down is imbalance.

Check for imbalance. I don't mean chemical imbalance.

That's beyond my purview, but I do mean that when you don't have a sense of what's important in your life, when you don't have a sense of priority in your life and everything feels urgent, it's a sign that you haven't figured out what's really important. Now you are open to everybody's demand, and they all take up equal space. And so by saying yes to people who don't really matter, you say an automatic no to those who do. By saying yes to people who essentially are using you in order to achieve their own goals, now you find yourself unable to give because you are a limited resource to the people that God has entrusted to your care the most. So I have to have watched this a sense of balance. I could preach about balance. You know, you've got to work out and pray and eat and all of that, but this is not that kind of seminar. What I mean is you've got to be balanced in what you give weight to. That's what I mean is that sometimes we are stressed out because we are giving too much weight to the wrong words and not enough weight to the right words. And so we're out of balance because we have this feed, and everything on our feed is the same size, and because it's all the same size, we think it carries the same weight. So we live in a state of stress because we haven't learned how to weigh it out. You've got to weigh it out when someone doesn't like you. Sometimes it doesn't matter depends on who they are. Well are pulling on me. I'm gonna start telling you things I shouldn't. The other week, someone was telling me that there was somebody who hated our church and came and said it wasn't that bad.

I said, I don't care. I knew it wasn't that bad.

In fact, not only was it not that bad, it's freaking awesome. Tell him, I said, I didn't need them to validate something that I.

See every week. Thank you very much. I already know God is in this place. I already know He is glorious in this place. I'm glad you think it's not that bad.

But I wasn't really waiting for you to hand me the award for not that bad. It was not that bad before you decided it was not that bad. And so I was talking to a guy one time about something here at the church that was complicated, and I gave him a thirty minute speech asking for his advice. I got my notebook ready to hear what he would tell me. After I listed everything that was happening, and he goes, He goes, Steven.

It doesn't matter.

So I wrote that down, you know, point one, because I need you to tell me what to do. And do you know he didn't say another word. It just turned to the person next to you and look at him and say their name. If you know their name, say Stephen. Tell them it doesn't matter.

No, you got to tell him with that a little bit of.

You gotta do it from your diaphragm ready, tell them it doesn't matter.

Now what you just said.

Is true about ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine seven three percent scientific number of what they're staying up worried about. And one time I was laying in my bed at night and worrying about something and God spoke to me through his spirit. You're staying awake worrying about something that I've already worked out. Now, when you give weight to that promise from God, when you give weight to the right things. When when I give weight, when I have a clear sense of priority in my life, I'm okay if people are angry if I say no, because my no is a yes to something that.

I already decided was more important.

Than what any given demand might require of me at any given moment. And this is the thing that that I'm coming.

To realize is that Christ is the solid rock. But if you don't know how to stand on that rock.

With the right balance, the devil will push you around, and you will always steel unsettled, and you will always feel tossed in turn. But when you make up your mind what does matter and what doesn't matter, let me help you out a little bit. What doesn't matter, what they think? What does matter? What God knows? Search me, God know my mind, tests me, You see you sneak to me.

It doesn't matter.

He was so right what he was talking about didn't matter. In fact, I thought about writing a book and calling the book it doesn't matter, And I've already got my subtitle figured out, really, and my first chapter will be called at all. I feel somebody getting their balance back, getting your equilibrium back.

You're seeing it right now. For what it is, This doesn't matter.

This matters that I keep my faith, that I keep a grateful attitude, that I don't let my situation contaminate my spirit.

This matters, not that. This matters, not.

That, because if you don't sort this out, you will live in constant imprisonment to your own indecision. Put that one down as number three. We're making terrible time. Indecision is a prison. So I want you to make three decisions before Wednesday. If you're watching this in a MIDWEK worship experience, you're running short on time. The clacus counting. I want you to set a d day. All you procrastinators and you're claiming to be thorough, I want you to make I want you to make three decisions this week.

I want you to do it. I want you to set aside a day this week.

Sit down, have four cups of coffee so you numb your rationale, rational thinking processes, and go in.

And just make them. Just make the decisions.

And if you make dumb ones, apologize, But.

Make the decision.

My god, fifteen minutes to decide chicken or shrimp in a restaurant.

I'm serious.

You've been dating her seven and a half years and you can't decide if she the one.

Well, if she's not, get.

Out of the way. Oh I'm prison Now I dis got somebody in Diamond.

You want to name your kids Stephen, do it or go do it? Or do.

Buy the house or dope sell the house or dope stay in Raleigh or dope do it or don't.

You can always move back.

And now we're making up more stuff to give us opportunities for anxiety, and we call it options. I don't know if it was just growing up in Monk's Corner, you didn't have to decide where to send your kids to school.

There were two. I moved to Charlotte. I never saw anything like it. It's crazy. It's killing too many options.

I just want gash not a surpee, not a car wash, not a pack massage, just Gashy's some many OSSes.

I did it this week.

I went in I was I was selling that anxiety. And I told Jess to send over my notes for my Why am I anxious?

Teaching? Because I felt like I needed my own notes. And I don't keep them.

After I write them, I give them a scratch them down and then give them away. But somebody else keeps them, and so I said, give me.

The notes and send them over. I need them. She said, are you gonna teach it? I said, no, I need to live it. I was feeling all unsettled, and.

I went through my list and I found this one. And the Holy Spirit hit me and said, you're very indecisive right now.

Everything everybody asks you, you're going, hey, when do we get back to that.

I'm gonna go through the roo a few Then you're not going through a few things. You're not talking, you're not praying anything like that. Just wait until it comes around again. And it was because I mean the way that I was handling things, and so I just came in that day.

I made three decisions. I felt I felt like.

I felt like I had spent a day at a spa just by making three decisions.

And they all started with and ended with oh, And it felt so good. It felt so good. No, try it, try it one, two, three.

No, Now, this only works.

This only works if.

You are living with integrity. This only works if you are living with integrity. And sometimes my anxiety as a result of a compromise in my integrity, it's kind of hard to have a peaceful heart. When you're hiding secrets and feel like a hypocrite. It's kind of hard to have a peaceful heart when you're having to hope that your wife doesn't check your phone.

To see certain text message. It's kind of hard to have a peaceful heart when.

You have three snapchats and the one that your parents think is your snapchat is just a decoy.

And now you're asking God.

To give you peace, but your life is so many different pieces.

The word integrity means whole whole.

Like in math class they taught us about integers, whole numbers, whole integrity, everything all one person, all the time. And when there are three different means that I have to manage for every different situation, it's kind of hard to pray to panic away.

When my own lifestyle is creating it.

When I'm trying to figure out which mask to wear at church and no one will see into my situation at home, when there's work me and after work me, and Friday night me and nine thirty Sunday morning me, it's kind of hard for me to have peace when my foundation is cracked. It's kind of hard for me to manage all those different means because I might send out the wrong one at the wrong time.

Have you ever done that?

Oh, I'm at the same preacher me out there right now. It's kind of hard for me to ask God to bless a life that is divided in so many different directions. Now, I don't mean by this that you have to interact with everybody.

On the same level. For instance, if we were to meet.

At Pizza Hut, I wouldn't talk at this volume.

Do you know I would modulate.

People say, well, you should be the same on stage that you are out in public.

Well, that would be obnoxious.

Can you imagine touch three people at the baseball field?

Scandalous? Touch?

What what I am saying is that although you might bring a different approach to different situations, that the essential nature of who you are remains unchanged in every encounter.

So it shouldn't be like that for my family to watch me preach and go like who was that? It shouldn't be like that. It should feel like a continuation. Somebody shouldn't see you on the television program and go you go to church. I heard you say hallelujah on the church service, but I hear you say some others and is costing you your peace. I'm not condemning you. I'm telling you you might be anxious sometimes because you are trying to manage so many different versions of you. And if you would bring it all together and just be honest before God and just ask God what David search me, know my heart and if the way I'm doing it is wrong.

I want to be changed.

I'm already accepted because of what Jesus Christ has done for me. Now, God, help me to align my life with what you made me to be so that I can be the real me. I want to be the real me, the highest version of me, that called me, that chosen me, that secure me, that stable me, that God loves me. And I don't have to prove anything to anyone.

This is my child with Him, with her.

I well, please, I don't have to be anybody else. And my cortisol levels just dropped just by being the real me because all that other layers of stuff.

And all that anger, that's not the real you, not in Christ. That's what David is getting to the bottom of.

Did you notice that all of my points are starting with the same letter, the letter I.

I figure that's.

A common denominator in a lot of our anxiety, search me God, your eyes can see God's eyes.

God see beneath the surface of what the situation is.

Anxious because of my money, and I'm anxious because of my help, and I'm anxious because my mom.

No no, no, no no. That might trigger it.

But the truth of God's word can enable your heart to transcend. This is what the New Testament preaches, is that the peace of God will actually pass all understanding and guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. So, no matter what triggers the anxiety in any situation, David said, search.

Me and know me.

And sometimes I have to fix my intention. Sometimes I can reduce my anxiety just by shifting my intention, just by going from you know, how how are people thinking about me?

To realizing they're not.

Maybe if I would think about others, you know, why didn't she speak to me?

Why didn't you speak to her? How about that? Why didn't you? Why didn't you? When when I'm when I'm.

Up here, a lot of times I can get locked into performance mode real quick, and it makes for a thirsty sermon. It's not the best sermon. It's hard to give living water when the preacher is thirsty. But when I shift my intention and go and I hope this doesn't offend you.

But sometimes I make up stuff about you.

I just look in your eyes and pretend like you're going through something horrible.

I do. I just picture it like you, just do it on the.

Verge, and just by wanting to help you rather than perform for you.

When I shift my intention, it just.

I just I feel something fall off when I do.

You can shift your.

Intention in any interaction, and immediately when you do, when you step out of the center and try to see how can I serve? I'll tell you what will go when you step out of the ciner. The burden of the weight of how you're coming across, the burden of the weight of how you're being perceived, the burden of the weight of what other people are and are not giving you. You have got to get out of the middle and see things from God's point of view. Search me, God, Am I anxious because it's just the rhythms of life?

Then fine, I'll get through it.

Or am I creating more waves than necessary because.

My eyes are not focused on Jesus?

I found out a lot of it is not even real. Have you noticed that a lot of it is in this sacred place that God has given.

Us by which he shows us who he is.

It's the sacred space of your imagination. I want you to reclaim your imagination.

You hear me.

I want you to take back your most valuable asset. I want you to tell take back that place in you that used to be playful, and now it is so it is so stressed and panicked, that that placed in you that used to just make up games as a little kid, just make up games, just would walk up to anybody. I want you to get get back that childlike faith. Just play around, just play around. See, the devil wants to turn the place that was meant to be your playground where you can enjoy God into a battleground where you can't even.

Feel or experience him.

When the enemy comes after your destiny, his first step is to set up a stronghold in your imagination. The enemy wants to make it where you can't stand to be alone because you've got an internal isis that has set up.

Terror at cells.

And every time you go to think, you worry so much about what might happen that you can't worship God. So now you can't worship because you're so worried. But God said, today we're gonna get this thing turned around and recapture your imagination.

To where you feel free again, to where you.

Can dream about something again, to where you can think and think, think crazy thoughts, and just write stuff down and just walk around seeing your stuff off tune, make it up.

Words. You used to do that, you used to do that, you used to walk around with just anything, but now anything. I told the devil the other day, get your hands off God's property. My imagination is God's house.

My imagination was purchased with the blood of Christ.

You can't set up camp here.

I got dreams to dream, I got visions to see.

I got a future to imagine.

The good news is, if you're really good at worrying, you're gonna be great at worship because all it is is the same imagination serving the opposite purpose.

So what I'm doing now, y'll help me preach. I'm about the close. I'm about the close.

But before I close, God said, we need to we need to reverse the cycle of the way that you're thinking about things. We need to reverse the cycle. So when you wake up in the morning, stop checking the fear casts. Stop waking up in the morning and thinking about how every possible meeting could go wrong, and you don't have anything clean, and you wore that on Tuesday. I promise you nobody has been keeping a spreadsheet.

Of your shoes.

Put on those same shoes you wore Tuesday, and walk into your Thursday and expect to see the goodness of the Lord where you have faith? People, Do I have any faith casts in the house, David Saidema, take the wings.

Of morning, or dwelling the othermost part of the sea. Watch this. Even there, your hand will lead me.

In.

Your right hand will hold me.

Fast because God is watching over me, and he's looking into me. I didn't check the fear cast this week. I checked the faith cast. It's corny, but I bet you it'll drive back depression if you check the faith.

Cast, because God has been too good for me to stay anxious. How many did I give you? I heard a sermon one time. It said doing stuff on six So stand up. I'll tell you. Stand up. I'll tell you the last thing.

When you stand up, it makes me know I'm out of time. Because the enemy wants to fight you in isolation.

Why am I anxious.

I think the answer to that question can often be found right in the middle of the very word itself.

The word anxious.

Right in the middle of the word is the letter I. I was looking at it a few weeks ago, and I was just looking at the word anxious, and I was thinking, why should I feel discouraged?

Why did the shadows come? Why should my heart feel lonely?

When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is hee when his.

Eye is watching over my life.

David said, you were there for my conception, and you have been there for every conflict and every.

Season of my life.

David wrote this beautiful song, although we cannot pinpoint the occasion. Many think it was at the occasion of his coronation as the king over both the Southern and the Northern Kingdom. It really doesn't matter when he wrote it, because God was watching over every stage of his process.

And David says, God.

I want you to show me what's really making me anxious, so I don't spend the rest of my life waiting for my enemies to disappear before I choose to have peace. And I was looking at the very word, and I saw something.

That is right in the middle of anxious. But the word ends with us, and.

I was thinking about what we do in coming to church, you know, for our weekly reminder that we're not the only ones. We are not the only ones. You're not even going to be able to leave church today without having to make a decision whether to apply this message, because many of you don't have the support system that you need to walk in the peace.

That you're praying for.

When you walk out today, there's going to be balloons and grown men in pink T shirts and youth in white T shirts to sign you up for whatever age or stage of life that you're in for these groups that we put together within the church a place for you to come and actually take the message water. What good is the seed of the Word of God if there's no water applied during the week, dying of thirst, faith dehydrated. But it ends when I becomes us. Real change happens there when you get in and say, you know this week, man, I at this moment where I almost said.

It, And then the dude over there in the corner who never speaks.

Speaks up and goes, yeah, me too, And you look at him and you're so glad because.

When you came in, you felt like it was just you. But somebody say, it's not just you. It's not just you.

We came into the presence of God today to be surrounded by like minded people.

But let me tell you something.

You got to stay surrounded to say a peace. So I want to challenge you this week to take my ominar and go through it.

Why do you always.

Talk about Zaxby's on the way out of church and never take a moment and just digest what you heard, act on what you.

Heard, and ask God what David did? In fact? Can we do it for a moment? Can we just be still for a moment and even.

Lift our hands If you feel comfortable lifting your hands, it puts you in a posture where you're no longer self conscious, but you're more God conscious.

And just pray this Father, show me.

The ways that I'm thinking that are preventing your peace from flooding my life.

Stay right there for a moment.

I believe this week God is going to show you decisions that need.

To be made and how to make them. I believe that when you will.

Get in His presence and ingest the.

Pure milk of the Word of God, the pure air of worship.

Come out of the air of anxiety that the world is suffocating with, and come up to an altitude where you can breathe the breath and the grace of God, that the peace of God that transcends all understanding with God your heart and your mind. In Christ Jesus, I declare this over you today, regardless of your situation. I declare this over you today, regardless of your diagnosis. I declare this to you today in the name that is above every name, the name at which demons tremble. We don't tremble before demons. Demons tremble before the name of Jesus. And we speak peace to storms.

In our soul today in the name of Jesus. Thank you for joining us.

Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you, this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast.

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God bless you.

Elevation with Steven Furtick

Welcome to the weekly podcast of Elevation Church led by Pastor Steven Furtick. To learn more visit  
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