When you feel like you can’t keep going, God’s help is already on the way.
In this encouraging message, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church teaches that, even when you feel weak, you’re not alone.
When I feel like the Enemy is closing
in on me and I’m tired and I’m spent
and I’m out of ideas and I’m sick of
people, I want him to send me an angel.
God did not send an angel to
rescue David; he sent Abishai.
God did not send an angel; he sent a person.
What David does when Abishai comes
determines whether he lives or dies.
Are you pushing your Abishai away?
It’s like, “Oh, I’m waiting on
God.” You know the old story. The
man was dying, and the Lord sent him a helicopter.
He’s like, “God, if you’ll save me…” He’s dying.
He’s about to drown, and a helicopter flies by. He
says, “No, I’m waiting on God.” A boat comes
by. “I’m waiting on God.” Jet ski comes by.
“I’m waiting on God.” He dies, and he gets
to heaven, and he says, “Lord, I waited on
you.” The Lord said, “I sent you a helicopter
and a boat and a jet ski. I sent you Abishai.”
Do you know what you keep doing? You keep
reverting back to when you had no help.
How stupid does a king look
with a sling like this? Do
you know how stupid we look when we start
trying to fight things in the flesh?
“I’ll show them.” I got in a fight with a woman
the other day. Not a physical fight or anything.
She was just talking crap. She was saying
some stuff, and I checked her. It wasn’t
inappropriate. You wouldn’t have been ashamed to
call me your pastor, but I checked her enough.
Do you know what I got for it? I got two
hours of an elevated heart rate. Good job.
Didn’t get a check. Didn’t get a royalty. Didn’t
even get a belt. Nothing. No medal. No nothing.
But that’s what I’m used to doing. I went
back to what I used to do. In some cases,
that has worked well for me. In some cases, that’s
what I had to do, but you don’t always have to.
In some cases, you had to make it alone,
but maybe you don’t have to right now.
Maybe God has somebody carrying
the Father’s gift, Abishai.
Pray for the next seven days, “God, make me aware
of the Abishai, the help you’ve sent in my life.”
Pray it and see what happens. Get
two or three cards and handwrite
some notes to people who have been
an Abishai for you in a season.
At the moment David would
have died, in steps Abishai,
and Abishai is like, “No, no, no.
We can’t let the light go out.”
David is symbolic of the land. He’s the
one who keeps the covenant for Israel.
He’s the one God gave. They were protective of
their light. Are you protective of your light?
He said, “You can’t go out to battle like
this anymore. You can’t keep doing this like
this anymore. You have to upgrade how you
do this or the light is going to go out.”
What I’m seeing in this season of being a pastor,
if I can be honest with you… I’m seeing a lot of
people’s lights go out. I’m seeing the light in
their eyes go out. I’m seeing the light in their
mind go out. They’re not thinking clearly. They’re
just tripping over stuff in the dark, just getting
really reckless right now, getting really crazy,
going back to stuff they left alone for six years,
going back to stuff they hadn’t thought about in a
long time, because that’s what you do in survival.
You’re in a different season now. You
have Abishai now. God has put something
between you and your enemy. I’m talking about
Jesus. I’m talking about the grace of God.
While I was praying for those who are alone,
God said, “If they don’t have a human Abishai,
I’ll be their Abishai. I will stand
between them and the pestilence
and the sword and the depression. I will
stand between you and the darkness.”
Stop pushing Abishai away. “I’m
waiting on God.” No. God has given you
some help in the form of humans, and if you
keep pushing people away like you’re pushing
people away, you will die at the hands of
a giant that is under your feet. There’s
one more layer of this sermon I want to show you.
It got so good to me, and every word
I was seeing was showing me something.
Same devil, new level. It means, yes, I’m dealing
with the same thing. Yes, I’m dealing with the
same uncertainty. No, there is no abracadabra
anointing. I wish I had that power, man.
I’d sprinkle it over all of y’all. I’d just be
out sprinkling it all through the hospitals,
all through the streets, all through the
divorce courts, all through the custody courts,
all through everything you’re going
through, all through the unemployment lines.
I’d just sprinkle it. Abracadabra!
It’s gone. But God sent him
Abishai. What really got my attention
was not only did Ishbi-Benob
have a sword half the size of Goliath’s, but
look at what it said in verse 16. It said
he was armed with a new sword. I’m wondering,
why does it matter if it’s new or
used? Why did it say new sword?
I believe God is using the new sword the enemy had
to point to a deeper reality. Not only did
the enemy have a new weapon…so did David.
Not only did the enemy have a new weapon…so
did David. Remember, this is the same David
who struck down the lion, the same David
who struck down a bear, the same David who
put a smooth stone in Goliath’s forehead.
Do you remember when he came up on Goliath,
and Goliath is coming closer, closer, closer,
but David doesn’t let him come all the way?
David is practicing spiritual distancing.
It said David ran to the battle line, and he
took a stone, and he hit him from a distance.
You have to keep your enemies out there and your
Abishais here. Many of us do the exact opposite.
We bring our enemies right here
and we keep our Abishais out there.
We will go and spend five hours on Facebook,
having imaginary battles with people we
don’t know and wouldn’t like if we did,
or somehow, we think we owe
the universe an account of
how we spent our day and our money and our week.
I don’t go on social much anymore. I was reminded
why the other night. We were having a Friday night
dinner. We had a very, very busy, fruitful
week last week. I can’t wait to share what
we created. It’s amazing, one of my favorite
things I’ve ever been a part of creating,
and I can’t wait to share it with you. But
right after that, while I was trying to rest,
somebody in our family was like, “Oh, somebody is
saying something bad about the church on social.”
I noticed in that moment I had a decision to
make. Do I want to be a part of a gang fight
in a fish tank? Because if I choose to at that
moment, I can go so deep into this… Who said what,
and they said this, and they said that, and
then when I’m preaching to you today, I’m mad,
and you didn’t even say anything but “Praise the
Lord.” Now I’ll be fighting you in the pulpit.
So I said, “I don’t want to hear any more.” I
made a phone call. I said, “Hey, if anything
happens about this, let me know. If I need to deal
with it…” “Now let’s go watch that movie,” because
I had told the kids we were going to… Now, for
us, movie night is like a big endeavor anyway.
I mean, game night is like hiking to
the Himalayas. We don’t even try game
night anymore. That’s a bloody
sport in the Furtick family.
We can’t do game night, but movie night… I
had just said, “Hey, do y’all want to watch
a movie tonight?” Everybody is stealing it.
We had this big week as a family ministry.
God is doing a great work in our church,
and I can’t wait to share it with you,
but we all experienced it together. I
said, “Let’s watch a movie tonight,”
and they said, “Okay.” I said, “Without
our phones.” They were like, “Okay.”
You would have thought I said, “Let’s go on a
mission trip,” like this is some huge thing, like,
we’re going to watch a two-hour…
Just very, very, very brave of us.
I said, “What do y’all want to watch?” and then
I realized, “Don’t put it to a vote.” I said,
“I’ll figure out what to watch.” While
that was happening, somebody said, “Hey,
so-and-so is saying such-and-such about
so-and-so and so-and-so,” and I said, “Stop.”
They don’t get to come to my movie night.
They don’t get free space in the movie
theater of my head. If they want a ticket,
they have to buy it. Nuh-uh. No! You don’t
come in the front door. So, what about you?
I’m meeting a lot of people, and they
are letting all of these voices come in.
You are dying at the hands of Ish,
pushing away the gift of the Father.
It’s complicated. It’s not easy. David got
this far by fighting, but to stay alive…
These same freakin’ Philistines, these same
habits, these same 15… This? Again? Really?
God said, “It’s the same devil, but I
want you to fight it at a new level.”
If you don’t come up higher and see it from
God’s perspective and seek him and be with him
and start your day differently, end your
day differently, and make some adjustments,
you’ll be walking around with a slingshot
when you’re supposed to be wearing armor.
The Lord said, “Put down the sword. Put on the
armor.” When David fought Goliath, he tried on the
king’s armor, but it didn’t fit him yet. It fits
now. You’re not that scared little girl anymore.
No. You’re not that weak little, defeated,
anemic, “I’ll take every crumb you…”
You are not that now. It fits now. Now
step into this season with the confidence
that you have the anointing for this assignment.
Come on, let the weak say, “I am strong.
That fits me now. I got a little tired, but I’m
strong. I got a little vulnerable, but I have
the victory. I’ve got it. I’ve got it right now!
I’ve got it! Get back, devil! I have an Abishai.
I have an anointing. I have the shield
of faith. I have the helmet of salvation.
I have a new wardrobe. I’m dressed
differently now. I don’t have the rags
of my filthy unrighteousness. I come into
the presence of a God who has clothed me
with a garment that is white, with
arraignment that is righteous. I’ve got it!”
Same David, new sword. Same you, new altitude.
Same you, new focus. Same devil, same
insecurity, same problem, new passion.
I want you to protect your light this week.
I want you to take Abishai’s advice, man.
Remember what you asked me the other day on
the campus pastor call? “What happens when
we see people who are really strong fall?”
I think they don’t take Abishai’s advice.
They keep going out over and over
again to fight the wrong battles
and pushing the right people away.
At least that’s what I’ve noticed.
I told you I’d answer you, and that’s my answer.
That’s God’s answer. Are you pushing Abishai away?
Abishai wasn’t an angel. Abishai was just one
of David’s guys. He was a fighter like David.
He said, “Stop letting people get your
light.” Stop letting things steal your light.
Do you remember in Revelation 2 where the church
at Ephesus was having trouble keeping what the
author calls “your first love”? That’s what the
angel said. He said, “You’re losing your first
love.” He gave a warning in Revelation 2:5 that
I want to show you before I pray for you today.
I know somebody has been caught and cornered
on the battlefield, and you are very weary.
I’m not calling you weak. I’m saying you’re weary.
Not because you’ve been fighting for a few days.
You’ve been fighting for almost all your life.
The way the Lord said it in the revelation to
John… He said, “Consider how fall you have fallen!
Repent and do the things you did at first. If you
do not repent, I will come to you and remove your
lampstand from its place.” That’s not
a threat from God. It’s a warning.
“If you don’t guard your light…” I
wrote down three things for light.
I said light represents perspective. It
represents passion. It represents purpose.
So, when they said, “Stop fighting these battles
this way…” That might mean a lot of things for
you. A lot of times, we’ll say, “Well, I prayed
about it.” Did you? Like, a real prayer. Not
where you’re playing out every worst-case scenario
in your imagination and calling it prayer because
you said, “Dear Lord” when you started that
exercise, but did you really say, “God…”
I was coming in today to preach,
and the Lord was like, “This message is good,
but you haven’t really asked me much about it.”
I said, “All right. Let’s go, Holy Spirit.”
It felt like Abishai came into the room.
Like, “You need some help.” When we get back
to that… It wasn’t anything wrong with David.
It wasn’t that he was a bad person.
It’s just that if he kept fighting,
not from a distance but in the way he
was fighting, the light would go out.
Have you lost your perspective? Have you lost
your light? He said, “Repent. Come up higher.
Change levels. Repent.” Do you see it in the
text? “Repent. Consider how you’ve fallen.
Consider where you’ve brought your enemies too
close and kept your Abishais at a distance,
and I’ll bring your light back. I’ll help you
start seeing clearly again. You’ll know what
to do in this season. I’ll give you an open
door for how to win your kid’s heart back.
I’ll give you an open door for how
to win your wife’s heart back. I’ll
give you an open door for how to
reestablish yourself as the leader.
I’ll show you how to start spending your
time since you have a lot of free time.
I’ll show you how to reinvent yourself for a
new career since things are happening that are
beyond your control. I will give you your
light back.” That’s what God wants to do.