Transcript
A (0:01)
Hey, this is Steven Furtick. 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 you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the Message. I want to share a brief Christmas message with you today. Don't get me wrong just because I said brief. For me, brief means something different than it may mean at other churches. But I don't want to take too long. I understand the demands of this season. Let me just share with you From Luke, chapter 16779 his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he said through his holy prophets of long ago. Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear and holiness and righteousness before him all our days. You, my child, would be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven. Tell your neighbor, watch out, here it comes. 40% of you participated when I asked you to touch your neighbor. If you don't like them, look at them and say, here it comes. The priest Zechariah is speaking of the prophet John the Baptist, and he's now talking about Jesus, whom John the Baptist was pointing to. He said that he will shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, in the shadow of death, in that place of despair, to guide our feet into the path of peace. That's my title for today, the Path of Peace. I won't make you talk to your neighbor one more time after this, but look at him and say, you look like you need some of that peace he's preaching about. We have a challenge today to try to calm our minds and receive the message. My brother comes to church. He's here right now. He comes to church whenever he can. Lives in New Jersey. He's like, I bet you love preaching at Christmas. Everybody is in the spirit. I was like, no, it's not my favorite time to preach because people are so stressed out. You have to work three times as hard because it's stuffy. Sometimes people brought a relative and they don't want that relative to see how they normally act in church. And so they tense up and then they have so much going on. You would think it would be Jesus birthday would be an easy occasion to preach, but I actually find it more challenging, not less, because it's just stress levels are higher. Happy birthday, Jesus. We created chaos and commercialism that drives us all to the brink of insanity. In your name. Thank you for being born, Spirit of Season. I always wished as a preacher I could have a metaphysical power to read your mind. I would think that would be so helpful to do my job. If I could see your stress level or even if you had a number like, like the beds that have the sleep number. What if I could see your stress number on today, I could do it so much better. I could see. Are you at a 7 or a 3? As a matter of fact, right now, what would you give your stress level? 1 to 10? Just in this moment, I'm hearing a 3. Who said 3? You're not old enough to have a 3 stress level. You're supposed to be like 80 before you realize all the crap you worry about isn't worth worrying about. Then you can have a 3 stress level where you just don't care. I can't wait to get old and just not care. That would be great. You're too young for that. But somebody said 10. Did you say 10? I'm not going to ask you why. In fact, I don't even have to. All right, here's what we'll do. We'll do another one really quick. I know this is personal, but at every location. Play along. Just close your eyes. Get the thing on your mind that is the greatest source of stress in your life at this very moment. You better not be picturing me. All right, get it on your mind. What is the single greatest source of stress in your life? We'll broaden it a little bit. Not in this very very moment, but in this season of your life. You got it? Now open your eyes. You're going to be shocked, but I know what you were thinking. I know this much. I know that the thing you thought of fell into one of the following four categories. It was either related to a place, a pace, a problem, or a person. Or maybe people, peoples. Just in general. All of them. Every last one of them, just human beings, Homo sapiens. So it's either a place you're going after this or even for some people, church can be stressful. I'm sure it's stressful to come to Elevation if you've never been here. Especially because it's confusing, because they got violins and cellos on the stage, but then they start shooting laser beams and it's mixed messaging. Like what kind of church is this? Is this a white church?