My Future is My Focus Sermon Notes

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Here are my sermon notes from Elevation Church preached on May 22, 2022 by Pastor Steven Furtick.

Note that these are just my notes.

Even though I made extra effort to capture as many pertinent points as possible, I highly recommend you watch the full message.

This is the only way to get everything he shared and glean for yourself, what I missed.

I pray this message blesses you.

My Future is My Focus Sermon Notes

• Humility brings freedom
• The one who has struggled/endured the most… gets blessed the most.
• Do not use your future as an excuse
• You can try to do too much too soon – you can say something too deep, too quick | go to far, too soon
• Use today’s faith to forecast for tomorrow
• Sometimes we want hope for today and strength for tomorrow but we need strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow
• Joseph – His integrity led to his influence (last week we went through 40 years of Joseph’s faithfulness)
• Don’t let scripture be a sedative, let it challenge you
• Your blessing is in the Book
• Joseph had to forgive his brothers but they are still hurting him (lying)in his present.
• I know what my Father said. Genesis 50:15 
  • (remember he already got a firsthand word from his father in Genesis 49 )
  • It’s so important for us to have our own firsthand experience of the Word
• When you don’t feel it… faith it. Don’t place your feelings in Christ, place your FAITH IN Christ Genesis 50:19

All things fall under the sovereignty of God

• Genesis 50:20
  • He uses sinful men to accomplish saving purposes.
  • Joseph could have spent the rest of his life linked to the harm that happened to him – You can be chained to whatever you blamed. You give your power away
  • Sometimes too you can blame yourself 
  • It can become bondage (trauma bond)
  • Don’t forget, it took years for him to be able to say it
  • You can break the bondage with a BUT GOD
  • The power to break chains is in your praise, perspective and purpose
  • Break the chains before it breaks you!
• Don’t play the blame game

Interrupt with a BUT GOD

• Interrupt your self-defeating, God-diminishing self thoughts with a BUT GOD
• But God sets you free to live beyond your afflictions
• Counter all bad experiences with a BUT GOD
• The only way to affect the future is to be faithful right now
• Everything God wants to do in the future is connected to right now
• Be faithful now because some of what you are battling now is for others (your kids)
• If you don’t learn to interrupt the chain, then the chains get strengthened into bondage. Learning how to and applying it leads to Romans 8:28
• Stop waiting for it, to discover what God has for you – STAY FLUID
• Turn waste into worship
• You give your power away when you stay focused on your problems
• Joseph is teaching us that we can turn HARM into HARMONY  by deciding what comes after the harm. This is why Genesis 50:20 is the companion scripture for Romans 8:28

How To Break Your Chains

• Jacob said JOSEPH IS Genesis 49:22 (fruitful vine) –
  • are you going to be defined by what stops you or how you got over it?
  • what’s on the other side of your wall?
  • Joseph was a vine but he was a victim, what made him a vine was what he climbed over… and what he brought forth
  • Decide that you have something to give
  • It mattered not what the wall was made of, it mattered what the vine was made of
  • You become a vine when you decide
  • Joseph was able to be a vine because of what his father said to him in Genesis 49:22 – what are you saying to your self?
  • It is almost impossible to climb over something  when you are complaining about it
  • Faith is fight for (the right) focus
  • Look back at Genesis 49:23 – He now has the vision of all the missed arrows. His brothers attacked him with bitterness but he didn’t let it in
  • Be like Joseph and learn not to let it in
  • Genesis 49:24 – Remain steady like Joseph. Don’t lose your focus
  • It’s up to us to decide what gets our focus
  • It’s not ‘their bow’ that matters. You can be attacked by the worst thing the devil has for you but if you remain focused on God, he can’t defeat you
  • You will not see the future God has for you by watching someone else’s bow
    • He is my rock
    • He is my fortress
    • Let God be the bow and you be the arrow
    • Let Him send you where He intends

Questions He Left Us With

• How will you finish the sentence: But God _________?
• How can God use what I’ve been through?

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