Overcoming Loneliness & Building Friendships That Fit | Holly Furtick

welcome to Elevation Church due to Hurricane Florence that came through the Carolinas this week we weren't able to have Church at many of our locations we shared a special online experience this weekend but today we wanted to share with you a message preached by Holly Furtick Holly preached this message at reflect 2018 which is an event for the ladies of elevation Church this message is centered around the subject of friendships it's the kickoff message to a study that Holly has recently written called building friendships that fit you can get more information on how to purchase the study or how to join an e group at elevation church org but right now we're going to jump into the message from Holly during and reflect hope you guys enjoy [Applause] for anyone expecting God to speak to them tonight as I was studying I came across this Psalm at Psalm 143 verse 6 it says I stretch out my hands to you my soul learn yearns for you like a parched land and I was just wondering if anybody came in here tonight thirsty stretch out our hands to the Lord and so Lord we come to you and we are thirsty for you we invite you into this place we're excited we're expecting to hear from you we we give our hearts to you God and we claim what James says that if we will draw near to you you will draw near to us speak to us now in Jesus name we pray amen not so far oh my goodness thank you worship team was amazing I am so excited and and I don't know what it's like at the other campuses but it sounds so good in here I was thinking babe I was thinking that the next time that year the worship team does a live recording you should just let women come if you guys sound awesome and you look great don't sit down yet help me welcome all of our campuses ladies here with Ballantine's now [Music] and joining us online with our email thank you for braving the weather it's just so terrible here in Charlotte Sun was shining most today I think this has been our best reflect so far okay why are still clapping will you help me thank our pastor Pastor Steven I was thinking of different things that we could thank you for you know I was thinking we could thank you for the basic standard like having the amazing faith to start such a church that's reached so many people and then I was thinking like you know also thank you for bringing incredible messages that speak to our hearts every single week I see you guys need to know that preparing a sermon is no joke and this men does it every week and it's so good every week okay but this is really what I want you to help me thank Pastor Steven before so you I want us to all say it together so everybody say thank you Pastor Steven for helping Holly with her sermon if you live with the best coach in the world you got to take advantage of it all right just stay standing while we read our scripture and then we will get to the preaching part we're gonna be in Luke 23 starting in verse 55 if you have a Bible or you can follow along on the screens it says the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how the body was laid in it then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes but they rested on the Sabbath and obedience to the commandment on the first day of the week very early in the morning the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb they found the stone rolled away from the tomb but when they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus while they were wondering about this suddenly two men enclosed that gleamed like lightning stood before them in their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground but the men said to them why do you look for the living among the dead he is not here he has risen so great we serve a risen Savior yeah okay you guys made me lose my place he is risen remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee he said the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners be crucified and on the third day raised again then they remembered his words when they came back from the tomb they told all these things as women do to the eleven no detail left behind and to all the others it was Mary Magdalene Joanna Mary the mother of James and the others who were with them who told this to the apostles I want to talk to you tonight about your support system your neighbor how strong is your support system [Applause] so what do you think about when you hear the word support system or the phrase support system I don't know I mean I guess if this was a immense immense conference men don't have events they have conferences but if this was a men's conference a man might be thinking about maybe bridges or buildings or maybe people but I think of those things too I'm sure you think of those things too but I have to thinking about bras did you know I'm sure you know because Oprah told us all of this but 80% of women wear the wrong size bra ask the person next to you do you still feel supported it wasn't that long all right you know one thing that I love about women's events is that we can talk about things that really matter from the stage like bras okay I'm sorry there are just a few men here tonight and this part of the sermon may make you feel a little bit embarrassed but I I just couldn't stop thinking about bras and I promise you I had decided on my title for the message I really wanted to be called support system and I was thinking about bras and I promise you honest to god I got this email in my inbox it says your support system just got better and I don't know if you can see this but if you see if you need to reply he replied to support at fabletics comm I don't think they did that on purpose but it's pretty funny so I went to fabletics we have a store here in Charlotte if you don't know what that is it's like a I don't know it's kind of like a club like a seedy club but for workout clothes but then they also have a store if you want to join just put my name in the referral because I get $20 for every person that does it so I went to fabletics and and I got some bras [Music] just a few and I know I had to get different sizes and everything but I know that I I had kind of like an activity like this last year and I held up a bunch of ladies things like just I was thinking about I could not talk about bras without holding a couple up so sorry if it feels a little bit repetitive I only preached once here anyway so don't have a matrix in my bag okay I just I picked out a few to look at I mean they're all different colors and patterns I like this one I got the color blocking thing going on okay this is the first one no that's not it it's where's the one I want okay this this is the one I want out when when I look at a bra like this I think that there should be like an age an age limit for this and I just want to read you what it says on the tag it says it says light support and then it says a little mesh goes a long way then then I had one that was more it was this one's called the medium support okay and and I don't think they really say anything special about it medium support sports bra it's called the Kobe I don't know anyway there's that one okay now that this one this this one's my favorite okay this this one this one is called the Zowie high impact sports bra and what I love what it says in the description it says um and an easy on and off zip closure in the front now if you're not a woman you're not gonna understand what I'm about to say about this bra but if you have ever been sweaty and tried to take off a woman invented this bra okay so while I clean up my mess check out this little meme that I found it's so cute you can do it you're awesome support bras okay tonight is all about friendship if you haven't clued in to that you know you probably weren't paying attention or maybe you got here late but it's it's about friendship it's about support and I just I want you to leave here knowing that you were never intended to go through this life alone God wants every one of us to have thriving healthy life giving relationships you should have an arsenal of friends that you can pull out to provide the support that you need for whatever situation that you're in and I want to ask you tonight what is your support system like we've all heard it's on all everybody's newsfeed whether you read BuzzFeed or Flipboard or Apple or whatever we've all heard that loneliness has reached epic proportions but it's actually causing a health epidemic and I'm not just talking about depression and anxiety and suicide which are at all-time highs I'm talking about cardiovascular problems and sleep deprivation and premature deaths are being linked directly to loneliness and what's strange about this which blows my mind is that we live in a world where communication has never been easier but it's like the more communication we got the less connection that we got and our connection is just become so complicated so tonight I want you to take a look at your support system the reason that this is so important is because and hear me on this because this is this is this is so important you're taking notes this is maybe one little thing you might want to write down while we may not get to choose what we go through in life we do get to choose who we go through it with life is not a game of tennis I don't know if any of you watch tennis or play tennis I attempt to play tennis I'm not good at all like like I'm on this little team and we play Queen City League I don't know if anybody ever plays Queen City like you've probably never played me because there's ten divisions Division one all the way through ten one being the worst the best ones the best ten so worse I'm in Division ten so I'm just out there for the fun of it and sunshine and anyway but I like to watch tennis and and even if you don't watch tennis I'm sure that in your newsfeed this week you heard about Serena's match at the US Open now I'm not gonna share my opinion about Serena except that I think that she is the greatest women's tennis player to have ever played the game so that's my two cents about that but in the championship match Serena received three penalties and there's a lot of controversy going on about these penalties but I I just want to talk to you about the first penalty that she received because the first penalty that she received was for illegal coaching and in tennis it is actually against the rules to be coached during a tennis match it is all up to you or to Serena so if you're a tennis player let's just imagine that you're Serena okay you have to encourage yourself you have to correct yourself you have to read your opponent all by yourself and I think that this is the mental model that some of us just go through life with something happens to us something you didn't expect maybe your child is getting in trouble at school or maybe your marriage is beginning to struggle or maybe you even lost your job and often our immediate response is nobody needs to know I need to keep this a secret and we fight alone thinking that if I admit that I need help then everybody's gonna think less of me me what are what are people gonna think me you are not meant to be Serena I mean thank goodness there's only one Serena okay you're not meant to be like you are meant to be like a fighter and you know what fighters have they have a corner so they're out there and they're throwing their punches and their kicks depending on what kind of fighter you are I I live in a house with a lot of boys so we watch MMA and bloody you know stuff and all that but when the bell rings the fighter goes to their corner and in your corner you have someone who's who's dressing your wounds your cuts and your blood and your bruises and everything and you have someone who's giving you feedback and saying oh you know Oh Lycan was it Rocky where they were like he's drinking water was that the one they told him to punch him in the stomach I don't know one of those fighter movie sets that people were we're watching am i losing them with the with the fighting illustration okay you are not meant to do this alone you are meant to have a corner that you can go back to and fight your fight okay let's get back to the to Mary Magdalene and her friends I have spent the last several months wondering about these women that were at the resurrection and then I began to ask my husband some questions about them and they began to study them and and he gave me this he has this seminary professor that he emails and asked questions to and so he gave me the poor man he gave me his email address so just asking him all these questions about these women because it can get very confusing if you if you combined all of the accounts together you find this girl gang made up of Mary Magdalene Joanna Mary the mother of James and Salome egg and and there's also maybe a few others that could have been in this group whose names weren't mentioned but I just was wondering who were these woman and why were they the ones at the tomb and and why were they the ones that the angel came to first were they there to gathered by chance or were they there together by choice and I know that this is a scripture about the resurrection of Christ but oh four of the Gospels give us details about these women and I think that there's something really some really important lessons that we can learn from them tonight who are you going through life with are you going through it with the wrong people are you going through it alone do you have the support system to get you through a tough time because we're all either yeah this is not anything I've ever made up of course I've heard a lot of preachers and I've heard a lot of preachers say this you know you're either you're either going into a storm or you're in a storm or you're coming out of one right so trouble is a part of life and it doesn't matter if you are 60 years old and you've basically just given up on having friendship it doesn't matter if you've been hurt by someone before and you're scared to put yourself out there again God has given us many beautiful gifts in this life and one of them is the gift of friendship yes friendship is messy I mean this women that we're talking about okay it's messy it's complicated but if you're going at it alone and you feel like something is missing that's because it is God is our provider and yes he meets our every need but have you ever stopped to think about all the ways that he has provided for you through someone else whether it was encouragement resources a meal a listening ear a wise word somebody who says you you know I had a friend that told me that I needed to stop breastfeeding one of my children and just go straight to the bottle I needed to hear that okay I wasn't making enough milk look at me okay I just stood up here and talked about bras anyway tonight I want to challenge you to examine your support system so I'm gonna give you a framework three characteristics of a solid support system and the first one is that your support system must be based on the right thing look with me at Luke 23:55 let's see I want to read it too from my iPad because I highlighted exactly what I wanted to read so Luke 2355 says the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it the resurrection takes place in Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified but these women were from if you read the verse they had come from Galilee when you read the Bible sometimes it's really easy to skip over some of the geography and stuff but it brings so much light when you actually find out okay wait where are they Jerusalem where were they from Galilee well what does that mean I looked it up for you on Google okay Galilee is 70 miles from Jerusalem and one little article that I read blog or something somebody wrote I don't even know if this is true but I read it on the internet it said that a determined person could get from Galilee to Jerusalem in six days okay so these women they were serious followers of Jesus but the thing about them was that they were brought together by Jesus they were so into Jesus that they hopped on a week-long hiking trip to follow him to Jerusalem and hear him teach and these are women and maybe that's why the disciples included them in this account because they were impressed with these women you know went on this trip I don't know I'm just speculating there when you look at your support system you can look at every person in your life and you can identify one thing that brought you together they be your sorority sister they could be somebody that you have kids at the same school with or someone you take a yoga class together with all of these factors are great things we all have some kind of connection but if you want to have a support system that's going to help you on your faith journey you're gonna have to base it on the right thing and I'm not necessarily talking about Church although Church is a great place to start because we all kind of have a common goal and and we all kind of have a common idea of where where we're going in life but what I'm really trying to get you to think about is that you need to surround yourself with people who are like-minded who are growing in their relationship with God not perfect no perfect people allowed but people who will help you find the answers but that you need from the right sources right not only does your support system though need to be based on the right thing it needs to be formed before your crisis these ladies did not just meet up on this journey to Jerusalem they've been together for a while okay look back with me at Luke chapter 8 so we were in Luke 23 and now we're gonna go back to Luke chapter 8 and verse 1 it says after this Jesus travelled about from one town in village to another proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God the twelve were with him and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases Mary called Magdalene from whom seven demons had come out Joanna the wife of chuza the manager of Herod's household Susanna and many others these women were helping to support them them meaning Jesus and the disciples they were helping to support them out of their own means when Luke first introduces us to these ladies there in Galilee and he tells us that what brought them together was that Jesus had healed them that's what they had in common that's what we have in common in this room they they were women of means they were joined together and they were supporting Jesus's ministry but they were doing life together and at this point when they're following Jesus and supporting his ministry they didn't know how dark it was going to get I mean Jesus told them that he was going to be crucified but nobody really understood what that meant when he said that they were just following and supporting the one who had touched them so when we catch up with them later in Luke 23 they're on a trip that has taken a terrible turn a horrific turn because Jesus is dead their savior has just been crucified on the cross which was a penalty that was reserved for the worst criminals so here they are think about these women they're in a foreign city they're heartbroken but but where what are they they're still together Luke 23:55 we've already read it but let's read it one more time the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes but they rested on the Sabbath and obedience to the commandment on the first day of the week very early in the morning because women are not afraid to get up early in the morning somebody's got to do it right very early in the morning the women took the spices they had prepared and they went to the tomb they stayed together because they had been together it was a natural thing of course they're gonna stay together but you know what I think women instinctively band together in times of crisis where were the disciples in all of this Peter was here and John was there the disciples had missed disbanded but the women were together have you ever noticed that when you are together with people that you trust that you can experience this collective courage and this collective faith you can essentially like borrow faith from someone else these women could have been should have been probably in fact work fearing for their lives they they could have been on their way back to Galilee by now thinking while they killed Jesus they're probably gonna come after his followers next but there was a job that needed to be done and so these women kicked into operation give Jesus a proper burial mode now I'm not trying to make light of this situation but I just started imagining these women and I started thinking about what we do what we still do today when there's a crisis and so you know I was just imagining that maybe Mary Magdalene started a prayer chain and then I was thinking maybe Joanna created a sign up genius and for meals insights and then Salome a she sold doTERRA so she was in charge of the spices and Mary the mother of Jesus Mary the mother of James she was the one in charge of taking notes of where the body was buried because remember the tykes told us that they they went and they saw where the body was buried because they were coming back there the next day they were gonna take care of Jesus have you ever been around a group of women who rallied during a crisis it is a beautiful sight to behold people can make fun of casseroles all they want but when there's a crisis we need them and on Thanksgiving - when my father-in-law was passing away and he was in the final hours of his life I will never forget coming out of his bedroom and into the kitchen that was so full of food that you couldn't put anything down on the counters and I didn't even know where my children were but I knew that they were being well taken care of and I will never forget I walked onto the front porch and my friend Nicole was just sitting there just in case I needed anything she was just she was just sitting there to this day I don't even know where her kids were she has three kids of her own but she was sitting there just in case I needed anything have you ever received the support of a rallying group of women you never forget it these women were devastated they were grieving but if there is one thing that we know how to do well in a crisis it is get crap done we may be sad but we're gonna get this stuff done and they were not about to go back to Galilee without knowing that their Savior had been buried properly and they were gonna do it together even if they had to risk their lives and guess who shows up when they were together look at Luke 24 we were in verse 2 it says they found the stone rolled away from the tomb but when they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus while they were wondering about this suddenly two men enclosed that gleamed like lightning stood before them in their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground but the men said to them why do you look for the living among the dead he's not here he is risen remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of the sinners be crucified on the third day and raised again then they remembered his words I have this thought while I was preparing for this message all my life I'm I grew up in church a dad was a pastor I never I was telling some of the other day I never really played any sports they said well what did you do I said I don't know went to church and we were there all the time it was like Tuesday night visitation Wednesday night Supper and Sunday night I don't know we were at church all the time and and growing up I fought but there were two ways that God could speak to you one was if you were alone and you were either praying or reading your Bible and two was if you were listening to a sermon but you know as I have grown in my faith and as I have began to notice God all around me in the small parts of my day I realized that if I surround myself with the right people God can speak to me through them now this is not like us like don't go all crazy on this this is not like a Holi I have a word from the Lord for you so usually that doesn't come from a friend usually that just comes from like some random person okay I'm talking about when my friends got around me one day we were in a meeting and they started saying Holly you need to write a Bible study for the whim of art of our church about being a godly wife that was God speaking to me through them when I was talking to a friend one time and over a crying baby who told me that I was a good mom that's God speaking to me through my friend when a friend told me not to give up or a friend who's just there physically present listening to me process through a very difficult situation if you don't think that that's God in all of those times in your life you've got God all wrong these women were not reading their Bible and praying when the angel appeared to them they were together doing something they were there and the angel asked them a question I think this is such an interesting question the angel said why do you look for the living among the dead this got me thinking about dead places in our friendships places where we can go that harm our relationships rather than help them one of those dead places it's when we compare comparison is a funny thing because it comes in two ways because you can think I don't compare but you might be comparing let me let me let me explain this okay so maybe you're on social media maybe you don't have social media but assuming most of you do and you're scrolling through and you see one of your friends and she makes these beautiful lunches and those little lunchboxes that like have all the little compartments and you think oh my gosh I'm a terrible mom because I don't do the little grapes and crackers thing you know all honesty I'm just gonna tell you guys I tried that the little box thing and we kept forgetting about the boxes and they would stay in my kids backpacks and think it's so disgusting and moldy that was not for me we're more like a brown bag kind of family but we have lunch boxes too but the other so the one side of comparison is I'm not as good as her right but the other side of comparison is you know have you ever thought well at least I don't feed my kids fast food I mean we go to chick-fil-a in a pinch but we would never go to McDonald's [Laughter] since I'm talking about comparison I have to tell you a funny story it doesn't really have that much to do with anything but anyway I was working out on my peloton bike that my husband got me for Christmas and if you don't know what a peloton bike is it's basically a death machine for your home also known as a stationary bike with this like cool like monitor where you can actually take spin classes and so on this particular day I was really going for it now I'm gonna be honest with you there are a lot of days that I get on there and I don't exactly do what the instructor tells me to do you know she says turn it up and I'm like yeah I'm not ready but this day I was trying to beat my best you know and so um the instructor had told me to add one or two to my resistance so many times that my legs are just like churning through mud okay and I did not I did not look pretty I did not look like this when I was on my bike okay I paid someone to do my makeup tonight just say no I was I was pouring sweat and I don't really even sweat that much I was pouring sweat and my glasses we're like kept sliding down my nose if I'm like hunched over you know they keep first my glasses up and my heart rate I I am this is the truth my heart rate was 177 which i think is like just shy of a heart attack and so of course the instructor has barely broken a sweat and she's smiling it's like her fourth class that she's taught of the day and so Greg comes up grabs my ten year old son hi Tom hi I'm just you know dying and Graham looks at the monitor he looks at me and he says why don't you look like her it's comparison is a dead place and I am NOT an instructor so we compare and then that can sometimes lead us to compete have you ever been around someone whose story is always better or worse than yours I had lunch with a friend the other day who has been through a really tough separation with her husband and she said that the worst thing throughout her separation was when people would try to comfort her by telling them how much worse their situation was than hers we compare and we compete and then sometimes we get so tired of playing this game that we just check out now this is a really dead place to be I mean I know Dead is dead but but checking out is when you have just you've just given up maybe you were betrayed by a friend you told her something in confidence and it got back to you or maybe you were let down just one too many times from from some of the women in your life and you just decided I've been hurt enough and well you know what I have my husband and he will just have to be good enough for or maybe I'll just throw myself into my work or to my kids and then we wonder why we're lonely do we have to risk having relationships with other when we have relationships with other women absolutely we do could we get hurt absolutely you could get hurt but if you build your support system right the reward is so much greater than the risk the other dead place that is so dangerous is when we begin to compose we live in a world where it has never been more easy to pretend that everything is okay and we can even we have we can even create an entire persona that no one ever has to know the truth no one ever has to know that I have an anger issue or no one ever has to know that I have an eating disorder or no one ever has to know that my marriage is falling apart no this is not how it has to be we do not have to compose because your support system must be founded on honesty if you're gonna build this thing right you've got to build it on honesty look at these verses in first John first John chapter 1 it says this is the message that we have heard from him and declare to you God is light and in him there is no darkness at all if we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness we lie and we do not live out the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin did you catch that if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have what fellowship we have fellowship with one another how can I support you through your struggle with infertility if I don't even know that you're wanting to have a baby that you're trying to have a baby how can I pray for you in your marriage if you're always acting like it's perfect and you know what honesty isn't just about the things that are going wrong in your life but sometimes if you don't share it like if something good happen so how could I even celebrate with you if your child has a good behavior report if I didn't know then he was even not doing good in school my friend Julie says I love this line she says shame like mold grows in the dark when you bring her thank you [Applause] when you bring your life into the light with the right people I guarantee you that you will not only find love but you will find hope and you will find help and you will find fellowship if you surround yourself with the right people your relationships will not only deepen with honesty they will grow stronger and you see the enemy wants you to think that it will make you look weak and he wants you to think that if you're honest it's going to weaken your relationships but it's not true a couple weeks ago I was talking with one of my friends who has been walking through a difficult season in her marriage for over a year and we were reflecting on how timely her relationship was with this other girl let's call the other girl Lisa so Lisa had been through a similar experience and Lisa had opened up to her a group and shared about a struggle that she and her husband were going through this was eighteen months before my friend went through her struggle and she told me that when she received that news on that day you need you know that day like if you live long enough everyone will have that day that day but I got the call from the doctor or that day when their husband confessed to them or that day when you lost your job okay so she was she was in that on that day and she said I don't know what I would have done or who I would have called if Lisa hadn't shared her story in our group to see and then it was 18 months later that she remembered this is the person that I need to talk to if we walk in the light as he is in the light bring it out into the light together these women had courage together they were able to remember the angel said to them remember what he said to them remember what he said to you together they were able to remember the words that God had spoken to them we are stronger together the work that God wants to do in your life in this season is directly connected to the people who are in your life so how strong is your support system that's my question to you tonight hey thanks for watching the Elevation Church YouTube channel if you enjoyed this message take a minute click the subscribe button on your screen that way you won't miss a single video and if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to partner with us to continue to reach others you can click the link in the description below to give now thanks again for watching and don't forget to subscribe

Channel: Elevation Church

Views: 470,194

Rating: 4.9151773 out of 5

Keywords: Elevation Church, Pastor Steven Furtick, Reflect, holly furtick, holly furtick sermon, holly furtick relationships, holly furtick reflect, holly furtick 2018, support system, how strong is your support system, holly furtick support system, how strong is your support system holly furtick, elevation church support system, the elevation church, elevation church sermons, sermons 2018, relationships, friendships, elevation church relationships

Id: FG6t4A9Nav8

Length: 41min 36sec (2496 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 17 2018