>> STEVEN FURTICK: Thank you so much. How you doin'? >> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Love you Steven! >> FURTICK: Love you back. I have this thing I love to do when I'm preaching
somewhere and I do it at my own church also where during worship I just like to look at
everybody that I'm going to be preaching to. And I don't know if this is a little creepy
but I make up stuff about them in my mind, and I will watch people worship or sometimes
people who are having a hard time getting into worship or if they look really emotional. And I'll just start making up scenarios of
what they might be going through and it just helps me get my heart ready so I'm not just
speaking to a crowd but I'm speaking to a person. I really like to do that so I got all kinds
of stories I made up about various ones of you today. Like that dude used to be on drugs and he's
been clean for a year and all kinds of stuff. You don't know who I'm pointing at so it's
all good. I just pointed in a general direction. But I'm excited to share something with you
today. I've got an announcement, it's really less
of a message it's more of an announcement. The announcement is this, you're gonna make
it. Couple weeks left of the semester and you're
gonna make it. I came to tell a senior, you're gonna make
it. You absolutely are. You absolute — Yeah, you are! You oughta shout, you oughta be happy! You're — touch somebody next to you and
make the announcement, I don't know if they believe me — tell 'em “you're gonna make
it.” You are. You're gonna make it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you! The coolest thing about the day, I got to,
I got to bring my eight-year-old son with me. Elijah Killerbee Furtick. Hey, come here, buddy, real quick, real quick,
quick. Come, come here. There he is, come here, come here, come here,
come here! His friend Gideon lives in Lynchburg now and
so he didn't want to come hear me preach really he wanted to see Gideon — come here, come
here, come here, come here, come here — he has something — come here, come here, come
here, come here, come here — I didn't ask permission to do this but I'll ask forgiveness
— there it is. He has something he wanted to share with you. Since I brought him out of school I thought
I should use him for an educational purpose. He's been working on something, he's been
working on something and — he’s been, he has been working on something and I think
you'll like it. And I won't tell you what it is, you can just
start. >> ELIJAH FURTICK: “Four score and seven
years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now they are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on the great battlefield of that
war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field as a final resting place for those who gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow that ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled
here have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember
what we say here, but they can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather than to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which those who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced, it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that
from these honored dead there is an increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new
birth of freedom and the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall
not perish on the earth.” >> STEVEN FURTICK: In Jesus' name, amen! All right. God bless you, you're dismissed! Fantastic. Hey, I want to preach a quick Bible story
too, it's a familiar story. Joshua chapter six. Anybody know what's in Joshua chapter six? Anybody, anybody? Joshua fought the battle of... >> AUDIENCE: Jericho. >> STEVEN FURTICK: What happened to the walls? Yes, they did, they came tumbling down. They didn't just fall down, they came tumbling,
tumbling down. I'm excited to be here. This is my third time. I like it here. And the last time I was here I didn't feel
like I did a great job so I got extra ready this time. Extra ready, extra ready. Touch somebody and say, “He's extra ready.” That's right. Hey, I know that this story about Joshua and
the walls of Jericho is familiar and preaching on that at a wonderful Christian university
feels a little bit like bringing sand to the beach because I would imagine that most of
you would be aware of the basic context of the story so I won't spend as much time on
the historical background as I would if perhaps you were at a novice level. I want to pull out some things today about
persistence. When I was in college, what impressed me was
a lot different than what impresses me now as a 34-year-old. And not that I'm so much further along but
I used to be really impressed with people who had the faith to start something, that
used to really impress me that somebody could just step out and start something. Now I tend to be a lot more impressed when
people have the fortitude to finish. And that'll happen to you just as years go
by as well. How many of you who are you know, 30 or 40
or older than that can testify, the fortitude to finish is often more impressive than the
faith to get started? Both are important, you know, you gotta have
the faith to get started but the fortitude to finish. One of my favorite New Testament Scriptures
before I read the Joshua passage is Hebrews 10:36. And I think they have it to put on the screen. I gave them a lot of Scripture because I prepared
two different messages, and I was gonna walk in and see what it felt like to see which
one. And the first one was kind of a more reflective
message but then you all started singing that “Great, I Am” song and Justin had it rocking
and I was like, “Oh no, we gon’ — we gon’ knock down the walls today! I'm gonna inspire these students today!” But he said in Hebrews — the writer of Hebrews
is a coffee drinker — sorry. So sorry, so sorry. "You need, you need" — I like this, this
has attitude — “you need" — let me tell you what you need — “you need to persevere
so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised." Just because God promised something doesn't
mean you automatically possess it. God promises a lot of stuff in His Word that
very few believers possess. Peace, joy, He promises righteousness, but
very few of us live in the possession of that. Now, I bring up possession because it's the
New Testament equivalent to what we're going to read in Joshua. Joshua is taking land, the first city in what
we call the Promised Land. So we have promises, Joshua had a promise. His was real estate; ours is, is stuff on
the inside, becoming more like Christ and glorifying Him and God has made you some promises
in His Word. But perseverance is what brings you from promise
to possession. And I want to read 16 verses to you from Joshua
chapter six. I want to give you the title of my message
but I think I'll give it to you right after I read the passage. It says in Joshua chapter six verse one, "Now
the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have
delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed
men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams'
horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city
seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. And when you hear them sound a long blast
on the trumpet” — or the trombone, Johnnie Moore — “have the whole army give a loud
shout, then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight
in. So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and
said to them 'Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets
in front of it.' And he ordered the army 'Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard
going ahead of the ark of the Lord.' When Joshua had spoken to the people. the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets
before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord's covenant
followed them. The armed guard marched ahead of the priests
who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. But Joshua had commanded the army 'Do not
give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you
to shout. Then shout.'" >> AUDIENCE: (shouting) >> STEVEN FURTICK: I'm afraid that shout ain't
gonna work, you're gonna have to try it again. Then shout. >> AUDIENCE: (shouting) >> STEVEN FURTICK: Nice, nice. We're getting there. "Then shout. So he had the ark of the Lord carried around
the city circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the
night there. Joshua got up early the next morning, the
priests took up the ark of the Lord. The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets
went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear
guard followed the ark of the Lord while the trumpets kept sounding. So on the second day, they marched around
the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.” For six days. “And on the seventh day” — verse 15
— “they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner,
except on that day, they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priest sounded
the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, 'Shout!'" >> AUDIENCE: (shouting) >> STEVEN FURTICK: "For the Lord has given
you the city.'" Skip to verse 20. "When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted,
and at the sound of the trumpet when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed, so
everyone charged straight in and they took the city." The title of my message today, and I hope
this is a phrase that can get you through the rest of the semester. And not just get you through it, but cause
you to rise up and succeed in it. And the title of my message is: “Don't Stop
on Six. Don’t Stop.” I know you don't know what I mean by that
yet, I'll show you in a minute — but don't stop on six. Encourage somebody next to you; tell 'em “don't
stop on six.” All the way up in the back, find somebody
next to you. Don't stop. In fact, find six people sitting around you
and say, “Don't stop on six; don't stop.” Have you noticed a lot of people stop short? A lot of people stop short. A lot of people get almost there and stop
short. I see in this passage three dynamics at work
that might help us understand why a lot of people stop short. Not everybody in here — I said at the beginning
of my message, you're gonna make it but that's kind of a lie cause not everybody in here
is gonna make it. Like some people will stop short, but I'm
not here to preach to everybody. I'm here to speak to somebody who doesn't
want to stop short and just settle. Not just settle, not just — I’m not cool
with just kind of God saves me I go to Heaven. I'm not just going to make it but I'm gonna
make it in a way that brings glory to Jesus. Now, this is a great passage to talk about
perseverance because there are some dynamics here. I'll give you three points if you'd like to
take notes, reasons why we stop short. And the assignment God gave me for the remaining
20 minutes today is just to push somebody, to push somebody. You're moving along, you're doing it, but
there's something that seems like it's going to stop you and so I just want to push you
not to stop short. There are three reasons why people stop short
— there are probably a lot more but here's the three I came up with. Number one, often we stop short of possessing
God's promise in our lives because our perspective gets blocked. Our perspective gets blocked. Perspective is absolutely everything. Absolutely. If I preach this message to a certain spot
in the room, I'll think that nobody's getting anything out of it. If I go to another spot in the room and I
find the right person, I find them lean forward and they're hanging onto every word because
they want to hear from God and they don't care who the chapel speaker was today, and
they don't need to hear from a guy from North Carolina. Oh, actually I got a campus in South Carolina
too, so I got dual citizenship. Anybody from the Carolinas? And there's some people here who didn't come
to hear from a preacher from the Carolinas and didn't care who he really announced but
I want to hear from God today because man does not live on bread alone but by every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So I don't really care who feeds me, I just
want to get the bread because I need to be strengthened because I can't just do this
by myself. And so, so perspective is absolutely everything. I didn't know this growing up when I was hearing
the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho but Jericho is not a very big city. In fact, it only would take about an hour
to march around it. But the thing about Jericho that made it intimidating
wasn't the size of it, it was the size of the walls surrounding it. And so, here's an interesting little interplay. I love to look at what seem to be contradictions
in the Bible and then figure out how God works in the tension, in the mystery. See in verse one — if we could put it back
on the screen — it says "now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the
Israelites. No one went out and no one came in." — look at verse two — “then the Lord
said to Joshua, 'See? I have delivered Jericho into your hands.'" It's funny ‘cause, ‘cause what we see
in verse one is what Joshua saw, a city that is tightly shut up and nobody can get in. That's verse one, but then God says in verse
two, “See, I have given Jericho into your hands.” Now let me ask you a question. Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking
about. Sometimes what you see looks nothing like
what God said, hmmm? Raise your hand. Sometimes God speaks to me about something,
but I see the exact opposite. Give you an example, the first time I ever
preached here at Convocation, at the same time I was preaching — this was, I wanna
say October 12, 2011. The only reason I remember that, my wife was
in Charleston, South Carolina with my family that day where the doctors diagnosed my dad
with ALS. In fact, every time I preach right now — and
I don't know how long I'll do this but I keep in my case here the memorial bulletin from
my dad's memorial service which was this summer. And if any of you have ever had someone who
struggled with ALS or a disease that is similar that completely takes over your body, you
can imagine what his last days were like. And it was a traumatic experience all around
because — you know, actually I thought about telling you the full story about this today
but we don't really have time, perhaps I can another time in the future, how I moved my
dad to Charlotte so I could take care of him and my mom and how he lost his mind because
of the pain of his disease and began to threaten my mom's life and had guns in the house and
he had never done anything like this before. He had always had a temper but when he started
threatening her and threw all of her stuff out in the front yard one day and she left
because she didn't feel safe. All of this was in 2012 while I was pastoring
a church and I was up preaching to people about God's wonderful plan for their life
and how God can do anything and God can do the impossible. And in the meantime, I'm having to kick my
dad out of the house and he goes and lives in a house by himself with almost no furniture
and during that time it would be the hardest thing in the world to get up and preach because
I was telling people that God can make a way and I was telling people that God can do anything
and I was telling people that nothing was too hard for God but then I couldn't even
have a phone conversation with my dad without him cussing me out. He would go into this high pitched voice and
I've never heard him talk to me that way before until toward the end of his life and he began
to — I don't, I don't know what you believe about spiritual warfare, I don't even know
everything that I believe about spiritual warfare but something took over his life during
that period. And I remember so many times I would be up
preaching to people and yet what I was, what I was saying about what God says looked nothing
like what I saw and I wonder: can you relate? It may not be with a parent. See, in my case, I actually saw God make a
way where I got to lay beside my father as he took his last breath. We had a glorious ending to our relationship,
I was reading him a Charles Spurgeon sermon called the Peculiar Sleep of the Beloved just
before he went to be with Jesus. I was on the phone with my family, my wife
and my kids while he was breathing his last breath. And I was able to hum Amazing Grace, I mean,
just the kind of stuff that you would pray for. But there was a period during all of that
where I was holding to God's promise of reconciliation but what I see doesn't match what God says. And maybe the greatest gift a preacher can
give you sometimes is just some perspective on your battle. That's why you ought to thank God that they
make you come to Convocation because you know at least a couple times a week, your perspective
is going to get lifted. Don't ever come dragging in here like I've
got to sit through Convocation because what being in here and worshipping does and hearing
speakers, I don't care who they are or what they're talk — it, it lifts your perspective. Don't ever be ashamed to praise God, by the
way. Don't ever be ashamed to lift your hands,
don't ever be ashamed to sing out even if you can't sing because praise will lift your
perspective to see beyond the walls of the city. See, it says in the Scripture that the reason
the city was tightly shut up was because the people of Jericho were so afraid of the Israelites. You know, I think a lot of times we have our
perspective backwards. We think the reason the devil is fighting
us so hard is because we're never going to be able to do what it is that God has called
us to do. But what if the reason that the devil is fighting
you so hard is because he knows there's no way he can stop you from accomplishing what
God has called you to do? I'm telling you bro, praise will lift your
perspective and sometimes you need to see beyond the walls — our perspective gets
blocked and we stop short because what we see doesn't match what God has said. Is that good, is that helping somebody? ‘Cause you're in a situation right now and
it's not that the situation is too big for God, it's that the walls are too high and
you've forgotten how to look past the walls and see God? All you can see is the financial aid that
you don't know how it's gonna come in. All you can see is that class that you were
gonna get caught up on during break but something else happened and you didn't and all you can
see is what's coming up at 11:30 today, but God sent a preacher today and God sent a worship
team and God placed you in a university where your perspective can be lifted, where you
can lift your eyes. I'm screaming now, just like I do it at home. Talk to me somebody — where your perspective
— in the back of the room, are you there? — Where your perspective can be lifted and
you can say I lift my eyes to the hills, my help comes from the Lord, my help comes from
Him and Him alone! Come on somebody! Gotta get it bumping. The second reason people stop short — I’m
gonna hustle — is because our progress isn't always obvious. Our progress isn't always obvious. So I was studying this Scripture a bunch of
different ways and I wanted to really understand the intricacies of the miracle because sometimes
I think if you know a story, you stop thinking about it and you just fill in the blanks with
how you imagined it went down. I was reading it and I thought the interesting
thing was, OK God tells Joshua “I want you to march these people around the walls, six
days, one time per day. Seventh day seven times. And then on the last time when you shout,
the walls will fall down.” But to me, if I was setting up the miracle
I wouldn't have set it up that way. If it was me, I would have rewarded the Israelites
a little bit every time they took a lap by letting them watch the wall fall down just
a little bit. Do any of y'all remember this game — you
won't — do you remember this game called Tetris? If I would have been setting up the walls
of Jericho falling down it would have been like Tetris. OK ‘cause on Tetris when you complete one
line that line disappears. Wouldn't that be a lot more motivating if
you had to march around a city? Like you take a lap. Doot-doot. Take another lap, wall goes down a little
more, take another lap. So you can see, “Oh this is working. this is good. God's gonna knock these — every day we come
out here there's a little less wall than there was the day before.” Wouldn't that be awesome? But that's not how God does it. And it's not how he does it in our lives a
lot of times. See, I'm the kind of person, I'm highly motivated
by progress so I don't mind working hard at something as long as I know that it's working. It's when — here’s where I get frustrated,
and here's where I want to quit, and here's where I want to stop — it’s when I take
a lap, and then I look at the wall and it looks the same as it did when I set out that
morning. I don't like this very much. I don't like treadmills. In fact, I don't like exercise. In fact, I don't like you if you like exercise. Yeah, I said it. Make me kinda self-conscious. CrossFit, whatever, Krispy Kreme. Whatever. Come on, who's with me? And what I can't stand about exercise — here’s
what I can't stand. I think it would be awesome to exercise if
my muscles would grow with every rep. Wouldn't that be — that would change the
game for me. So while I'm planking, my abs are just pop,
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, I'd plank all day! But what bothers me about it is nothing happens
while I'm working. And I'm discouraged by that. And life will stop you short because you're
taking a lap but nothing is changing in your life. You're, you're doing what you think God told
you to do but our progress isn't always obvious. You know what real faith is? Real faith is believing that just because
my progress isn't obvious doesn't mean God isn't working in my situation. I'm speaking to somebody now. You're taking some laps and I know that I'm
using Joshua as a metaphor and I understand the biblical, historical context of Joshua
is much more than just you showing up for your 8:00 class but I'm using this now to
speak to your life because there's somebody in here and you're walking around this city
and you're walking around these walls but you're not seeing anything changing and you're
stuck and you're considering maybe I should just stop ‘cause I'm not seeing any progress. Here's what I found out, sometimes God doesn't
allow my situation to work the way I want it to because there's a deeper work He wants
to do in me in the process. And sometimes the times where I feel like
it's not working are the times when God is working most of all. Six, anytime you see it in Scripture, is the
number of man. That's what it always represents. You get the mark of the beast, 666, it's the
number of man. It's man, man alone, man without God. Seven is the number of perfection and completion. It's God's number. Sometimes God will make you go all six laps
around a situation just so that you can know when the walls fall down it wasn't your effort
that made them fall. And sometimes the times that seem the most
pointless in your life, and sometimes the times where you can't feel God and you can't
sense God and it doesn't seem to be producing anything, sometimes those are the times where
God says I had to take you around six laps. See God is not always very efficient. It would have made a lot more sense if God
was just gonna knock the walls down anyway. Just go ahead and knock 'em down on lap one. Why this exercise? And you know what's even more crazy? If you read the passage carefully — do it,
when I'm, when I'm finished, read it carefully, go back and read it tonight — God tells
Joshua “you're gonna walk around the wall six days and on the seventh day you're gonna
do it seven times and then the walls are gonna fall down,” but guess what? Joshua never tells the people this. Did you know that? I thought they all knew that on the seventh
time the walls were gonna fall down. I always assumed they were just like “if
we can just make it one more day, if we can just march one more day,” but guess what? They had no idea how many days they had left! So imagine you're one of these warriors and
you set out the first day and God says “I've given Jericho into your hands” because God
speaks in past tense about battles that you're currently fighting, that's because He's already
won and He's just waiting on you to claim the victory. So you set out the first day and you're like,
“Yeah, this it. We're gonna, we're gonna fight today.” And Joshua says, “No, I want you to take
a walk.” And you walk. Like you're getting warmed up, you know, just
a little cardio to get ready for the fight. And then Joshua says, “Thank you very much. Go home. We'll see you back same time, same place tomorrow.” And you go home that night and your wife says,
“So my big, strong warrior, what did you do today? Who did you kill? Whose head did you cut off, come on show me
the head, show me the head.” Now you gotta explain to your wife, “Well,
we didn't exactly kill anybody today.” “Well what did you do?” “We, uh, walked around the city. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow we'll probably
— that was — we just scouting it out.” No, no, Scripture says on the second day they
did the same. And they came back home. “So who'd you kill today?” “Well, I think Joshua really wants us to
get comfortable with the terrain because we did another warm up lap.” And Scripture says they, they did this for
six days. But on the seventh day, something was different. On the seventh day, something happened. On the seventh day, God stepped in and the
miracle came to pass. But here's what I want you to know, they didn't
know they only have one day left. What? If they had stopped on the sixth day they
would have missed the miracle that God had planned all along and I came to tell somebody
today you're too close to quit now. God didn't bring you to this point to quit
now. Turn to somebody next to you and say “Take
another lap.” You've got to take another lap, you've got
to take another lap cause you never know, this might be the one! This might be the — wouldn’t it be a shame
for you to come all this way — wouldn’t it be a shame for you to be this close for
God to bring you this far and you quit on six?! Oh no, you can't stop on six! You can't stop ‘cause you're tired! You can't stop ‘cause you got your feelings
hurt! You can't stop ‘cause nobody put a ring
on your finger yet! You can't stop ‘cause you don't feel like
God is using you! You can't stop ‘cause you don't feel chillbumps
every time! No, you gotta take another lap! Keep walking! Keep walking! That's the word God gave me for somebody at
Liberty University today! Keep walking! Keep walking! I feel the spirit of Finding Nemo on me right
now, just keep swimming, just keep — Oh, I hear you, Dory — just keep walking, just
keep walking, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, you're gonna make it, you're gonna do it. He who began a good work in you will be faithful
to complete it to the day of Christ! He won't stop; don't you stop. You've got an unstoppable God! You've got an unquenchable fire! Come on take another lap, don't stop on six! Do you receive it?! Come on, jump up on your feet, jump up on
your feet. Come on, we gon' walk a little bit. Come on we gon' walk. We gonna walk. Pick 'em up, pick 'em up. Come on walk with me, don't be too cool to
walk, come on. You come too far, God's gonna get you through
this. Oh I came to inspire you, you're gonna make
it. Hey, here's my final word for you, walk every
lap like it's your last and one day, you'll be right! Somebody shout in this place, come on, we're
walking. Come on. Come on, we're walking. Pick 'em up, pick 'em up, pick 'em up, come
on, we walk by faith not by sight! I'm follow Jesus wherever He leads me! Now on your way out, find seven people, tell
'em don't stop on six! Do it now, God bless you Liberty!
