I Thought It Was Through

0:04 Hey, this is Steven Furtick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. Be sure to subscribe so we can get you these new sermons every week. Hope you're blessed today. I want to let you know, if you don't live near Charlotte, but you've always wanted to come to Elevation Church, we figured out a way to come to you. Elevation Nights Fall Tour 2025 coming up October 21st through October 30th. St. Paul, Minnesota, Omaha, Nebraska, St. Louis, Missouri, Louisville, Kentucky, Duluth, Georgia. We might as well say Atlanta. And if some of you from Charlotte want to drive to Atlanta. That'll be great. There will be no traffic. There never is any traffic on I-85. It'll take you nine hours to drive there, but you should do that. Tampa, Florida, Miami, Florida, where my beautiful wife grew up. Y'all give it up for Holly and Orlando, Florida. Go to elevationnights.com. Happy 11th anniversary to our Raleigh campus.

1:13 help me celebrate them better than that come on Happy 11th anniversary, Raleigh. Raleigh campus. We're praying for a great next year of ministry. It's our 20th year of ministry as a church. We'll continue the celebration all year. Thank you to all the wonderful guest preachers who filled this pulpit and preached, and all of our home team that preached. But my middle son Graham looked at me the other day and he said, It is time. We want you back. All these speakers have been great. We want you back.

1:54 I'm back. I want to share with you today a scripture that the Lord gave me during our break. Our break was very unusual this year. Part of the time is just rest. Part of the time is study, songwriting, and all of that. The first half we spent in an unusual way. Our oldest son, Elijah had a surgery, and he was recovering from that. It was a pretty major surgery. Then he got infected, and we ended up back in the ICU for quite a while after that. He's doing all better now. In fact, the Lord healed him, and he's clipping my sermon for TikTok right now as I preach it in a back room somewhere. Let's give God praise for that. I told him before I came to preach to us, I'm going to be very clippable today. I'm going to say, good stuff. I'll make your job easy. But in our Bible reading, as we were going through some of that for the better part of a month as a family, we came across Psalm 77.

2:48 And there was a verse I knew I wanted to share with you when I got back with you, and it's going to lead us into a series today. So remain standing for just when I read this one verse. Just one verse. Can you stand for one verse? It's in Psalm 77, verse 19. I'll read this and then work backward from there to give you the message for today. The Lord is going to help us in some remarkable ways. Psalm 77, verse 19. The psalmist says to God, Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. Isn't that a beautiful scripture? The Lord really used that in my life, and I believe he wants to use it in yours. Really underrated Scripture too. Maybe it'll be your favorite at the end of today. He says, "'Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.'" Just turn to the person next to you and tell them, "'Even if you don't see it, God is working.'" Even if you don't feel it, God is working.

4:01 Let's put our hands together and praise the waymaker in this place. Come on, praise the waymaker in this place. God, I thank you for every mountain you brought me over, every valley you brought me through. It was nobody but you, and I praise you today. Speak now through your word. Use me as a vessel. I'm willing and available and open. Give me the courage, give me the clarity, the confidence to speak to your children today, and may they receive it and obey it. For it is in Jesus' name that I pray and believe and call it done. Amen. You may be seated. Well, boys, bring out my teaching screen.

4:43 Let's get this series started properly. As I announced to you our title for the next six weeks at least, and maybe even beyond that, because this is such a big topic we're going to talk about. The title of the series doesn't come exactly from the verse I read you, but I'll show you where it did come from in a moment. Before you judge my handwriting, just know that Abby has made fun of my handwriting so much, and today I made her try to write on the screen before we came out here. She said, This is harder than it looks like. I'm so sorry for how I spoke of you, Father. What I want to talk to you about for the next few weeks, the title of the series is… You're going to like this phrase, because you can say it with attitude.

5:37 We're going to talk about... That's what... I thought. You know you have to look at your neighbor and say it like you were just right and they were just wrong, and you tried to tell them, but they wouldn't listen. Tell them, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. Like you were certain and you were proved to be correct. There is no better feeling than that's what I thought. Or that phrase is so elastic that we use it also to mean that our bias was confirmed. Like, no, that's what I thought. Let's check. Let's make sure. That's what I thought. But we want to really use that phrase today to deal with the thoughts that we think. Because honestly, not only pastorally but personally, 90% of the problems I have faced in my life have not come from what the Devil did to me or from what others said about me. The biggest problem I have over and over again, trying to do what God wants or the biggest obstacle to God doing what he wants in my life over and over again seems to be this tricky little thing called The biggest problem for me over and over again is that I get trapped in what I thought.

7:27 This is going to drive me crazy over here. Welcome back, Furtick. Who sabotaged my screen while I was on break? Was it Robert Madu? Did he mess up my screen? Was it Torrin Wells? Who messed up my screen? The biggest obstacle… Somebody shout if you know what I'm talking about when I say the biggest problem I seem to have over and over again. It's not necessarily the enemies I face, but it's what I thought. It's not necessarily what my life is at this moment that's making me sad. It's what I thought my life was going to be at this season. It's not necessarily who I am as a person that makes me insecure. It's what I thought I was supposed to be based on what I saw that other people showed me from who they are, but I didn't see their flaws.

8:22 So now I'm comparing my future to somebody whose flaws I have never seen, and now I'm frustrated about where I am, not because of where I am, but because of what I thought. I'm not frustrated because I'm not married at this age. I'm frustrated because I thought I would be. I'm not frustrated because I'm dealing with this situation. I'm frustrated because I didn't have the chance to prepare for it. Over and over again in my life, the biggest enemy to what God wants to do is what I thought he was going to do. Now, I want you to get a time in your mind where you were what I like to call confidently wrong. I don't know if you can think of one or if you've blocked all of that out. Selective memory. I asked everybody in my family, and if y'all know any way to fix that while I'm not using the screen, that would be awesome.

9:18 If not, we'll all work around it, and all of the OCD people will ignore that part of the screen that is not supposed to be like that. Now listen. I asked everybody in my family. I said, I need an opening illustration for my new series called That's What I Thought, and I need you to tell me a time when you were so wrong and you were so sure you were right. Everybody in my family said, I can't think of one. Everybody in my family, I'll have to get back with you, and none of them got back to me. Which either means they can't remember one time where they were completely wrong and assured that they were completely right, or it means that there's nothing really harder in life than to going back and admitting and remembering when you were wrong. You just hit the lead on those times in your life, like don't want to remember them. The problem with that is then you can't grow from them as you go forward in the future.

10:14 Now, when we say that Jesus takes away our shame and our sin, that doesn't mean that he wants to cancel out the lessons that we learn from our mistakes. It means that he frees us from the penalty of it and the bondage to it. But it doesn't mean that Jesus wants us to live our lives just to continue to be wrong in all the ways that we were wrong a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. There's almost nothing more difficult than remembering and admitting when you were just so wrong. I had one this week. I have fresh examples of being confidently wrong. I did it at the dinner table. One of our kids said something, and I just came back with something. I didn't listen to the rest of their sentence, and I completely missed the spirit of what they were trying to say. Just confidently wrong. Now, I have about a 12-hour expiration dosage cycle on the dumb things I do. It takes that long for me to digest my dumb and then apologize.

11:13 eyes. So 12 hours later, I found myself saying, I was so wrong for that. Now, that's hard, isn't it? That's hard, isn't it? To say, I was wrong to talk to you like that. I was wrong to assume that about you. I was wrong to judge you like that. I was wrong to put you in that position. Even to admit dumb things like, I was wrong when I said that song sucked. The first time I heard it, I thought it sucked. Now I realize it's a bop, and I feel dumb because I like it, but I can't admit I like it because the first time I heard it, I thought it was silly. That actually is a banger. I've been wrong about songs that I've written before. We wrote a song in this church one time and I thought it was good and then we went to record it. After the recording, I turned to Holly and I said, well, I thought that song was good, but it's not good. She said, I thought it was pretty good. I said, it wasn't good. You could tell the people didn't like it. The people didn't care about it and it's not going to go anywhere. After we recorded, Oh, Come to the Altar. that's how wrong i can be about a song and i'm glad i was wrong because it means there might be something else in my life right now that i think sucks but it's actually going to be an amazing thing if i'm wrong about that then i might be wrong about this it is the utter relief of realizing you were wrong and admitting it and growing from it. But the only thing more difficult than remembering when you were wrong and admitting you were wrong, which I know isn't a very good way to start a sermon. None of us want to talk about that. The only thing more difficult than remembering and admitting I was wrong is to realize I am wrong.

12:56 If it's that hard for everybody in my family and everybody watching this sermon to go back and remember, I was so wrong. How could I have been so wrong to think what I thought or to say what I said or to believe what I believed or to assume what I assumed? The only thing more difficult than remembering it, because it doesn't feel good, is realizing that I am wrong right now. If we don't even want to admit that we were wrong, how much less do we want to realize that we are wrong or might be wrong or could possibly be wrong? Just see if you can get it out of your mouth. I may be wrong about that. When you get to that point in your life, you realize that a lot of us in here have iPhones. How many of you have iPhones?

13:51 Hold up your iPhone right here at this part of the sermon. iPhones. I want you to realize that not only do you have iPhones, but you also have I thoughts. It's possible that the devil has you trapped in an I thought right now in your life. and I thought in the psalm we just read the psalmist says something so incredibly miraculous and wonderful he says God's path led through the sea and his way through the mighty waters though his footprints were not seen but to understand the process by which he arrived at that thought I want to take you all the way back to the beginning of Psalm 77 and journey with me now for a moment while I build this thought out for you. That's what I thought. The psalmist is lamenting here. There are four different types of psalms in your Bible. There are psalms of praise, psalms of thanksgiving, psalms of wisdom, and psalms of lament. Lament is where they're just telling God their trouble. Lament is where they are being honest with God, realizing that why would you hide it from him? It's not like he didn't see the whole thing. Realizing that you can say something to God, and he's big enough to handle your brokenness. This is a psalm of lament, but I want to show you how it goes from a psalm of lament to a psalm of wisdom.

15:27 Over the course of the next several weeks, I want to help you with your thoughts, because some of your eye thoughts are wrong. Some of your eye thoughts about people are wrong. Some of your eye thoughts about what is still ahead of you in your life are wrong, and you could be confidently wrong, and you can be completely trapped. That's the situation for the psalmist in Psalm 77. It's not David writing this time. It's one of the sons of Asaph, the musical leaders. He's pouring out his heart to God. He says, I cried out to God for help. I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, circle the word distress, please. I sought the Lord. At night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. I remembered you, God, and I groaned. What a strange thing to say.

16:25 I thought it was, I remember you, God, and I was grateful. I remember you, God, and I praised. I remembered you, God, and I was encouraged. I remembered you, God, and I rejoiced. He said, It was so bad. I remembered you, and I groaned. The reason Psalm 77 is special and you might want to study it is because a lot of times when they wrote psalms, they were asking God to deal with external enemies. We've got this giant facing us, this army coming against us, this sickness that we're dealing with, and it was an external enemy. Or in the case of Psalm 51, David is praying about his own sin. He's saying, "'Create in me a clean heart, O God. I did something horrible, and I need you to make me new, and I need you to raise me up, and I need you to give me a second chance.'" But this is not a psalm about enemies, and this is not even a psalm about sin. In this psalm, the primary problem for the psalmist is not an external enemy or even his own sin.

17:24 His problem is God. His problem is God, and more specifically, his problem is, God, where did you go? His problem is, God, when are you going to help me feel something again? God, when are you going to answer this? I'm holding out my arms to you, and you seem to be standing at a distance. I'm not even sure you're in the room. I'm not even sure you hear this. So, as he's recounting this, I want you to understand the heaviness of it so that when I encourage you in just a few moments, like I plan to do with God's help, you will understand the place this psalm starts at. He has a problem with God, and when you have a problem with bills, somebody can pay them for you. When you have a problem in your body, you can go to a doctor about that. When you have a problem even in your mind, you can have a therapist for that.

18:21 But what do you do when your problem is with the one? who has no boss? What do you do when your problem is with the one who has no supervisor that you may ask to speak to? What do you do when you're in a situation where what God did is so much different than what you thought he should do? That is Psalm 77. I remembered you, God, and I groaned. not shouted, groaned, not clapped, groaned, not danced, groaned. I remembered you, God, and I groaned. I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. People will tell you all the time how much they've grown, but they won't tell you how much they groaned so they could grow into the place where they are today. This is the process of becoming a person that God can use, and it is not easy. He said, My spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing. I was too troubled to speak.

19:21 Then verse 5 gives us the entire problem, not only with the psalmist but with ourselves. I thought… Everybody say, I thought. I thought about the former days. Justin, do I even have to say it? Circle I thought. Circle it for everybody in here who's having doubtful thoughts. Circle it for everybody in here who's having fearful thoughts. Circle it for everybody in here who's having jelly, petty, jealous, petty, jelly thoughts. We're calling them right now. Circle it for everybody in here who is dealing not with an external threat and maybe not even a personal sin, but with a I thought.

20:11 Now, when I read this at first, you're going to be like, he did the right thing. This is what you're supposed to do. This is what we teach in church that you're supposed to go back and remember if you're in a season right now where you don't know what God is going to do. Just remember what he did. And that's what it sounds like on the surface, but I want to dig a little bit because I've been waiting two months to preach this message, and I'm going to preach it today. I thought about the former days when my jeans fit a little looser. I thought about the former days when my hamstrings weren't. So I thought about the former days when I didn't need these readers to look at my Bible and this size 67 font in order to preach it to you. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago. I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated, and my spirit asked, what's wrong with any of this? It's an I thought. I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated, and my spirit asked… Now, watch what happens when it starts with me. Verse 7. This is what you get back.

21:22 When you send out an I thought, this is what you get back. And you know what? You can't block an I thought, not with your fingers. You have to deal with it. The psalmist is putting it all out there for us today, which gives us permission to know we can feel emotionally confused and still get spiritually strong. Watch what he says. It gets worse before it gets better. Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion? I thought, and that's what came back. What I heard the psalmist saying today, and I wonder if it's true of you… He says, I thought I suffered, and I thought… I thought it was through.

22:34 I thought back over the best days of my life, and I thought they were behind me. I thought about the things I would love to see God do for me that he's done for others, and I thought, well, I guess he just doesn't want to do it for me. I thought. I thought. I thought it was through. I thought my experience of God had completely dried up. I thought he didn't love me anymore. The psalmist said that. I didn't. So, if you've ever felt that, you're in the Bible.

23:10 I thought God had taken his hand off my life. I thought he had just given up on me because others did. I thought it was through. You see in this passage what they call the three Ps of negative thinking. I'm going to be talking to you over the next six weeks about I thought. I'm going to be talking to you about three ways of negative thinking you may recognize in your life. They're all here in the psalm, and we'll come back to them a few times, but I just want to point them out to you. He says, Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? I thought it was through. I thought it was gone. I didn't see his footprints in the sand. Y'all ever seen that little poster on the thing? Did you ever see butt prints in the sand? That's another one. You can look that up another time. He says, I felt rejected. I thought it was never going to come again. Now, that's strong, saying never.

24:16 That's strong when you think that he will never show you favor again. He said, I thought his love had vanished. They call these the three Ps of negative thinking because they're traps. and it's when you take something that happens to you and you make it personal rejection. It's when you make it It's permanent. Never. And it's when it becomes… pervasive, banished everywhere. It took everything away. It's completely ripping through your whole life. It's one thing to have a problem, and you've got it in a corner, and this is the one thing I'm dealing with in my life. But you know the Enemy has you in an eye thought. When it becomes personal, the Lord rejected me. There's something wrong with me. It's fine to be disappointed because somebody didn't want to be your friend.

25:13 It is another thing to assume that they are worthy to be the Olympic figure skating judge of your life, and then you stop putting yourself out there because you think that somehow they have the stamp of approval to give the human race and that they know just from their virtue of their own goodness whether or not you're worthy, and now you've got yourself isolated because you took it personal. There may have been something they were going through that was so dark that if you would have known that, you would have given them a hug and said, I'll send you a Christmas card. but now you've got it personal, permanent. It's never coming back. It's always going to be this way. It will never change. I'm never going to be able to go a week without doing this. I am never going to find anybody who gets me. It's permanent. It's going to stay this way forever, and it's pervasive. It's when you can't celebrate the kid that's doing good because of the one that you're worried about. It's when you can't celebrate the health in your body because of hell in your mind. It's because you're in an I thought.

26:12 He said, I thought it was through. I thought the dream was through. I thought the vision was through. I thought the relation… I thought my joy… I thought my very joy in life was through. It's an I thought. And if you're there today, let's start there. I thought it was through. There are some things in your life that may very well be through. That's why you can't dwell on, I thought about the former days. That's why you can't watch Andy Griffith reruns and wish again for wholesome entertainment and curse this love island at this crap these kids are watching and the devil has taken over a generation. This is an I thought. Y'all are laughing like y'all have been watching it too. I thought it was through.

27:10 I thought the best days were behind me. I want to show you something that's really helped me. It's something he said in verse 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, when I was in distress… Everybody say distress. Distress is a normal part of the Christian life, just like it's a normal part of the human experience. Distress in and of itself is not a problem. When I was in distress, the promise that God makes is not to protect us from distress. The promise that God makes is not to keep all pressure from coming on our lives. The promise God makes is not to make sure he always takes us the long way around any problem. The problem is when the distress becomes despair. There's a difference. Distress is, this hurts, but I have hope. Despair is, this hurts, and I have no hope.

28:14 despair is dangerous despair is hurt minus hope despair is looking at the situation saying never vanished rejection personal permanent pervasive i thought the psalmist said not that this is just a difficult season and i got to get through it because we all have those not this is just a bad day and if i can make it till five o'clock without cussing anybody out i can keep bringing home a paycheck and not get kicked out of this house that I'm behind a month on anyway. It's not, if I can get through this. It is, is this all there is? Despair is, it's never going to get better. That's where the devil wants you. It's never going to get better, and you'll always lose your temper. It's never going to get better, and you will always be a failure. It's never going to get better, and you are always going to be too loud, and you are always going to be too quiet, and you are always going to be too short. Did you ever think maybe God made you short so you could fit through little doors? Now, if this is where the psalmist starts, we have to do something today to get you out of this.

29:37 If despair is dangerous and distress isn't dangerous, you can go through a lot of things. You've been through a lot of things. You've put up with a lot of things. Tell your neighbor, I'm tougher than I look. I took a licking and kept on ticking. I'm tougher than I look. I'm like a weevil. I wobbled, but I didn't go down. I'm tougher than I look. I've had some challenges to my faith. I've had some questions about God. I'm still here praising. In fact, that's my two-word testimony when I can't think of anything else to praise him for. Still here. Somebody shout, still here. In a funk, still here. Down in it, still here. wondering about it still here peace isn't oh So, what you've got to do, child of God, is never allow distress, which is temporary, to become despair, which says forever.

30:53 And the devil specializes in turning distress into despair to get you so clouded by one conflict that you have forgotten your calling. Who am I preaching to today? God sent this word to disrupt your despair. Hear me. God sent this word to disrupt your despair. Every eye thought that has been telling you you will not make it. Every eye thought that has been telling you you are not worthy of God's love. The cross made you worthy. What does it have to do with your behavior? What did it ever have to do with your behavior? It's about his blood. I call you worthy in the name of Jesus. I call you healed by his stripes. I call you forgiven, and his favor is coming to your situation right now, into your room, into your home, into your wound, into your family, into your business, into that thing that the devil told you.

31:50 It's through. Give up. It's through. Quit fighting. It's through. Don't go back to rehab. It's through. Give up on it. Just manage the addiction. It's through. Just walk away from it. It's through. Just move to another city and start over the same stuff all over again until it catches up with you. It's through. Leave. It's through. But I found something for the trap. I found a truth for the trap. For everybody who has been in an I thought… I know you know the one I'm talking about. Don't make me start prophesying. The I thought. The one that starts with you and ends with misery. You know every thought that starts with me ends in misery eventually, if it doesn't involve God? What I noticed from what I read from Brueggemann and some of the other theologians I was looking up. He said, I thought about the former days, and I thought it was personal, permanent, pervasive. I would ask God to help me with the problem, but God was the problem. I didn't know where to go. Now, I kind of lied to you when I set the sermon up. I said I was going to share a verse I read that meant a lot to me right after Elijah got out of the hospital, and I am, but it wasn't the one I read you when I started the sermon.

33:22 It's a little sniper verse. It's a little sniper scripture. It's like you could just gloss right over it, but remember how bad of a state this guy was in. What's going to turn it around for you? What's going to turn it around for us? What's going to break us out of these patterns and traps of thinking that the devil says never? What's to break us out of this limited view of your situation that can't find God in it because you have gotten so blurry in the battle. I told my mom, I said, I'm going to be reading from Psalm 77 to preach this week. She likes when I give her a little head start. Well, she sent me back a picture of of her Bible open to Psalm 77. She's like, I already beat you to it, preacher.

34:13 I'm trying to do her voice when I do that. I already beat you. It was a text, but that's how she would have said it. I said, bring that Bible, because I want to show you something. All right, give me my camera. This psalm… It's not Psalm 23. Everybody knows Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. It's a relatively obscure psalm. You see how she had that circled? She has that Psalm 77 circled like a serial killer. I realized why. She's got it all underlined. I said, bring the Bible to church. I have to show the people something. She was circling everything in this Bible all the way down to, has his unfailing love vanished forever has his promise failed for all time. Then on her Bible, that's the part where that page ends. I told her, I was like, that's not the best part of Psalm 77. She's like, yeah, that's what I was reading right after your dad died. Thanks a lot. I was like, yeah, no, that's a good part of Psalm 77 too, obviously, when you're going through things. But I said, read the rest and hit me a couple hours later. Now, my dad died of ALS. It was over 10 years ago, and it was in June of 2013. This psalm meant a lot to her during that low time of her life, and so she was reading it like we do, and we come to this place. I thought it was through, and she had just lost her husband.

35:43 She had just lost him after caring for him. It was an atrocious, atrocious disease. But what I want to show her and you today from Psalm 77 is in verse 10. May this change your life. May this break your pattern. May this bring you out of the trap. He said, I was stuck in an I thought… Watch this. Then I thought. That's the whole sermon. Then I thought. Circle it on the screen, Justin. Then I thought. No, circle then I thought. Because the first thought wasn't the right thought. Then I thought. I thought, I thought, I thought, and I got stuck in a loop of I thoughts. Then I thought. Verse 10 is the hinge where everything changes for this psalmist. Verse 10 is the hinge where everything can change for you and I. Verse 10 is the hinge that depression doesn't want you to know about. Verse 10 is the hinge that the devil wants to hide and delete off of your Bible app. Verse 10 is the hinge that the devil doesn't want you to turn to. After all of that which is real, after all of that which is a part of being you, after all of that I thought it was through, after all of that he says, then I thought. Let's see what he thought next. To this I will appeal. The years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.

37:38 Go back to verse 10. Then I thought, to this I will appeal, the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. Go back to verse 2. When we started with these I thoughts, he was saying, when I was in distress, I sought the Lord at night. I stretched out untiring hands. who stretched out i stretched out i i can't do this much longer i don't care how many interior raises you do in the gym for your shoulders you can only do this so long and is it possible that the reason you are so faint in your faith and so weary in your worship and so discouraged about your destiny. The reason you think that it's through is because you have been so focused on this. God, I can't give anymore. I can't do anymore. I already feel so stretched. God, I feel so empty. I feel so unseen. I feel so uncelebrated. I keep stretching out my hands.

38:42 I keep putting myself forth. I keep taking my next step, but you're not there. Then, verse 10. Then I thought, I'm going to appeal to a higher court. Instead of thinking about how I'm doing this, let me think about the years when God stretched his hand. When I start thinking about how he stretched his hand and I forget about my hands, suddenly my hands go up in worship because I remember that the battle is not mine, but it belongs to the Lord.

39:28 15 seconds of praise for everybody who needs a then-I-thought. Then-I-thought. That's anointing. Yeah. High five your neighbor. say then I thought. I thought over and over. I thought then I thought. Oh yeah, then I thought. I thought it was through. Then I thought I might as well throw in the towel. Then I was very focused on all the reasons I had not to go forward. Y'all are slow. Y'all are real slow. Y'all slow like molasses in the south. Then I thought, let me think about his hand.

40:23 Let me remember his deeds. He does it in a quartet. He talks about the mighty deeds of God, the works of God, the awesome deeds of God, the deeds of God. He lists them off and rattles them off because he said, I thought it was through. Then after I had gotten done with all of my questions, then after I had poured out all my complaints, then after I had considered all the reasons I had to be afraid, I thought It was through, but then... I've thought it through. I thought about saying, all right, devil, I quit. Then I thought it was through.

41:23 But then I thought it through. And I decided I wouldn't despair unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. High five seven people say, I thought it through. I thought it through. I thought it through. I thought it through. I thought it through.

42:03 Now let me tell you what I mean. In verse 19, let's go right back to the top of the sermon. He said, when I thought about the way God works. don't sit down you're about to shout again you might as well just save yourself the calorie burn you might as well just save yourself the cardio just go ahead and jump up now by faith and get ready to celebrate he said your path led circle the word through let's do bible study i wanted you to take me around it i wanted you to carry me over it i wanted you to give me a boat but instead of a boat i got a mighty hand and an outstretched arm your path Your path led through your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints weren't seen.

43:09 Why didn't I see God's footprints? Because he was working with his hand at a higher level. He was driving back waters that I didn't know he needed to part so he could drown Egyptians that were chasing me and trying to bring me back into captivity. What am I trying to say? Think it through.

43:30 You just keep thinking the same I thoughts, and you're like, I do think it through. I'm an overthinker. Just because you think it again doesn't mean you thought it through. You underthinker you. You think like this, oh, well, the Devil's attacking me. I guess God's not with me. What if you thought that through? God must be so with me. This is how you think it through.

44:07 God, I went to my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary the other day. Clap your hands for that. and it survived betrayal, and it survived addiction, and it survived special needs. There were times where they thought it wouldn't make it. Then I thought, the challenge is you can't see the path in the present.

44:34 It's only in retrospect that the Red Sea looks like a blessing. I'll show you what I mean. Go to Exodus 14. When the Israelites came up on the Red Sea… You know the story? They came up on the Red Sea. They were leaving Egypt. They had been slaves for 430 years, and God was leading them out. They were happy. They were ready to dance. They even packed their tambourines. As the tambourines are jingling in their suitcase, oh no, here comes trouble. What is the sound of that very high pitch? It doesn't sound like a tambourine. It's an Egyptian chariot. Oh no, the Egyptians are coming after us. So watch what they thought, because I'm trying to get you to see that you might be wrong.

45:15 You might think the attack means it's through. That's an I thought. They thought. Watch this. Exodus 14. The Lord said to Moses, stretch your hand over the sea. The waters may go but flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen. Most stretch your hand over the sea. Daybreak. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it. The Lord swept them into the sea. Oh, so the Israelites didn't die. The Egyptians did. Go to verse 28. The water flowed back and covered all the chariots and horsemen. Now, that all sounds so wonderful. God drowned their enemies, right? And I know I'm rushing this. I don't have time. You go come back next week for part two of this?

45:46 But what's crazy to me about this scripture is the scripture says that when they got to the edge of their escape route in Exodus chapter 14, verse... 11. They said to Moses, was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? They thought that water was going to kill them. That's what they thought. Now look at chapter 15, verse 1, when they got to the other side, and the Egyptians were all dead behind them in the thing they thought was going to kill them. Exodus 15, verse 1. And circle the word. Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. I will sing to the Lord.

46:42 That's fine. But you have to sing that same song on the other side so you can get through this. It is the hinge of the Scripture for the people of God. They remembered their exodus. This deliverance motif sets the entire story for Jesus, who would be the greater Moses, who would bring us out of the slavery to sin. It's all set up here, and the psalmist is looking back and saying, I could not see your footprints. I remembered that your hand was working in the night." And you've been looking at the wrong level, and you have been thinking at the wrong level, and God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and his ways are not our ways. And what if the attack that is against you is actually sent to remind you how valuable what you carry actually is? Think it through. The devil is not omnipresent. The devil does not have unlimited ammunition. So if there is an attack against your life, if there is an attack against your family, if there is an attack against your mind, there is something in your future that hell has recognized. Think it through. What is it? What is it that hell knows about my family that I forgot about my family? Then I thought it through.

48:09 Even more, what is it that God knows I need to learn that he would let me go through this? If you really want to get out of the I thought, what is it that he's going to use this for in somebody else's life? Did I really suffer this much to stay silent about what he taught me as a student? Thank you. So, the word of the Lord is… Think it through. It never comes like you thought it would come, not when it comes from God. Because if it came like you thought it would come, then your thoughts would be God. He says, My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts. It just blessed me to think about all of the people in here who, instead of giving up on this pursuit of Jesus, instead of giving up on your purity, instead of giving up on the impact God has called you to make, instead of thinking it was through, you're going to think it through today so that the song you have to sing on the other side reflects the faithfulness of the God who split the sea. One moment, it looked like the sea was going to kill them. The next minute, they realized, wait, God didn't bring us this far to drown us. He didn't bring us out here to leave us. He didn't bring us out here because he's not with us. He brought us out here because the Enemy can't swim.

49:56 Hey, I hope you enjoyed the podcast. And if you did, make sure to share it and subscribe so we can get you all of these new messages as soon as possible.