Break Free From What You Thought

Honestly, not only pastorally but personally, 90 percent 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. 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. Now I'm comparing my future to somebody whose flaws I have never seen. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. When we say that Jesus takes away our shame and our sin, that doesn't mean he wants to cancel out the lessons we learn from our mistakes. It means he frees us from the penalty of it and the bondage to it. But it doesn't mean Jesus wants us to live our lives just to continue to be wrong in all of the ways 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. Twelve hours later, I found myself saying, I was so wrong for that. Now, 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. wrong to put you in that position, even to admit dumb things. 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 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 that 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. It is 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 I am wrong right now. If we don't even want to admit we were wrong, how much less do we want to realize 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. I want you to realize that not only do you have iPhones, but you also have I-thoughts. It's possible the Devil has you trapped in an I-thought right now in your life. An 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.'" 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. 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 they're in 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. It's realizing 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. Over the course of the next several weeks, I want to help you with your thoughts. Some of your I-thoughts are wrong. Some of your I-thoughts about people are wrong. Some of your I-thoughts about what is still ahead of you in your life are wrong. 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, 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. I thought it was, I remember you, God, and I was grateful. I remember you, God, and I prayed. 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 created me a clean heart Oh 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. 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 I'm not even sure you're in the room. I'm not even sure you hear this And 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, 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 groan not shouted groan not clap groan not dance groan 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 and 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 pettis petty jealous petty what jet jelly thoughts 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 Now when I read this at first you're gonna 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 gonna 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 a preacher 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 verse 6, please 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 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 do with it. The psalmist is putting it all out there for us today, which gives us permission to know that 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 it was through. I thought back over the best days of my life, and I thought they're behind me. I thought about the things I would love to see God do for me that he has done for others, and I thought, well, I guess he just doesn't want to do it for me. 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. 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. 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. 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. It's when you take something that happens to you and you make it personal…rejection. It's when you make it permanent…never. 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. I 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. It is another thing to assume they are worthy to be the Olympic figure skating judge of your life, and then you stop putting yourself out there because you think 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. Now you have 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 have 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 who's doing good because of the one you're worried about. It's when you can't celebrate the health in your body because of the hell in your mind. It's because you're in an I thought. He said, I thought it was through. I thought the dream was through. I thought the vision was through. I thought my joy in life was through. It's an I thought. 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 that this crap these kids are watching and the Devil has taken over a generation. This is an I thought. But the Lord… Y'all are laughing like y'all have been watching it too. I thought it was through. I thought the best days were behind me. I thought… And I want to show you something. This 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 God makes is not to protect us from distress. The promise 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. 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 have to get through it, because we all have those. Not this is just a bad day, and if I can make it until 5 o'clock without cussing anybody out, I can keep bringing home a paycheck and not get kicked out of this house 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. 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.'" Don't let my pretty smile fool you. 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. So, what you have to do, child of God, is never allow distress, which is temporary, to become despair, which says forever.