Now What? (Holly Furtick)

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.

I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Help this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.

Hope it gives your perspective to see God has moving in your life.

Enjoy the message I'm going to be preaching from Acts chapter nine, starting in verse thirty two. If you don't have a Bible, we'll have it right here on the screens for you.

It says this.

As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord's people who lived in Lida. There he found a man named Annius who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years.

Annius, Peter said to him, Jesus Christ heals you.

Get up, roll up your mat, and immediately Annius got up, and all those who lived in Lida and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. In Jappa, there was a disciple named Tabitha. In her name in Greek, her name is Dorcas. She was always doing good and helping the poor. About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.

Lida was near Joppa.

So when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lida, they sent two men to him and urged him please come at once. Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room.

All the widows stood.

Around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Peter sent them all out of the room, and then he got down on his knees and prayed, and turning toward the dead woman, he said, Tabitha, get up, and she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers, especially the widows,

Let me pray for us.

Lord, thank you for this beautiful day that is before us. We thank you for all of the women in our lives who have touched us in some way, every woman who is nurtured and comfort and encouraged and believed in us. And I pray for every person on Mother's Day who's hurting. Lord, I know under the sound of my voice, that there are some who are longing to be a mother today, that there's someone who is missing their mom today, or maybe.

A mom who is praying for their child.

Lord, may they know you today as the God of all comfort.

God. We've gathered here today to hear from you. That's why we came. We're ready to receive what you have to say. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, Well, it's Mother's Day.

Case you forgot, and I would like to take the opportunity to pick on my own children for a minute.

You see, all three of my kids now each have their own phone.

I know that's kind of a debate about how old the kids should be when they get a phone. Blah blah blahlaf just eighteen Graandm's sixteen Abvius thirteen. And as a mom, it is really comforting to be able to communicate with and track my children at any moment of the day.

Amn moms.

Okay, but I am realizing that this also works both ways, because if I can communicate with them and track them at any moment of the day, then that means that they also can communicate with me. Only there's three of them, so you see the problem with this is that they do not understand that every time I see their name pop up on my phone, I feel a lot of things. I feel happy, I feel scared, I feel excited, and I feel annoyed all at once. My mind starts to race are they okay?

Are they in trouble? Did they forget something? Do they need me? And some days it feels like that is my full time job.

It's just fielding questions that are an emergency to them.

But not necessarily to me. Here are a few things.

That I went back and saw that my kids have texted me. Can you sign me out of school early? Can you give me more Snapchat time? What's for dinner? Can we go to Starbucks? Where are you? Where are my car keys? Can I go to Can my friend come over?

Now? Here is one code that I have cracked. If they say how's your day going?

It is almost always followed up by can I have some money?

But the worst one, the one that I just cannot.

Decipher no matter how hard I try, The one that makes my heart drop is when they text me one word in all caps M Now. If I texted my husband his name in all caps st V E in that is code for B A D. But to teenagers everything is an emergency. So when I see my name in all cops my mind, you know, are they okay? Are they in troublesomeone hurt? But in reality, mom can be followed up by Sephoras having a big sale.

Can we go?

Or Mom, I just backed into our neighbor's mailbox?

Or where's the hot sauce?

Or Mom, the TV fell off the console and it's cracked.

Real life examples.

So after a full day of this, God blessed the child who texts me next, because if I see Elijah Graham or Abby's name come up on my phone, I am going to automatically reply with now what All right?

If you're taking notes, the title.

Of my message today is now what. Life can often seem.

Like a series of now what.

We've been in the most incredible series called ghost Writer.

Have you been loving this? Stephen?

Stephen has been taking us through some of the stories in the Book of Acts to show us that we have a divine director called the Holy Spirit, and he is writing our story and we can trust the one who has final cut over our lives. Babe, you have been on fire.

You had me from the very first sermon.

Which was called Page Turner. I've been so into this series because I live for stories. I love to hear stories, I love to read stories, I love to watch stories.

I love to talk about stories. So I even started my own book club. If you like to read, go to Hollyfordick dot com. We love for you to join us.

But I think that my favorite kind of story is the one where the main character is face with a seemingly insurmountable situation, yet somehow they overcome it.

Do you like those kind of stories?

In my book club, we read a book called The Choice by Holocaust survivor named doctor Edith Eager, and I got to interview her thanks to Ashley Tucker, who went absolute private eye into the depths of social media. Turns out doctor Eager's granddaughter in law happened to.

Be Ashley's sorority sister.

I still cannot believe I got to interview this woman.

She is a real life hero.

Here's a picture of us chatting on Instagram Live. So doctor Edith survived the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, and she eventually immigrated to the United States, and in her book she chronicles not just her journey to survive Auschwitz but to find life afterwards, and the book brilliantly talks about dealing with PTSD and trauma.

And one of my.

Favorite quotes from her book is this She says, survivors don't have time to ask why me. For survivors, she says, the only relevant question.

Is what now?

What?

Now?

Now what?

And I feel like many of us are sitting in a now what moment today, just like Peter was when he was asked to raise a.

Woman from the dead.

When we read the Bible, I feel like we really need to slow down because we read this verse Peter sent them all out of the room.

This is verse forty.

Peter sent them all out of the room. Then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, Tabitha, get up. She opened her eyes and seeing.

Peter, she sat up.

Can we stop and just say knowledge that that's not normal?

I mean, sure it happened in the Bible, but really not that much.

It.

Actually, there's several times that it happened.

Elijah did it once, Elisha did it twice, Jesus did it three times. But this is new to Peter, he's never raised a dead person to life. Now, if you missed the sermon last week, you missed a really important message because it's centered around this idea that the Holy Spirit is the director of our story and he has the final cut in the story of our lives.

And therefore we can believe and cling to that nothing can happen to us that does not first pass through the hands of our sovereign God.

And that is what you brilliantly taught us last week.

This week, I want to show you.

That the story is pretty much always the same. The character faces a problem, the outcome of the story is determined by how you the character respond to your problem.

Is it okay?

If I go seventh grade language arts teacher on you for a second, you might not know this about me.

I taught middle school for two very long years.

And just in case you are not paying attention in seventh grade English, I want to remind you today that every good story, every book, every movie, TV show, they always follow pretty much the same sequence.

Now, Babe, as you can see, I borrowed your screen.

We flipped it, but I promise I'm going to put it back the way that I found it.

For whenever you want to use it next.

So every starts out with an introduction. This is where you meet the main characters and maybe establish the setting. Then we have what's called watch this is going to do something cool, the inciting incident. This is where the main character is faced with a problem. This is the now what moment. Then we have the rising action. That's all the things that the character has to learn, or the relationships that he has to form, or the training that he has to do in order to overcome the situation.

Then we have the falling action, and then the resolution.

The story is the constant part. That's the part that doesn't change. That's also the part that is mostly outside.

Of your control.

Sure you have some choice in the cast of characters in the setting.

But not always.

I mean, you don't get to pick the family that you're born into or the town that you're raised, and you certainly don't get to pick the problems that you face.

This right here is called life.

And if you think that following Jesus means that you get to be exempt from this, You're gonna be really disappointed.

This is life, this is human.

Following Jesus means that you never have to walk through this alone.

But this guy, this is the variable.

This is the part that can take the story in any direction. How will she or he respond to the problem?

Now, what will they do?

And in this series, we're in the first Book of Acts and we're watching the story of the Church unfold through perhaps one of the most epic characters in the Bible named Peter.

And Peter has had his fair share of now what moments. Last week Peter not Peter. Last week Pastor Stephen said that.

We grow through what we go through with God.

And Peter has come a long way.

We've seen him go through from moments of sitting by the fire and denying Jesus to standing up and preaching on Pentecost on the day of Pentecost. And we've seen him go from cutting off the man's ear in the garden to healing the lame man at the temple. And he's been arrested, and he's been thrown into jail, and he's been flogged, and the Bible says that he considered

To preach the gospel real quick.

Today, I want to give you four things to consider when you find yourself in a now what moment.

And the first thing, if you're taking notes you can write this down.

Is accept the push. Why was Peter in Lyda? Let me show you This is Acts one eighth, and it says a great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem, and all the blame except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. At this point in the Bible, just one chapter ahead, Stephen has been stoned for his faith, and Saul is going around dragging people out of their homes and throwing them in jail.

And the heading in my Bible for.

Chapter eight says, persecution.

Scatters the believers.

If the gospel was going to spread throughout the world, the disciples had to get out of Jerusalem. Remember, Jesus had told them to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. And sometimes I believe that God allows something to happen in my life so that he can get me to move.

It's the push of God.

And oftentimes it feels like abandonment, and it looks like disappointment, and it seems like failure, and it feels like God is against me.

But really he knows.

That my fear are dug in and the only way that he can get me to move is to allow something that I don't understand.

Now, you don't have to take this literally.

The push of God does not necessarily mean that God wants you to move towns or neighborhoods or jobs. Sometimes, but sometimes he allows a relationship to end because that person is holding you back from your purpose, so he's got to push you away from that person. Sometimes he allows you to face a struggle so that you will turn to him for help. I'm not saying that God causes bad things to happen to us. Remember, bad things

If not, you're just going to stay stuck. Stuck in a way that you are stuck in.

The habits that you'll never break, suck in the unforgiveness that you feel that's now starting to rot into bitterness, and nobody wants to be around you. But I want to tell you today, you don't have to stay stuck.

My favorite preacher put it this way. You might know this line. He said, I'm not stuck unless I stop.

You gotta move.

You gotta let God push you into an unknown territory so that you can grow. Sometimes God is trying to push you to a resource. He's trying to push you to something better, but.

You can't receive it what he has for you if you don't move.

I don't know why this happened, but I'm gonna accept that God is using it for the next thing in my life, the next thing that I am supposed to do.

So the moment that you realize.

That you're being pushed into uncomfortable, unknown territory, the next thing you gotta do is find a person.

That's the second point.

Find a person who has been here before, or find a person who's here right now. It's called support for a reason because there are special people. I believe handpicked by God, that are out there that want to help you walk through this uncharted territory. Now, up until this point in the Book of Acts, we have seen the church go from come to life from.

A really big scale. Right several times.

Luke, who's the writer of the Book of Acts, he tells us thousands were added to their number daily.

He says it like three different times.

But then we get to chapter nine and he zooms down.

In to show us this one little baby church.

It's a small group of believers who are gathering in the town of Joppa, and one of their members, Tabitha, has died. Now, the Bible doesn't tell us much about Tabitha. The scripture says that she was always doing good and helping the poor, and then it says she became sick and died.

But there's so much more to this woman.

Because her death caused such a hole in her community that the people in her life had to go and get Peter and bring him in to their situation. Last week, my husband said something so profound, but I feel like he said it a week too early, because I feel like it was a word.

For all the moms.

He said, the devil will make you think you have nothing to give. He wants to keep you stuck in selfishness. He wants you to think that the mundane things that you do for people, for the people that you love, that go unseen and that go unfaked, and that because they go in an unthink that they don't matter.

So why bother Nothing could be farther from the truth. And we have this woman who would never.

Preach to thousands, but she was a pillar for her church.

She was a rock for the women in her group. She saw in need and she filled it.

And although Tabitha would never stand before thousands of people like Peter and preach the gospel, she's preaching to us today, thousands of years later. And among other things, I feel like she's saying God loves fashion.

I don't know if you caught it.

I'm kind of kidding, But what I'm trying to say is God loves anything that you use to help his people.

You see, God has.

Given you an important gift, and if you're not careful, you'll miss your next step because instead.

Of asking now, what you got stuck on why?

The Bible doesn't say this exact but I think that Tabitha was a widow herself, because one of the most effective places to minister is from the place of your own pain, and sometimes in your now what moment, you have to realize that you are not the only person who has ever been through this before.

I know your situation is unique, but remembered.

There are really no new stories, only new characters in the stories, and how you respond.

Is your choice. And if you believe the lie.

They are all alone in your situation, then you are going to be trudging up this hill, making it take ten times longer than it should find a person. I was talking to a friend of mine who was going through a really bad divorce, and she told me that God brought two women into her life who were walking the same road, and she said that those two women, for about two years, were just a lifeline to her.

And they don't know if he can do anything.

They're not sure, but if anyone can, he can, so they send two men for him. I think they sent two men because they figured the men would leave out the des Remember, Peter has never raised someone from the dead before.

So the less details they give him, the.

Better chances it is that he's gonna come.

They just need to get him to Joppa.

They don't need to say we need you, Peter. Look at what verse thirty eight says. It says little was near Joppa. So the disciples heard that Peter was in Lida, and they sent two men and urged him please come at once forwards. And Peter responds to the poll. That's the third point. Respond to the pull, all right, now, If the push of God feels jolting, the.

Poll of God is gentle. And if you're not careful, you'll miss it. If you're too busy, you'll miss it.

If you're too absorbed in your own situation, you might miss it. And in my experience, the pull of God often looks like an interruption to my day.

Maybe a conversation that I didn't have time for. But Peter had walked with Jesus.

Long enough to know that miracles are often disguised as interruptions. Miracles are often disguised in seemingly normal Monday moments and conversations. Have you ever been talking with someone about your situation and what started off as just an ordinary conversation led you to some kind of answer. Earlier this week, one of my close friends was at a dead end with

Needed me to say, like that sucks.

I'm so sorry, And I felt really bad for her, and I actually typed out with God, there's always a way, and by faith, I know you will find it.

But it felt too preachy, you.

Know, like sometimes you don't need to preach to your friends, you just need to listen.

So I erased it.

I didn't send it, and I just prayed for her, and I just wanted to sit there with her and listen to her.

And sometimes you just have to be that friend.

And our conversation ended, and forty five minutes later she texted me randomly, she said, can you send me Caroline's number?

I just I don't know.

I feel like I'm supposed to talk to her, So I sent it to her. The next day, she called me on the phone and she told me that she had a really long conversation with the woman and she felt like she finally had some next and she felt like she had clear direction for her daughter, and the thing that she had been worrying about and praying about for months, she had clarity on in a flash. Because

Back at the full story.

And I don't want you to miss it, because you were moving so fast through your day that you dismissed it. Peter felt the tug when these men came to him.

And I can just imagine one woman holding up.

A wedding dress and she said, this is the dress that Tapatha made from me when my daughter was getting married and we couldn't afford one where somebody else did. This is the coat that she made the winner that was so cold. This is the quilt that lays on my bed. And Peter is so moved that he sends them all out, because sometimes you do have to find a person, but other times you gotta get in his presence.

Lord?

All of a sudden, Oh, he has.

A flashback to a time when he was in the presence of Jesus and they were pushing through a crowd to get to the house of a very important synagogue leader named Jyris, whose twelve year old daughter had died.

Do you remember this story?

And for some reason, the Bible tells us that only Peter, James and John got to go with Jesus. And when they arrived at the house, there's a crowd of people there in there crying and they're mourning this little girl. And I got to show you what happens next. This is Mark five, verse forty. The crowd laughed at him Jesus, but he made them all leave, and he took the girl's father and mother and his three disciples into the

He was in the room. And when you get in the room with Jesus. It marks you. It's something you never forget.

The presence of Jesus is not magical, but it is powerful. When Peter asked now what, the answer wasn't a complicated series of steps or things that he needed to do.

The answer wasn't even something new.

Sometimes we want God to something new, something complicated, something big, something.

You know that we've never seen before. I don't think that's how God loves to work. Most of the time in my life.

It comes in a flash, and he knew what to do in that moment.

Now look at verse forty. Back to Peter. What did he do?

Turning toward the dead woman, he said, Tabitha, get up.

She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. Now, I don't know if you caught this.

Peter changed one letter, Jesus said to Lisa Coom.

She means the little girl. Get up, Peter said, Tabitha. Get up. Tabitha, your situation it might not it. Your situation might.

Be new to you, and it might feel horrible and uncomfortable.

But I promise you your situation is not new to God.

And when you get in the presence of Jesus and you lay out your dead end to God.

He will show you the next step. He will he does, I promise you.

He might bring to mind a person that you need to reach out to or a place that you need to visit.

But it also it.

Might not be exactly what you're expecting to hear, so you have to listen really good. It might seem small, it might be so small what God tells you to do that it's hard.

Personally.

When I have prayed now what Lord, God has said to me things that I didn't want to hear, like stop talking about it, or let it go, or stand firm. Sometimes the hardest one that God says to me.

Wait.

One time I was praying about one of my.

Kids and God said to me, so clearly, stop comparing yourself to other moms because I kept, you know, thinking like, well, their kids don't and her kids are, and maybe it's me. And God clearly whispered to me, Holly, I gave you this child because you have what they need. I'm still working on accepting this one, but I can tell you right now, if you don't get in the presence of God, if you don't take your now what to the feet of Jesus, you will feel like you will never get

More like this.

There will be so many now what moments along the way, But you just got to get in the presence of Jesus, because you know what his word. His direction is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. He only gives you a little bit at a time because He's right there with you every step.

Of the way. And when you get here, when.

You get to the climax, you will have had so many many miracles and I so many many miracles along.

The way that you realize that this part is all about God, it's not even about me. Verse forty one. Then he called for.

The believers, especially the widows, and he presented.

Her to them alive. It's the next verse.

This became known all over Jappa, and many people believed in the Lord. The goal is when you get here that people see God, not you. They might say to you, I don't know how you made it through that You are a strong person. You're so much stronger than me.

And you'll know that some days. It was moment by moment that you prayed, now, what Lord? Now? What Lord?

Now?

What Lord? And every time he was right there with you. I like to close by singing a song, because the.

Songs that God continues to bring forth through our pastor and through this worship memory, this worship ministry right now, they're the words and they're the anthems that I don't know if you feel this way, but I so often feel like I didn't even know. This is what I needed to say to God, that what I want, what my heart was wanting to say to God. And p when he was put in front of Dorcas this astronomical ask that the people were.

Asking him, he had a flashback faith moment. And I want to tell you today, so can you.

And as we sing this song that says, oh my God, You've sure been good to me, my prayer is that you will have a flashback faith moment, a moment when you were in the presence of Jesus, and that your faith would be stirred to know that you are not alone in what you were going through today, and one day you'll look back on this moment too, and you'll be able to proclaim the goodness of God in your life.

Amen.

The Lord, you've worshiped you today. Thank you that you have everything we need for this journey, and that you promise to never leave us alone as.

We walk this out. We cling to that now.

Lord.

Thank you for the push, even though it feels uncomfortable. Thank you for the people you have brought in our path. Thank you for the pull.

God.

We're going to listen for the whispers this week.

And right now, Lord, we just want to come into your presence and worship you.

Say Jesus the name we.

Pray Amen, Thank you for joining us.

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Is because of you that this ministry is possible.

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Thanks again for listening. God, bless you