The Cure Is Not What You Think Pastor Steven Furtick

You know, it's a funny thing about pride.

When your heart is full of pride, you try to

write your own prescriptions. And you start saying things like, well,

if they apologize, or, well, if they come to me, well,

if they this and if they that. But what if

God isn't going to heal you on your terms? What

if he isn't going to set everything up to be convenient?

What if the.

Command that God gives you is to do something that

to you seems... insignificant and foolish and embarrassing and humiliating.

What if God gives you something to do that seems

beneath you? Naaman said the Jordan River and he went

away angry and said, here's the two words that get

me in trouble.

Verse 11, I thought.

Do you know how many times Those two words have

stood between me and peace, I thought.

I thought.

You know how many times those two words have stood

between me and joy?

I thought. How much longer are.

You going to worship at the altar of what you thought?

What if God wants to do it a different way?

What if God wants to do it in a process, not.

In a moment?

Look, Naaman expected it to go a certain way. I

thought he would surely come out to me. He would

come to me. He's supposed to come to me.

I'm a great man. People come to me.

And I thought he would stand and call on the

name of the Lord his God.

I thought he would wave.

People are supposed to wave his hand over the spot

and cure me of my leprosy. But see, that wasn't

the spot that God was aiming for. God wasn't trying

to heal Naaman's skin as much as he was trying

to create faith in Naaman's heart.

That's why I went off, because I misunderstood what God

was trying to do in that moment. I went off

because I got so much more concerned about how I

looked in the.

Situation than what God was trying to do through it.

The message today is for somebody who is about to

go off. You're sick of it. I don't have to

put up with this. Do they know who I am?

Naaman said, Do you know my name, man?

All right, I'll retire the jokes. I'll just stick to

the Bible.

Are not Abana and Farpar The rivers of Damascus better

than all the waters of Israel.

I got my prejudice. I got my preference. I got

my convenience. I got my thoughts. I got my plan.

I got my script. Couldn't I wash in them and

be cleansed? So watch what Naaman did. He turned and

went off. Literally, he went off in a rage.

And thank God when he speaks to you in those

moments and interrupts you from going off and going back home.

Going home unhealed because you were unwilling to be humbled.

And Naaman's servants came to him. Look what they did.

They went to him.

And said, My father, sir, dude, if the prophet told

you to do some great.

Thing, would you not have done it?

Well, yes, because I am a great man.

I'm great.

Then how much more when he tells you, wash and

be cleansed?

Can I tell you something?

God's not trying to cure your condition or fix your situation.

He's trying to make you whole on the inside. So,

This is how God showed me, Holly. He came for

a cure, but he went home cleansed. And sometimes what

we come for is not what we leave with. Watch

what he did next. Verse 14. So Naaman went down.

That's the only way he's going to get healed. He

went down and dipped himself in the.

Jordan, that muddy river meant so much to the nation

of Israel, but meant nothing to Naaman. And he dipped

himself in the Jordan seven times. And the first time

he dipped, let me assure you, nothing got better. And

the second time he dipped, let me.

Assure you, his spot looked exactly the same.

And the third time he dipped, his skin didn't grow

any lighter or darker.

And the fourth time he.

Dipped, nothing happened to indicate that he was doing the

right thing. And the fifth time he dipped, do you

get the point?

Nothing happened.

The sixth time that he dipped, he wondered, did this

man send me down here to make a fool of me?

Because God wants to know, do you trust me enough

to stay in the process.

When you cannot see the proof?

Sometimes I am going to need you to go in

Before you go off. To go into my presence. To

go into my work. To seek me for wisdom. To

seek my will. And when it doesn't seem like it's working,

it's going to take all seven times. But if you

keep going off on the third dip, when you keep

going off when you don't feel appreciated or confirmed or validated,

if you keep going off, you are going to go

home with the same condition that you came to church with.

But if you go in.

And come into my presence with thanksgiving and enter my

courts with praise, if you will go.

In and worship me and.

Go through the motions when you don't feel like it's

working and trust me and humble.

Yourself, I'll lift you up. Stand to your feet.

And after his seventh dip in the Jordan, as the

man of God had told him, His flesh was restored.

And watch this. He became clean. It was more than

just his skin. It was his soul.

To know that you've got to embrace God's process.

To experience his promise.

And the great man, the great man, Naaman, came out

of the Jordan. with his skin restored like a young boy.

The great man became like a young boy. That's about faith,

my friend. And I admire Naaman because he went. And

I relate to Naaman because he almost left. There have

been so many times in my life that God has

spoken something to me that it almost seemed too simple

It was almost offensive to me. There's times where he

spoke to me to let something go. I was holding

on to, there's been times where he wanted me to

go to someone and take responsibility for my part in

a relational conflict. There's been times in my life where

he wanted me to own a dysfunction that I kept

trying to justify and explain away. And I, I can

only tell you this from experience is that like name.

And what I found is that the cleansing comes in

the process. It comes when you get down in that

water that seems muddy to you and start doing the

dirty work of saying, this is what it is. This

is what it is. This is me and the way

that I respond and react. I can't keep blaming it

on my environment. I can't just stay in this position

where I'm fighting.

All the time. So I'm going down. I'm going in.

In fact, lift your hands in the presence of the

Lord right now. It's the posture of surrender. And healing

only comes through surrender in the presence of God. You

can't receive God's transformation on your terms. So you got

to get your hands up high. You got to know

where your help comes from today. You got to know

that the healing power of Jesus is available to you

in every moment. It's not something you can achieve by

might or by power. It must be received by his spirit.

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