You Can Change The End | Pastor Steven Furtick | Elevation Church

Summary

You might not be able to change your past, but you can change what happens next. When life feels stuck or uncertain, remember this: the result belongs to God, but your response is still in your hands. You don't have to control the outcome, just move forward and trust Him with what comes next.

Chapters

• Exodus 140:00

  This chapter is presented not merely as ancient history but as a living template for every believer standing at what feels like a dead end. The three responses — despair (the people), passivity (Moses), and forward movement (God) — reveal that the miracle was conditional on human action, not just divine initiative. The Red Sea becomes a mirror for any impossible situation where the past threatens to reclaim what God has set free.

• You Can Change The End5:12

  The sermon's central thesis challenges the popular notion of a 'fresh start' by reframing hope as forward motion rather than erasure. Because Jesus has already dealt with the past, the believer's task is not to undo history but to choose the next step — the 'then' — that redirects the story. This demands active faith rather than passive waiting for circumstances to improve.

• Big Doors Swing On Little Hinges9:35

  This principle reframes the seeming insignificance of small decisions and small acts of obedience. A stick over a sea, one word in a text message, one small act of courage or cowardice — these are the actual levers of destiny. It calls listeners to take seriously the weight of ordinary moments rather than waiting for a dramatic turning point.

• What Response Will You Give?13:11

  The sermon draws a sharp distinction between the response that belongs to the believer and the result that belongs to God, insisting that God only moved the sea when Moses moved the staff. This section challenges the tendency to spiritualize inaction as faith, calling instead for courageous obedience even when outcomes are uncertain.

• Beware Of This17:47

  This section addresses one of the most subtle forms of spiritual self-deception: using a genuine word from God as cover for what is really an escape from difficulty. The pastor warns that confirmation bias can masquerade as divine direction, and that true freedom often looks like staying and growing rather than leaving and avoiding. It is a pastoral corrective to a culture that celebrates exits over endurance.

• When It Feels Like The End21:40

  The sermon names the paralysis that comes when circumstances conspire to announce that a season, relationship, or dream is finished. By honestly acknowledging that the feeling of finality is real — 'you might not make it' — the pastor refuses cheap comfort while simultaneously insisting the feeling is not the final word. This is where pastoral honesty and theological hope meet.

• Change "The End" To "Then"25:42

  The visual and verbal pivot from 'the end' to 'then' is the sermon's defining theological move. It reframes endings as hinge points — moments where the story does not stop but turns. The grammar of the word 'then' embodies a theology of resurrection: what looked terminal becomes transitional when placed in God's narrative.

• New Response: What Then28:44

  Romans 8:31's rhetorical question — 'what then shall we say in response to these things?' — is unpacked as a daily, even moment-by-moment decision. The 'then' is not a passive question about outcome but an active declaration of intent. The sermon invites listeners to rehearse the story they want to tell one day and then begin living it now.

• What Will You Do?33:27

  This section confronts the gap between receiving a word on Sunday and living it on Monday, illustrated by the parking-lot confrontation story. The pastor's self-disclosure serves to humanize the struggle and underscore that real-time responses — not ideal-conditions responses — are what actually shape a life. The question is not what you would do in theory but what you will do when the horn honks.

• You Choose Your Response35:50

  The repeated emphasis that the response belongs to the believer while the result belongs to God is a theologically crucial distinction. It guards against both fatalism (nothing I do matters) and works-righteousness (it all depends on me). The listener is given genuine agency within a framework of divine sovereignty.

• What If You Changed Your Then40:26

  The sermon invites listeners to imaginatively project forward to the story they will one day tell, and to work backward from that desired narrative to present choices. This is more than motivational thinking — it is a form of eschatological ethics, letting the hoped-for ending shape present action.

• "God, I Made A Mistake"43:32

  David's story demonstrates that the weight of genuine moral failure — not just circumstantial hardship — does not disqualify a person from a redemptive 'then.' The act of getting up, washing, worshipping, and eating after the death of his child is held up as a model of grief that does not become a prison. Repentance here is not just sorrow but motion.

• "I Feel So Embarrassed"46:29

  Samson's story speaks directly to the shame of public disgrace and the sense that one's worst moment has become one's permanent identity. The sermon insists that even from a place of blindness, mockery, and defeat, a single prayer and a reaching out can become the most powerful moment of an entire life. This section is pastoral care for the deeply humiliated.

• "I Don't Have Enough Time"48:53

  The thief on the cross is deployed as the ultimate rebuttal to the lie that it is too late to change. His single 'then' — calling on Jesus with almost no time left — resulted in the most dramatic promise in the Gospels. This democratizes the sermon's invitation: no one is too far gone, too late, or too depleted to choose a new 'then.'

• God Will Give You Chance After Chance51:22

  The sermon closes by stacking Moses, David, Samson, Peter, and the thief as a cumulative witness that God's economy is not exhausted by human failure. Each figure received another 'then' after their lowest moment. The implicit theology is one of relentless divine patience — God keeps presenting hinge moments until the believer steps through one.

Key takeaways

• You cannot get a fresh start, but you can always take a forward step — your next 'then' is yours to choose.
• The right response in a crisis is not to stand still or despair but to move forward with what God has already placed in your hand.
• Beware of interpreting any word from God as an excuse to escape responsibility rather than embrace it.
• Your response belongs to you; the result belongs to God — what you do in hinge moments shapes the entire story.
• No matter how deep the failure — like David, Samson, Peter, or the thief on the cross — one decisive 'then' can change the end.

Scripture referenced

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), via the YouVersion Platform.

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