It Still Works | Pastor Steven Furtick | Elevation Church

Summary

Pastor Steven showed us through the life of Moses how faith often looks like taking action even while you feel full of doubt. God can do miracles when we have the courage to look our doubt in the face and do it anyway.

Chapters

• Exodus 40:00
• Moses' Backstory5:18
• Sometimes, This Is Great Faith8:28

  Furtick reframes the very definition of faith by arguing that doing the right thing with a bad attitude or in a state of reluctance is still genuine, significant faith. This is theologically important because it dismantles a performance-based spirituality where only joyful, confident obedience counts. The listener is invited to stop disqualifying their own faithfulness.

• Do It Doubting12:07

  Rather than treating doubt as the opposite of faith, Furtick presents it as the very context in which faith is most authentically exercised. Every act of ministry in his own life, he confesses, was done with shaking hands and an unsure voice — yet God worked through it. The listener is urged to stop waiting until doubt is gone and instead let doubt ride in the passenger seat while obedience drives.

• "I'm Not Good Enough To Do It"14:13

  Moses' protest that he is not eloquent mirrors the inner voice of inadequacy that silences so many people before they begin. Furtick insists God's call is not a request for ability but for availability — the same truth Paul articulates about strength made perfect in weakness. This chapter confronts the lie that being unqualified means being disqualified.

• Your Prayers Aren't Pointless16:55

  The four centuries of Israelite slavery and four decades of Moses' exile could easily be read as evidence that prayer does not work — yet God's arrival at the burning bush reveals that every cry had been heard and was being answered on a divine timeline. Furtick uses this to break the equation people make between silence and absence, giving the listener permission to keep praying without proof.

• It Still Works19:30

  This is the theological heartbeat of the entire sermon: the faithfulness of God's Word and Spirit across time, method, and circumstance. Whether on a cassette tape in 2000 or on an Apple TV in a suicidal man's apartment, the same Word did the same saving work. The listener is confronted with the question of whether they will trust a message whose power has never changed even when its medium has.

• Do It Delayed21:49

  God's timing is sovereign but rarely our preferred timing, and Moses' 40-year exile demonstrates that delay is not denial. Furtick breaks the spirit of condemnation that tells people it is too late, pointing out that once Moses aligned with God, the deliverance unfolded rapidly. This chapter asks the listener to release their timeline and trust that an accelerated redemption is still possible.

• You Are Not Your Mistakes23:58

  Moses was a murderer before he was a deliverer, yet his worst moment did not veto his greatest calling. Furtick uses this to offer a direct pastoral word against the shame that brands people with their failures as permanent identity. The listener is asked to receive the truth that God's plan encompasses both what they did right and what they did wrong.

• Stuck In The Past26:44

  Through the playful illustration of his boombox, cassette tapes, and vinyl records, Furtick makes a serious point: revisiting our history is not always regression — sometimes it is retrieval of something still valuable. The sermon invites listeners to stop being embarrassed by where they came from and instead find in their past evidence that God was already at work.

• It's Not Worthless30:09

  The CD player that didn't work but whose cassette deck did becomes a parable for partial function: just because one part of your life is broken does not mean everything you have is useless. Furtick presses listeners not to discard the whole because of what is damaged, mirroring the way God used a flawed, fearful, delayed Moses to accomplish an extraordinary deliverance.

• The Message Is Still The Same32:32

  Listening to himself preach the same biblical text across 30 years of ministry — from rural South Carolina to global platforms — Furtick testifies that the medium evolves but the message does not. This is a call to doctrinal and spiritual rootedness: the gospel that worked then is the gospel that works now, and no cultural shift changes its power.

• It's Weird But It Works36:23

  Grabbing a snake by the tail, giving money away to gain freedom from money, plugging in an Apple TV with a gun on the table — Furtick catalogs acts that defy rational explanation yet produced undeniable results. The chapter confronts the pride that refuses to do what looks foolish, calling the listener to a willingness to look strange in obedience to God.

• Handle It40:40

  The testimony of the suicidal man who clicked on a ten-year-old podcast and was saved from death is the sermon's most visceral proof of its thesis. It demonstrates that a word released in obedience — even with doubt, even delayed, even through a weird medium — carries redemptive power far beyond what the preacher can see or control. The listener is invited to believe their own acts of obedience have ripple effects they cannot yet witness.

• Exodus 1444:45

  At the Red Sea the Israelites face a crisis that has no human solution — and Moses responds with a call to stillness rather than strategy. Furtick uses this to reorient listeners away from problem-solving and toward posture: standing firm, watching, and trusting that the Lord will fight. It is the sermon's climactic moment of surrender.

• It'll Get You Through This47:58

  The same staff thrown on the ground in Exodus 4 is the staff stretched over the Red Sea in Exodus 14 — the instrument did not change, only the crisis did. Furtick's closing declaration is that whatever faith, word, or praise brought the listener this far contains exactly what is needed to carry them through their current Red Sea. It is both a theological statement about God's consistency and a personal charge to use what you already have.

Key takeaways

• Great faith is not the absence of doubt — it is taking the right action even while doubting, afraid, or reluctant.
• Your prayers are not pointless even when you have no proof they have been heard; God's lack of visible activity does not mean his absence.
• God's sovereign plan does not always make practical sense, but the same faith, worship, and Word that worked before will work in your current crisis too.
• Your past mistakes are not your permanent verdict — Moses went from murderer to deliverer, and God can do the same with your story.
• The method God uses may change across seasons, but the message and the power behind it remain the same and still work.

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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