What Are You Doing? | Pastor Steven Furtick | Elevation Church

Chapters14 sections

1. 0:00John 12
2. 3:24What Are You Doing?
3. 5:42Let's Look At 4 Different PerspectivesRather than a single hero's journey, the Palm Sunday story is a tapestry of four viewpoints — disciples, crowds, donkey, king — each of which illuminates a different posture toward God's unfolding plan. This structure challenges listeners to locate themselves in the story and ask which posture they are currently embodying.
4. 9:31Walking Through The What IfsThe 'what ifs' of marriage, health, children, and career are not signs of faithlessness but the inevitable questions of a person living inside a story whose ending they cannot yet read. The sermon insists that these questions are only answered through continued walking, not through waiting for clarity before moving.
5. 11:11You're Looking At The UndersideThe Weaver poem and the cross-stitch illustration together make a profound theological point: the ugliness currently visible in a person's life may be the underside of something God is stitching together with great skill. Spiritual maturity involves trusting the weaver's hand even when the pattern looks like chaos.
6. 14:47Every Marriage Has An UndersideMarriage is used as the most relatable and tangible example of the underside principle — what looks polished in public is lived messily in private. The call is not to despair at the messiness but to fight for the marriage and trust God with the threads you cannot see, recognizing that the weaving is still in process.
7. 17:43God Uses Those Confusing MomentsThe most confusing moments the disciples experienced were the very moments Jesus used the most — culminating in the cross itself. This reframes suffering not as God's absence but as the loom in motion, and invites listeners to look back on their own confusing seasons as evidence of God's most active work.
8. 22:00Don't Get Attached To Their PraiseJesus moved through the crowd, not for the crowd — a distinction that speaks directly to the danger of building identity on approval. The same voices that shout hosanna will demand crucifixion, so stability must be rooted in God's call rather than in the loudness of affirmation from others, whether fans, parents, or bosses.
9. 24:00Why Would God Use A Donkey?The donkey's ordinariness and inexperience were not disqualifiers but qualifications — God specifically wanted a vessel no one had used so that his own power would be unmistakably visible. This reframes feelings of inadequacy or being overlooked as potential signs of divine reservation rather than rejection.
10. 29:25Obey Now, God'll Explain It LaterThe disciples sent to untie the donkey had no explanation to give beyond 'the Lord needs it' — and that was enough. This is the sermon's central call to action: step forward in obedience without demanding a full briefing first, trusting that understanding comes on the other side of faithfulness.
11. 33:40God Was Preparing You For This MomentThe donkey's entire existence — including every moment it had never been ridden — was preparation for the one moment God needed it. What feels like a wasted or unremarkable season is recast as God holding something in reserve, preventing premature use so that its purpose would be fulfilled at exactly the right time.
12. 36:22Keep Walking; God's WeavingThis chapter crystallizes the sermon's thesis: the disciples' job was simply to keep walking, and while they did, the king was weaving — pulling together 500 years of prophecy, present obedience, and future glory into a single moment. The listener's call is the same: keep moving forward and trust that the weaving is happening even when invisible.
13. 40:26He Is Fulfilling A PurposeJesus chose the donkey not out of convenience but out of fidelity to the Word — Zechariah's prophecy demanded a donkey, so a donkey it would be. This shows that God's faithfulness to his own Word is the deepest engine of his action in history and in individual lives, meaning that what God spoke over a person's life will be fulfilled regardless of how improbable the vessel looks.
14. 45:09It Was His HandsThe sermon closes with a physical object — a blanket whose underside looks tangled and unclear — turned over to reveal a pattern made by skilled hands. The final word is not an argument but an image: what you are living through right now is his hands at work, and the day of glorification will make that unmistakably clear.

Scripture referenced

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide, via the YouVersion Platform.