This Is Bigger Than Them | Pastor Steven Furtick | Elevation Church

Chapters16 sections

1. 0:00Get Your Tickets Now!
2. 0:49Joshua 14
3. 6:21God's In Charge, But You Get To Choose
4. 9:07Even When You Can't Change The Result…Using his father's death from ALS as a grounding example, Furtick separates the result (what we cannot control) from the response (what we can). His mother's decision to forgive and reunite the family demonstrates that even when God does not intervene miraculously, faithful human choices can still redeem the shape of a story. This section challenges the listener to ask not 'Why didn't God fix this?' but 'What can I still choose?'
5. 11:18How The Devil Keeps You From ThenThe enemy's primary strategy is not brute force but premature surrender — convincing you it is 'the end' so you never reach your 'then.' This section theologically frames spiritual warfare as a battle over narrative interpretation: the enemy wants you to read your current chapter as a conclusion rather than a transition. The listener is warned that giving up just before a turning point is one of the most effective lies the enemy tells.
6. 15:46Every Blessing Has A BattleFurtick dismantles the prosperity-without-cost version of faith by insisting that blessings and battles are inseparable — the same relational channel God uses to bless you is the one the enemy uses to block you. This reframes suffering and opposition not as signs that God has abandoned a promise, but as confirmation that the promise is real and worth contesting. It calls the listener to persist through relational difficulty rather than retreat.
7. 18:47You Can't Change ThemWhile last week's message told the congregation they can change the end, this section delivers the harder companion truth: you cannot change other people. This is not fatalism — it is a redirection of agency toward what is actually within a person's control. The deeper spiritual invitation is to stop spending faith energy trying to control others and redirect it toward cooperating with what God is doing in you.
8. 20:59You Don't Get Out, They DoHolly Furtick's words — 'You don't get out, they do' — become a parable for Caleb's posture toward the giants in the Promised Land. This section asks: who truly holds the rightful inheritance here? Caleb's claim is not arrogance but covenant — he knows the land was given to him by God, so the temporary occupants do not have the final say. The listener is challenged to stop voluntarily vacating what God has assigned to them because the opposition feels too great.
9. 25:24What Was The Real Issue?Furtick turns the examination inward: the real issue is rarely the external 'them' but what is already living inside us — exhaustion, insecurity, unresolved anger. Using his own car story as an example, he models honest self-examination by asking what in him made an extreme response possible. Spiritually, this section confronts the listener with the uncomfortable truth that the wilderness can reveal what is inside us, not just what is around us.
10. 27:13Be Careful Of "Made Me" Language'Made me' language is the linguistic expression of a victim mentality and directly contradicts the concept of agency. Furtick argues that when we say someone made us respond a certain way, we are handing over the authorship of our story to them. Theologically, this matters because God made us with the capacity to respond — surrendering that capacity to others' behavior is a form of practical unbelief in our God-given identity.
11. 31:48They Can't Prevent What God PromisedNo human being — not a co-worker, a family member, a critic, or a generation of doubters — has the authority to cancel what God has covenanted to give. Furtick grounds this in Caleb's perspective: 45 years of wilderness and opposition did not void the promise, it only delayed delivery. The listener is called to release the assumption that other people are the gatekeepers of their destiny, since that authority belongs solely to God.
12. 35:25This Perspective Can Stop BitternessCaleb's ability to say 'God kept me alive' rather than 'God made me wait' is presented as the single most powerful perspective shift available in a wilderness season. This is not positive thinking — it is theologically grounded gratitude that recognizes God's faithfulness even in delayed promises. The listener is invited to narrate their wilderness from the vantage point of divine preservation rather than human injustice.
13. 40:19Bitterness Will Block BlessingsBitterness is not merely an emotional problem — it is a spiritual blockage that prevents the reception of what God intends to give. Furtick connects Caleb's physical strength at 85 directly to the fact that he did not carry bitterness through 45 years of waiting. The listener is confronted with a binary: bitterness or blessing. Holding both is not possible, and the choice must be made before the promised mountain can be climbed.
14. 43:25This Is Bigger Than ThemThe central declaration of the sermon functions as a theological reorientation of scale: whatever 'them' represents in the listener's life — a critic, a diagnosis, a racist pastor's prediction, a personal failure — it is simply smaller than God's covenant. Furtick uses the story of Elevation Church's founding against discouragement as a lived testimony that the promise outlasts the opposition. The invitation is to align your perspective with God's scale rather than the enemy's narrative.
15. 46:24"You Can't Do That!"This chapter grounds the sermon's principle in Furtick's own ministerial story — being told that a racially diverse church in Charlotte was impossible. It demonstrates that 'You can't do that' is often the voice of someone whose imagination is limited by past experience or personal failure, not a prophetic word from God. The listener is dared to treat opposition not as a stop sign but as confirmation that something significant enough to resist is being attempted.
16. 50:06There's A Blessing On The Other SideThe sermon closes with an eschatological posture: the battle you are currently in is not the final word, because a blessing waits on the other side of every God-ordained struggle. Furtick connects this to Luke 6:38's promise of overflowing return and calls listeners to grow their faith to match the size of what God intends to give. The practical altar call — opening hands to release those who have disappointed us — embodies the entire sermon's thesis: release them to receive Him.

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.