Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God's Voice Above All Others (9 page)

It’s time to locate the lies and the liars—and reject the labels they’ve created. I believe the voice of God is calling us out of our hiding with a question that at once exposes and embraces us: “Who told you that?”

Who told you that you were unworthy of My love until some future point in time when you can clean yourself up?

Who told you that you couldn’t be forgiven of that one sin even while you still struggle with it but desire to overcome it?

Who told you that the way you look is abnormal because of a feature that society may deem unattractive?

Who told you that the skills and gifts I’ve given you aren’t much good and won’t make much of an impact?

Who told you that when you speak, people are just waiting for you to shut up, and you never have anything good to say?

Who told you that you are coming up short and will always come up short as a parent, as a spouse, as a son, as a daughter, even though you’re growing and trying?

Who told you that you were stuck and doomed to die just like you are because of the thoughts and actions that have dominated your life up to now?

The serpent gets nervous when we start challenging the doubts, dysfunctions, and insecurities his questions have propagated in our lives. When we discover what God has
really
said, we experience a liberation that leads to fulfillment. This fulfillment doesn’t simply enable us to be happy, tranquil, and actualized. It equips us to start answering the questions according to what God says, not what we see.

When our church first started growing, we got a few requests for local media interviews. This was new territory for me, so I asked a friend with lots of
experience what I should know to keep me from saying stupid things that would end up on TV. He recommended a media consultant.

So we brought in a guy for a day’s worth of training. The first part of the day was pretty entertaining and informative, watching clips of pastors saying dumb stuff and feeling glad it wasn’t me. In most cases what the pastor had actually said was innocent. But by the time it had been edited for broadcast, the pastor looked ignorant or arrogant and in some cases downright evil.

I took lots of notes, then asked, “Okay, so how do I avoid ending up on your little highlight reel in the future?”

“Well, number one,” he said, “be very careful whom you talk to.” Eve should have hired this guy.

“But when you
do
talk,” he continued, “there are some guidelines that will leave
you
in control no matter what questions the interviewer asks. And that’s what the rest of the day is about.

“Now I’m going to hammer you,” he continued. “I’m going to ask you about fifty of the most common questions that news media would be likely to ask you. Some of them are straightforward; some are designed to trip you and destroy you. We’re going to record all your answers, and later we’ll make a transcript. I’ll evaluate your answers as we go, and I’ll let you know how you did. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sounds amazing, man.”

“Great. Question one: Pastor Furtick, what do you think about __________.” In the blank he referenced a national scandal that was happening in some other church at that time.

I said, “Well, I think these kinds of scandals are awful and hurtful …”

I had more to say about integrity and accountability, but he interrupted me. “Stop. You’re already doing it,” he said.

“Doing what? Answering the question?” I said.

“Nope, you’re answering
their
question on
their
level. You’re letting the question dictate your answer,” he explained.

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Isn’t that the point of the interview?” I asked.

“No, the point is that, no matter what you say in response to that question, you lose. Because they’re going to peg you as an opponent of the other church,
and it’s not going to turn out well. So when they ask you what you think about what so-and-so church is doing—no matter the details of the question—your answer should be something like, ‘We celebrate all the ministry that churches are doing for Jesus Christ, and we pray for all those involved, and our goal at Elevation Church is to do ministry so that people far from God will be raised to life in Christ.’ ”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Nope. Because then they’re going to do a follow-up question, and they’re going to say, ‘Yeah, but what about the person who said
this
in criticism of your ministry?’

“You’re going to want to defend yourself. But don’t play defense. Just change the wording a bit from what you said the first time and say, ‘At Elevation Church our hope is that we can always do ministry in such a way that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ.’

“Don’t ever let your response get dragged down to the level of their question. It doesn’t really matter what they ask you. You go in there knowing what you want to communicate—knowing
who you are
—and you just use their question as a launching pad to deliver the content you’ve already decided to deliver.”

I was disappointed. “Isn’t that what politicians do?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he replied. “And that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“But I’m not a politician.”

“But it’s not about
you
or what you actually say,” he said. “With some exceptions most of their questions will be designed to lead you to a place that will get you off your message and will present you in a way that you didn’t intend. So I want you to go in
preloaded
with the answers you want to give that reflect and represent what God has called your church to do and to be.”

I’ve never forgotten the training we received that day. The fact is, we’ve had mostly great media coverage at Elevation so far, and we’ve worked with some good journalists. But the essence of what the consultant taught me has proven true. When there’s a lot at stake and the spotlight is on, you can’t afford to allow others who may have their own agenda to lead your response according to the level of their questions.

If it’s true when dealing with the press, you know it’s true in dealing with the devil. For the record, I am officially not making a connection between the two.

Before the serpent starts interjecting questions, you must already be
preloaded
with the Word of God so that whatever he tries to lead you into, you’re taking a stand—not on what he’s suggesting, but on what God has already said in His Word about the issue you’re facing.

Keep this in mind when the Enemy comes to you like he came to Adam and Eve, introducing just a little bit of doubt: “Did God really say …” If you play along with his line of questioning, before long you’ll find yourself naked and ashamed. You’ll wind up disoriented and disconnected from the voice of God that longs to call you by name in the cool of the day.

So how, practically speaking, do you avoid playing the Enemy’s game? How do you preload your responses according to the Word of God?

No one demonstrates this strategy with greater clarity and conviction than Jesus. Just before He began His ministry, He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. This is the same serpent we saw in the garden, showing up in a different way in a different situation.

I’ve heard a lot of teachings categorizing the three temptations Satan offered to Jesus and how each of those categories relates to us.

But my objective here is not really to give a detailed analysis of
how
the Enemy attacked Jesus. I want to go straight to the heart of precisely
what
the Enemy was trying to attack. When you understand what the Enemy’s after, you can make a plan for protecting it.

Behind each of the temptations the Enemy set before Jesus was a sort of dare: to prove His
identity
. The Enemy adeptly spun a web of deceit by twisting the very Word of God in an effort to challenge the essence of who Jesus was.

Yes, there’s something we can learn from the nature of each of these temptations. They do seem to parallel “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life” as outlined later in the New Testament in 1 John 2:16. These are the same areas of susceptibility where the Enemy lures us with lies today.

Here’s the more immediately relevant takeaway for us: at the core of every temptation we will face, we’re ultimately being tempted to question in our hearts, and then contradict with our actions, our true identity as God’s children.

That’s what the Enemy is trying to get you to do, and it’s the same design no matter what tools he chooses to use. He’ll use whatever he can—maybe sex, maybe spending, maybe medicating loneliness with drugs or food or gossip, all of the above, or something else altogether. He’ll tell you to turn stones to bread, throw yourself off the mountain, bow down and worship him, or all of the above, or something else altogether. The details matter less than the intent: his objective is to mess with your head until you have forgotten who you are. Forgive me, as the spirit of the lion king is apparently coming upon me right now. But the words are true.

The only opportunity the chatterbox ever has to download lies into our heads is if we have allowed it first to delete the memory of who we are in Christ.

Jesus crashed the chatterbox—in all its forms and functions—by the power of a transcendent, irrefutable declaration:

“It is written.”
⁵

Each time the serpent sounded off, Jesus spoke a better word.

The story of the temptation in the wilderness is the first record we have of the devil’s attempts to lead Jesus away from His mission by interjecting question marks and suggesting alternate routes. But Jesus had seen the whole song and dance before. In fact, it was the reason He came to earth. He was sent as heaven’s answer to the fallout that ensued after sin entered the world because the first man, Adam, forgot what God had told him.

One of the ways Paul explains the identity of Jesus is by referring to Him as the second Adam.
⁶
It’s an important contrast. The first Adam was led away from the will of the Father by questions that contradicted the clear word of God. Jesus fulfilled the will of the Father by contradicting the devil’s questions with the
clear Word of God. Such questions would not and could not work on Jesus. His answer would be the same every time. No amount of chatter could cause Him to deviate from the script in which He was the main character:

It is written
.

That’s why Satan’s temptation of Jesus had no more chance of succeeding than a Guns N’ Roses original lineup reunion tour. Because Jesus was
fully
loaded with the Word of God. He was literally preloaded with the truth of Scripture in a way that only He could be: He
was
the Word of God. So Satan’s interrogation of Jesus hit a dead end at every turn. It failed that day in the isolation of the wilderness. It would fail in a mob scene that marched Jesus up a hill called Calvary three years later, where scoffing voices dared him to make like Houdini and prove Himself the Son of God by coming down off the cross.

And it failed at every assault it launched in between. The chatter surrounding the identity and ministry of Jesus was nonstop.

Who does this man think He is?

Doesn’t He realize He’s just the carpenter’s son?

Who is this man that He forgives sins?

None of it stopped Him. None of it slowed Him down. Jesus kept moving toward His mission—toward the perfect will of His Father—even when the false accusations of powerful men rendered Him bound and sentenced Him to die.

Even when the masses who had previously enjoyed the benefits of the Bread Multiplier shouted in unison, “Crucify him! … Crucify him!”
⁷

Jesus rose above the chatter and the cruelty with His silence—and obedience. In the words of Isaiah, He was “led like a lamb to the slaughter,” yet He did not utter a word.
⁸
The chatterbox blared, but He refused to talk back.

And we’re left with a choice. Who will we follow in our response to the Enemy’s questions: the first Adam or the second?

Will we entertain the Enemy’s request for an interview? Or will we speak in our souls and through our actions the response we’ve been trained to deliver: “It is written”?

It’s a question we must answer again, as if for the first time, every day of our lives. Every moment, really. Every time the serpent calls us to throw ourselves from our rightful place in God down into emotional states, responses, and spiritual patterns that are the opposite of the life God intends for us. Every time he
baits us with self-pity, self-doubt, and the kind of self-absorption that factors God out of the equation, we are faced with a decision: Which voice will we listen to?

Can I be honest? It’s the question I have to answer with every keystroke as I write this book. This chapter, for example, is being written on a fourteen-hour flight from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles, California. I have been in Oz for a week, preaching pretty much nonstop since I hit the ground last Monday. It was a great trip, but I’m tired, homesick, and emotionally and spiritually spent. The chatterbox loves these conditions. I could almost see the question marks hanging over my computer as I pulled it out to finish this chapter.

You’re not going to get anything done … This is a waste of time for you to try to write right now … You’re stuck halfway into this chapter, your stories aren’t funny, there aren’t enough examples, the computer battery will die, and the charger is in the other bag
. The blah-blah-blah and the yada-yada-yada and the same old stuff the chatterbox always says.

Then about an hour ago, as I was typing the stuff you read a few paragraphs earlier, an Australian flight attendant walked by. She was nice.