The Other Hand

When Steven Furtick was sixteen years old, a pastor named Mickey White came to his house, sat down on the floor, and told his mother: "God has his hand on Stephen. In a way I've never seen his hand on any of the kids that I've ever worked with." Twenty-five years later, Furtick is still telling that story—not because it was the coolest thing that happened to him (that would be when Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day called him onstage to play guitar), but because it was the most significant. And yet, as he worked through the passage in Exodus 3 where God tells Moses that Pharaoh "will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him," Furtick realized that Pastor Mickey had only told him half of what he needed to know.

God's Hand and Your Hand

The central argument of the message is deceptively simple: believing that God's hand is mighty is not the same as believing that your own hand can be used. Furtick walks through Exodus 3–4, noting that Moses never argues with God about whether God is powerful enough. God says, "I will stretch out my hand," and Moses apparently has no problem with that. The problem comes in Exodus 4, when Moses asks: "What if they do not believe me? What if they say the Lord did not appear to you?" At which point God asks him: "What is that in your hand?"