So God sent a Savior (script)...

Steven Furtick wrote a piece for their Easter Service at Elevation church that I just love.  Especially after reading through so many of the messy stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith.  He plays off the "So God made a Farmer" commercial that went viral during the Super Bowl.  I love the way he captures our need for a Savior and the way God used prophets, priests and kings to lead us to Jesus, as unfinished and unsavory as their role ended up being.  In the end, they were only a picture of the real thing, a shadow of the reality itself.  We didn't need Joseph, Moses, Abraham, Jonah, David or Peter...we needed Jesus.  Others could be leaders in the story, but only one (Jesus) could be the savior of the story.

I couldn't find the script to this video anywhere online, so I listened to the dictation of the sermon itself and did my best to render it into words for others to hear and maybe share in written form.

This is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTZQp-ZRiG4

This is the Script:

So God Sent a Savior…

By Steven Furtick

In the fullness of time, God looked down on the crown jewel of his creation and he said, “These people are the apple of my eye, but somehow they manage to screw everything up all the time, so I’m going to have to down there and fix this thing myself…So God sent a Savior.

God said, “The man I made has made a mess of my image and distorted my intentions and polluted my instructions, humanity has been reduced to naked shame, eyes wide open once beholding a wide open paradise now locked up tightly, unable to enter because rebellion reset the parameters.  So God said, “ I need somebody with nimble fingers, somebody who sows more than fig leaves, somebody who can seamlessly weave the broken hearts of humanity back to the loving purpose they were created for.  Someone to silence all the lies of the snakes in their lives, someone whose mouth has never tasted the poisonous bite of forbidden fruit.  Someone to pull the tree of the knowledge of good and evil up by its roots and carry it on His back…so God sent a Savior.

God said, “They need a Chain-breaker, the cries of my people in bondage are rising up before me and the sounds of their wailing have pierced the portals of heaven, so I’m sending a deliverer to put an end to their days of back-breaking & brick-making.  God said, “They need somebody that can deliver them from dungeons, addictions, corners of caves, from all the things that have made them enslaved, they need somebody who sees the dry ground clear through the sea of fear, somebody who won’t just stretch out his staff, but will reach out with nail-pierced hands…So God send a Savior.

God said, “They need a Prophet, a messenger who means to make it abundantly clear, ‘My God is Yahweh!’  When the small gods have failed, I need a smasher of the Baals, somebody who can make a fool of every idol they’ve tried to lift their heart to.  God said, “I need somebody who won’t bow a knee to greed, who won’t bow a knee to ‘It’s all about me.’, who won’t worship status, position, or things, who can call down fire and then make it rain, unafraid to taunt the enemy proclaiming prophetically, turning the affection of my people away from what’s worthless and back to my love…So God sent a Savior.

God said, “They need a Rescuer.  Someone who won’t board the first boat for increased convenience, someone who won’t stall or flee, I need a rescuer with a heart like me consumed with compassion and abounding in love.  God said, “I need somebody to prepare a table in the dark places to invite the castaway and the thrown away, and to let them know I am there.  I am there.  Even when they cause their own storms, when they inflict their own pain, when they end up in the belly of their self-imposed suffering, they need someone who will never need, but always offer a second chance.  Someone to plunder the depths of death and distribute the riches of my grace to the ends of the earth…So God sent a Savior.

God said, “They need an Over-comer.  They need somebody who has a clean closet that is skeleton free, a story with no imperfections, a heart with no ill motives, someone with steadfast sincerity, and relentless resolve, a perfect lamb with the kind of confidence that makes its bed in the midst of the lions, somebody who can grab fear by the throat and render it powerless, who will shut the mouths of every liar, wield the hearts of kings, and silence the roar of every enemy. Somebody who can pray prayers and sweat blood in Gardens of Gethsemane….So God sent a Savior.

God said, “They need a Water-Walker, whose voice stills winds and waves, a man with perfect faith to narrate the rise and fall of chaotic conditions, and to point the way through clouds of doubt when the boat is breaking apart and storms are raging on and visibility is getting worse.  They need someone steady on His feet trained to tread on the surface of the deep.   Somebody who refuses to accept that walking is just an activity reserved for dry land, but who believes living fluid and walking in faith go hand in hand, bold enough to place the ball of His foot onto the uncertainty of water.  A Peace-speaker with a firm grip, strong enough to catch a sinking soul and carry the one that wavers back to the boat…So God sent a Savior.

God said, “I need a perfect Son with the skills to lead a search party for every runaway and renegade, somebody to retrieve then redeem all my lost sons and daughters, to remind the world that not matter what they’ve done, where they’ve been, no matter how low they’ve fallen to the pigs pen they still have a chance to be called my kids.  Somebody who knows how to throw a welcome back party for the prodigal, willing to light the grill and kill the calf in celebration of the one who still smells like the swine he slept with last night, willing to bear the rebellion of the world in the righteousness of His redemption…So God sent a Savior.

And on the third day of Easter…God said, “I need a grave-robber.  Somebody who can bear to be bruised by the knuckles and maligned by the heckles of sinful man that He himself created and stare back into their faces of stone with a compassion carved more deeply than the canyons he constructed with a word, and yet not utter a word but be silent before the shearers like a sheep sent to the slaughter.  Somebody who can be beaten beyond recognition and buried in the borrowed tomb and still get up with the presence of mind to fold the strips of linen he’s leaving behind. 

God said, “I need a morning person to wake up after three days and stretch a little and then roll His own stone away, somebody to change the game of hide and seek and say, ‘Don’t come to this grave looking for me.’ No way.  Who will fight in the octagon and hand death its first and final defeat.  God said, “I need a hero…a conqueror who knows where death and hell keep the keys and has the power to shake ‘em down and take ‘em by force.  The one who strips sin bear and exchanges it for grace.  The one who shatters every shackle and with one word, liberates.  The one who revives lost passion for the greatness of His Name, the One who redirects intentions making every path straight, the one who descends into the depths and stares fear in the face, the one who walks on every doubt and against the wind stands unafraid, the One who recovers sons and daughters and restores their rightful place. 

He is the Resurrection.  He is the Life.  He is the Saving Power.  He is the Second Chance.  So God sent Himself in the form of a man.  He sent a Savior…and his name is Jesus.