Be Careful How You Judge | Pastor Steven Furtick

anything with potential for great purpose carries with it potential for great pain be very careful who you give your heart to because when you give your heart to somebody in relationship there is a potential for intimacy but along with the potential for intimacy comes the potential for rejection comes the potential not only for great love not only great comfort but the potential for great conflict and it can hurt your heart when you see the potential in someone but they don't see the potential in themselves there's nothing more painful have you ever seen somebody start to throw their life away throw their gift away throw their future away throw their talent away and you want to shake them and tell them you got so much potential if I had your potential I mean some of y'all if I was as smart as you I would have started my own University and my own educational system there's nothing more frustrating than when you see potential in someone that they can't see in themself especially if they're your child especially if they're your spouse there's nothing more frustrating which helps me to understand why Peter did what he did next because he saw the potential in the ministry of Jesus it's just starting to get good it's just starting to go forward Jesus we're about to get you on Joe Rogan you've got to sell a lot of books it's about to be amazing and now you want to die so he does something when he hears Jesus prophesy his pain that we can understand he pulled him aside and began to rebuke him which is way above your pay grade by the way to tell Jesus how to do his job and we all do it all the time we tell God how he ought to be raising our kids we tell God who he ought to be blessing that deserves it and who he ought to punish a little bit because they deserve it we tell God all the time things that are above our pay grade now Peter sees the potential of Jesus' ministry and Jesus starts prophesying about the pain he will endure on the cross and he says something that just I don't know maybe you've said this before he said never put the scripture back up please it's so important I need you to see it because that word never in greek is a word that they use right there that Peter uses that is almost arrogant he says never Greek ou mē which is a double negative which means it's not even grammatically correct but what Jesus has just said and predicted is going to happen is so ridiculous and different than Peters plan and expectation for what Jesus is supposed to do that he says ou mē never no never it's like he says never no never this will never happen to you never now you gotta be very careful what you say never about in this life you gotta be very careful what you say never because honestly the moment you get never out of your mouth I think God starts to laugh because he knows your future I used to say never all the time about parenting before I became a parent I would see a family disciplining their kids and I would think they were being a little harsh and I would say things or think things like I will never scream at my kids like that because what good does it do to scream at your kids and correct a behavior that you find undesirable with an equally repulsive behavior it certainly doesn't set an example of adult maturity no when I discipline my kids I will discipline them in a way that shows them that although their behavior may be unacceptable their character and identity as a child of God is secure and so is my love I'll never yell at my kids y'all I yell at my kids so much in the house these days if you think I yell in this pulpit you ought to see me without a microphone I get oh my god that's how I prepare to yell to you is yelling at them that's how I do my vocal warm-ups just yelling all over the house usually I'm yelling at them to stop yelling and I'm a hypocrite but I can't help it because what you're saying be very careful who you judge at their low moment you might be judging somebody right now for the battle that you're about to fight next month be very careful how you judge people be very careful how you say oh well I just don't understand people who are depressed after all there's so much to be grateful about and rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice and yes cool that you've got a Pinterest kind of faith right now but something might happen in your life that knocks you off balance to the point that you're stable self becomes a little bit wobbly for a little while and you're gonna want to make sure that you haven't judged people for things that you don't currently struggle with because it might happen in your house amen I feel like the Lord is is saying to some of you never say never never and you live in it sometimes where you're living with the type of pain that you thought would never be possible for you if nothing else the resurrection of Jesus Christ challenges our conception of what's possible I never saw a dead guy get up from the ground before if that can happen if a stone that big can roll away maybe God can do the impossible for me too just because I've never seen it doesn't mean it's not possible great potential in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ but with great potential comes great pain and that's what's difficult for us to understand because just like the greatest possible thing happened sometimes the thing that you said never about knocks on your door oh that'll never happen in my marriage I would never I would never let it uh huh and then sometimes never shows up in your body and sometimes it shows up in your emotions and sometimes it shows up in the unexpected ways that other people treat you Jesus knew so much that's an understatement he told Peter at that supper that they had remember when they were passing around the bread and he said this is my body broken for you this is on the Thursday before he goes to die so he knows what's coming and he knows how they're going to respond and he knows that Peter has great potential not only to do great things but to make great mistakes he knows that the potential for great faith comes packaged with the potential for great fear and failure so he says it so don't think that God is some kind of optimist that makes promises that you will never experience pain instead Jesus looks straight into the face of pain and says all y'all this is the modern Charlotte translation of the Bible all y'all are going to fall away all y'all are going to deny me all y'all one of you is gonna betray me but all y'all are gonna run and you know Peter Peter said something I want to put it on the screen verse 31 please Mark chapter 14 he said emphatically even if I have to die with you I will never disown you I'll never I would never be addicted to that no I would never I asked a preacher one time do you ever doubt the Bible because it's very complicated to believe some of the stuff in there and if you don't think that you haven't read it so don't look at me like that at all you just read the verses that were easy but without cutting pages out there are some very difficult things to understand comprehend and put your faith in I said do you ever have to preach the Bible but you have a hard time believing it yourself you know what he said no never never he's out of the ministry today there's something about accepting your potential for weakness and your potential for failure that makes you resilient when it happens there's something about being caught off guard you know this kind of this kind of hope that a lot of people have like oh man I hope nothing bad ever happens to me I hope give me my basket it's a plastic hope it's pretty but it's empty its hollow when Paul said in Romans that this hope that comes in the glory of God does not put us to shame he's not talking about an optimistic unrealistic plastic Pinterest hope it's not the kind of hope that expects for God to dust off your life and put you on a trophy case so that you can be seen and admired but never tested or tried it's not that kind of hope and I saw an image of this kind of hope and then I saw another kind of hope and this hope isn't real pretty but it's been through something this is a hard-boiled hope come on touch somebody say I got a hard-boiled hope come on Gaston touch somebody say I got a hard-boiled hope it means that it's been through something and even if the shell gets cracked and even if it gets dropped and even if it goes down to the bottom and even if the shell gets damaged what's on the inside has substance so it's not a hope that's based on what's on the outside it's not bright it's not shiny it's not naive this is a grown up hope this is a hope that's been boiled this is a hope that's been through the fire this is a hope that's been through what I thought I'd never go through but I came out three days later shouting about the victory with the keys of death hell and the grave don't make a mistake to think that I'm praising God because I've never been through any pain I'm praising God because on the other side of the pain I found a purpose that was greater than what I went through it's not that I never felt it it's that my faith got me through it it's not that I was never buried it's just that resurrection happens when I believe come on give him a shout if you got a my hope is in the result my hope is in the outcome and the outcome has already been proven and so whatever pain I'm going through right now has the potential to become power he already showed me that on the cross calm down Furtick you've got guests see it's one thing to understand that he paid the price for the penalty of my sin and he did but his cross shows me far more than what to do with the penalty of my sin it shows me what to do with the pain of my life it shows me how to take suffering and persevere through it so that the perseverance can convert into character so that my hope can be hard-boiled so that I will have a confidence not in circumstance but in character what I'm going through right now is designed to show me what I'm made of it is meant to reveal the potential so that I can boast in the hope of the glory of God not boast in my strength not boast in my willpower not even boast in my own resilience but there's something greater on the inside of me the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in me it means that every situation in my life is subject to the resurrection power of Jesus Christ and if the situation doesn't change that's okay because my hope is not built on externals hey thank you for watching make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a single video or livestream and share this video with a friend and don't forget you can join me live every Sunday thanks again for watching

Channel: Official Steven Furtick

Views: 194,972

Rating: 4.9452782 out of 5

Keywords: pastor steven furtick, steven furtick, furtick steven, furtick stephen, elevation church steven furtick, steven furtick be very careful about this, be very careful about this, steven furtick potential, steven furtick sermons, steven furtick 2019 sermons, steven furtick short clips 2019, pastor steven furtick sermons, elevation church, 2019 sermons

Id: n-ApQDHQoYc

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019