How To Know You're Called | Pastor Steven Furtick

people would judge you by one soundbite too or people judge you by one scene in your life knowing good and well that they have scenes that were deleted by the grace of God that if those scenes were ever exposed they wouldn't have a leg to stand on either but they just they like to do this so Paul in 2 Corinthians 10 he's defending himself and you can feel how hard he is he's giving a defense for his ministry to which I'm like no no defense necessary you're Paul this is Paul Paul remember I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me that's like the only Bible verse that everybody knows other than John 3:16 and Paul wrote I can do it's like the bench press verse now we put it on the on the weight room I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength it's actually a verse about contentment but somehow it's about bench pressing this is Paul the legend Paul Paul the the most epic I mean from his pin flows the majority of what we call the New Testament but for him he wasn't even trying to write the New Testament he's just writing letters and we're parsing Greek words like apokaradokia that he just wrote in a letter he made that word up it wasn't even a word Paul made up Paul put words in Webster's that's how bad he was on one hand he could all right because here's the thing he was in prison and people were talking about why he was there and the Philippian church missed him and that was one of his home bases and he started the church only reason he started the church is because he went to prison in a previous time and now he's in prison writing to the church that he started and they're asking him how is this going to turn out are you getting out is Paul coming home should we should we give up Paul's parking space at the front of the church is he gonna be our pastor is he gonna come back and he writes to them and he's like I have a eager expectation and hope that's how we translated in english but in greek it's a word apokaradokia say it apokaradokia by the way when I did seminary I got through it in five and a half years just telling you I might not be the most qualified person up here today five and a half years for my Masters of Divinity degree but when he used that word he was putting different words together he was using Kara for head Apo to turn away ignoring other interest and dokia meaning to stretch what's interesting about that is he's saying I'm stretching my head forward even though physically I'm in a prison I'm stretching my head forward in an expectation that whatever happens regardless of the outcome my faith has an expectation of hope that is not dependent on an outcome that's how he looked at his life and I admire that because a lot of times my faith is like hostage to the outcome if this gets better my faith gets stronger if I see it working if I see progress if things are moving in the right direction but Paul was like no no no no I'm not I'm not anticipating a certain outcome to see if God's good I came in here knowing that God is good and since I know that he's good he can only do good so if something happens to me that's not good by the time it gets through the hands of God all things work together for the good so it doesn't mean that it starts good it means that by the time it passes through the hands of God it's going to be good because he's going to take all things and work them together in a configuration for his glory now we have to believe that about our circumstances Paul believed that that's why he said I stretched my head forward in this situation and I believe that's what you're doing in this stage of your life you've chosen that there are parts of this I can't control but I'm stretching my head my mind my intellect my spirit my faith forward toward what God has next for me and that was Paul and then there's this other thing that that pulls you back you're like are you ever gonna get to the Bible verse you made me turn to okay let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 come on man but I'm already preaching all right I don't know how to do anything else than this I don't have different levels of sermons it's just we just were just we're just here today to come before God's Word and see if he would speak something to that part of you that is wondering do I have what it takes and Paul Paul whose whose resume was more impressive than any of us he's writing back to these super apostles what version you got there okay I'm gonna go from the NIV let me see if I can read this in a way that'll get it across and the tone of it he's not composed this is not this is not Paul in his strongest this is Paul in his weakness but but he puts his confidence in something much different than his knowledge cause that'd be dangerous right you're in here in this amazing program which is so transformative you start to learn things and you put your confidence in your knowledge Paul's like no no no my confidence isn't in my knowledge or you put your confidence in your righteousness because you quit doing certain things for three weeks it's been 17 days and now everybody's going to hell but you because you got your act together for a minute it's so annoying Paul's like no no no listen to this and he's talking to the super apostles because they've been going around to his churches saying Paul is not a real one how many people how many have people who are even outside of here who are saying you're not a real one like this isn't real and what you're doing isn't real yeah Paul had it too it's not unique to you it's not unique to me Paul's writing from the same vantage point so here's what he says in verse 7 you are looking only on the surface of things I love that verse because that's the day we live in everybody is looking at social media and everybody's pretending to have a life they don't really have now this is my world your world's a little different right now but everybody's trying to pose and crop and filter everything to look just a certain way it's nothing new people have this habit of of judging by appearances so he's like if you look at the wrong level you're always going to come to the wrong conclusion because if you look at the cross from a physical level all the disciples ran away and fled because it's over if you can see the cross with spiritual eyes you can see that it was the very thing that God was always doing to redeem and reconcile all things to himself it's just how you look at it on a surface level the cross is an instrument of death but if you can see beyond the death you can see in it the potential for life and how God transforms all suffering and how God transforms all pain and how God transforms all injustice and somehow in the economy of His grace and mercy he turns it into resurrection so now you look at the cross because of what you understand and you go ah this is just a prequel to an empty grave so I'm looking at a cross and I already see the grave as empty before the body even gets there I already see what God is doing in the situation because I'm not just judging on a surface level and honestly there would probably be a few people in here who are like still trying to decide right now if you like me while I'm up here that's fine I'll be doing the same thing and you do it you do it at a surface level hmm oh no he seems kind of kind of cocky or something I don't know no I like him surface it's all the surface level the way that people look at you that that judge according to the surface of just just the fact of a stage of your life or an incident in your life and people will always judge things according to the surface I'll tell you one thing I came in here today to show you something way beneath the surface of your situation background merit beneath beneath the surface like when when Elijah told the boy go up and look I hear a sound boy goes up the mountain they've been in a drought right y'all know this Bible verse he comes back down what does he say I don't know what you heard you need to get some sleep because I went up there and I looked all around and I saw nothing remember what Elijah told him to do this is what this is what I want to tell you to do go back and look again it's that second look it's when you get beneath the flesh or when you get beneath the event this is why Joseph could say am I using way too many Bible stories right now I'm a little all over the place but we may not have many of these times together like this and it's important to me when Joseph said to his brothers you know you meant it for evil but God meant or intended it for good for the saving of many lives then he had to feed the very ones who put him in the position of prison to begin with and it must have been hard for him because according to the events that happened to him Joseph was abandoned and forgotten and a lot of what happened to him was wrongful on the surface but he looked beneath the events that happened to him and gave an interpretation of it that said but God intended it for something good and the stage of your life that you're in right now is so important whether you trust God's intentions even though you've learned that you can't trust people's even though you've learned that you can't even trust the people who are doing the most for you at some level you've lost that sense of trust in people but what if behind it all and beneath it all God is still the one writing the script what if Genesis 50:20 you meant it for evil God meant it for good was written before Genesis 39 in the mind of God when Joseph ended up in prison what if God was actually allowing weaknesses in your life and you think that's why he can't use you and that's actually exactly why he will if you look at it at the surface you won't see that so Paul's like I know your problem you're looking at things at the wrong level now he goes on he says if any one verse 8 is confident that he belongs to Christ somebody shout I belong can we talk back and then he says something he says something that that I like his attitude he says if anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ he should consider again that we belong to Christ Jesus just as much as he so he's like you don't have a special corner on the market of grace that I don't have you know I'm just as called I'm just as anointed I'm just as significant to the purpose of God I'm not gonna be relegated to some status because you don't like me because of the past that I had if anyone is company if anybody gets in I get in because you need the same blood to cleanse you from your sin that I need to cleanse me for mine now if we need the same blood and we need the same grace then we all ought to have the same humility to say that none of us really belong to speak for God to minister for God to carry the gospel who's worthy of that so Paul's like we're all screwed up and and yet I have a confidence that doesn't come from my performance doesn't come from my righteousness doesn't come from my knowledge it certainly doesn't come from people's opinion it certainly doesn't come from people stamping me and telling me that I'm called I'll be honest it's great that you're in this program but that's not what lets you know you're called whether you got into this or not you can know your call because he kept you because he's been the one that was there with you because he's the only reason that you've even been able to keep breathing so I know I'm called because he put me here what a powerful statement he put me here what if you can say that anywhere he put me here now maybe there are some things that that conspired maybe people meant it for evil maybe I did some things that I would do differently but but I choose to believe that God put me here for his purpose and I'm called and I'm confident and I'm and I'm reminding myself of the reason for my ministry hey thank you for watching make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a single video or live stream 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

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Keywords: pastor steven furtick, steven furtick, furtick steven, steve furtick, elevation church, elevation church steven furtick, knowing your calling in an uncertain place, steven furtick knowing your calling in an uncertain place, steven furtick calling, steven furtick purpose, calling, purpose, God's calling, God's purpose, Steven Furtick 2019 sermons, prison ministry

Id: pGgh6RSO6L0

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019