The Truth About Your Potential Pastor Steven Furtick

Here's a dating tip. Don't pick your mate according to

their potential. You are not Joanna Gaines, and this is

not Fixer Upper.

Oh, but he has potential. Yes, but he also has

a porn addiction. And his porn addiction is called a pattern.

Here's a marriage tip.

Don't pick according to potential. Pick according to patterns. I'm preaching,

Lord Jesus, and they won't say nothing. Did you turn

this church into a Presbytery overnight?

But he has so much potential. but he also has

terrible spending habits.

So you have the potential to be poor if you

don't understand and uncover what is behind his habits that have.

Caused him to be so broke. But he has potential,

but he has a bad temper. Watch how he treats

his mom.

You think he's going to treat you like he's treating

you right now for 35 years? Watch the patterns of

how he treats his parents. It'll tell you a whole lot.

More than what's his potential. I'm not saying they have

to be perfect. I mean, it took Holly a whole

year to see my potential. And look, you always can't

see potential in people.

They miss Jesus.

They missed him because he looked like them. They missed him.

Because they could not see the Messiah.

They missed him. They missed his potential.

January 1st, 1962, a guitar group walked into a North

London recording studio called Decca Studios to audition for three executives.

He's already telling her. He knows the story. They walked in,

auditioned 15 songs in less than one hour, and they

were summarily rejected by the record executives at Decca Records.

The Beatles went on to sell a few albums, even

though they were told guitar groups are on the way out,

even though they were told they had no potential in

show business. Touch somebody and say, don't judge me by

my audition. This is not even the show. I'm just

EQing it right now. And you have no idea. You

see what you helped me preach. I feel like a

funeral at Ballantyne just broke out and nobody told me.

You have no idea my full potential.

Here's the thing.

You don't know my full potential. Look at your neighbor

and say, you don't know my full potential. And be

honest with them.

I don't either. I don't either.

Because I live with my problems. And I live with

my pain. And sometimes I live in my past. And

it makes me unable to predict my potential.

So what I've learned to do, I've learned to stop short.

I've learned how to only strike with three arrows rather

than five or six. And I'm going to tell you

why I do it. I do it Because my fear

of falling short, my fear of failure. You remember, Greg,

when the man with one talent buried it and didn't

invest it and the master was angry? The assumption would

be he didn't invest it because he wasn't smart enough.

Or maybe because he didn't care enough. But do you

remember what the man who buried the one talent said

as a reason why he didn't invest it?

He said, I was afraid.

I used to assume that people who didn't give it

their all, people who didn't persevere, and people who didn't

try didn't care. And I would preach to people like,

the reason you don't try enough is because you don't

care enough. But I found out that sometimes the reason

I don't try enough is because I.

Care so much. That the fear of finding out.

That I don't have what it takes causes me to

keep something in reserve. It's not that I don't care.

It's just that the last time I cared, I got crushed.

The last time I tried, I got hurt. The last

time I loved, they used my love as leverage, and

I'm scared to go again.

The Bible gives no insight into the motivation of.

Jehoashin as to why he stopped striking the ground, but

I want to take up for him for a moment.

Maybe he wasn't lazy. Maybe he was afraid.

Because Aram is pretty scary. Potential is unpredictable. You might

give everything you have to raising those kids and they

end up on drugs.

It's happened. It's happened. You might bring them to Elevation

Church every weekend and serve on the parking team with them.

Stand out there in.

Orange vests with your kids and smile.

Through it all.

And they might still end up, you know, a little off.

Might still end up on Dr. Phil. They might. You

never know. There are no guarantees. You know, I might

give everything I have to this church. I don't know

if you want to hear this or not. I might

give everything I have to this church and one year

we don't grow. I don't know. But at least I'm here.

Here's what I've decided. I've decided that the pain of

falling short is nothing compared to the shame.

Of stopping short.

So I'd rather go all in, give it all I've

got and find out that wasn't enough than wonder what if.

I'd rather strike.

The ground as many times as I can. I'd rather

throw myself at this sermon and three people listen to

it and the rest of.

Y'all look at me crazy.

But I know when I walk off that stage, that

was all I had.

I left it all with those people.

If they weren't listening, it's nothing I could do about it.

I preached to the full extent of my, I'd rather

leave it all out there. Because at least I can

lay down on my pillow tonight and know, God, that

was all I had. If you would have wanted me

to be smarter, funnier, more insightful, more motivational, you should

have given me different genetics.

But here's my gift, Lord. What can you do with it?

Here's my five loaves. Here's my two fish. If you

would have wanted me to have.

A cooler with more food, you should have told me

before we.

Got to the picnic.

Look at your neighbor say, at least I'm trying. No

shame in that. There's no shame in falling short.

Not a bit.

But stopping short, that's a different thing altogether.

I want to stop short. Because that's a long-term pain.

Failure hurts for a minute. Regret stays with you for

quite a while. Should have than you would have. That

can stay with you.

For a lifetime. The good news is the window is

still open.

The good news is if you stop striking, there's nothing

to stop you.

From picking up the next arrow today. That's the good news.

How many are grateful for the grace of God? Me too,

because I missed some opportunities.

I feel like I'm not living at my full potential,

but here's the crazy thing about it. I simultaneously feel

… Please, if you feel.

This way too, just respond. Some kind of grunt, some

kind of.

Something, just a little … raise it up all the

way just one of these how many of you have

ever sat next to somebody in worship.

They do the kind of hand raise thing.

Just do that I feel simultaneously like I'm giving it

all I've got and what more do you want from

me and I'm not doing enough.

At the same time.

You know why Potential, point number two, I'm flying. Potential

is limited. I know the poster with the eagle and

the sunset, with the eagle carrying a trophy into the

sunset over the coffee maker in the break room said

that you had unlimited potential, but look at somebody and say,

you don't.

Potential is limited. Potential is limited.

And If you think about it real quick, you can

remember several times in your life where you came face

to face with the limits of your potential. I remember

the moment at Somerville Baptist when I realized on the

court in the gym of the Family Life Center, basketball.

Is not my sport. I can still wear.

J's, but basketball is not my sport. I remember the moment.

This is not for me. I don't understand this game.

It does not make sense to me. It does not compute.

I play baseball. I remember the moment. when I realized

that construction, or really anything with my hands, was not

my gift. And it kind of hurt my feelings because

people say talk is cheap, and what I do well

is talk.

So what does that make me? I have potential. Isn't

even just the sound of that, don't you get tired

of hearing that? Oh, you have potential. One of the

first times I preached, George Halterwonger got up and closed out.

After I preached, and he said, boy, Stephen sure has potential.

I felt good about it. Jamie told me afterwards, Chris,

he said, you know that wasn't a compliment, right? I said,

he said I had potential. He said, yeah, that's right.

Potential means it hasn't yet been matured.

Into purpose yet.

He said, you said crap three times while you spoke,

and you were speaking in a Baptist church of the

average age was 67 on a Sunday night. But I

have potential. I got my own church. I can say

whatever I want up here. Oh, you rebels.

So go with me.

Santee Circle Community Church, the church where I served as

youth minister, is building a building.

Pastor Mickey said, you've got to be out there. You're

the youth minister. I want you to show your face.

I knew I wasn't very good with anything mechanical, but

I showed up. Wayne Hall never should have trusted me

with his nail gun.

That's my defense. I broke it. Not on purpose. They

sent me home. Mr. Wayne said, you stick to preaching.

So I did.

I preached to those poor people every time they would listen.

And Holly found some old VHS tapes the other day,

and I told her statute of limitations. I don't want

to see that.

Thank God we don't have a VCR.

It's frustrating because when people say you have potential.

It doesn't feel like a compliment after a while. It

starts to feel like a judgment. Like an indictment.

Because you already know that you're not doing all that

you can do. And at the same time, you feel

like you couldn't do anymore.

But it's not enough. But it's all I got. But

it's not enough. But it's all I got. But it's

not enough. But it's all I got. But it's not enough.

And into that God wants you to know and be

set free by the fact that your potential is relative

to your purpose. Maybe you've been tormenting yourself over potential

that you haven't reached because you are judging yourself against

a purpose that isn't yours. For example, this microphone is

a top quality Sennheiser microphone. It is about the best

wireless microphone that you can buy. It even has a

special capsule on it, so when I feel the anointing

of Drake coming upon me and grab it up here,

it still sounds relatively decent. It is an expensive microphone.

It is a pristine microphone. But this microphone cannot build

a house.

It wasn't made to.

To discard the microphone because it cannot fill a purpose

that it was not created for would.

Be to miss the potential. I'm not going to miss

my potential.

Because I was trying to fulfill somebody else's purpose.

I can't be you. Don't need to. Don't have to.

I was born to.

Do what I was born to do. And when I

do what God made me to do, like God made me.

To do it.

Purpose.

Somebody shout purpose.

Potential is designed and custom fit for purpose. All right.

You can't put in what God left out.

That's true.

I read that from an author named Douglas Wilson. He

wrote a book about writing.

He said, it's true.

But you can't put in what God left out. He said,

but it is also true. Jonathan, when you preach, always

remember the truth is in the tension. The reason some

sermons feel kind of trite and they don't hit deep

is because we resist the tension that would.

Release the truth.

So when we just say God is good, it sounds good,

but it's kind of like cotton candy. A little sugar

high doesn't carry me till Tuesday. When you say God

is good, life is hard, life is hard, but God

is good. Now there's a tension. God is good when

life is hard. The harder life gets, the better God

looks because your soul longs for something.

That is not of this world. The truth is in

the tension. And here's the tension. Here's the tension. You

can't put in what.

God left out, but it is also true that most

of us have far more to work with than we

are currently using.

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