Steven Furtick - Christ Is In Me. I Am Enough
Steven Furtick: If you're standing at one of our campuses, stay standing for a moment, because we have a very special message today. You may be wondering, "Yes! Is Holly going to preach"? Kind of. And so am I. Did you ever used to watch, not wrestling, but wrasslin'? Did you ever used to see tag-team wrasslin', like the Legion of Doom, the Steiner Brothers, stuff like that? When you would be tired you'd tag your partner in the corner. Today, Holly and I are going to tag team a message as we continue our series called Do the New You. Would you look at your neighbor and say, "I barely recognize you. You've been changing so much. Is that you"? Put it in the comments. Say, "Is that you"? Oh man. God has been doing an amazing work through this book, through this message series, through these mindsets. Today, we're going to change it up. You may be wondering, "Why is there furniture behind you"? Good question.
Holly Furtick: We're going to have a little chat.
Steven Furtick: Holly and I are going to chat. We're going to talk about some stuff. I've been wanting to talk to you about some stuff.
Holly Furtick: Okay. You said we were going to tag team, and in my mind it was less wrasslin' and more like volleyball. You know, the person…
Steven Furtick: Yeah, bump, set, spike.
Holly Furtick: Yeah.
Steven Furtick: So, I'm spiking or you're spiking?
Holly Furtick: You're spiking. Maybe I'm the setter. You know, you go like that. That's what it is. And then you spike it.
Steven Furtick: Yeah. I'll be Spiking Steve.
Holly Furtick: I wish I knew more about sports.
Steven Furtick: I think you did good.
Holly Furtick: I have been wanting to interview you for a really… I have been begging him. "Babe, please, let me interview you. Let's sit down on a Sunday morning". Because there's nobody I would rather talk to than you.
Steven Furtick: Thank you.
Holly Furtick: Sometimes our conversations are so good. I just love the way you think. So, I'm really excited. I have questions. I'm ready.
Steven Furtick: Y'all pray for me, because she's prepared. I'm not. I made a deal that I wouldn't look at her questions. She left her notebook on the kitchen table, and I was very tempted, because I like to prepare. In this mindset we're going to share about Christ is in me; I am enough. I thought, "What better way to put that to the test than let her ask me whatever she wants in front of…"? We have about a thousand eGroup leaders here helping us share this message. These are the real MVPs of Elevation Church, along with our volunteers, our givers, and our staff. This is what they do every week as they open their homes and open their computers. Whether it's in the room where it happens or the Zoom where it happens, so many great discussions happen. One of my passions in this year is to get God's Word deeper and deeper and deeper into your heart so the Enemy can't snatch it. So, if you're ready for a conversation that could go anywhere, make some noise. All right. Y'all be seated as we are seated. Let's go, Holly. When they were playing, it made me remember how we used to sing… When I think about the Lord, How he saved me, how he raised me, How he filled me with the Holy Ghost, How he healed me to the uttermost. When I think about the Lord, How he picked me up and turned me around, How he placed my feet on solid ground. It makes me wanna shout, Hallelujah, Thank you, Jesus, Lord, you're worthy of all the glory And all the honor And all the praise. That was our song in college.
Holly Furtick: That was a special one.
Steven Furtick: I think that's part of the reason you married me. Not because of my singing but… She was scholarship. Holly and I met before college. I promise this won't just be story time. I'm going to preach and minister the Word of God.
Holly Furtick: I'm the one asking the questions today.
Steven Furtick: But I want to tell them this, because when people see you later in your journey, it's like walking into the middle of a movie, and they can be really confused. One time somebody said to me, "I don't really like megachurch pastors," as if I came out of the womb with a megachurch. Like, "Push! There's a megachurch inside of you, Faith Furtick". But as far as our relationship and our ministry, we've been doing this together since we were kids. The church just turned 18. We started doing ministry when we were 18. Then the summer we were 19, we traveled together. She was on scholarship to this singing group called Joyful Sound. She was the sound person, but I knew she really wanted to sing.
Holly Furtick: You didn't know I had a background in…
Steven Furtick: Yeah, she has a background in running JBL Eons. She can set up a tent revival anywhere if you need her to.
Holly Furtick: The snake. I'm good with the snake.
Steven Furtick: You should start a sound company for worship events called "Hollylujah". That'd be good. Anyway, I'll turn it over to you in a minute, because I know it's your interview. We're going to preach and teach today, not just tell stories. So, I made a choir, and guess who I recruited to be my alto section leader…Hollylujah.
Holly Furtick: Okay, wait. I have to interject. He was casting this vision, like he does. We were 19 years old, and he was like, "I'm going to start a choir. We're going to have a choir and a band. We're going to sing gospel songs". I was like, "I don't… Okay". He was like, "And I want you to help". I was like, "I don't know". And there was this other girl.
Steven Furtick: Yeah, tell the truth.
Holly Furtick: There was this other girl, and she was like, "That sounds awesome! I mean, how can I help"? I was like, "I didn't say I wasn't going to help".
Steven Furtick: That's true.
Holly Furtick: I was like, "Hold on a second".
Steven Furtick: A little healthy competition. So, what are we talking about, Holly? What are we doing?
Holly Furtick: All right.
Steven Furtick: You called this meeting.
Holly Furtick: I did. I called this meeting. First of all, I love this book so much. It's very special to me. I matched my jacket to the book today. It's so special to me, because you haven't released a book in eight years. What a lot of people don't know is about a year ago, we had a fight…well, a conversation, a rather heated conversation, because we don't fight.
Steven Furtick: Yeah, it was, as the Baptists say, intense fellowship.
Holly Furtick: Intense fellowship. So, we have this intense conversation where I am saying, "I just feel like there's more inside of you. I feel like there is a huge group of people who need your words in written form". He was telling me how his sermons don't translate into books. He said, "My sermons, my ideas… Holly, I've tried". You actually wrote a book in 2020 that we never released. He said, "I tried to write a book in 2020. I'm done. I don't want to write. My sermons don't translate". We went back and forth, and I felt like I had pushed too hard, you know, that wife pushing. I was like, "Okay. Okay". So, I decided I was going to let it go and I was going to push the Lord. It's so much more effective. This is the answer to my prayers right here.
Steven Furtick: She fights dirty! Y'all thinks she's sweet.
Holly Furtick: Okay. So, we're talking about this mindset, "Christ is in me; I am enough". We opened up by talking about how you said, "I'm not a writer". Basically, "I'm not enough. I don't have enough". So, where did this come from? How did you get from "I'm not enough" to "I have enough to give"?
Steven Furtick: One word at a time, followed by some commas, periods, and other words. Somebody told me you never have to write a book; you just have to write a word, then a word, then a word, then a word. Then, when you've said enough of those, you put a period or an exclamation point. If the point is weak, put an exclamation point to compensate for the weakness of the point, and then move on. In all seriousness, though… You know how we say God's Word is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path? I guess I'm still thinking about light, because everything God used me to do up to this point in my life… He never gave me a floodlight that I could see 100 yards away. He never even gave me headlights where I could see farther down the road. In Bible times, they had a light you would wear that would just light your feet. So, when the Bible says, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path," it means God will give me enough light to take the next step by and to see that there's a hole and I should step around it, but he won't show me everything that's down the road, because then I would trust the path, not the person. This book was like that. You know. This church is like that. Every sermon I preach, every time I write a song, and everything you're doing… I don't really want this conversation today to be about how I wrote a book or how I'm enough. I really want to get inside of your soul, if we're able to do that, through a conversation and just begin to think about the ways "not-enoughness" keeps you from showing up. What are the ways "not-enoughness" keeps you from even finding out? One thing about "not enough" is it's partially true. If you were just starting to work out and you said, "I want big quads like Sam Sulek," and I said, "All right. Let's put 405 on the squat rack," you would not have enough muscle for 405 on the squat rack if you haven't been in the gym this year. However, if I put you under the bar, which is 45 pounds, and we got you to 10 reps, 20 reps, got you comfortable with the motions, and we built and built and built and built and built and got you some steroids, got you a little gear… I'm kidding about the steroids, but I'm not kidding about the growth process. You have to start with the bar in your spiritual life. You know, "I really want to be a person of prayer". Don't book a three-week prayer retreat in Ireland and say, "I'm going to do that in 10 years when the kids are out of the house". I found some of my best prayers… I have a little chair right next to where I get dressed. Just plopping down in that chair for 30 seconds sometimes and saying, "O God! O God! O God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, Mother Mary, Tom Petty"! because every prayer doesn't start pretty. This project didn't start pretty. I mean, it was me with voice memos and not having much confidence in myself. I remember one day in particular where my conversation with Holly was ringing in my ears, and I had the whole afternoon free. I'd finished everything for the morning. It was like her voice and God's voice were singing in harmony. When we call her the "Holly Spirit" we're obviously just kidding around. She doesn't think she's God's voice, but God has really used her as an instrument in my life. By the way, sometimes God will speak to you through the people who are right in front of you. So, all of us who want to know, "Well, how do I hear from God"? sometimes it's through something that sounds annoying to you from somebody who loves you. I'm not saying I was annoyed with you.
Holly Furtick: I'm like, "Wait a minute".
Steven Furtick: Well, anointed and annoying can sometimes feel the same. Sometimes the most anointed things you've said to me have been the most annoying on the surface, because it challenges this thing. "Well, she doesn't get it, and she doesn't know". One day in particular, I had this feeling like, "If you're going to start this book, you need to start. You feel that it's time for you to give another book". These are a lot of the things, when you get this book, and if you're in this book… I wrote it to myself.
Holly Furtick: That's what I was going to say.
Steven Furtick: I wrote it to myself to challenge myself from the old mindset, and then I wrote it for you, but before I wrote it for you, I wrote it to myself.
Holly Furtick: Yeah. I want to verify that. All of the mindsets are things I saw scribbled on legal pads next to your bedside table, next to your desk. These are all things you wrote for yourself to coach yourself.
Steven Furtick: This mindset, "Christ is in me; I am enough," was a breathing exercise I started doing 10 years ago. "Christ is in me" will feel like the breathing in, reminding me that I'm filled with his Spirit and that Jesus isn't just a historical figure who died a long time ago. He is a historical figure who died a long time ago, but he's a very present help in the time of trouble, and the power of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in me. So when I say, "Christ is in me," I'm saying resurrection power is in me. When I'm saying, "Christ is in me," I'm saying healing is in me. When I'm saying, "Christ is in me; I am enough," it's a truth and a consequence. Because he's in me, I am enough. So, one day, I'm sitting there going, "You can't write this book. You tried in 2020. You wasted time. You wasted money. You holed yourself up doing it". I just got overwhelmed by this idea "You need to do something". Now, the first mindset in Do the New You is "I'm not stuck unless I stop". Sometimes God will give you something stupid to do…it seems stupid to you…to get you unstuck. Raising a staff over the Red Sea looks stupid, but I saw a commercial one time that says, "It's only weird until it works". I know a lot of people think we're weird, as Christians, because we praise God and lift our hands. "I'm not one of those hand-lifting, out-loud-singing Christians". But you know what I found? It works for me. Worship works for me when nothing else can help me. So, on this particular day, I did something that felt so stupid. I set up an appointment with my literary agent, who hadn't heard from me in quite a while because I was ducking her because I didn't want to write a book. I put on a suit. I went to the office in a suit. Y'all, I don't even wear suits on Easter most times in church. I went to the office to let the Devil know I meant business. Now, I know what you're thinking. "You just wanted to impress your agent". No. She wasn't on a Zoom call; it was a phone call. She didn't even see me. I wasn't dressing so she would see me in a suit. I wanted the Devil to see me in a suit to let him know… Just look at the person next to you and say, "I'm doing it this time". That was the day I sat down and wrote the whole book in that day. No. That's the story we want.
Holly Furtick: Nope. Nope. Nope.
Steven Furtick: Like, "And God healed my marriage that day". "And my kid got off drugs that day". "And the business was out of the red that day". "And the breakthrough concept went to market and we had an IPO that day". "And I never struggled with wanting to drink alcohol again that day". But it was my one-day win for that day. So, I'm going to give you my favorite phrase that I learned in therapy. Okay? Yes, I go to therapy, because I'm crazy.
Holly Furtick: No, you're not.
Steven Furtick: I want to help you with your crazy in case you don't get to the therapist. All right? I'm not going to charge you for this, but we worked through a phrase in therapy. This was a game changer for me. When you talk about enough… Everybody shout, "Enough"! Put it in the comments. "Enough". Say it again. "Enough…for now". That was big to me, babe. You know how I am. I'm projecting so much into the future, and I operate sometimes from a fear of running out. But then I remembered Jesus taught his disciples to pray this: "Give us this day our daily bread". Don't you wish he would have said, "This day our monthly bread" so you could have the whole closet full of paper towels that you need? God is not like Costco like that. He's not giving it to you in a pack of 48. He's going to give you the strength when you need it…one word at a time, one apology at a time, one day of sobriety at a time, one day of coming to church at a time, one day of going to eGroup at a time. I don't want you to think that now that I've written a book I live in a place of perpetual enoughness wherein the abundance of God never leaves the forefront of my imagination, causing me to triumph over every doubt and obstacle. I just trust that he's going to give me enough for now. When I need the next step… This is for somebody who's making a decision, and you feel like you're not intelligent enough to make it or you don't have enough facts to make it. You have enough for now. Suit up and see.
Holly Furtick: Okay.
Steven Furtick: Did I talk too long?
Holly Furtick: No. Please don't stop talking.
Steven Furtick: I know you have a lot of questions.
Holly Furtick: I do. I have plenty of questions, but you say what comes out.
Steven Furtick: If we run out of time, we'll put a bonus session.
Holly Furtick: Oh, that's great.
Steven Furtick: On Run It Back. Walk It Out.
Holly Furtick: I love it. All right. This is one of my top two quotes in the entire book. I'm going to just read it for you. You say this: "What's been a lot harder for me than accepting Jesus is accepting Steven. Accepting Jesus took a moment. Accepting me is taking a lifetime". Then you go on to say, "To accept Jesus but not accept Steven is to miss the gift of salvation where it matters most. You can't just accept Jesus by faith; you have to accept yourself by faith too". This quote leapt off the page for me, because I grew up Southern Baptist, and Baptists… We love the phrase "Accept Jesus into your heart". I mean, that is a core belief of mine. You have to accept Jesus into your heart. It's a moment. It's a monumental decision in your life. But when I read this, I was like, "Oh! I think I missed half of it". How do you do this? How do you practically grow in accepting Steven? Give us some "how".
Steven Furtick: You help. You do. I don't know if you remember saying this, but you've heard me say that you said it a lot. Trust me; you said this. We're sitting at Firebirds on a date night. This was maybe 12 years ago, maybe even longer than that. The church was growing. I remember the day the church got bigger than Moncks Corner, the town I grew up in. That was kind of a scary thought for me. Like, "Wait a minute". Talk about "I'm not enough". The town I grew up in was wonderful, but there were fewer people who lived in that town when I grew up in it than are coming to church now. So, not only have I never seen anything this big and led it, but I lived in a town that was smaller than what I'm responsible to lead. One day, I wanted to fire everybody. Most of all, I wanted to fire myself, because I'm like, "Wait a minute. If the whole team is messing up, they fire the coach. Right"? You don't just trade players. If every player is bad, you get a new coach. So, I'm telling her this. I'm like, "If all the team is bad, then you fire the coach. I just don't feel like I'm the leader our church needs". Without hesitation, she leans across the bread at Firebirds. Do y'all know that bread at Firebirds? She leans across the bread. She has the butter knife in her hand, this big ol' knife, so it made what she said more powerful. I said, "I don't feel like I'm the leader we need". She said, "Well, you're the one we've got". With a knife! Those Firebirds knives are big. That helps. You used to tell me when I was walking out the door when the kids were little, "You've got what it takes". Again, hearing that would almost make me angry. I didn't go, "Put 'er there, buckaroo". I would be like, "Yeah, yeah. You don't know how heavy it is". Then you were carrying your own pressures of trying to figure out "Who am I"? We've worked through this together, because we started in ministry as kids together. The part of the story I didn't tell earlier is that before we went to college, Holly was traveling with a ministry team through Moncks Corner. I grew up in a Methodist church with a heritage from that church, because my grandfather was a Methodist pastor. So we went every week. Then when I was in high school, the Baptist church revival… When I went over there, I met this guy named Jody who ended up being my brother-in-law, so it's a whole story. God is always working everything together in our lives for his glory. At that revival, I went down to the altar, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to accept Jesus into my life". It was transformative. What an amazing deal that is. I give him my sin; I get his grace. I give him my shame; I get his justification. I give him my broken pieces; he begins to build my life into a bigger-picture story that he's telling for his glory. Who wouldn't want to accept that? It would be like giving away the Apple goggles thing today, the thing that's going to make us all robots and send us all to the mark of the Beast, the new thing that just came out, the end times goggles. (Apple is going to take this sermon down if I keep going.) It would be like giving something away, like, "Here you go". God is a giver. There are no strings attached. You leave your sin, you leave your shame, but you don't leave yourself. I need to get this through, because one of the ways we are taught salvation is actually destructive to our sense of self-worth. It's this: "God doesn't like you. God, in fact, is so angry with you that the only way he could deal with it was sending his Son to die for you". Now, did God send Jesus to die for us because we couldn't pay the penalty? Yes, because sin demands a price, and the price is perfection, and you couldn't pay it, so Jesus did. How many are grateful that he did? Come on, all of my fellow perfectionists. You don't have to get it right all the time. He got it right. He lived as if he had sinned so I can live as if I never did, so I can hold my head up, so I can belong to Jesus. But here's the part that got me. I started hearing it described in certain classes I took for Bible college, and all of that, almost like a group insurance policy. "Jesus died for you. God really doesn't like you. He really can't stand you, because he knows all about you. He sees you at 3:00 in the morning. He knows where you were last night, and he knows what you did last summer and last fall".
Holly Furtick: You're so funny.
Steven Furtick: Thank you. "And because he can't stand you, he sent his Son, and now when he sees you he doesn't see you; he sees his Son". "Because he doesn't have to look at your terrible, worthless self, he loves you". Cool. It's like I have a preexisting condition called sucking, but I prayed a prayer and accepted Jesus. I got in on the policy, and I'm good. God has to forgive me, but he really doesn't want to. Remember this whenever you're tempted to think that way. Yes, we're all sinners in need of a Savior. No, there's nothing in me that can save myself. Yes, I need Jesus in order to be right with God. No but. Just that. Now, from that, did the Bible start in Genesis 3 when we sinned and became separated from God or did the Bible start with "Let us make man in our image"? When God made snakes, he said, "It's good". Everything he made, he said, "It's good". When he made you, he said, "Very good". So, I know you have some very bad things you struggle with and some very ugly parts of you that you're working on, and I know you have some very deep issues that go really deep, but remember that it started out with a God who made you very good. God is trying to get me back as Steven, Larry Steven Furtick Junior… He's trying to get me back to "very good". He's trying to give me a vision of his "very good" for my life. He's trying to get me back to the seed of Steven. He's trying to shine light, give water, and yes, even fertilizer to your life to bring you back to what he put inside of you. So, Holly, for me, the whole way this message Do the New You starts… I won't review it long because we've already covered it, but it talks about "Do you" as possibly being the worst advice anyone could ever give you. If I just do me, but I don't develop me, I'm going to be a perpetual emotional 2-year-old if I just do me, if I don't grow into who God made me. On the other hand, if you're one of these people who's very driven, and you're like, "I'm not going to just do me; I'm going to do future me," well, that's a treadmill that will leave you exhausted, and you'll collapse trying to chase something you think you're supposed to be. Usually, what we're chasing when we say, "Oh, my future self that's patient and ripped and rich and patient and ripped and rich, but can still enjoy a nice dessert, but I'm ripped, and I'm not uptight, but I am driven and focused…" Stop that, because you are comparing your behind the scenes to everybody else's highlight reel. What you're chasing is a compilation of what other people have shown you of their life that you've cobbled together and think you need to be that for God to bless you. You don't. So, accepting Steven means when I show up to preach to you or when I show up in a tough moment with one of our kids or when I show up to try to be the husband she needs, and I know I'm still under development… I believe that if God would have needed somebody else to do it, he would choose someone else to do it. The fundamental component of my belief system about this is if there are eight billion people in the world, God had options, and he put you in that house. He put you in that business. He put you in that ministry. He put you with that woman. He put you with those kids. God chose you. Say it to your neighbor. "God chose you". Now look right back at them and ask them a question. "Will you"? Will you choose you? That's the decision you're making every day. Or are you going to feel the need so much to measure up to something called perfection that God knew you were never going to be? Or can you be cool in the process? Can you say to yourself, "Well, I did cuss, but I didn't say the really bad words this day. Next week I'm going to dial it all the way down to heck". Every step you make toward heck, you've got to be like, "That's pretty good. You saw where I came from. It wasn't heck". I'm passionate about this because I am a perfectionist. I don't know what version I think God is looking for when I come through the door, but sometimes I just have to sit myself down and be like, "Dude, you grew up in a small town. You stepped out. You met this woman. God has been good to you. You're doing all right". I always wondered, though… Holly, I wonder what you think about this. Where's the line between being content and being complacent?
Holly Furtick: Yeah. It's tough.
Steven Furtick: Because I want to be content in every circumstance, but I don't want contentment to turn into an excuse whereby I can just accept immaturity in my life. The first step of growing into who God knows you are is to accept who you are. Accept it and step into it. We'll get you from this bar, and we'll put some plates on it and some more plates on it and some more plates on it, and you'll barely recognize yourself. This is the process of transformation.
Holly Furtick: Okay. You open up this section, this mindset, "Christ is in me; I am enough," with this story you tell about dropping a class in college, and the professors say to you… They imply that they knew you weren't a serious enough student. Then you say this later in that chapter: "I'm constantly fighting a voice that tells me I'm not deep enough as a preacher or that I'm not serious enough or I'm not a hard worker, and then all that defensiveness is going to come out in how I preach and teach. I'll subconsciously think, 'Oh, this needs to be deep. I need to be deep. I can't get on that platform and be shallow. I've got to prove the people wrong who said I'm not deep.'" Then you go on to talk about performing for the wrong voices in our lives. So, how do you catch yourself when you find yourself living for the wrong voices, and how do you get yourself back?
Steven Furtick: Can we do the answer to that in stages?
Holly Furtick: Yeah.
Steven Furtick: If it's a sermon, I'll put Eric on the front row while I'm studying. Eric has been my best friend since we were 14. We did Green Day shows together, Pearl Jam shows together, and now we spread the gospel together. When I put him on the front row, I realize, "Wait a minute. Eric isn't thinking about me like a seminary professor, judging if I said 'Mephibosheth' right". Then I say, "And nobody is going to know in your church if you mispronounce 'Mephibosheth' either, because they can't say it right either". Once I lock in through a lens of love somebody I love and somebody who loves me, it frees me up.
Holly Furtick: That's good. Lock into the lens of love.
Steven Furtick: Yeah. Lock into the lens of love, even in your Bible reading. When you're reading the Bible, start explaining it after you read it to somebody you love. Join an eGroup.
Holly Furtick: It's not too late.
Steven Furtick: It's not too late. I wish it were that easy in our lives. When you're performing for somebody else's approval, there's one story about Jesus I want you to go back to. I want you to go down to the Jordan and almost picture, if you can put yourself there. Jesus is being baptized. Why? To be cleansed from his sin? No. He had no sin. To be obedient to his Father. As he's coming up from the water… I'm about to blow your mind if you've never heard this before. This changed my life. As he's coming up out of the water, a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son whom I love". He was proud of his Son. Now, I haven't blown your mind yet. You're like, "That's nice". It's nice and it's cool until you put it in context, and then it becomes a game changer. What if I told you that at the moment the voice from heaven said, "This is my Son whom I love; I am well pleased with him…" What if I told you that at that moment Jesus had not yet performed a single public miracle? God said, "I already love him". He had not opened a single blind eye. God said, "I'm proud of him. That's my boy". "That's my girl". He had not fed the crowds a Golden Corral buffet from a Happy Meal, and God said, "He's enough". So, when Jesus went to do all of those things… "Lazarus, come forth"! When he went to do all of those things… "Pharisees, shut up"! He wasn't trying to prove anything to the Pharisees. He wasn't trying to prove anything to Lazarus, because his starting place was the love of his Father. Now, every day I need you to find a way to be baptized in that love. I don't mean you have to go get in the Jacuzzi, get over the fence in your neighbor's Jacuzzi. I'm not talking about physically; I'm talking about spiritually letting God baptize you in the enoughness that is him so you can come from abundance. I don't mean just material abundance. There will be times where you'll say, like Paul, "I've learned to be content in every circumstance, whether with plenty or with little". But one thing you will never lack a day in your life is his love and his guidance. How many of you struggle with a scarcity mindset? I tell one little embarrassing story in the book. I want to share it with you right now. Elijah, when he was about 9 or 10, was grabbing napkins at dinner one day, and he grabbed, like, 20 napkins. It was probably 5, but let's call it 20.
Holly Furtick: It felt like 20.
Steven Furtick: It makes it a little more justified what I did, because when he grabbed the napkins, I started freaking out. "You don't need that many napkins"! I gave him the greatest lesson on napkin conservation in the history of parenting. I don't think he should have wasted the napkins, and I think it's good, but I remembered… Mom, do you remember how Dad…? When he was growing up, he was very poor, so when he had his own house and his own napkins and paper towels, sometimes he'd walk around, and he would tear the paper towels in half. He'd go, "You don't need a whole paper towel. You think you're some kind of prince, coming in here taking a full paper towel"? Now, I'm bringing this up… It sounds so small, because when we make it too big and think, "When you stand before the Red Sea, stretch out your staff…" You're probably not going to lead a nation of millions on Monday, but you will walk around your house and ask the question, "Is it enough"? The way you answer that question is not just tied to "Is God enough"? but it's how you answer the question, "Did he make me enough"? Here's where I think the gap is. What you're talking about in the process of those professors telling me, "We knew you weren't a serious student…" That's how I saw myself. What they say about you only has the power you give it by the way you see yourself. I want to break this victim mentality off of Christians, like if somebody spoke something over you, you just have to believe it like it's your birthright. No. Your Father spoke over you, and whoever spoke over you what wasn't true, your Father is over them. So watch this. I have a better word over my life. I don't have a second opinion from God; I have a truth from him. I have a revelation from him. I know the truth of the gospel. He's not against me. I am enough. He is with me. I can do all things through Christ. High-five your neighbor and say, "You've got what it takes". So, we have to listen to that voice. I know a lot of people speak a lot of things over us. It happens to all of us. They say stuff about me all the time, but I have somebody else I can go to and say, "Father, is what they said true"? If it's not… If what they spoke contradicts what he is saying, go with what your Father spoke. I see you breaking free from this idea of what they told you you couldn't be. They didn't make you. If they didn't make you and they don't own you, they don't get to label you. God is my label maker! I'm made in his image. I'm redeemed by the blood of his Son, and it's precious. So am I.
Holly Furtick: Got time for one more?
Steven Furtick: I'm just talking.
Holly Furtick: No, you're not. You're preaching.
Steven Furtick: I hope y'all are getting this at Riverwalk. I hope y'all are getting this at University City. I hope y'all are getting this at Ballantyne. I hope you're getting this in Greenville. I hope you're getting this in Raleigh. I hope you're getting this, eFam all over the world. I hope you're receiving this word in your college dorm, receiving the calling of an almighty God! People can't cancel what God called. "Christ is in me. I am enough". Don't leave that first part out. You just run around, "I'm enough. I'm enough. Is kind, is smart, is important". That's great for a movie, but when you get into the real life on Monday, you're going to need something higher to point to. So, that's where it comes from for me, babe, because if I did the self-acceptance thing without Jesus, I would hit a dead end. I've got to know that he's with me, and I've got to know he didn't make mistakes when he made me. I'm going to tell you one more thing before we get to your final question. We have to do a part two of this.
Holly Furtick: Yes. Two, three, four, five…
Steven Furtick: I like to tell you these little behind-the-scenes stories. By the way, I don't holler when we talk about these things when it's just her and me. Wouldn't that be weird? "Holly, touch your neighbor"! She's high-fiving Bo. But we do this. This is what we do. Some of the best sermons I ever preached were our 3.2-mile walk after Sunday when we start talking, and then you start sharing. I think you really need somebody you love in your life, whether in an eGroup or whether somebody you love, where you can unpack the Word of God, because if God speaks a word over you, but then you don't water it, it'll die and you'll think it didn't work, but it just needs water. I think what we're trying to model today (I know it's a little different way to do it) is God is a conversationalist. When I say, "Do the new you," sometimes the only way for you to do the new you (singular) is to do the new you (plural). In the South we don't say "You all". We say, "Y'all". So, one day I'm going to do a group study called "Do the New Y'all". The reason I'm going to do it is because I want you to see if you keep hearing at the level of what God says, but you keep relating to people who are at the level of what they feel, you will come down to them time after time. So, this core belief for me… We were in a songwriting session a few years ago. A lot of people will ask me sometimes, "What's the best song you ever wrote that was underrated in your mind"? I think one I really like… I don't know if it's underrated, but nobody ever talks about it. It makes me mad. It's called "The One You Love".
Holly Furtick: It's definitely not underrated. but… The song was a journey with some other great writers. I don't say this to insult any of them, but at one point during the writing session… There were several writers, and we were working on the song, and the second verse began to come out in a way where it said: I know you're proud of me, Even though I don't deserve it sometimes; No, I'm not a perfect child, But I still make my Father smile; I know you're proud of me. Then the chorus said: You take me just as I am, You'd choose me all over again, I am the one you love. You know that's what John called himself in the Bible: "The one he loves". Somebody in the room said, "I don't know if theologically I can really vibe with the fact that God is proud of me". I said, "Then you don't have to sing it, but I've got to," because I deal with so much self-critical internal dialogue. Maybe you don't. If you don't, I'm happy for you, and I hope you never do. But God sent me to reach a few people who don't know how to hear that voice saying, "This is my child. I saw you go out of your way for that person even though they didn't thank you. I saw that. I see you giving what you have even though you feel like you blew it and you yelled at the kids six times today. The reason you're yelling at them is because you're with them".
Holly Furtick: You can say that again.
Steven Furtick: Sometimes the Lord will say, "I'm proud of you that you were so caring to your kids today," and sometimes he'll say, "I'm so proud of you that you didn't kill your kids today". Now, I realize people will take this to the extreme sometimes and justify behavior that, frankly, God wants to rescue you from, but even if you're going to grow out of that, you're going to do it by accepting that you make your Father smile, even though you're not a perfect child. You've accepted Jesus. If you haven't, you ought to do it today, but you also ought to accept you, because he did. Wait a minute. He accepted you and you don't? You have a higher standard than God?
Holly Furtick: Whoa.
Steven Furtick: So, I just want you breathing in this thought, "Christ is in me. I am enough". That's the most powerful revelation in the whole book. Not "I'm going to be enough". "Boy, God is really going to want to hang out with me when I'm no longer dealing with this. Man, he's really going to use me when I get smart". No, no, no. He's going to use you stupid. Ask Peter. All of these Bible characters we read about… I don't know how you wanted to close, Holly, but I have one more thing I wanted to share in order to solidify this.
Holly Furtick: Do it. Close us off.
Steven Furtick: Is there any question that if you didn't get to ask it, you're going to fuss at me later because I didn't let you ask the question?
Holly Furtick: No, I'm good.
Steven Furtick: Okay. I'll talk about one more song line, and we're going to sing and worship and just close this time by reflecting and responding on what God has spoken. How many feel that God has spoken something to you today? I think this is one of those messages that you do need to get in with your eGroup or sit down with your notebook and your coffee and watch it back and listen to it again, because we talked about so many things, but there was something specific God wanted to speak to you. So, let me bring it back to the entire revelation that "Christ is in me; I am enough" in a way that you can hold it in your heart, because I don't want you going, "Well, there was a lot of good stuff". No, I want you to remember one thing today. The song "Jireh…" Literally, Jireh means will see. It means God will see to it. So, when he called the place "Jehovah Jireh…" He was calling the place "Jehovah Jireh" where God provided. This is from the Abraham and Isaac story. Anyway, that's not important. I don't even know why I said that. Probably just to show that seminary professor I know what I'm talking about. Here's the point. Again, in a songwriting room, as that song began to take shape… It was a very beautiful song with our friends Chandler, Naomi, and Chris. We sat there, and we'd never all written together. I threw out a line that said, "I'll never be more loved than I am right now". As Chandler began to sing that, and then we began to sing… I wasn't holding you up So there's nothing I could do to let you down; It doesn't take a trophy to make you proud; I'll never be more loved than I am right now; Jireh, you are enough. As the song began to flow with different verses, it came to a point that crescendoed in saying: I'm already loved, I'm already chosen; I know who I am, I know what you've spoken; I'm already loved more than I could imagine, And that is enough. We sang it over and over again. "That is enough. That is enough". As we sat in that writing room that day, it went to a different place. We began to say, "You are enough. You are enough". Because my sufficiency is in him, not in myself. "You are enough. You are enough". What happened next is a life message I want to give to you. Immediately after we sang "That is enough" (the truth) and "You are enough" (the God who speaks truth and is truth), we began to sing, "You are enough, so I am enough". When we recorded the song, it was 18 minutes long, right in this empty room back when we couldn't have everybody together for church. In that collaboration, some of the songs had to be edited way down, because the Holy Spirit broke out in such a powerful way. We had to get "Jireh" to under 10 minutes, because we couldn't put it out on the digital streaming platforms if it was one second more than 9:59. They sent me back several options. "We could edit this. We could edit that". But one option they sent was unacceptable, because it said, "That is enough" (the truth) and it said, "You are enough" to God, but in order to save time they had cut out "So I am enough". I said, "Whatever we have to cut out to put that back in, I need that back in". Because if you just say, "That is enough (the truth is enough), you are enough (God is enough)," it hasn't become personal to you yet. I want it to be personal for you. "He is enough, so I am enough". You'll never be more loved than you are right now. Clap your hands about it.