Steven Furtick - The Capacity Challenge (04/30/2018)
As we close out the year strong in faith and gratitude, Pastor challenges us not to settle for our perceived capacity but to stretch it through generous giving and bold steps, inspired by the Macedonian church in 2 Corinthians 8 who gave beyond their means out of joy despite poverty. The message urges us to reject self-imposed limits, trust God's unlimited power, and believe the best is yet to come as we prepare for a year-end offering to expand the church's reach.
Ending the Year in Strength and Anticipation
One of our family traditions at the church is that we end the year in a position of strength and faith, appreciation and anticipation. For the last few years at least, we have gathered around a word, just one word that kind of sets our focus and our trajectory in what we study, what we believe for, and the spirit that we end the year in. That's because we don't want to go limping into the next season, and we don't want to come out of 2016 without thanking God for all that he's done.
To us, it would be unthinkable that God would bring us through another year with all of its challenges, and this one has had some challenges on every level for many of us. So we come out of that year commemorating that God has brought us through and also believing and expecting that the best is yet to come.
A Season of Giving and Building Faith
What you'll see over the next five weeks is going to be very beautiful. We will culminate in a year-end offering on December 10th and 11th, and it's for expansion so that our church can continue to reach people and do the great work that we do in our communities and touch lives and be the body of Christ in a world that needs it.
I don't think that the world has ever needed what the church has any more than right about now. I'm going to say that until more than four people have my back. I'm going to say it until y'all aren't golf clapping. The world has never needed the life that we have more than the world needs the life that we have right now.
So this is the time for us to let our light shine before men, that they may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven. And we are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe, Jews and Gentiles, black people, white people, Democrats and Republicans. This is the hope of the world. This is the light of the world. And so, amen.
The Power of Generosity in Tough Times
So this is a time of year where we all pray and believe God and we give and we build, but it's also a time where God builds our faith. And that's what I'm so excited about is how God is going to build your faith over the next five weeks.
And I just want to start off today with a little thought from the scripture in second Corinthians chapter eight. I really want to read you verse three, but that wouldn't make any sense without some of the verses around it. So pay attention to verses one and two and four or five and six, seven. I'm going to read all of those, but really lean into verse three. That's the one. That's the one that got my attention for this week.
I want to see if it will speak to you in the same way it spoke to me. I feel like God's going to do something awesome in your life over the next 32 minutes. I really do. I feel like he's going to speak to you. Touch your neighbor. Say, this message is for me. Say, it's not even for you. It's for me. You can sit in and listen, but this is for me.
Look at what Paul says. We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed—I find that interesting, but I'm going to restrain myself from commenting on that verse. How can poverty overflow? That's what I'm trying to think. How can what you don't have create what you need? How can what seems to be a lack in your life open the door to God's limitless supply?
Their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. Verse 3. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.
It's a privilege to give. It's a privilege to be used by God. And they were begging Paul, please let us in on what God is doing. I want to see what God can do through me.
The Macedonian Example of Giving Beyond Means
And this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urge Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace.
We'll finish with verse 7. But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also.
I want to talk to you today about the capacity challenge. I have told each of my children at different points in their lives that they were my favorite. I tell them this individually. That's not the kind of thing you tell them in front of the other ones. One day they will have the revelation that they have each been told by their father that they are the favorite, but until that time, I'm just hoping that they will take my word for it.
Paul is employing a similar parental pastoral technique, telling the church at Corinth, you know you're my favorite. You excel in my love for you. He doesn't say that they excelled in their love for him, but that he excelled in their love for them.
He says, as God's favored people, I want to present to you the opportunity to make a contribution to the church at Jerusalem undergoing a severe trial. We have the opportunity now to make a dent in the darkness and to make a difference in an impoverished place. I want to give you the opportunity to see what God can do through you.
Challenging the Idea of Being Content with Capacity
I heard a speaker say something recently that on the surface it sounded very comforting, but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn't so sure if what she said was correct. What she said was, we have to learn how to be content with our capacity.
That is the kind of thing that usually would generate an amen, because it makes you feel good. The statement, you have to learn to be content with your capacity. I know what she was trying to say. I know that there are certain things that you can't do that I can do and certain things that I can't do that you can do.
I know that we each have our own gift and we each have our own way that God made us. I know that some of us are never going to be more than five foot eight and a half. Our NBA dreams were crushed before they ever had the opportunity.
I know that some of us look at your neighbor and say this might be you. Some of us sing in the shower, but we're never going to sing on a stage. Quit telling your kids they can be whatever they want to be. You are setting them up to subject people to their lack of talent.
Every once in a while you need to look at your kid and tell them, you need to choose a different path. This is not for you. I want to support you the rest of your life. You need to tap your talent. Amen. It's not going to be soccer for you.
The Difference Between Capacity and Conditioning
It's a challenge because when I heard the speaker say you need to be content with your capacity while recognizing that we all have different gifts and you can't put in something that God left out, and you can't look over here or over there to another Lane to try to time your race place.
While understanding that each of us have our own capacity, the challenge for me is knowing what my capacity really is. How do I know what my capacity is if I never challenge it? How do I know what I'm capable of if I never get beyond what I'm comfortable with?
I'm preaching. It's been four and a half minutes, and I already said a sermon's word. Buck, do you remember when I first came over to ask you to train me? I wanted to get strong like Buck, and Buck was working at a gym, and he said he would train me, so he said I had to come meet with him for a consultation.
I've known him since college, so I shoot straight with Buck. When I met with him for the consultation, he had this little computer program that showed me what my body looks like now, which I was familiar with, all too familiar with, and then what it could be if I would let him train me.
While we were doing the computer program, I started telling him a list of the exercises that I would not be doing. I came in with some preconditions. I said, you need to know I'm excited for you to train me, but I don't do legs. I don't do cardio. Come on, somebody. How many know real Christians don't need cardio? God is the strength of my life. I want you to live longer. I'm going to heaven. I'm trying to get out of here. It's crazy down here.
I told him I don't do legs. I don't do cardio. He walked me over to the pull-ups, and he said, how about chin-ups? I said, I can't do chin-ups. It's not that I won't. It's that I can't. It wasn't because I was big. I was scrawny and still couldn't pull myself up.
He said, well, what if I helped you? I'll show you. Here's what happened over the course of the next six months. I walked in and told Buck, because it was true, I can't do a chin-up, and I couldn't do a chin-up, not one chin-up, without him holding my legs and helping me up, which really is a real blow to your ego, having a grown man hold you by the ankles trying to help you up and down. Arms are shaking, and I did the chin-ups.
I am pleased to announce, and I know you'll want to applaud at every location. Today has been about seven years. Today, depending on what form I'm allowed to use and whether I go all the way down or not, I can do as many as 22 chin-ups to the glory of Buck.
The only reason I told you that, and I'm about to sucker punch you, is because when I came to him, I told him my capacity, what I can't do. But what he knew as a trainer is what you need to figure out as a Christian. It wasn't my capacity that rendered me only able to do one chin-up. It was my conditioning.
No Challenge Means No Change
And here's what I want to know. What have you convinced yourself that you can't do that really you won't do? What I have found out about church people, and I've been working with them a long time, is when they come to your church, they come and they say they want to be changed, but often they don't want to be challenged.
Guess what? No challenge, no change. Oh yeah, I'm going to preach today. My mom might be the only one saying amen by the time I shut this sermon down, but some people come to church like I came to Buck, and they already have a list of what they will and won't do.
Now, I'll come to church, and I'll take notes in the sermon, and I'll even lift my hands during certain songs, and I'll even touch my neighbor. Now, that made me feel uncomfortable at first, when you first had us touching our neighbors, because I'm normally not that kind of person, and I found it, quite frankly, a little bit awkward to touch my neighbor.
I didn't go up touching my neighbor. To be honest with you, Pastor Stephen, the first couple of times I was very resistant, but I will even touch my neighbor. But that giving thing. I don't do chin-ups. I don't do cardio. I don't do legs.
My challenge as a pastor is that you show up to listen to the Word of God, but you have already set the limitation on what part of it you will believe. And Buck just looked at me and said, how about if I helped you? How about if I help you with the first one? How about if I help you see that there is something in you that you have convinced yourself is beyond you?
To do it, I want to use an example of the church in Macedonia. Now, the church in Macedonia had essentially been in such a difficult and extremely impoverished time, possibly due to earthquakes or perhaps it was political persecution, but they were so low on resources that originally, when Paul was collecting this special offering, he was going to skip them.
He didn't want to demand of them that they give in their current state. Yet something within them insisted on participating. The Scripture says that they actually came to the apostolic authorities and said, no, we want to part in this.
What happened is they gave… I want you to see this message all weekend. I'm not sure I've exactly done a good job showing this yet. I don't want to mess it up with you too. It says, they gave according to their means and beyond their means. That's interesting to me.
It started out with them giving what they could and resulted in them giving what they couldn't. It is only when you challenge your capacity that you discover your capacity.
I don't want you to be content with your capacity. I want you to challenge your capacity. How could you be content with your capacity when you serve a God who is unlimited and says he's able.
Examples of Self-Imposed Limits in Scripture
You know who was content with his capacity? The man who sat at the gate called Beautiful. Every day he would beg for alms because he wasn't able to walk, and so he had convinced himself, I'll never be able to walk, but I could beg.
So he'd learn to beg. He'd learn to survive off of the scraps of what other people gave him. He looked at Peter and John one day, and he had run into the wrong folks because Peter and John weren't willing to give him what he expected to be given.
Peter and John were willing to reach down and show him what he could do that he never knew he had inside of him. You know, church is a place where you don't just come to be comforted. A lot of people come to church to be comforted in their dysfunction, but what if God doesn't want to comfort you in your dysfunction?
What if he wants to challenge you beyond your dysfunction and make you new and give you the power to do what you never knew you could do? And something within us is resistant to this, and when we are challenged, we perceive it as a threat.
But I was thinking while I was preparing and praying through what we needed to share in this series called Beyond, I was thinking about all the things in my life that I had convinced myself that I couldn't do that I'm now doing.
How many of you have one thing in your life that at one point you thought you could never do it, and then one day you found yourself doing it?
Overcoming Personal Limitations Through Faith
It was four months into the church, and I had never given an invitation for people to be saved. And I said I started a church for people far from God to be raised to life in Christ. And that's really what I wanted, but I didn't think I could do it.
So I made a plan that I would bring in other speakers to give the invitation because I couldn't do it. One gentleman that's been in the church with me for six years, when I shared this at the 930, he started laughing when I said I didn't think I could give an invitation because now he's seen me give dozens if not hundreds of them, and thousands of people have come to Christ, but I had convinced myself that I couldn't do it.
And then one day, actually it was one night, I was watching someone give an invitation from another church, another pastor on my computer, and Holly rolled over and looked at me. She was about to turn off the light and go to sleep.
She looked over at me and she knew I was struggling with this idea that I couldn't give an invitation, and that I wasn't designed to give an invitation. I don't know why I thought this, but I had convinced myself. It's crazy what you will convince yourself you can't do.
It's crazy what someone can say to you one time, and you can take what they said as gospel truth and believe another person more than you believe God. And something in me, I had convinced myself you can't do that.
Holly looked at me, and I was watching the other pastor do it, and she rolled over and looked at me and she said, you could do that if you would. And then she went to sleep, and she was right.
The next week I got up and I just decided to go for it, and I gave that invitation. And I think about three or four hands went up in the air, and that was better than zero hands going up in the air.
Well, I wonder if three or four would go up. Would 30 or 40 go up? Now there have been times before I have stood in arenas and seen thousands of people respond at the same time, the very thing I thought I couldn't do, the very thing that I had convinced myself.
And don't let Holly look like some kind of hero to you. She told me early in the church, she said, I'll do anything to support you, I'll do anything to help you, but I cannot get up on stage and speak. That is not my gift.
I don't do chin-ups, I don't do cardio, but you know I've seen her stand up on this stage before and preach so good. I've had people look at me in public and say, you know, we like you, but we really love Holly. Don't nod to that, ma'am. It's offensive. Sit down.
But how will you even know your capacity if you insist on your comfort? How will you know if you can ever do 22? I'm CrossFit, bro. I'm Paleo, bro. How will you do 22 if you don't do 2, 3, 4, 5, 6?
It's hilarious to me. People will come up and say, if I ever won the lottery, I would build Elevation Churches. I would be your biggest giver. Guess what? I checked your giving record. You didn't give 10 of the $100 you made. Why in the world would you give millions? It doesn't work that way.
You start with what you have. The Macedonian church didn't have much, but when they gave within their capacity, God increased their capacity.
Faith Flips the Script on Limitations
All of us come into church and come into faith with this little box of what God can do and what we can do, and we bring God our limitations. When we are met at the level of our own low expectations, we become disappointed and assume God was limited, when in fact it was our lid that kept us from seeing what God could do through us.
How good is this teaching today? It's like 1 to 10. I'm thinking this is 11, 12, 12.5, and it's time to challenge your capacity. It's time to challenge some of the things you've told yourself about yourself.
We limit ourselves in all kinds of ways. We limit ourselves with our language. You label yourself with your language. Well, I'm just not a naturally happy person. I'm just not predisposed to be an optimist.
Since when did the gospel consult your predisposition or your genetics before determining what kind of person you could be? Some of you need to make room for joy in your life. You've convinced yourself that you can't be happy, and now you are living within the very limitation that the lies created.
But if you would ever challenge your capacity and say, my mom might not have been happy, but that doesn't mean I can't be. I'm a new creation in Christ. I have a new name and a new expectation, and I believe I'll see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
We challenge our capacity. And I'm concerned. I'm concerned about what you might miss out on. I mean, what might you miss in your life if you never challenge your capacity?
Listen to this. Ecclesiastes 11.4. It's not on the screen, but I'll read it to you. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
What does that mean? It means if you wait on all of the conditions to align before you take a step of faith and commit yourself, you will never experience it, and it amazes me how many people are conditional in their faith.
I would if I could. I would if I could. I mean, I hear about the tithing thing. Sounds cool. I would if I could. That was Dad's favorite line, wasn't it? I would if I could. He loved that line. He stayed all the time, and he didn't want to do something for us. I would if I could. I promise. I would if I could.
Paul said the Macedonian church couldn't, and they did. When they did, they could. So what faith does, faith flips the script. You say, I would if I could. Faith says you could if you would.
That's my message today. Tell your neighbor you could if you would. You could forgive if you would forgive, but if you won't forgive, you can't forgive. You would have joy if you would rejoice. You could be free if you would be free. You could step out if you would step out. You could make it if you would endure. You could move forward if you would let go.
No. You will when you do. When you put it in his hands, it'll multiply in your sight. You will when you do. Will you do it?
Making Room for God's Increase
I believe God wants to increase your faith. I believe God wants to increase your joy. I believe God wants to increase your capacity.
The woman came to Elisha. She said, I don't have any oil. He said, go get some jars. She said, I don't need jars. I need oil. But he said, until you increase your capacity, God cannot release provision. You've got to get something to put it in. You've got to make room for God to move in your life.
When we started the church, Chunks took me over to the senior center and it seated 300 people. I looked at him and said, we'll be in this building. I said, this building will accommodate us for our first five years. That's how big my faith was.
Within five months, what God was doing in the church exceeded the capacity of that room. Now listen, your ability to believe will never catch up with God's capability to perform. Never.
Now unto him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. The only cap on what God can do through you is your imagination.
So I came to challenge your capacity. What you think you can be, what you think you can become, what you think you can do. And I suggest that the current limitations in your life might not be a result of your capacity, but your conditioning, your mental conditioning, your spiritual conditioning.
It wasn't that I could do one pull-up. It wasn't that one pull-up was the maximum of my ability and my future potentiality as a pull-up doer. It wasn't my capacity. It was my conditioning.
I see so many people struggling because they've never conditioned their hearts. You can have a good heart but bad habits and never live the life God called you to live.
That's why I'm so glad my mom used to give me a dime every time I went to church. She was conditioning my mind that when God gives you a dollar, you give him a dime. She was teaching me about the tithe, that the first 10% comes back to God.
For some of you, even the thought of doing the math on bringing 10% of what God has given you back to him creates a wave of nausea in your heart. Here's what you're saying. I don't do cardio. I don't do the tithe thing.
I had one guy tell me one time, do you know how much I make? He was under the impression that he made too much to tithe. Now, I've heard people say they made too little to tithe, but this was a new one.
He said, I did the math and my tithe would be more than my house payment. Do you know what I said, and I'm not always this bold and I'm not always this witty, but the Lord gave me the answer. I said, well, let's pray.
He said, pray about what? I said, let's pray that God will bring your salary down. Let's pray that God will adjust your income to the level where you'll have the faith to obey.
I came to challenge all of the complacent people. Where you started does not have to be where you stay. God wants to do immeasurably more than you ask or imagine, but it has to start somewhere.
We always want to wait until we have everything to do it. Sometimes you just have to step out and see.
Over the next five weeks, I want to talk about this, not just in regards to money, but in regards to faith. Could it be that you're not stuck, but you have stopped? Could it be that God has more in store for you, but you won't see it because you won't step into it?
It's time to look at some of the limitations in our life and declare to the limitations, you can't hold me any longer. I intend to grow beyond in accordance with the promise God has made to me.
Closing Challenge and Altar Call
Would you stand all over the church? I'm closing early today. I wonder what lists you've given God of what you can't do, what you won't do. I wonder what areas you've labeled contentment that are really complacency.
We get to a certain point in our lives and we just become okay with the way things are. Here's the problem. If you're not growing, you're dying.
The Macedonian church says to the Corinthian church… The Corinthian church, they had money, but they didn't have much faith, not in this area of giving.
Jesus said the true test of where your heart is relates to where your treasure is and where you put your treasure, your heart will follow.
I'm just going to be praying over these next five weeks that the Spirit of God, the same Spirit of God that told me I could give an invitation… Well, that was the Holy Spirit, not the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit of God that has created the very church.
I wonder what limitations and labels God wants to remove from your life. Paul wasn't even going to involve the Macedonian church, but they took initiative and said, I want in on this. I don't want to just sit back comfortably.
Many of you saw a video earlier in the worship experience about a church in 2007 who wanted to reach more people. We didn't have a building, but we had faith to believe that when you go, God will show. God doesn't show until you go. It doesn't grow. It doesn't grow. Unless you go… I can't think of any other ways to say it than that I've reached my capacity.
I wonder what that church would say to this church, the church that gave when there was no building, but there was a mission, there was a vision. I wonder what that church would say to the man or the woman who… You know who you are. You sneak in the back during the second song. You slip out right about this time when I go to pray, and everybody bows their heads. You beat that parking out of here. I know. I know. I know.
Could it be that God wants more than for you to slip in and slip out, and nobody even know that you showed up? Challenge your capacity. Maybe God didn't just bring you here to be a spectator, and so on December 10th and 11th, we're all going to bring something.
Many of us need to begin to tithe. Many of us are going to give an offering above and beyond the tithe, because that's where it really gets good, when you get past that point that you think you can do and you see God step in.
I want to pray today not about that offering in a couple of weeks. I want to pray about what you are telling yourself about your situation right now. Some of you have measured your capacity by your conditions, and you have assumed that where you are is all there is, and you have become comfortable.
Here's one thing God cannot do. God cannot increase your capacity and leave you in your comfort. For you to grow, you've got to stretch.
I wonder, would you be willing, as one year ends and another year dawns, before it unfolds, to offer yourself to God to say, I don't want to stay stuck. God, I believe you still are able to do above and beyond what my finite mind can comprehend, and I offer myself to you.
Spirit of God, I thank you for the word you've spoken today. I feel it has resounded in the hearts of these people. Not only that, I believe you are interpreting what I've said into exactly what they need to hear.
I believe right now you are speaking to people in their specific situations about the limitations, lies, and labels they have believed, and I believe you are calling them beyond.
I believe we will see in this season steps of faith that will result in changed lives, steps of faith that will result in enlarged hearts, and ultimately that your kingdom would be enlarged.
So, God, right now we reject every reason that we've been given that we cannot become what you have called us. We reject every reason that we've given ourselves, every excuse that we've made. We've stayed here long enough, and we will no longer look to our limitations to define our destiny.
We look to you, and we believe you are able to do what you say you can do. And Father, I thank you that in this season, that as we challenge our capacity and trust you by faith, that there will be many who will come to know you as a result of the generosity of these people, heads bowed, eyes closed.
If you are standing today in need of a relationship with God, perhaps you came into this place today not needing to believe in yourself more, but maybe you've come to the end of yourself and now you realize that you need the grace of God.
I want to invite you into a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ. The Scripture says that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, and what that means is there's no ladder that you have to climb or no height of morality that you must reach to be saved, but the grace of God is available to all who will receive it.
I want to offer you the opportunity today. Perhaps you've been running from God. Maybe at one time you had a relationship with him, but the position you're in today, you're like that Bible character who woke up and found himself in an unfamiliar place, and he realized the only place he could go was the place he should have been all along.
He went back to his father's house, and he was embraced. I want to know today, if you're returning to God or coming to God for the first time, that the grace of God is waiting to embrace you.
So if this is your homecoming today, and you're in a place of spiritual poverty, and you're ready to say, God, here is my life, I receive your grace, I want you to pray with me right now at every location. We're going to pray this out loud as a church family for the benefit of those who are coming to God.
Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I come to you because I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Right now I give you my life. I turn from my sin. I will follow you forward all the days of my life. God, this is my new beginning, head still bowed, eyes still closed.
If you just prayed that on the count of three, shoot your hand up in the air, I want to celebrate with you. One, two, three, on every location. God bless you. God bless you. Look at God. God bless you. Come on, church. Celebrate it. Celebrate it. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you for new beginnings.
We praise God for a new start, for a firm foundation. I believe God is doing something awesome in our midst. I believe what's ahead of us is greater than what's behind us. If you believe there's a new day dawning for the people of God and you want to be a part of it, lift your hands in his presence. God bless you for new beginnings. God bless you for new beginnings.