Steven Furtick - Hold Your Charge (10/30/2018)
Pastor uses a pile of chargers from his office to show that all our gifts, talents, church platforms, and opportunities are worthless without God's "charge." Referencing 1 Timothy 1:18 ("this charge I commit to you"), he explains that real outward reach depends on deep inward stability—after 10 years of success, pain and prosperity can sap motivation, so we must reconnect with our original reason and passion to stay spiritually powered up for what God wants to do.
The Illustration of Chargers – Nothing Works Without Power
Hold your charge. And you can be seated. Hold your charge. You got my box? I wanted to show you something real quick. I asked them, just as a way of illustration, to bring every charger that is in my office. Just my office. I don't know if you can see that. Let's put it up higher, I think. Backer struggling. I want you to get the scope of this. Somebody has a problem. Somebody has issues. It's just that I live on my devices. So, you know, I don't ever want to be too far from the juice because I need these things. This is like my sermons, my ideas, my brain. It's all here. And I got all these expensive iPads. I even have an expensive case. Everything is so nice. Six plus. All of this is useless without a charge.
All my notes. I wrote notes. I was at the office late, staying up in the bed, tweaking, on the car ride over early, putting that last little thing in. Try and make sure that I had enough to keep you entertained for, you know, 12 hours today. Keep you engaged, all that. But all of the things that I wrote down are useless for my purpose of having notes without a charge. Without a charge. And God's given you awesome gifts. God's given you awesome abilities. God's given you a healthy body. God's given you, you know, a lot of opportunity in the place you live. But all of that is useless without a charge.
The greatest device with the most incredible apps or the most interesting content is all useless without a charge. And we have a cool church. Looks great. We've never had more assets than we have right now. Never had a better platform than we have right now. All of that is useless, come on, without a charge. And I put the King James, go back to 18. I put the New King James because he used that word, and it's translated accurately. There it says, this charge I commit to you, son Timothy. This charge. This charge I commit to you.
Reaching Out Depends on Reaching In Deep
And it took me back to some conversations. I'm thinking increase the reach, increase the reach next 10 years. What needs to happen in here to affect what God wants to do out there. And we can only reach out as far as we've reached down deep. We can only reach as far as we have down deep. Or else, your outward reach will exceed your inward stability. And I can illustrate this all day long. That if I want to reach Wade from here, I can do it if I'm standing on something that can support me. But if I stood on this, you want to see? You can imagine. That I can't reach out if what's under me isn't solid.
So that's why we do this today. I told him to take up like the first top of my board, but he's going to take the whole board. And that's all right. That's all right. No, that's all right. Go for it. Go for it. Go all out. Do it big for Jesus Christ. But I never really thought that would be a problem in terms of motivation. I'm a motivated guy. I'm a driven guy. Amen, Mom? At everything. Selling Jolly Ranchers, I was driven. Selling Jolly Ranchers, blow pops, airheads. Jolly Ranchers, 10 cents for the little ones, 25 cents for the sticks. This was in 1992. So you can imagine what it would be adjusted for inflation. Very driven with that. Very driven trying to be a wrestler. Very driven even in my hobbies.
Early Success and the Astronaut Warning
So when the church started growing, and I got a piece of advice from Andy Stanley, I didn't really take it to heart at the time he gave it. We're about three years old, and we had grown to a certain degree that we had been recognized as one of the fastest growing churches. And when I sat down with him to ask him, you know, give me a peek into the challenges of the future, and trying to ask good questions like you do when you get around smart people, and really just not wanting to sound dumb, I asked him a question. What scares you about me? And he didn't hesitate. He said, to me, you're like an astronaut.
I said, cool. I've been called worse. Start with the same letters as astronaut, too, what I've been called. And he said, I'll be interested to see how you acclimate after having already gone to the moon so young. The astronauts came back from the moon and became alcoholics, because how do you go to the mall after you've been to the moon? So it'll be interesting to see from my vantage point, and I don't know you well enough yet to say whether you will or not, but whether or not you will be able to normalize this rocket ride and keep climbing.
I thought, that's ridiculous. You know, here I am, building the church that I always dreamed about. Boys grow up wanting to play football. I grew up wanting to be a pastor. I never have a problem with appreciating and being excited and enthusiastic about what God is doing, because number one, I've waited too long for it, because I've been wanting this for a very long time to touch people and reach people. Number two, not only have I been wanting it for a long time, but I'm enjoying it so much. I don't see how this could ever get old.
Learning the Hard Truth About Long-Term Motivation
I mean, seeing people get saved after you've given invitations where no hands have gone up, when you're just seeing dozens go up and sometimes hundreds, and people streaming to be baptized, to me it sounded like he was a grumpy old man. And I couldn't imagine that what he was saying had any relevance to where I would go. I get it now. Not that I don't love it anymore, don't worry. Not that I have started secretly taking it for granted, or that I've been slacking off and you just didn't know it, I'm not about to confess anything.
But just I get what he meant about the difficulty of maintaining motivation. I told Holly on the way out here, I said, 10 years is bad to the bone. Very few people do anything for 10 years. I mean, you can count on one hand the number of things that you would even consider doing for 10 years. I feel pretty proud of that. And yet it surprised me, as good as everything has been, and I couldn't ask for more. And I could not ask for more. That, you know, it is kind of difficult to maintain that same motivation.
Not the same motive. Because I still love helping people. And I still like to teach where I see somebody come alive, and that still means a lot to me. And I still really do think that pretty much I do what I do for the right reasons. Nobody does everything they do for the right reasons. But I would actually say that I do it for right-er reasons now than I ever have before. Because I've seen what success is if it's empty of significance. And so I'm really now more chasing after significance than just success. So I think my motives might be better than ever. But it's the motivation, the motivation part that gets tricky.
Pain and Prosperity – Two Thieves of Passion
A couple things can cause motivation to wane. First of all, pain can cause motivation to wane. And, yeah, I mean, there's some pain associated with doing ministry for 10 years. Some of it is public. Some of it is private. The second one, though, is prosperity. Prosperity. I don't mean money. I mean, when God prospers something, and it begins to grow, its progress can become the enemy of its passion. I'll explain that.
The first staff advance we ever had, we were talking about the possibility of going to Providence High School. It was me and the team listing the supplies we needed to make that move. We need cribs for the nursery. We need pipe and drape. I was in the meeting where we were listing how many feet of pipe and drape, or maybe it's measured in yards. I don't know. I haven't done it in a long time. But back then, I could have told you how many feet or sections of pipe and drape we needed to move into Providence High School.
When you're in that stage, it's grow or die. And you know it. You know it. It's grow or he's going to have to keep driving to Shelby to do physical therapy. And LB's secret supporter is only going to pay his salary for about six more months. And we'll keep it nameless. We'll keep it nameless. But the secret Santa is going to run out of cash. And Heather Bishop's going to have a nervous breakdown if I don't get somebody else to help around the office. And so, it's grow or die. And you know it.
Ten years later, it's still grow or die. But you just don't see it as such. So, I'm talking a lot to the four guys that lead the church with me for years now. And I'm saying, why do you do this? Normally, I would save this session for session three. I would start with tactical stuff and move into this. But God told me to start with this fact that, like, reaching in and remembering your reason is the key to reaching out. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent.