Steven Furtick - What To Do When It Seems Like God Isn't Working? (10/30/2018)
In this message on the parable of the growing seed from Mark 4, Pastor Steven Furtick challenges believers to trust God's hidden timetable when dreams and purposes seem buried in uncertainty. The real test of faith is enduring the invisible "soil stage" where growth happens unseen, protected and provisioned by God until the harvest comes in His perfect timing.
The Challenge of God's Hidden Schedule
Our challenge as people of faith is to synchronize our faith with God's schedule. That's the challenge. It would not be a challenge if God would mark harvest season on your schedule. It would not be a challenge. It wouldn't be a challenge because you could keep yourself occupied until that point. Don't even worry about it. You'll be married by 27. Well, then I'm good. I'll just enjoy myself till 27, and then my man will show up. Is it October of 2020? I want God. Because, Lord, we could be ready with the sickle if you would let us see the schedule.
Talk to me, people of faith. Talk to me, men and women of God of great faith. I could be ready with the sickle if you would synchronize. In our office, my schedule is synchronized, and they synchronize my schedule to Holly's schedule to my assistant's schedule. It's helpful because now she can know where I'm going to be and what I've got to do, and she can keep a surveillance system on my schedule to kind of know what she needs to pray about me with and when I'm going to be in a bad mood because I had to meet with Chunks. I'm just kidding. Chunks is amazing. But she's got all that on her schedule, and it helps us to be in the same flow when we're on the same schedule.
So let me ask you a question. Listen, how do you relate to a God in patience who won't show you the schedule he's working off of? Because this Scripture says that the man scatters the seed on the ground, and the seed sprouts and grows. But watch this. The real test of the seed is, can it survive the soil?
The Invisible Soil Stage of Faith
So he says that the seed is scattered, and you can see that, right? You can see the beginning of the thing. It might not be easy. I've got a long way to go, and my muscles might be sore at the end of the day from the sowing process, but at least I can see that the ground is being broken up. I can see it. I can see it. And, well, the harvest season is a season of joy because I'm going to be eating from the field that I'm working in real soon.
But he says that the seed sprouts and grows because of the work of the soil. I think that's where most dreams die, in the soil. I think that's where most marriages fail, in the soil. I think that's where most good intentions give way to apathy, in the soil. I think it's somewhere between changing diapers and sending them off to college that most parents wonder, did anything that I taught you take root in your heart?
I mean, it's one thing to be the farmer in this passage. He had to sow the seed, and he had to reap the seed. But what about the times where you're not the farmer, but you're the seed? Can I preach this like God gave it to me? I hope you'll understand that sometimes you're going to feel like that seed that goes down into the soil. And the soil is a very strange place to be, because when the seed is in the soil, it cannot see the intention of the one who sowed it.
When the seed is in the soil, there are times where it feels like it's not going to get enough oxygen or water to make it. I know that I'm personifying an inanimate object, but, you know, your life is a seed. Your dream is a seed. Your vision is a seed. Your purpose is a seed. We talked about it last week. It seems insignificant, and it takes a lot of faith to see the purpose in what seems insignificant.
Faith in the Invisible Growth Process
But you know what takes even more faith? To believe that the purpose is still working when the process is invisible in the soil stage. Yes, it takes faith to sow, and yes, it takes faith to reap, but what takes the most faith is to be buried in the soil of uncertainty and keep growing. But that's exactly what you've got to do. The kingdom of heaven is like a seed. The man scattered it, and it went in the soil.
Every stage of faith I find myself to be pretty proficient in at this point in walking with God. I don't mind sowing. I don't mind working. I don't mind writing a song. I don't mind writing a sermon. I don't mind ministering to somebody. I don't mind sowing. I certainly don't mind reaping. I don't mind reaping a bit. The problem is I don't know what tool to use in the soil stage. Talk to me. Talk to me.
When I'm sowing, I need belief, then it can become something. When I'm reaping, I need the strength to go out and act on what I've initiated. There are some stages of faith where there's not a thing you can do. It just takes time. I'm believing for something I can't see anymore.
Sowing a seed means releasing it. That means you've got to let it go for a while. You've got to just step back. And the seed is in the soil to die. So the farmer is telling you, yeah, man, I scattered the seed, and I woke up, and I saw the ear, and I saw the head, and I took my sickle, and I had a sandwich. It was the most amazing thing to see this going.
Can I speak? I went down in that soil, and I was down in that soil so long I thought I was about to die in the soil. I was gasping for breath in the soil. I didn't know if I had been forgotten. I felt like the farmer didn't love me anymore. I didn't even know what I was going through. Then all of a sudden I started to change shapes, and everything was unfamiliar, but I was still down in the soil. Didn't even know if anybody remembered they had put me there.
Protection and Provision in the Soil
Can I hear somebody shout? Because you know what it feels like to be a seed. Who am I preaching to? I know this message is personal for somebody. And the seed is in the ground, but the Scripture says, don't get it twisted. The seed is still on schedule.
This is where I want to encourage you. If you feel like a seed that is in the ground of uncertainty, the ground of disappointment, the ground of doubt… I know God's going to fill in the blank for what you need because you know what your seed is. And if I ask you, you wouldn't say the real thing that's working in your life. You would say the churchally acceptable thing, the spiritually acceptable thing. You wouldn't talk about the real dirt that your life is in. You wouldn't talk about the real process that you're trapped in. You wouldn't talk about the real thought patterns. So you just substitute whatever you need for seed, okay? And God knows what it is, and you know what it is.
And I want to preach about that seed because one thing I found out what about the seed is that the seed is protected. I need you to know when you're in a soil season in your life, in a season where you can't see anything happening, see, God knew that the seed would need to survive a period of vulnerability. So every seed is wrapped in a hard protective coating.
The seed is wrapped in a hard protective coating so that until it produces what it's meant to produce, nothing's going to be able to get what's inside of the seed. I see Moses in a basket trying to kill off all the Hebrew children, but until the seed was ready to be released, the seed was in a basket floating down a river to protect it. Touch three people, say, I'm protected. I need you to know that I'm protected. I need you to know that God has covered me. I need you to know that God has wrapped me up. I need you to know that God didn't just put purpose inside of me. He put protection all around me. And until it comes to pass, I need you to know I'm protected.
God's Covering in Dark Seasons
I'm protected. The devil can try to snatch me up, but I'm protected. The rain can fall really hard or I can go through a dry season, but I'm protected. I'm coated. I got something on the outside protecting what's on the inside. God's got me covered and it shall come forth because I'm protected. I'm protected. God said to tell somebody, your child is protected. You're praying about them. But while you're praying about them, you need to know that God already wrapped them.
There are some things in life you can't do for your child, but how many are grateful? When the seed leaves your hands, it never leaves God's eye. His eye is on the sparrow and he's got your babies. It's protected. It's protected.
And the seed is in a stage right now where it doesn't have the roots to be able to get the nutrients from the soil and it doesn't have the ability through photosynthesis. You would think I was an agricultural, horticultural expert preaching this sermon. I got excited about the seed and I discovered that the seed has its own food supply until the time that it is able to derive the nutrients from another source.
Internal Provision Until Breakthrough
What am I trying to say? The seed has not only protection, but the seed has provision. Help me preach. Everything I need for life and godliness is inside of me. And what I can't get from others in the soil stage, God will give it to me from the inside. I'll date myself, love myself, help myself, bless myself, encourage myself. The stuff that the seed needs is already in the seed, so don't even worry about it, because it's protected.
Protection and provision. If you're looking at somebody who's shouting right now and you don't understand their enthusiasm, the reason they're shouting is they've got some stuff in the ground. They've got some dreams in the ground. They've got some potential in the ground. When it rains, farmers don't get annoyed. When it rains, everybody who has something in the ground reaches up to receive.
I hear a sound of an abundance of rain in the house today. Come on, you better stretch and catch this rain. You better catch this rain. So the protection is on the seed. The provision is in the seed. And it's just a matter of time before the potential is released from the seed.
And I believe it isn't thehaire in the third time they find out. Mm hmm. All right, all right. And listen when there's a death one.