Elevation with Steven Furtick - The Mystery Of Potential

Episode Date: August 26, 2019

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This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

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You hear me, young people? And let us know where you're watching from, Ecclesiastes, Chapter 11. I want to continue a conversation that I began with our Matthews campus on Thursday night. This message is called the mystery of potential. How many know God has put things inside of you that your eyes haven't seen yet? God put things inside of you that your parents didn't even know about. And so I want to speak on those things today from Ecclesiastes 11, verse 5 and 6, says you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child.

So you do not know the work of God who makes everything. Then the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know. He said that in both verses, it must be important. Solomon, the wisest man in the world speaking about human ignorance, that even after all he learned, accomplished, and every success that he achieved, his common theme in this book is, you do not know. It's a mystery. And he said that one might prosper that you count out. And so since you don't know, keep sowing.

Since you don't know, keep sowing. For you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both, somebody say both, whether both alike will be good. Lord, this is your word. And so we do not ask you to make it true. It already is. get it in our hearts past all the falsehood, distractions, and deceit, so it can become flesh in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

In using these two different analogies for the revelation of potential, the commonality is that there is a process by which anything must be fertilized, whether it's human life or whether it's a seed that will become a seed that will become a sustenance. It must undergo a process of fertilization. And I don't think I need to have the birds and the bees talk if your parents didn't do that by now. It's not my job. But he talks about how in the womb of a woman there is a process and a part of human pregnancy that can be explained or that can be anatomically identified. And then there is another part which he calls the spirit entering the bones or the breath, the ruah. And he brings it. It's the same word.

When you hear Spirit of God, you can also think breath of God. Both are correct. And it's the same word because it's the same process. Anything God breathes on comes to life. And if there's anything you need God to breathe on today, you are in his presence and anything is possible. As a matter of fact, the way this whole project called you got started was God breathed on something dirty.

He took the dust of the earth and when he breathed on it, he breathed into man the breath of life. So there is the bones and there is the breath. One of those can be explained and perceived with human eyes. And if there's anybody in overflow, I don't know if there is. We got two premium seats on the landing at Valentine. So bring in two people who traveled and had to sit in overflow and give them those seats. If it's a husband and a wife, or if it's two single people that look like they like each other out there in overflow, put them in those two seats. Let's see what God can do. Because when God brings things together and breathes into things, the limit of God's potential is only your belief, because God is so big and so great.

And the only thing that ever limits him is what you believe he can do. And you know, a lot of people will say, well, nothing limits God. He's God. And of course, he is God. But God breathes into things. And when God breathes into things, it's so important that we receive it when he breathes. Amen. How many of you are firstborn children?

Firstborn children, come on, let's give it up for ourselves. Come on, give it up for me and you. Because we were our parents experiment. I think when you're having a child, and I don't have a lot of parenting advice, but this is one thing I do think is pretty good, and I may write a book about this, when you have your first child, you know how you create a college fund for your... Yeah, you create a college fund for your kids, but for your firstborn, you need to also, create a therapy fund. Just go ahead and start it. Put it in a index fund or something.

Because you are learning things on them that the other ones, I mean it's kind of rough with your firstborn because you put all your hopes and dreams and fantasies and projections of parenthood on that poor child. I never forget when Elijah, you know, he's coming home from the hospital. I'm driving 17 miles an hour on 4-8. 85, just, you know, and by the time Abby came, who was the third, you know, I just sent her home in an Uber. It's just like, because I got this now. But on the first one, you're learning everything, so you're like totally overprotective, and sometimes you're overly ambitious. And so anything the kid does, you're like, oh, my God, did you, he just played the piano,

like walks by and bangs it, and you think he's Mozart. Because you see potential sometimes it's not there. When Elijah first started playing baseball, I remember when he was on this coach pitch team, and the coach pitch league is kind of deceptive because the pitcher is working with you, which is the opposite of real baseball, but the pitcher wants you to hit it. And I was trying to figure out how to help Elijah with baseball, because I play baseball a little bit. My dad coached me, but I don't know a lot about it. And I found out one of the grandparents there was a former scout for minor league baseball. And he walked over to me one game in the middle of the season and goes, hey, that's your boy out there? I said, yeah.

He said, he's pretty good. He's got potential. And I was like, for real? Like, how much potential? You know, like you think he's like a future? And I couldn't even get the whole sentence out. And he interrupted me and said something to me. I believe God wants to say to some of you.

He said, it's too soon to tell. In other words, I was just trying to be polite and say that your kid has a good swing and encourage you to keep it up as a dad. It's way too soon to tell whether or not you should start looking for an agent. He's just got a good swing. But don't we always want to know so soon how we post stuff? and if people don't like it in two minutes, we feel the pressure to delete it because maybe the picture wasn't as good as I thought it was.

It's the worst thing in the world, how we live in this age of instant validation, where we just expect every opinion to be accepted just quickly. And if it doesn't happen quickly, if it doesn't happen just like that, if it doesn't just turn around by Friday, if within our first week back at the gym in January, it doesn't melt off, We will cancel the gym membership and talk about the fact that the machines weren't right. But it wasn't the machines. It was our consistency and our deep down need to see it happen so quick. The man said, it's too soon to tell.

And Solomon said the same thing. He said there are some things in your life that are like the bones that are waiting on the breath. And you don't know the way God is going to work in your situation. And it is always too soon for you to quit on something that God put on the inside of you. If he gave you a dream, it's too soon to walk away from it just because it doesn't manifest in three dimensions by the time you get done praying about it. So that's what I want to talk to you about today, the mystery of potential and how it's too soon to tell. and how the only way that potential can be revealed is for process to be embraced. You all with me today?

I never know how a sermon is going to affect people. And even after I preach it, it's difficult for me to discern the impact of it. I guess I could go off of a reaction base, but I went to a Panthers game one time. and a lady was in front of me yelling the whole time, but she left in the fourth quarter because sometimes the loudest are the first to leave. So I don't know how hard a sermon hit by how loud somebody gets about it. Feel free to be loud. I mean, I like it loud.

I really do like it loud. I'm a punk rocker at heart, but I don't know by how loud is how deep it goes. It's whether or not you get nicer to your wife after I preach that shows how good my message got on love. I thought I would have a few. A few amends from the higher register of the octave range. But you don't know. You really don't know.

And the idea of human potential and a limitless God comes together in this text in a way that you can see several times throughout Scripture and several examples. And whether we would talk about Peter, who had to cast his net on the other side of the boat after he spent all night catching nothing, the potential. was there, but until the command was given from Jesus at the place of his frustration. I called this message the mystery of potential, because I thought it sounded good. I could have just as easily called it the misery of potential, and we could preach about that too.

Because when you're young and people tell you you have potential, it's a compliment, and it makes you feel hopeful. By the time you're 65 and people are saying, you know, you have a lot of potential. it's depressing because by the time I'm 65 I don't need potential I need kinetic potential doesn't pay the bills

potential doesn't put a ring on my finger oh you're going to be a good wife well I'd like to be a good wife three years ago if I'm a good wife where's my good man I come to church and I walk past all these men but they're all passive bunch of Christian men will never give anybody a hug praying for a wife instead of asking one out to Starbucks

I can't do anything in potential that seemed like that one hit You know, you can never know the potential of a seed by looking at it. A little seed. You know, you pray over a seed. You still won't know its potential. You can study the history of seeds. And although you might intellectually grasp its potential or comprehend what it contains, the only

way to really know the potential is to plant it. And could it be that in your life and in my life right now, there is potential that has not been planted. And so while we are frustrated about what our lives are missing, it's already in us and an immature form. And until we sow it, we will never know what it could have been. Now, I believe all over this house today, there are starving seeds. There are things, gifts, abilities, thoughts, ideas, wisdom that God has put in us, but it will not be shown until it is sown. Can I preach like I'm Dr. Seuss?

My rhymes are on point so far. You will never see it until you sow it. And so while we're praying, God, show me my potential, and we're taking personality test, which are fine. God bless Myers-Briggs, whoever he is. God bless the Enneagram. Holly reads all that stuff to me. She tells me I'm a one, and she's a nine, and the one in the nine go together, and my one and her nine make a perfect five or something like that.

I don't know how it works. I like all of it. But the truth of the matter is you can't bubble in a test and find out what's in you. You can't go on a journey of self-discovery and find out what's in you. Because watch this. Until the seed is sacrificed, until it goes into something bigger called the ground, until it breaks open to accomplish something, you'll never know what was in it. And when you live a selfish life, a safe life, and you don't sow it, you will never know.

The enemy has got some of us so selfish, so discouraged, that our seeds are starving. Not for the lack of potential, but for the lack of process. So, like, think about Elisha plowing in a field in First King's 19, just as an illustration. And he's plowing, verse 19, he's plowing in a field with yoke of oxen. There it is. He's plowing with 12 yoke of oxen in front of him. He's not posing in front of the plow. He's not posting on my plow.

He's just plowing. He's just plowing. And a lot of times we will confuse the fact that we don't have good ground in our life. That is good opportunities. But maybe it's good ground and it's just unplowed. And I wonder sometimes the things that we go through that are hard for us is not the enemy attacking us, but it is God plowing us to make the ground ready, to make our hearts ready, to make our wills ready. So we won't be arrogant and prideful, but we will have a plowed heart.

And I don't know who this is for, but a lot of the things that you've been praying away, God is plowing into. And it's God's plowing process. Just like Elisha had been plowing the ground, I believe God had been plowing Elijah, and I believe he's been plowing some of us and getting our ground ready and getting our hearts ready. Because sometimes if God visits us too soon with an opportunity, that life has not prepared us for. We will not only ruin the opportunity,

but we will hurt others in the process. So I don't want my heart to be unplowed ground. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Because this message is not just about plowing, it's about planting. And really what I wanted to say is, you have no idea what your encouragement can be until you plant it.

What your smile can be until you planted. And planted, for me, is theoretical. For a farmer, it's practical. I read it as a metaphor, planted. But really this process, Solomon is describing in an agricultural society, would hit home like it would be like saying, like an iPad. There were so many more, you've got to understand, the Bible was written in the context of its culture. And so it would be like Sam, it would be like this.

I was sitting next to a man on an airplane, and this actually happened, okay? True story. And I just got my iPad. This was years ago. And I was so proud to be one of the first people with an iPad. And it had just come out. And we sent an intern to the Apple store to get one of the first iPads, okay? And I let them buy themselves something too, okay?

So I hooked them up. But the thing is, I wanted to have one of the first iPads, because Levi Lusco was telling me, you got to get an iPad, bro. He's like totally, you know my friend Levi, he's been here to preach. You've got to try Saracha, bro. You got to try sarahua, bro. You got to get this new bracelet for your workout, bro. You got to get an iPad.

He's always telling me to get something I don't already have. I always make me feel like my life is missing something. He's some kind of marketer from the pit of hell by loving. You got to get an iPad, bro. It's beautiful. It's just the technology is beautiful. So I have my iPad. And the guy next to me had an iPad too.

And so we felt like a connection. And he goes, how you like your iPad? I was like, I don't know. I just got it. He goes, I've had mine a week. I was like, they just came out yesterday. He said, I got connections at Apple. I was like, oh, I got an intern.

Send them to the Apple store. He goes, so what are you planning to use it for? I was like, well, I'm a preacher. So I'm going to preach my sermons from it. He goes, what else? I was like, I don't know what else. That's it, really, I guess. And he got this look on his face like disgusted, like disappointment in somebody that a minute ago he felt an affinity for, but now he just felt nothing but deep total sadness and loss at what could have been a great relationship.

He goes, you are using that device so far beneath its potential. We didn't speak the rest of the flight. I didn't know what to say back. I'm so sorry, man. I just don't. You know, every time I open the iPad, I think about what it could do. And I think about what's on it and what it could connect to through the Wi-Fi connection. I think about everything that it could do that it's not doing.

I think about the potential of it. I think about everything that's in some of the people that I get to preach to, everything that is in you that you haven't accessed, and everything that's in you that got buried, that got covered up. But the thing about dirt is it can also bring out potential. The thing about a seed when it goes into the ground, remember it doesn't go into the ground to die. It goes into the ground to multiply.

Some of y'all know what I'm talking about because you had a failure in your life and people wrote you off and people walked away and it seemed like it was over. But you gave it a little time and you gave it a little water and you gave it a little trust and you kept coming to church and somehow some way. God turned pain into potential. Now if you ever fished all night and caught nothing but you cast your nets on the other side and hauled in a bucket full, I need you to shout right now. Now that there's so much more. It's the mystery. Elisha is plowing, and Elijah says something to him. He says, well, actually, he says it with an action, not with words.

He throws his cloak on Elisha, which represents the potential for miracles. And when Elijah's cloak, remember, he's the great miracle worker who stood before Ahab. who ran from Jezebel and who found Elisha plowing in a field and he throws his mantle the symbol of potential. I don't know who this is for, but God is throwing something your way today. I wish I could throw this microphone right at your forehead so you would just get it. But it's expensive. And he doesn't say much about it. It's very mysterious.

It's very mysterious. When Elisha receives that mantle, he doesn't immediately perform a miracle. In fact, let me tell you how mysterious potential is. We don't hear Elisha's name again until Second Kings, Chapter 2, which many tell us, was 13 years after his potential was first suggested. but his potential was not revealed until he would take that same cloak and strike the water with it after a long season of obedience. Y'all got to know where to shout. That's where to shout because that's where potential is proven when it is planted. Planted. It's on the device, but it can only be retrieved from the device through a process of connection. And this process of connection in seed speak revolves around planting, which makes me

think, first of all, of the sower. Because when the sower plants a seed, remember, farmers don't have funeral over seed that they scatter. Instead, they have expectation to see it again in a greater form later. So you're never really saying goodbye to anything that you give to God. You're really just opening your hands, which means that before you can receive anything, you have to release something. For those of you who like to take notes, you can write down the word release, because process is revealed in potential, and potential is revealed in process. And it comes a little bit along and along, but the first step is to release. The sower must release the seed to see what it could be.

I'm just wondering, is there something that you need to release in your life today? And could it be possible that you are looking at something, praying about something, and trying to manipulate something that God wants you to release

so that it can mature and manifest? And this is for all of us who are control freaks. Because until we release it, It can't grow. Look at your neighbors. Say, let it go. Tell them, watch it grow. Let it go and watch it grow.

But it can't grow if you're trying to control it. Right? It's starving seeds and then it's strangled seeds. Holding on so tight. Oh, it's my time. It's my money. I feel so sorry for people who aren't generous. I feel so bad for you.

because all stinginess does is strangle the seed that God has given you. And if you could let it go, who knows what it could be? What if I just preached this sermon in the mirror? It would bounce right back. But if I put it out through that camera, it might hit Botswana and help somebody in their life. Or Bamberg, South Carolina. I don't care. It's God's business where it goes.

It's my job to sow it. And you gotta sew it in the morning, sew it in the evening, sew it when you feel it, sew it when you feel it, sew it when they cheer for you, so it when they criticize you. So it when they hold it and sew it when they want to string you up. So it when they know it, sew it when they don't. Sew it, sew it. But just like you can't live your life not accessing everything that's on the device and expect to be a reflection of the image of God, you also, and I want to say this is so important, because when we talk about potential, a lot of people start trying to produce something that God did not put inside of them. We got oranges wanting to be apples.

Apples wanting to be cumquots. You're not a cumquot. You are a delicious red apple. You're going to be a big, juicy red apple. But you will not be a cumquot. Yo, my barber told me a story the other day. His name is Fly Tie. That's who you want to cut your hair.

He put fly in his name. I trust him with my fate because he's fly tied. He's been cutting my hair now. He attends our university city location. I asked his permission to tell you this because I didn't want to embarrass him. But y'all, he told me the dumbest story ever the other day. And he was cut my hair, and he has this bad habit of stopping cut my hair while he tells me a 15-minute story. And he needs to go to multitask school because I got things to do.

He's cutting the clippers off and talking. But it's fine because I usually like his stories and his anecdotes, but this one was dumb. Listen this. He told me a story, and I don't remember exactly what the year was, but years ago he was hosting because he's not only a barber, he's a host, a radio personality. He works for the Hornets. He's very involved in the community. He speaks to little kids.

Every time he comes to cut my hair, he's recently spoken to a group of kids that same day. Annie DJed a wedding, Annie cured cancer. And he fought a fire on Providence Road, and he's just everywhere all the time. But he was sitting there telling me the story, because we're talking about potential and what God has put in you. And we talk about this a lot. We talk about God. And I guess because my dad was a barber, I just have a love for barbers. And so Clippers start going.

We start talking. And we were talking about it. And he told me a story that Jay-Z came to a concert. I guess it was like in the 90s before he was as popular as he is now. and the concert was half full, and Fly Thai was one of the hosts for the concerts. And he said he observed Jay-Z during the concert talking to one of the members of a female group who was also on the concert bill called Destiny's Child. And he said that the concert was half full because Jay-Z was just on the come-up,

which would lead him to be, some would say, the greatest rapper of all time. depending on how you quantify that, it's a very strong case. But he said, I've since thought back to that day because Jay-Z and Beyonce were back there, and I was watching their relationship develop before my eyes, and he's my same age. And I think often to myself, look what he's done with his life, and what have I done with mine? Now, of all the people in the Milky Way, for you to choose to use, as a standard of how successful your life is. You just had to go get J-Z.

J-Z. Not even Lil Wayne. J-Z. You had to pick the most influential rapper of our lifetime. So here's what he did. He just wanted to feel small, so bad, that rather than focusing on, Look how gracious God has been to me. I asked his permission to say this, and he said I could.

I'm going to preach to him through the camera. He's listening right now. Instead of picking, look where I could have been if it hadn't been for the grace of God. Look how he raised me up. Look how he kept me alive. Look how I wasn't a statistic. Look how he's using me in ways I never could have imagined. Look how he put a gift in me.

Look how he's been good to me. You are not Jay-Z You are not supposed to be So tell your neighbor You are not Beyonce Tell them but I am Destiny's child

And what God put inside of me I said what God put inside of me Is looking for a place to grow I'm going back to my school like a seed ready to grow and don't judge the significance by the size of the seed. I'm fly freaking tie, clippers in one hand and microphone in the other. I got potential, but I got to let go of what I think I'm supposed to be to become what I am. You know how sometimes you get this parental guilt, this feeling of like I watched a football game with the boys

last night and I came to tears because there was a commercial of a man taking his son fishing. I was choked up. I said, I'm so sorry, boys, I never took you fishing because I'm thinking that's where the lessons of life need to happen on the boat. We're like, it's okay, Dad. It's fine. It's watch football. But it can just always make you feel like, well, I need to be a dad like that. The truth of the matter is, Holly was telling me how her dad used to take her out on the boat all the time. I was like, do you ever feel like you married the wrong guy that I've never taken our family out on a boat once?

I don't even know how to drive a boat. She said, no, I hated it on the boat. My dad liked the boat. See how I did it though? I got to take my kids out on a boat to be a good dad. It's just a small thing I understand. It could be much deeper than that. You can start thinking when you are supposed to have a family by.

Anything. I am supposed to be further away. along in my career. But when you let go of what is supposed to be in your mind, when you let that go, and the sower has to release the seed, I feel God calling some of us to release some things, even to release bitterness. Some of us, if we would release that root of bitterness, we would reap a harvest of peace. It has to be released. God is calling me to release some things. And it has to be released. God is calling me to release some things, release some expectations, and release my white-knuckled enneagram-one perfectionist ideas. Did I get it right? One? Yeah. I don't know. All I do know is this.

Sometimes I cut off my circulation and strangled the seed of opportunities because of my need to control it. So when you throw your net on the other side, you know, I love a lot of about sewing, you don't have to be in a good mood to do it. The seed doesn't care if you've carefully dropped it or threw it and walked off. It's still where it's supposed to be. Peter said, we've worked hard all night and caught nothing, but because you say so, and he got blessed while he was rolling his eyes because he had the faith to do what Jesus said. You've got to sow it when you feel it and sew it when you don't. Now, from the seed's perspective, being planted as a different experience.

Because the sower has to release, but the seed has to remain. And both are so important. So important. I didn't mean to do that, I promise. So important to remain. 13 years before he knew what that mantle meant. 13 years of being planted. Correctively speaking, why does Peter get so much airtime in pulpits for stepping out of a boat?

That same thing that made him step out of the boat made him run when Jesus went to the cross. How about John, who stayed in the boat, and when Jesus was on the cross, stayed by his side to take care of his mom? But we don't celebrate those who stay. We don't celebrate those who just do it. We make a tagline out of it for a shoe company, but we don't celebrate it. In other words, the seed has to remain in order to reproduce. Now, I wonder why we think that God can grow what he wants to grow in our life when we keep uprooting what he's doing every time it gets uncomfortable.

And the soil is so important to the growth of the seed that you can have a really good seed and it can become nothing, not because it was nothing, because it was surrounded by something that wasn't worthy of its presence. You can put a really good seed. This is the power of environment that what is around the seed determines whether what is within the seed comes out of the seed. And I don't know if this is pertinent to anyone in the area of who you spend the dominant amount of your time hanging out with. But what's around it eventually determines whether what is within it comes out of it.

You can have really good stuff in you. But if everything around you is just dark and noise and everything around you, if there's no light to it, if there's no hydration to it, it won't take root. And so if it doesn't take root, it can't come out. As a matter of fact, God sent me to speak to some people saying, there's nothing wrong with the seed. There's nothing wrong with who you are. It's just what you've surrounded yourself with. In your mind, in your heart, on your feed, in your time, on your schedule.

I'm looking for plowed ground. I want other people in my life who can help bring out. I want to join an e-group. Oh, watch that plug. This dude's a professional. I want to get around some good soil because I want the good stuff that is in me to come forth out of me How many of y'all if you could put your kids around the right people you just know your kid would be a doctor I know they would it's the environment, but watch this

Why do we think God can bless us to grow when every time the soil gets uncomfortable? We go to another church You feel that tension shift? I did When I see people in this church who have been here ten years and When I see people in this church who would be planted, I realize that the potential of what is in someone can only really manifest when it has time to mature. And when we walk around, you know, oh, I don't like that. You know, I'm going over here to a new church. I don't like the way they talk to me.

I'm going over here. I'm going to make some new friends. You know what? You are taking the old you to the new friendships. And so whatever. y'all don't like this. Y'all like this at all. I'm going to sew this seat anyway.

I'm going to hit some good ground with this seat. It's so important that you stay sometimes. And I know sometimes you've got to find better ground, but sometimes it's our inability to just let what God is doing in our life work. He uses some uncomfortable things. But if you never stay, you'll never see it. If you just keep moving to a new city every time you make a mess out of your relationships, so you can start over with the same seed that you carried in the last relationship,

you will never see the potential of it. So I got to stay. I got to stay in faith. I got to remain in the vine so I can bear my fruit. So I can become what I already am in potential form. And only God knows how long it's going to take. for me to become all that I am. When John was writing about it in his epistle, he said,

See what great love the Father is lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. Now watch this in verse two. Beloved, we are God's children. Now. Now. When? I am forgiven. I am full of the Holy Spirit.

I am well able. I am strong and courageous. That's in me now. But what we shall be has not yet appeared. And it can only appear if it remains. It will be revealed if you remain. Thirteen years? For potential to be revealed?

Most of us won't do it for 13 days. 13 years to see what it is. 13 years of being planted. And then he did. Watch this. Elijah did twice as many miracles as Elijah did. You don't know what's in you yet. You don't know what the broken bread of your disappointed expectations is going to multiply into if you leave it in God's hands a little while. You don't know yet.

The enemy can't remove anything that God put in you, but if he can keep you from sewing it, you will never know what it would have been. If he can get you to quit, give up, end your life, stop hoping, turn into a cynic. If he can get you to stop sewing, I'm preaching to people who have stopped sewing because of what you didn't know. Because you didn't know. They quit too soon. It's too soon to tell what it's going to be. It's too soon to tell if it made a difference.

It's too soon to tell whether or not it was worth it. It's too soon for you to start. Every time you take the seed and pluck it out to look at it and judge it, you interrupt the process by which it grows. So stop judging it and keep watering it and keep sowing and keep trusting. Because Elisha goes on not only to part the waters of the Jordan River, which was his first miracle, But then he gets to Jericho and they need a healing in the water. And so he heals the poisonous waters, his second miracle. And then he calls she-bearers out of the woods to kill some little boys because he was still working this thing out because potential can be tricky at first.

And so you can misuse your power in an earlier stage of your life. Never forget that. The thing that makes you powerful makes you vulnerable. An unguarded strength is a double weakness. It's all about potential. But everything he did was about potential. From the moment he was plowing, it was about potential. From the moment that he told the kings,

hey, dig the ditches in preparation for the rain that is not coming from a natural source. But God is going to send it when you do a natural thing. It was preparation for the potential of the power of God. Like the woman's oil. See, you never judge what can be in the resource by the size of the current supply. So the woman's like, oh, it's not much. Oh, I'm not very good. Oh, I'm not very much.

Oh, I'm not very known. Oh, I don't have many followers. Oh, I'm not JZ. Oh, I'm not Beyonce. Oh, I don't have that. I can't sing like that. I can't move like that. But a little bit of oil flowed into a lot of jars.

Wasn't about the amount of oil. It was about the amount of jars. When the Shunemite woman made him a guest room, he prophesied she would have a baby. She had given up on that. She didn't even believe that was possible. She didn't even know that was in her until the word of God spoke it over her.

You don't know what's in you. You don't know what's in your kids. Don't judge it too soon. They might turn out better than all the straight-A students. The straight-A students might be working for them. You don't know yet. It's too soon to tell. My God, who is this for?

God is just all over me for somebody today. I know when he speaks through me like this, that is for one person. I don't know who I'm sewing this into, but it'll come back. I'll hear about it. I release this word over your life today. I release it over your life like Elijah released a mantle on Elijah's shoulders. That when this word hits you, the potential of what God has put in you,

every gift, skill, experience, plan, everything that God has brought you through, even all the pain. That's a potential mirror. That's the seed of the Word of God. The seed is a small thing. Elisha told Neiman, go down to the Jordan, dip seven times. You know when he was healed, not on the first time, not on the second time, not on the third time, on the seventh time. Potential is revealed in process.

One day a young prophet was chopping some wood to build a school for the prophets, and the axe had fell in the water. Elisha showed him where, when the young man showed him where it had fallen. it had fallen, something came on the axe at, it floated to the surface. The potential for God to speak to a small thing in your life is just as easy as it is for him to speak to a big thing. See, all that was on Elisha in potential form, and all of it manifested when he planted himself in the purpose of God. So good to me. There's so much still in you, man.

There's so much still in you, but you won't know if you stop sewing. So now follow Elijah all the way to the last miracle he performs. The Bible records, depending on how you divide it, like 15 miracles that Elijah performs. Elijah performed eight, so it's roughly doubled the amount of miracles. The double portion that Elijah asked for. He got it. The last thing we see him do, he's with this king who's being attacked him. He tells the king to take these arrows in his hand and start striking the ground with the arrows.

Every time he struck the ground with an arrow as an act of faith that represented a potential victory that God would give him. When he struck the ground three times and stopped, it upset Elisha. And Elisha said, you are... using this device so far beneath its potential. And he was angry because he saw the victories that could have been if the king had believed in his potential. And you know what's really weird? After everything that Elisha did, one miracle short of exactly twice as many miracles as his mentor.

Elijah did eight, Elijah did 15. The king strikes the ground and stops and forfeits his potential. And Elisha is angry. And the next verse says in 1 Kings 1320, Elisha died and they buried him. Only this, he wasn't buried, he was planted because there was still one more miracle left in him that hadn't been tapped yet. is someone who still has a miracle in your bones and something that you have buried is trying to come alive while I'm preaching today.

Something that you have buried a hope or a character, element of your character, or something that you have believed God for and is still in your bones. So they buried Elijah. And one day the Bible says, as they were conducting a funeral, so much potential. There is so much potential in this room. You have no idea the potential that is in this room. As they were conducting a funeral, the Bible says that every springtime, the Moabite raiders would come in, and they would invade the land during harvest time.

Isn't that interesting? That the attack always happens when the harvest is coming? Y'all sleeping on the preacher now. I know I wore you out, but stay with me three minutes, and I promise you, I'm going to close this. The attack always happens. The enemy, if he can't keep you from sewing, he wants you to walk away when you're about to reap it. He wants you to walk away just at the moment.

And if you stop now, you won't know what could have been. So the Bible says that there was a man that was being buried, there was a funeral in progress. Verse 21 says that when the band was coming, they got in a hurry and they threw the man. Watch this, on the grave of Elijah. Now, when they did that, it messed up the funeral. Because when they buried Elisha, he still had one more miracle in his bones.

So now, when the dead thing hit the bones of Elisha, watch what God's about to do in your life. As soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his feet. What are you saying, preacher? I'm saying if you'll throw it on the bones, If you will believe in the power of God, if you will declare resurrection power over everything you've sold, nothing is wasted, nothing is over, nothing is finished. If God is in it, it shall come forward. Give him a great praise. I believe in resurrection. I believe God is a grave robber. I believe that the bones of Elisha still have power. I believe that the word of the Lord can still hit a barren womb.

I believe that the seed that you have sown, it was not buried, it was planted in the soil of God's faithfulness. Come on, let's touch the bones today. Let's go, let's touch the bones. Let's go to the empty grave where they buried Jesus. But God was planting him. He was the firstborn among many brethren. And when you win this word, get your hands up. I need us to keep our hands lifted because we believe in resurrection.

We believe in second chances. We believe in new beginnings. We believe, does anybody believe this? Does anybody believe what this verse says? The tomb where soldiers watch in that. Stay down right there. I was praying. I was praying last.

night about this gospel message and I had to tell you what God showed me that it wasn't a grave, it was a garden. The tomb where soldiers watched in Van. And after three days what happened? How many of you believe in resurrection? I need every hand lifted, every voice raised. Thank you for joining us. thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible.

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