Steven Furtick - You Have Suffered Enough!
Sometimes God will put you in a situation because he put something in you that that situation needs. So, all of the prayers of "God, get me out of this; God, get me through this…" There are things God wants to do as you go through them that if you don't do those things, you can't be fruitful. I will demonstrate why some of the stuff that is happening in your life right now that you feel is shameful and embarrassing and terrible… I will show you why it might not be what you think it is, and I'm going to use two objects to illustrate. One I have in my pocket, and one I'm wearing on my feet. I'm going to show you two items, and then you can decide what you think about my illustration. These items seem to have not much in common, but I promise you they do. This is a sneaker; this is a seed. Technically, it's a peach pit, but inside the pit is a seed, so it's a seed.
Now look. What does a sneaker and a seed have in common? Answer, class: both of them have to get dirty sometimes, but one was made to. Follow me. If I take this seed, this peach pit, and put it in this dirt, and then… There was no part of you that found any of that tragic. Nobody winced. Nobody cringed. But if… What's wrong with y'all? I just did it to the seed, but if… Don't do it? Why? Oh, because this only has value externally. So, if I do this to these, it ruins them. If I do this to these, I just decreased the value, because the value of the sneakers was how clean the sneakers were. But if I have a seed and I take the seed… I just put the seed in the same stuff I put the sneakers in.
When I did this, you didn't say, "No". You realized that what ruined the value of the sneakers revealed the potential of the seed. I came to declare that you're one of these. I'm the seed of Abraham. So, when the Devil does this, realize, "I'm one of these". What you went through didn't ruin you. It didn't ruin you that they rejected you. It didn't ruin you that you made a mistake, because the value of you has never been that you weren't creased. The value of you has never been that you were squeaky clean. The value of you is that Christ is in you, and if Christ is in you… I'm preaching in my socks to let you know the seed is still good. The seed is still clean. The seed can still work. The value is in you.
So, now I hear Joseph saying, "He made me fruitful in my suffering". Y'all missed it. "He made me fruitful in my suffering". My faith turns suffering to soil. Jesus didn't resurrect until they put him in the soil. Jesus didn't get up until they put him in the ground. Some of the fruit God has produced in my life happened when I was in a place that I never wanted to go. I can't believe you were so worried about my sneakers and you're not worried about your mind, your soul, your purpose, your destiny, your gratitude, your kids, your integrity, your habits, your prayer life, and your discipline. Do you see what I'm saying? That dirt did not hurt that seed; it turned it to a harvest.
That's why you came to church today. Some of the things you have been through in your life… If your value were external, it ruined you, but if your value is internal, it did not ruin you; it revealed you so that this can become this. So, Joseph can stand before his family… He was ready for the famine, but he wasn't ready for his family, because that's where he really hurt. Understanding that you are fruitful in the place of your suffering… It makes you look at bad things people say about you a little differently. It makes you look at the things you don't like a little differently.
You go, "Wait a minute". If this goes in this, then it will begin to absorb the moisture. If this goes into this, it will begin to spread apart and shatter. If it starts to shatter, then it can start to sprout. If it starts to sprout, it can grow down to get the nutrients and the minerals and reach up to get the light. But it starts, Joseph said, in the place of my suffering. This is why it's really important that you don't get stuck in what you suffered. You've already suffered enough. Don't you want to have something to show for it? Let me say that again. You have already suffered enough. Don't you want to have something to show for it? I'm applying this to every type of suffering.
Even if your suffering was caused by your sin, you've suffered enough. Don't you want to learn from it, repent, claim the blood of Jesus, and get clean so you can help somebody else not fall into the same pit? I wish I had another peach pit. Oh, I have one more. Thank you, Lord. Joseph was put into a pit, and the seed is in the pit. The pit represented potential, because God was keeping him there to get him to Egypt. Your life is not random. God is sovereign. Your life is not rotting; it's ripe. Everything you've been through was for this moment. If Joseph had met his family one year earlier, he wouldn't have been ready to embrace them. He would have retaliated.
So, stop telling God when he needs to do stuff and be a seed. When you are a seed and you are in soil and you are in darkness and obscurity, it can begin to feel like nothing is happening, but anybody who has ever planted anything can tell you the most activity is happening once the seed is no longer visible. So, do not let the absence of visible activity in your life confuse you to think that the presence of God has weakened or taken a day off. That seed is doing stuff. Not that one that I just put in. It would have to be taken care of, but you get the analogy. Right? It's breaking so it can bud and blossom. So was Joseph, and so are you. He was in a place that he never wanted to go. Are you there right now?
You're like, "Yes. I didn't want to come to church. My mom made me come". I'm not talking about church. You wanted to be here. You love to hear me preach. That's one of your favorite things in the world to do. Some of y'all didn't even want to be in Charlotte. Some of you didn't even want to live in this city or Roanoke or Raleigh or wherever you want to put this camera. We could go around the world and say, "I didn't want to be here in this soil". Soil isn't sexy, but that's where it happens. That's where the hard shell breaks off so that what is inside can grab on, shoot forth, and fill the world with fruit.
Now, the beauty of this message is that we can apply what I have just said to any situation in your life, because I just told you about a God who can increase you in Egypt, a place that God's people would celebrate coming out of. Joseph said, "He increased me in the very place where I was dragged, kicking and screaming". It doesn't have to be a situation you chose for you to grow through it. It doesn't have to be a situation you like for you to stay in it. It doesn't have to be a state of mind you enjoy for it to be productive.
Every time I get ready to preach…not 9 out of 10 times, not 99 out of 100 times…every time I prepare to preach to you, just before the breakthrough of the Word comes mounting anxiety. It almost feels like the flu. I want to go to bed. I want to call in sick. I have learned that is a sign that I'm in the rich soil now, that I have broken through the surface and I'm in the soil. If you don't ever sit with your anxiety and process it with God, but you just run straight to pills, you run straight to porn, you run straight to people who will say what you want to hear… If you don't ever sit with it and work through it, you will never see what was in you that was designed to be broken away in the soil of your fruitful place.
"I thought Canaan was the land with fruit. I thought the Promised Land was the land of fruit. I thought that was the land God was taking them to". Joseph said, "I have a God who, if the land doesn't have fruit, will bring fruit out of you". He'll do it in your school. If every kid in your school is crazy, you'll be the sane one to show them how to walk in the ways of God. That's what the seed was made for.
I see some of our kids going back to school in August and saying, "It's going to happen here". "There's going to be a revival here. There's going to be an outpouring here. There's going to be a day of Pentecost fully come here. I'm going to do it here. It's going to happen on YouTube. It's going to happen here. It's going to happen in my family. It's going to happen here. It's going to happen in my midlife. It's going to happen here. It's going to happen in my old age. It's going to happen here. It's going to happen in my failure. It's going to happen here".