Steven Furtick (32:49)
I want to take it a little bit further. Not only did the things in my life that now looked the most strategic at the time seemed the stupidest, but some other people said they were stupid. I told my friends, I want to name the church Elevation. You know, now we got a lot of cool church names, but there weren't churches called things like Elevation. Not that many. There were some. I'm not saying I'm the originator, but I just thought, wow, it would be great to call it Elevation, you know, Lift up, Jesus. Lift up, people. You're going high. You know, Elevation. I remember one dude looked at me and said, sounds stupid. Sounds like the name of a youth group. It sounds like if you too had a youth group. That's what he said. It's a fine line. I said, oh, I like it, I like it, I like it. That's a stupid name for a church. Elevation. That'll never work. I had a flashback the other day. I don't know if y' all remember this. Janet, this dude, think about it. Now you have Jacob, and he says this thing. I'm going to take this rock and I'm going to pour oil on it. He's just freaking out. Man, this rock is going to be your house. God, I'm going to turn this stone into your house of everything you give me. I mean, he's just disoriented. He doesn't know what to do. So he just says, if you will show me enough, if you give me your presence, your protection, your provision, I will trust you. He pours this oil on a rock. Well, it made me think about some of the things we did that seemed stupid at the time when the church was young. Because I want to share it with these lovely people. Because God still wants to use stupid today. In your family, in your athletic career, in your business, in your spiritual life, in your emotions, God wants to use what people call stupid. One of the first things I remember was when the man came to give us a strategy on giving. He said, the strategic move when you're starting a church. Now listen to this. Tell me if this doesn't sound strategic on the surface, because the world's wisdom sounds strategic on the surface. This is how you do it, and this is what you get. Then you'll be blessed. But. So here's what he said to do to me. It felt like a compromise of my integrity. He said, you're not going to have any money. That was true. He said, you don't have that many members. And that was true. He said, so each of you knows somebody who is a member of another church. Ask them for the next 24 months to redirect their tithe they would give to their church and give it to you instead. Their church won't miss it and it'll make or break you. I thanked him for his time. At the time, we were so broke, I didn't even have any money to pay him to come and give us the speech. So I gave him a Chili's gift card. I said, thank you for coming. That's how broke we were. So in a way, what he said sounded really good. I do know some people. I've been traveling, doing ministry. I've got some contacts. Maybe I should reach out and do it that way. But the spirit of the Lord wouldn't let me do it like that. Have you ever had the spirit tell you to do something that seems stupid? See, that seems smart. But here's what the Lord told me to tell our team. Instead, I shut the door. I let him leave. What he just said, if we do it that way, it might work for a while, but it's going to set up a pattern where we did not build it on the rock. We have to trust God. Tell your neighbor I got to trust God. So I asked them, didn't I said, so can we do this instead while we're still at this church waiting to go start our church? We were being sent from a church with permission and blessing. I said, while we're still under the covering of this church, let's keep giving 10% of our income to this church and let's give an additional 10 to the 1 we're starting. And they all did it, as far as I know. I didn't check the W2s to do the math, but they all did it. When I say to you today that it is my desire as a pastor that every single family in this church, every single individual in this church would put God first through the tithe and give 10%, I'm not telling you that because of a need we have. I'm telling you that because it's the foundation that everything you see today was built on. I say it with confidence and I say it with clarity. I like that first part of the sermon you were preaching, Pastor Steven. That was really good and fun. I like that calorie cancellation blessing. Can we go back to that? No, we can't, because now I have to talk to you. We all love the part where God said to Jacob, I'll be with you, but what about the part where Jacob said to God, if you'll be with me, then I'm with you? I always thought 10% sounded like a lot until I figured out it all came from God. Maybe the 90 he lets me keep is a lot, and maybe the 10 he asked me to give isn't that big. I'm just talking to you about trust in God. Trust in God is not because you sang the chorus really loud. Trust in God is not because you clapped your hands on the beat. Trust in God is not because you have a good feeling about this. Trust in God is when you say, I'm in. And I know it looks stupid.
