Watch Steven Furtick’s Sunday Pep Talk!

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter.

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In today's video, we're going to be taking a look at a Stephen Furtick Sunday pep talk. But before we begin, let me establish this is not meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a biblical critique.

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For those of you who don't know, Furtick is the pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is yet another hype church leader who uses man -centered and worldly tactics to cause excitement and attract an audience.

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In the following video, Stephen Furtick is in the middle of a sermon on the book of Ruth. And in this sermon, he makes a point based on a passage from 1

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Corinthians chapter 4. Watch this video. Y 'all ready? His purpose comes first, not my plan.

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What happens to us is we get addicted to a plan, and if it doesn't fit the plan, we want to throw it back to God and say, "'Fix this.'"

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But God doesn't start with the picture called your plan when he is building the pieces of your life.

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He's God. The truth of the matter is you can't really judge your life in isolation.

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You can't really know when you're going through something whether it's good or not.

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Don't judge it just yet. One Scripture says, "'Judge nothing before the appointed time, when

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God will reveal hidden things and bring them to light, and the secret things will be laid bare.'" Judge nothing, no thing.

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All things work together for the good of them that love the

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Lord. So basically, in context, Stephen Furtick is talking about how the events of a person's life all fit together.

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He's talking about what to do when you encounter trials or difficult circumstances. In his eyes, it is silly, it is incorrect to judge a particular event of your life as bad or good when you do not know how it relates to the whole trajectory of your life.

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In essence, he's saying don't judge the book of your life by the cover of your current circumstance.

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And in order to find biblical support for this, he quotes 1 Corinthians 4 -5, which says this, "'Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time.'"

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On the surface, this sounds very wise, very motivational. But the passage has absolutely nothing to do with what

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Stephen Furtick is talking about. It's not talking about taking stock of your life when something goes wrong.

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It's not talking about God's promises for the outcome of your life. It's not a motivational speech saying, hold on to hope, because your blessing is right around the corner.

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Nope. This passage has nothing to do with any of that. And to read it that way would be self -centered and utterly missing the point.

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In context, it's talking about something completely different. Let's look at the previous chapter for context.

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In 1 Corinthians 3 -4, Paul is chastising the Corinthian church for putting too much emphasis on which spiritual leader they happen to follow.

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He says, "'For when one says, I follow Paul, and the other, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?'

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In the same chapter, starting in verse 21, Paul explicitly says, "'So let no one boast in men.'"

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So the point here is, do not exalt God's servants, the ministers of the gospel, in a fleshly and divisive way.

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Do not boast in men, as the passage says. Bring your attention back on Christ. So now we can better understand what is actually meant in the passage quoted by Furtick.

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Chapter 4, the chapter he quotes from, offers even more clarity. 1 Corinthians 4 -1 -2 starts out saying, "'This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

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Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.'" Then Paul says in 1

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Corinthians 4 -4 -5, right after that, "'It is the Lord who judges me,

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Paul. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things that are now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart.'"

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So there you have it. He's not talking about judging the individual events of your life in relation to God's whole plan for your life.

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He's talking about seeing the servants of the Lord with humility and not glorifying people in an unbiblical way before the final judgment has even taken place.

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And by contrast, we should know that Jesus Christ has already been declared ultimately faithful.

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1 John 3 -5 says, quote, "'In him there is no sin.'" The point is,

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Paul, Peter, Apollos, the rest of all the apostles and church leaders in early church, they're not perfect as Christ is, and they had not been raised into glory yet.

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Therefore, take your exaltation off of these people and put it on the perfect Savior.

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Do not boast in men, as the passage says. This is the clear and contextual meaning of 1

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Corinthians 3 -4. But Stephen Furtick, he wants to make the whole Bible about you.

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And as a result, a passage about the apostles and about humility becomes a passage about yourself and really about pride.

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This isn't a sermon. It's nothing more than a motivational pep talk on a Sunday morning. It's all about improving your life, staying positive, seeing the silver lining, never giving up.

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I mean, this sounds more like Tony Robbins or Oprah Winfrey than anything resembling a biblical sermon.

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Stephen Furtick's exegesis of this passage, it's all about you. Don't pass judgment on the events of your life, he says, until the final day.

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You never know how God is working miracles and blessings into your life. You never know how God's going to make things end for you.

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So don't give up. Things are going to turn out just fine. Again, in reality, the passage has nothing to do with any of that.

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The passage is about not exalting teachers and church leaders in a way that is improper and divisive in the church.

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There are plenty of passages in Scripture that give Christians great healing and encouragement and perseverance in their spiritual walk.

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There are many passages that offer motivation to God's people. Motivation is not a bad thing.

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Don't get me wrong. The problem fundamentally is this. Stephen Furtick and pastors like him already have their motivational message before they even come to the text.

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They already know what they want it to say. It needs to be personal, exciting, encouraging.

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And if it's not inspiring and motivating, they will make it that way. If it's not a spiritual pep talk, then there's no point to them.

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So instead of approaching the Word of God and letting it speak, preparing a sermon becomes a constant effort to shoehorn their preferred message into the text of the

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Bible. So let me be clear. There is no pastor who has perfectly preached the text throughout his entire career.

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They would need to be Jesus in order to do that. I'm not a pastor myself, but just to offer a personal example, we've had to take down several videos on this channel because the exegesis was not up to scratch.

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We can handle these things with repentance and grace and move on. The issue with churches like Elevation, though, is that if you watch virtually any

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Stephen Furtick sermon, you will quickly find that they all sound like this. His entire exegesis, almost every time, revolves around how he can make the audience feel about themselves.

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But humbly, I just want to say that this is the opposite of what the Scriptures say. 2 Timothy 3 16 is a passage we quote a lot here.

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It's very good to memorize. It says this, quote, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work, end quote.

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You see, it is the Scriptures that equip us for every good work. We do not need artificial motivation more than we need

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Scripture. We do not need artificial encouragement more than we need Scripture. So there's no need to manipulate every biblical text in order to make it motivating and encouraging.

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It is the Word of God taught rightly that can fully equip us for every good work, not most, every.

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The all -powerful God knows how to motivate you through His Spirit and through His Word far better than any of the motivational speeches and church growth tactics made by man.

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That's the point. And please know this, I do not offer any of this correction from a high and mighty position.

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I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. So let's pray for Stephen Furtick that he would stop these

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Sunday morning pep talks and turn to the truth of God's Word. Thank you so much for watching that video.

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