Blessed Outside Of Your Comfort Zone

Transcription

1 Blessed Outside Of Your Comfort Zone Joshua 5:2-12 (NET) 2 At that time the Lord told Joshua, Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites once again. 3 So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites on the Hill of the Foreskins. 4 This is why Joshua had to circumcise them: All the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt died on the journey through the desert after they left Egypt. 5 Now all the men who left were circumcised, but all the sons born on the journey through the desert after they left Egypt were uncircumcised. 6 Indeed, for forty years the Israelites traveled through the desert until all the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt, the ones who had disobeyed the Lord, died off. For the Lord had sworn a solemn oath to them that he would not let them see the land he had sworn on oath to give them, a land rich in milk and honey. 7 He replaced them with their sons, whom Joshua circumcised. They were uncircumcised; their fathers had not circumcised them along the way. 8 When all the men had been circumcised, they stayed there in the camp until they had healed. 9 The Lord said to Joshua, Today I have taken away the disgrace of Egypt from you. So that place is called Gilgal even to this day. 10 So the Israelites camped in Gilgal and celebrated the Passover in the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the plains of Jericho. 11 They ate some of the produce of the land the day after the Passover, including unleavened bread and roasted grain. 12 The manna stopped appearing the day they ate some of the produce of the land; the Israelites never ate manna again. Is your comfort more important than your blessing? o If so, you might want to leave now because you don t need to hear what I am going to preach today. If your comfort is more important than your blessing then you will never receive your blessing. o Because your blessing does not exist within the parameters of your comfort. You will have to want your blessing more than you want comfort. o Those of you who are willing to get out of your comfort zone, God says, I will do a new thing in your life. PRAY Spirit of the living God, fall fresh upon us today. I thank you for the kind of anointing that makes preaching revelatory and relevant. I thank you for your power to declare definitely the Word of God with abstraction, and without confusion, and without turmoil. Speak in this house. We did not come to see and we did not come to be seen but we came to hear what the Spirit of the Lord would say. And I thank you that even now You are preparing our hearts for the infallible, immutable, everlasting, eternal Word of God. Have Your way in this place. In Jesus name, Amen I believe to a very strong degree that this message speaks to people in transition. o Transition is a place of discomfort all by itself. o In order to appreciate transition I am not just talking about moving geographically from

2 one location to another. o But if you are really a voyeur (observer watcher) of life you begin to understand that we are constantly moving, from faith to faith, and from glory to glory. The transition can be challenging. When I speak about transition I am talking about being in the tenuous place of not quite being where you are going and not being where you were. o Being stuck between the steps On the verge On the edge o Transitioning into another level of life and with it comes all the discomfort and the uncertainty of life that comes along with the process. I love the book of Joshua. o The book of Joshua is in the Old Testament what the book of Ephesians is in the New Testament. o It is for people who are ready to possess the land. This is not the book for wimps This is not the book for religious aristocrats It is not the book for people who are looking for philosophical inspiration This is the book for people who are about to slay something Take something Overcome something And do something they have never done before. The book of Joshua is a powerful book that openly and unashamedly says that if you are going to possess the promises of God then you ve got to be prepared to fight for it. o Let me be clear if it were easy then anybody could do it. o What makes people exceptional is that they exceed the boundaries of ordinary. They dare to do something that is spectacular and phenomenal. That is the atmosphere of this text. o It comes of the heals of an experience that I want you to understand. Even if you are not a Bible Scholar you probably saw The Ten Commandments. o The people we are talking about in the text are the children of the people you saw in The Ten Commandments. o These people that you saw in The Ten Commandments that we see in the book of Exodus are the people that God brought out of Egypt, bringing them into the Promised Land. There were no people in all the earth that God did more for than the people He brought out of Egypt. Showing Himself Revealing Himself in signs and wonders that were absolutely spectacular It boggles my mind to think that these people could see so much of God s goodness and then fall short of the promise. They would die in the wilderness wandering on the verge of Fixing to Almost Getting close but never attaining what they set out to do.

3 How could that be possible when God had invested so much in blessing them? What other people do you know that God says He brought them out on angel s wings? He fought off their enemies He released boils and lice to attack their enemies He released frogs to attack their enemies He turned water into blood to attack their enemies And the remnant that proceeded after them He caused a north wind to blow back the Red Sea so that the Children of Israel could walk across the Red Sea on dry land And when their enemies (or their past) tried to follow them into the future He let them drown in the Red Sea. It was so spectacular that Miriam grabbed a tambourine and began to beat it. And the women began to dance as they watched God defeat their enemies. There is nothing like seeing God defeat your enemies that will make you want to dance. o What other people but these people are the ones that He provided for. He made sure they were taken care of He gave them a pillar of fire by night because the desert gets cold He gave them a cloud of smoke by day to shade them because in the midst of the day it gets hot That s called Climate Controlled deliverance He made a way out of no way. o When they came to the bitter (or poisonous) waters of Mira he put in a healing component into the water and turned the bitter water sweet so they could have good water. o When they traveled past the parameters of the water He sent water out of a rock the first water fountain came out of a rock. God designed so that the Children of Israel could have drink and then let the rock follow them. o When they got out in the wilderness and decided they were hungry God clapped His hands and bread started falling down from heaven called manna and He fed them. When they wanted food to eat He gave them pheasant to eat all so that they might believe that He was God. o There are some things God does in your life just to show you that He is God. Sometimes He will prove to you without a shadow of a doubt that He is able to deliver you. I ve seen God create a situation that I couldn t get out of and then bring me out just to show me that He was on my side so there would be no doubt that He is God in my life. And if God be for you who can be against you? If anybody should have been a believer it is this generation that came out of Egypt. o You remember when the cockatrice (the serpent) bit them and God told them to make a serpent of brass and held it up and when they looked on the serpent they were healed. o Or remember when they came to Mount Sinai and the mountain was on fire and covered with smoke and Moses comes down with the Ten Commandments, the ground shaking beneath his feet

4 God did spectacular stuff o Isn t it crazy that God could do spectacular things for people who remained unthankful? It s kind of like being us o Sometimes the people that you do the most for treat you the worst. In that way I have some understanding of what it is like to be God. I am never bothered by people I don t know attacking me but it does get under my skin when people I ve gone out of my way for, and feed, and helped, and encouraged, and they go around and bite you. It does bother me a little bit. Imagine how God must feel when He s brought you through Hell and High Water and you forget Him. The Book of Hebrews does a better job of expounding this than I could ever do. o The writer says that the problem with the Children of Israel is that the Word was not mixed with Faith in them that heard it. They heard it, but they didn t believe it. o You d be surprised at how much we hear that we don t really believe. They heard the Word They saw the miracles but it failed to bring them to the conclusion of belief in God. o And finally He got tired of their unbelief and decided to let their carcasses drop in the wilderness. I don t care how nice you are everybody has a breaking point. o That s a scary thing for God to be finished. I can get over you being finished because I can make it without you but if God is finished with me He says I am washing my hands of the whole matter I m through! o And all of that generation, with the exception of two, died in the wilderness. Sometimes God deals corporately and generationally, and the whole generation went under. These are not those people that I am reading about in Joshua. o These are the children of those people. These are not the people who were born in Egypt and traveled out of Egypt and came to Mount Sinai and saw Pharaoh drown in the Red Sea. These are not the people who drank from the bitter waters Mira. o These are the people who were born of the people who went through that. These are the children of Israel. These are the sons and the daughters of the escapees who ran away from Egypt and ran out into the wilderness. These are the generation of people who were born on the run. Betwixt and between locations. They were not indoctrinated with the philosophies of the Egyptians because they were born in the wilderness. They were not inundated with the power of the Promised Land because they had not attained it. They were somewhere between this and that.

5 Have you ever been somewhere between this and that? It is the most uncomfortable place in the world - this and that. I don t mind being on this step I don t mind being on this step but I do mind being stuck between steps. How long can you stand stuck? It is terrible to be stuck. I hate to be in a business that is stuck. I hate to have a business meeting with people who are happy to be stuck because some people are comfortable with nothingness. It is terrible to be stuck in something that is not going forward or backward just stuck betwixt and between. Some marriages are stuck. o It is not quite this and it is not quite that. Even God hates it He said, I would that you were either hot or cold, but if you are lukewarm I ll spew you out Go to hell or go to heaven Don t get stuck. Not quite a saint and not quite a sinner just stuck. These young men have now come to their testing ground. o Isn t it funny how you can think in your mind that you escaped going through what other people go through? If you are not careful it will even make you arrogant. You might think you are better than them because you didn t have to go through what they went through. But if you keep living sooner or later you too will have to face something that shakes you to your knees and it ll make you throw your hands up and say, God I need you like I ve never needed you before. You don t need classes on prayer You don t have to read a book on prayer You don t need to know prayer words in Greek or Hebrew When you get in enough trouble you will know how to pray o It just happens to you o It just comes out of your mouth o HELP You don t have time for a pray like, Oh, thou most high. Thou who rulest the winds and the waves and stands on the shadows of time. Shake the garments of your Divinity and fall amongst my most inner being No! You don t have time you just need HELP!!! o Have you ever been in the kind of trouble that was an emergency and you needed God to do something for you right then? HELP!!! Sometimes you ve got to holler even if it gets on somebody else s nerves Because you need a touch from God HELP!!! Sometimes your distress signal bothers the person sitting next to you. Blind Bartemaus cried after God even in a way that it got on the disciples nerves. But when you get in enough trouble you don t care what anybody else thinks about you HELP!!!

6 My God, I need You Not I want You Not I m curious about You Not I m remotely interested in You But I flat out need You! I cannot go forward without you and I dare not go back to where I came from And I m stuck betwixt and between two situations HELP!!! God, if you don t do it for me, it cannot be done. Here s the problem in the text. o These men that died in the wilderness might not have had great faith but they could fight. o For the text says, All the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt died on the journey through the desert So these young men did not have the skills to go along with where life had brought them. What do you do when your skillsets don t match your situation? o What do you do when you are working a job and they ask you to create a PowerPoint presentation and you don t know how to operate the computer? You knew how to talk your way into the job but you don t know how to perform the function that the job requires. o What do you do when you are fine enough and old enough to get married but you don t have the skillset to be a wife? What do you do when your situation outgrows your skillset? o And now you are in a position for which you have not been prepped? I don t need faith for what I know I can do I don t need faith what I can do in my own strength But when my life has put me in a situation that I have nothing in my background to fit the skillset of the situation I m in that s when I need HELP!!! They were in Gilgal. o It is the last stop before the Promise Land. o The Lord said, This is your last stop before the Promised Land. In other words You are right on the edge You are right on the verge o If you get this right Then everything else will be right You have to pray for me because I m pregnant with this message o You know how pregnant women can t sleep very good o They are tossing and turning o I have been feeling the baby of this text turning over in my spirit because somebody is going to get a breakthrough this morning. Something is about to happen o You think I m talking about the service I m not talking about the service, I m talking about in your life!!! Something is about to happen Something is going to break wide open in your spirit

7 Something is going to break wide open in your life You are going to be so glad that you came to church today You are going to be so glad you got this word from God At the moment they were about to possess the Promised Land was also the moment where they run into the biggest crisis. o Isn t it funny how it can be the best of times and the worst of times all at the same time in your life. o Isn t it funny how things can be going so wonderful on this side and all hell can be breaking loose on the other side? You read it with me but lets break it down so you can see this. Here they are about to possess the Promised Land with no experience to match up with the opportunity. o Sometimes an opportunity is not a blessing if you are not prepared for it. It s a terrible thing for the door to swing open and you re not prepared to go in. They weren t afraid of a fight their fathers could fight. They fought against the Amalekites at Refedeum and beat them half to death. But now they are getting ready to come against Jericho. Jericho is straightly shut up. Walls all around the city Jericho was so advanced that they had chariots run around the top of the walls The wall was so thick that a chariot could ride around And these are a bunch of farmers wandering in a wilderness about to fight the fight of a lifetime with no experience. o And if that were not enough it is at Gilgal that Joshua goes out (easy brothers) and gets a flint stone And sharpens it to a knife To circumcise all the men Now you already can t fight. o The sisters are okay but all the brothers in here are getting uncomfortable. o Circumcision is important in the Bible It is a sign of the covenant It means I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus It is not the covenant but it is a sign of the covenant It gives me distinction in the Old Testament from a Covenant person and a Non-Covenant person It starts with Abraham Abraham bore in his body a sign that he was in covenant with God. Circumcision is quite important. In the New Testament it is typified by baptism. o It is a symbol of the putting away of the filth of the flesh. The part that serves no real purpose The part that has no reproductive properties in it

8 Just flesh No life in it just flesh. Isn t it funny how something that has no life in it can still cause so much pain? o Isn t it funny how a relationship that has no life in it can still cause so much pain? o It is hard to give up stuff even when the stuff you are giving up is something you don t need. I have to educate you so you will understand that in the scriptures circumcision is normally done by the father to the son. o So the text takes the time to tell you the reason that Joshua, who is not their father, has been left with the task of circumcising them because their fathers had died in the wilderness and had died without circumcising their sons. o According to the scriptures they should have been circumcised at eight days old. o When you don t get what you should have got when you were a boy it is so much more painful to go back as a man and try to fix a boy problem. It s out of sequence At eight days old it s like wha, wha, wha and then you feed them and their good. But now at 20 and 25 it s a whole different dilemma because you didn t get what you should have got when you were a boy and now it has messed you up as a man Just when you were on the verge of possessing your dream your childhood problem is about to mess up your manhood promise. Why didn t their father circumcise them? o Their fathers were not dead when they were eight days old. o What do you do when you didn t get what you should have got when you should have gotten it? And now you have to hide the facts that you don t have what other men have because your father didn t do what he should have done when it was time to do it. And now you are a man hurting with a boy s problem. o And it wouldn t be so bad if it weren t such a personal thing. It s all right to have a problem you can go public with but what do you do when you have a problem that must remain private? o On the outside you are on the verge of a blessing but on the inside you are in pain And now Joshua has to go back and fix what their fathers should have done. But the good thing about God is that even if you didn t get what you should have got when you should have got it God has a way of making it up to you. o I didn t get it but I made it anyway I had to crawl by myself but I made it anyway I had to deal with my own issues but I made it anyway o Isn t it funny how God will bring somebody into your life to replace what you didn t get when you should have got it? That s why I give Him the praise I don t praise Him for my Car I don t praise Him for my House

9 I praise Him for His mercy I praise Him for His grace Tell your neighbor, Your Joshua is coming. o Your Joshua is coming to give you what you didn t get when you should have got it. Your Joshua is coming. o It s coming to make up the difference between where life left you and where destiny is taking you Your Joshua is coming. o You are too close to where you are going And God says, I can t let you go in in the shape that you re in. So I have to bring you to Gilgal so I can fix some stuff. And God says, If you let me fix it for you Your eyes have not seen. Your ears have not heard what I will do in your life if you can just get this fixed. But I need to tell you that fixing stuff hurts. o Being angry is easier than saying, I m sorry. o Sometimes when you have to go back and fix some stuff it hurts because your flesh has got to die. And even though you don t need it sometimes it hurts to lose your toys Temptations of youth T-O-Y Boys and their toys Don t say anything ladies because you got some too So here they are They have come to Gilgal. o The place gets its name from what had happened there. o It means circle. o It s a place where the circle of flesh was cut preceding their next move of destiny. It s the place where they recovered what they didn t get in the past so that they could be released to go into their future. But the problem is they are now here and they are hurting. And the Bible says that they stayed at Gilgal and healed from what they had lost. At a time when most preachers are telling you what all God will give you I want to tell you about what He will take from you. o It s not popular But on your way to glory you can thank me There s some stuff that He will cut away There s some stuff you thought you would never lose But it has to go for what He is going to do next in your life And He will not be your Santa Claus and just keep giving you stuff to play with without making you man up and cut away what is standing between you and your real destiny and your purpose Cut it away Cut him away Cut her away Cut away whatever you ve got to cut away that is keeping me from getting to where

10 I ve got to be and do what I ve got to do cut away o While other people are shouting about what You gave them I thank You for what You took away from me. There are people that God took out of my life and God I thank you It hurt I cried I thought I was going to die But when I look back I see it was you blessing me I see where they are now and when they would have dragged me down to o To God be the glory Sometimes we need to praise Him for what He cut away! o Whenever God cuts something away out of your life that is a sign that something in front of you is bigger than what was behind you. o Give Him a Cut-away praise. Thank you for what you took out of my life Thank you for what you moved out of my way I m glad. Tell your neighbor, I m hurt, but I m healing fast. Can t nobody do me like Jesus o Losing stuff is only a sign that something better is coming. They got cut They got hurt Then they healed Because something better was coming The next element of the text says when they got healed they ate the corn of the Promise Land. o And when they tasted of what was in front of them o Have you ever had God give you a foretaste of a place that you haven t quite got to in your life? I call it a vision You are not there yet but you can see I believe if you can see the invisible you can do the impossible You can t help people that can t see anything But if you can see something you can be whatever you can see. o (Grab someone) You don t want to be hooked up with somebody who sees nothing because they will drag me down. Give me somebody who can see. Can you see it? What do you want from God? Can you see it, can you see it, can you see it? o I m almost where I want to be but what I want you to understand is from the moment they tasted the corn in front of them the manna that they had been eating ceased.

11 And the Lord said, Don t be afraid when your old blessing stops because it s only a sign that your new blessing is coming. (Set the stage) So we ve got a bunch of young men, who have no skills that match up with their situation. o They are poorly equipped for where life has taken them. They are trying to be something that they don t know how to be. o There is nothing as funny as seeing a little boy with his daddy s shoes on, clomping around in the house. Playing the role Acting like something on the outside that you re not on the inside Isn t that what most of us do? Playing a role Acting like something on the outside that isn t happening on the inside o So God brings them to Gilgal so that the inside can catch up with the outside. o Because when your persona gets bigger than your person then who you have become will kill who you are. All of your accomplishments have nowhere to rest when your accomplishments get bigger than you. o So He brings them to Gilgal so they can catch up with their own life. Because sometimes life gets too moving too fast. Now here is the situation: o They have no skills to go forward but they have the situation to go forward. They have just undergone a painful surgery to say the least And they have had a job change, a provision change They are not getting it from where they used to get it and now they are getting it from someplace new And God says, You have to make a choice, either you are going to resort back to your old place and remain comfortable, and miss the opportunity. Or you are going to have to want it bad enough to get out of your comfort zone. Every major blessing I have ever gotten in my life always made me uncomfortable. o Every major lifting in my life made me uncomfortable It was never in my comfort zone! It was always so far out of my comfort zone that now I m addicted to being uncomfortable. If it doesn t scare me I don t want to do it If it isn t edgy and half-crazy I m not interested in it But if it s something I can t pull off by myself, and I ve got to stay up half the night, and I ve got to pray my way through it then I m ready to do it. Because I found out that if God is on your side you can do it. Here he is at the Promise Land but the Promise Land requires that you forsake your comfort to attain your destiny. o That s why most people never evolve. o Because they will not pay the price of being uncomfortable.

12 Excellence requires discomfort. When you move out of your comfort zone o You re going to be sore But you are going to get there You are going to have to learn how to be satisfied with the new cuisine. Because I will no longer feed you from the places I once fed you, but you are still going to get there. I got a new revelation about this passage in the Bible. Do you remember the plan God gave Joshua at Jericho? o It is the only city in the Bible that was taken through this plan. o He said, I want you to march around the wall once a day for six days. Go around once and then go back and sit down. o I never took into consideration that these boys had just come from under the knife and if they would have had to fight their way in they would have not been ready for the battle. Suddenly I realize that God has taken my pain into consideration. All you functional people don t understand what I m talking about but all you dis-functional people you know what I m talking about. o Because God said, I know you are dis-functional I know you re not well yet But if you follow my advice I ve got a strategy for a wounded man to still take the city. o So all you well people give us dis-functional people give us a moment while we give God some praise. o He said, I know you are too sore to fight so I ve devised a plan that if you can just walk with me. Don t walk to far because you will get the victory one step at a time. And at the end of the first walk take a rest. And on the seventh day When you are feeling better I know you can t fight good But the battle is not yours It belongs to the Lord He said, If you will shout I will give you the city o Some of the biggest victories in my life have been won with the Joshua plan While people were trying to undermine me on the outside Sometimes I had to limp into a room and pray on the inside But when praises go up Blessings come down o I don t know who I am preaching to. But this is going to take you out of your comfort zzone But when you get there Don t fight in your flesh

13 But fight in your spirit If you call on the Name of the Lord He will deliver you If I m preaching to you, shout YES!!! The city was straightly shut up o The walls were wide enough that chariots were riding on the top of them o And the men had no experience and had just undergone surgery They had been in grief They had lost Moses They had lost their fathers They had lost the manna They had had a series of loses that preceded the greatest victory they would ever have in their life. o Just because you ve had a series of loses doesn t mean you are not on the verge of your next win! AS I CLOSE The Bible says they marched around the wall once a day for six days o On the seventh day they walked around the wall seven times o And then God said something totally ridiculous to them You are already out of your comfort zone You are already half-sore walking You are already about to fight somebody who is more skilled in this arena than you are o And He says I want you to believe me so much that you shout in front of a wall that hasn t moved yet Anybody can thank Him for a wall that has already come down But unless your faith exceeds your fathers you can t go in. So here is the test of your faith After all the stuff that you lost And all the things you have been through And all the things that happened along the way Don t you ever doubt that no matter who you are you ve had some losses It doesn t matter how pretty you are you ve had some losses It doesn t matter how rich you are you ve had some losses It may not be on the outside but somewhere in your life you bear the scares of stuff you lost along the way and the price you paid for who you are And God says to them in the face of all of this, He says, I want you to believe me so much that you praise me as if I had brought down something that is still standing up in your face. I won t turn back