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Part 5 of 8
Suddenly
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Suddenly is not always an unprepared moment—it is often the moment when hidden preparation becomes visible manifestation. Some people only see the visible manifestation but don't see the years of hidden preparation that preceded it.
Do you know what it's like to be faithful in private, not knowing when God will open the door or do what He needs to do next in your life? Sometimes God will test the motive of your faithfulness by keeping you hidden even when you feel like you need to be highlighted.
For some of us, our suddenly has not manifested, not because of what we want but because of why we want it. Why do you want the job—to stunt on your friends or to make a difference? Why do you want the marriage? God often changes the person before He changes the problem. Some of us have experienced prayer frustration because most of our prayers have been about God changing our situation, when God is saying, "I want to change you. And when you change, you'll change your situation."
Suddenly is God's timing, but readiness is our responsibility. You cannot manufacture a suddenly. You cannot manipulate a suddenly. You cannot schedule a suddenly. But you can mismanage the season when God is preparing you for it.
Here's the critical question: Can God trust you? It's one thing to trust God, but can He trust you with the suddenly? If God suddenly gave you your dream house, can He trust you to maintain it? If weight suddenly disappeared, could you manage the lifestyle required? If God suddenly gave you the marriage, could you handle the responsibilities that come with it?
What if your suddenly is not on hold because God is not ready to release it, but because you're not ready to receive it? Some blessings require a version of you that can handle what you've been asking for.
When you move into a new season or a new place, you often discover that everything you brought with you can't fit. For some of us, we're trying to bring old things into a new season. God is saying, "You're wasting your time trying to bring them, him, and her with you. They fit where you were. They don't fit where you're going."
Are you trying to bring an old mindset into a suddenly season? Before stepping into the next type of faith, we need to understand the five enemies of a suddenly.
Adversity avoidance means you shrink when you should be shining. In another form, this is called procrastination. Many of us are declaring suddenly but making no life shifts to align our lives to receive it.
We see this clearly in 1 Samuel 17 with the story of Goliath. Everybody celebrates how David killed a giant with one rock, but nobody talks about how an entire nation ran from this same giant for 40 days. Whenever they saw him, they would run and hide.
Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.
David, who was simply bringing his brother's lunch, ran toward what everybody else was running from. Sometimes God chooses you because you have a level of faith that's not afraid of killing a giant.
Everybody talks about the moment he killed the giant, but we don't do enough work on becoming the type of person who kills giants. Nobody talks about the years he spent in the field shooting his shot when nobody was looking. Everybody wants your breakthrough, but they don't want your "been through." Don't get mad when I kill a giant when I also had to kill lions, bears, and wolves in private.
For you, it may not be a literal giant. Your giant might be a difficult conversation, confrontation, or forgiveness. It's interesting that David could kill Goliath but later didn't have the courage to confront his son. What do you do when you're winning at work but losing at home?
Here's what I want you to catch: Whatever you avoid creates a void. There's often a gap between where we desire to be and where we are. The bridge to getting where you want to be is facing what you need to face. Our job is to face it. God's job is to fix it.
Eventually, an entire nation had to watch one man win a battle they should have been fighting. That's what adversity avoidance costs.
Decisions are the doorway to your destiny. When you're always reacting off impulse, you're not stepping into destiny—you're stepping back into distraction.
There was a king before David named Saul who was arguably more moral than King David. David slept with one of his general's wives and then tried to get him killed on the front line to cover it up. Yet God calls David "a man after my own heart," not Saul. Why? Because even when David messed up, he knew who to run back to. He didn't hide from God.
King Saul received one clear instruction: wait before making any decision. The prophet told him, "Don't move until I instruct you on what to do." But Saul made an impulsive choice. Listen to what the prophet said to him:
You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. Had you kept it, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom must end. For the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart.
He fumbled favor because he was impulsive. He thought, "Because it appears as if nothing is happening, I'll try to make something happen." He didn't realize that even when God is doing nothing, He's still doing something.
I've learned how to praise God for the silent seasons. Even though I didn't see His hand moving, I saw His feet moving. Don't you just shout when God is giving you instructions—learn to praise God even when He's saying nothing to you. His silence is also a setup for your comeback.
Saul made a permanent decision based on temporary pressure. What does pressure bring out of you? Does it bring cursing? Ghosting, where you need to get away from everyone? Anger like Moses, where you start striking rocks that God told you to speak to?
Sometimes the enemy to your suddenly is not what the enemy does to you—it's what you do because you're tired of waiting. Are you tired of waiting? I'm tired of waiting on him to do what he's going to do. I'm tired of waiting on seeing everybody else get a breakthrough while I'm still having to be patient.
How many times did you settle and date somebody impulsively because you got tired of waiting? Sometimes suddenly is one wait away, but impatience convinces you to walk away. God is saying, "If you can just wait, I have something for you that eyes have not seen and ears have not heard."
What if the greatest enemy to your suddenly is the lack of boundaries? You cannot be everything to everybody. No is a complete sentence. Your yes is too expensive.
When you say yes to one thing, it means you have to say no to other things. People don't realize this cost.
One of the greatest characters in the Bible is Nehemiah. God called him back to rebuild the city wall. While he was rebuilding, some people got jealous, started hating, and began posting subliminals on social media. "Who does he think he is? What does he think he's doing?"
Sometimes there's jealousy in jokes. When they say "little"—your little wall, your little favor, your little marriage—it's because they have jealousy in their heart. Keep calling my work small while I'm laughing. God said it's big. Why am I calling it little?
Nehemiah is making progress, doing the impossible. He's rebuilding a wall—or for you, rebuilding a relationship, rebuilding a dream, rebuilding your faith. But then Sanballat and Geshem sent him a message:
Come, let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono. But they were planning to harm me.
Look at Nehemiah's response:
So I sent messengers to them.
Everybody doesn't deserve your attention. I'm praying God sends messengers in your life who will protect you from foolishness before it can even get to you.
Here's what Nehemiah told them:
I am doing a great work.
Look at your neighbor and say, "You didn't even know you were sitting next to greatness." Every day you wake up and bless your family—that's a great work. When you clock in, you're doing a great work. When you clock out, you're doing a great work.
Stop waiting on people to celebrate your great work and start celebrating it yourself. If God calls this great, who cares what man calls it? I'm doing a great work and I cannot come down. In other words, I'm not giving you easy access to my life.
You need to pray that God sends you people who tell you, "Get back up to where God called you to be." Not people who keep calling you down. If you want to be in my life, you're going to have to come up to my level, because I'm not coming down for anybody. I'm doing a great work, and because my work is great, I cannot come down.
In this season of your life, God is about to send people who tell you to get back up where He called you to be. Stop coming down for people. Pray that God sends you people who, when you go down, tell you, "Get your butt back up to where God called you to be."
I'm doing a great work and because my work is great, I cannot come down. In other words, I'm not giving you easy access to my life. And this season, if you want to be in my life, you're going to have to earn it. What are you willing to do to get access to greatness?
Everybody shouldn't have easy access to greatness. What if you're not under attack? You're just too available. You don't have to answer every phone call. You don't have to respond to every text message. You don't have to accept every invite. Because I owe everybody love, but I don't owe everybody equal access.
Even Jesus loved the world, but He only gave twelve access. And out of the twelve, He only gave three closer access. And out of the three, He only gave one intimate access. Your heart and your mind were not made to handle so many people at one time.
Even as a pastor, I had to learn that everyone can benefit from my gift, but only few people can have my life. Everybody can't have the same access my wife has. But do you see what I'm saying?
Maybe your suddenly hasn't happened yet because the people that mean the most to you are getting the least from you. I need to say that again. Maybe your suddenly hasn't happened yet because the people that mean the most to you are getting the least from you.
Most of the places in the Bible where you see suddenly happen, it happens when people get aligned with the right people. Partnership matters. Your power is in your partners. Paul was in prison, but the prison didn't break open until Silas showed up with him. There were lepers who had leprosy for years, but they didn't get healed until they started praising God in one accord.
What if your suddenly is tied to your circle, but you keep giving everybody easy access?
Nehemiah wasn't being rude—he was being resolved. He was clear on who he was assigned to and what he was assigned to do. Some of us are going to have to realize that some people we love, but they're not our assignment.
You fantasize over the past. God is trying to bring you into a new season, but you're surrounded by people who keep saying, "I remember when." This happens to people who are paralyzed by the past.
When you fantasize over the past, you begin to have selective amnesia where you only remember the good times and your memory begins to edit out the bad times. In Numbers 14:3, God brought a whole nation out of slavery for 400 years. They asked God, "Deliver us out of slavery." He brings them out. Now they're going through a hard season.
They say:
"Why is the LORD taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and little ones will be carried off as plunder. Wouldn't that be better for us to just go back to Egypt? Bondage is better?"
Then they plotted among themselves, "Let's choose a new leader and go back to Egypt."
Don't look at them like they're crazy, because why do you keep going back to your ex? Why do you keep going back to environments that made you shrink?
Be careful when frustration in your present leads you to fantasize over the past. It happens in marriages. It happens even in church.
As great as God moves here, there are some people who say, "I remember back when..." But God made the father of the faith, Abraham, in every season of his life climb a mountain and build an altar so that he always remembered this is where God was, but not where God is.
I wonder, do some of you realize one of the worst places to be is where God was and not where God is? They prayed to get out, but when moving forward became difficult, they fantasized about going back in.
Let me review these enemies with you:
There's a difference between waiting on God and God waiting on you.
The first recorded miracle of Jesus is an example of this. In John 2, Jesus performs His first miracle at a wedding in Cana where they ran out of wine. Why would God make the first miracle about wine at a wedding?
I began to study scripture and I saw metaphors and euphemisms. Oil represents the anointing. Wine represents joy. What if this text is showing us how Jesus came to bring joy to a watered-down faith?
Here He is at a wedding with His family. They run out of wine and His mom looks at Jesus and says, "Hey, they ran out of wine. I know who you are. It's time. It's about time you start showing them who you are."
Jesus looks back at her: "Mother, my time has not yet come."
But look at verse 7. Jesus, in spite of what He said, gives them instructions: "Fill the jars with water."
They're looking at Him like, "We don't have a water problem." And this is how many of us look. We're believing God for suddenly with one thing, but He's telling you to fill it with another thing. As long as you're filling it, it'll be what it is. But once I touch it, I can transform water into wine.
When they listen to the instruction without hesitation, look at what the text says. They filled the jars.
You ever have to sneak to the kitchen late at night and pour some Kool-Aid? You pour that red Kool-Aid all the way to the brim. But before you take off, you've got to take that quick sip. And because it's filled to the brim, you can't walk any type of way. Because when it's filled to the brim, you have to walk different.
Some people are looking at you like, "Who do you think you are?" But they don't know what you're carrying. Because of what I have, I have to walk different. Do I have anybody in the room today saying, "God, because of what you trusted me with, I'm not walking with hesitation. I'm walking in preparation and anticipation for a suddenly"?
I never forget—my youngest daughter, Brooklyn, we went to this restaurant years ago and she fixed me something to drink. I remember wondering, "Why didn't you put the top on the drink?" She filled it to the brim. I just started walking super fast, Sprite going everywhere, having to clean it up.
But that's how some of us look. We don't recognize what we carry and we walk any type of way and now we're wasting valuable things that God is trusting you to steward. When what if it's not a drink? What do you do when you're wasting family moments? What do you do when you're wasting your child's confidence and self-esteem? Wasting time? And now because you wasted it, it becomes a hazard for other people.
For the past weeks, Pastor Mike has been unpacking different types of faith.
Dead faith is faith that hears God's word but never moves on it.
Domesticated faith is faith that has been tamed by yesterday's pain.
Double-minded faith is faith that has been divided between God's promise and human doubt.
Delegated faith is faith that depends on someone else's belief instead of developing its own.
Last week, he began to talk through divine faith—faith that doesn't just believe in Jesus, but believes like Jesus. There's a difference between having faith in Him and developing the faith of Him.
Faith does not ignore reality. Faith refuses to let it outrank God.
Today as we close out, I want to talk about dormant faith. What is dormant faith? Faith that has power but stays asleep until pressure wakes it up. It's faith that only prays when the doctor calls or the divorce happens or the money disappears. It's dormant. It's not dead. It's dormant.
We see this in the text when the father had a son who was demon-possessed and he brought him to the disciples to heal him. The disciples couldn't do anything and they failed in front of everybody. He's frustrated because he thought that because you walk with Jesus, you can do what Jesus does, but they couldn't.
Jesus comes, He has a conversation with the father and He brings the demon out of the boy and he's healed. But the disciples are so embarrassed that when they finally get in private, they ask Jesus, "Why couldn't we do it? You gave us power. You gave us authority. What was wrong with us?"
And Jesus looks at them and says, "These kind only come out through prayer and fasting."
Some of you may be in this room right now and your faith may be dormant. What if God is calling you to a time of prayer and fasting to reactivate your faith? What do you do when life has beat you down so much that you no longer believe like you used to believe?
For some of you right now, I believe that your suddenly is going to happen when you seek God with all your heart. He said, "When you seek me with all your heart, you'll find me."
For some of us, we're going to have to put that phone up. For others, we might have to push that plate back. In this season, I'm willing to do whatever God needs me to do to get closer to Him.
