Outlast the Wilderness

Bless God. Wow. Six weeks of school holidays. I need to rest now. You know, I've got something I'm hard to share today. And here's the sermon title, if you will. Outlast the wilderness. That's the last six weeks, but maybe not last six weeks. It could be a period of time, a season in your life, wilderness. And step into the promised, outlast the wilderness and step into your promised breakthrough. Throughout the Bible, any difficult times, right? Everybody understands what trials and wilderness experiences are like. We also realize that these seasons are really a comfortable or optional detour in our Christian... Because they just go on and happen. And whatever we might think and believe and say, we find ourselves in these seasons, these difficult times. But they're definitely a strategic proving ground where our spiritual maturity is formed. It's through the hard things to reshape. It's through the times where we don't know quite where we're going and what's happening, that our character finds it. Whether we find ourselves in a financial desert, a downpour of unexpected grief or standing toe-to-do with a seemingly immovable, scary guile, the struggles are in it inevitable reality of a broken world. Jesus Christ said, He said that we would experience, but that we were also to take heart because He overcome the world. Hallelujah, sometimes trials and dildies and desert experiences and wilderness times can to drag on forever. And the danger of a long season of trial is not only the weight of the old, but the spiritual exhaustion that threatens to set in. And we're waiting to get through this. We're looking for the mountain top experience again and it's hard. And when our human strength is depleted, how many of you know the enemy attempts to flood our hearts with toxic going through this and it never seems to stop? And when is it going to stop? Why is God doing this to me? By the way, God isn't doing it to you. But the enemy tells us that. The toxic habit of complaining, the emotional, passive resignation. Well, that's what it is and this is my lot. Doubt and fear that creep in and play havoc. You know, you also demand a plan for breakthrough and it's essential to successfully navigate that wilderness experience. It's essential to shift your perspective off the giant, to shield your atmosphere through radical praise. Been around somebody that's got all sorts of weight on their shoulders. How many atmospheres does that? Come on, the atmosphere goes down. It's rock bottom and there's a huge cloud over our heads and it's always raining. Praise shakes the atmosphere. Radical praise deals with the feelings of oppression. Time with the atmosphere through radical praise with a stand firm on shakable covenant promises of God. And with a strategic activate our season of waiting. So can I say this before we get into some points? In today, we did feel a bit heavy this morning. We felt a bit heavy in the room this morning. We've had a lot of joy recently and it felt a bit heavy in the room this morning. But how many of us can say this this morning? That we could be standing on the edge of our Jordan. You know in the Old Testament, 40 years in it? Standing now on the edge of our Jordan. And so it's time to stop measuring the obstacle and start measuring your God. Our God is infinitely bigger. So some points this morning to help us with this. Number one, shift your perspective, get your eyes off the giant. Shift your perspective. Come on as we enter into a new season, September. Come on. Shift your perspective. Get your eyes off the giant. See what you focus on actually determines your strength. If you stare constantly at the storm or the debt or the giant, how many of you know eventually you will burn out? Remember Peter getting out the boat in the sermon last week, got out the boat and walked on the water full of faith, water. And then he gets his eyes off Jesus onto the storm. What happens? He sinks. Praise God. God reaches out. Jesus reaches out, lifts him up and they walk back to the boat together. Peter lost sight of Jesus. He sent him and here's the truth. God never ever promised an easy. When he said, "I am the way," the truth comes to the Father except through me. How many of you know he wasn't promised an easy life? Signing up to get richer, get better, get more. Sometimes we're signing up to, actually, I've got to really walk this narrow path and it isn't easy. It's hard. God doesn't promise an easy life. Jesus, remember, he said in John chapter 18, 33, "In the world you will have tribulation." No, you might have. So, you know, you're going through one. It seems to have gone on forever. "In the world you will have," Jesus said, "tribulation." Thank God, I'm sitting there. "But be of good cheer." What? In the tribulation? Be of good cheer in the difficulty? Be of good cheer in the desert, in the wilderness, in the debt, space in the giant? Yes, because he has overcome the world. And because he overcomes, so can you too. See, everyone goes through a trial. "Gee, how poor of grief it might be a giant size obstacle." But the glorious truth is this, that it hasn't expiried date, there's an end to it. It isn't going to be forever. And the children of Israel are still promised land, or they're still looking at the promised land from the river Jordan. And there was an end to stepping into the new season of God. Did it mean everything? It was going to be hunky-dory for them from there on? No, it didn't. Because they had battle after battle to take the land. But boy, they'd made it, Canaan. So, Savant, the wilderness requires shifting your gaze away from the size of your obstacle, onto the size of your God. How big is your God? I found out, for me personally, he's much bigger than I ever imagined. He's greater than I can possibly perceive. He's stronger and more glorious than my brain can somehow fathom. My God's bigger, how about yours? And so in Joshua 3, the children of Israel prepared to cross the river Jordan into the Promised Land. And Joshua commanded the people to watch. For right now you need to, Hebrews 12 verse 2, keep your eyes on Jesus, our leader and instructor. He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterwards. And now he sits at the place of honor, so shift your perspective and get your eyes off the giant and onto Jesus. Shield your atmosphere with the power of praise. Desert times, difficult experiences, trials, troubles, wildernesses, nations, whatever we find ourselves in. How many of us know that waiting can breed complaining? How many of you know this too, that with the continual knowledge we want increasingly processing speed in our smart devices? I had one of those Nokia's. Tell me what one it is because we all had them. 3310 Nokia. I thought it was amazing. Do you know when you first heard that? I can't cope with the thought of it now. See, we want instant information in our fingertips. We must have fast how absolutely, right? Is this true? Having to wait breeds aening, but this also stretches out our wilderness experience. You hear me? So the more we complain, the longer the process. Before we complain, the longer the process. Who's listening today? The more we complain, the longer the process. So how do we shield our spirit and our spirit? Praise changes the spiritual climate of our trial. Praise in God during the struggle shifts you from a victory posture. Praise in God during the struggle shifts you from a victimenty into a victory posture. Praise, anchorage, praise, even when external circumstances haven't changed. Praise anyway. You know what I'm going to talk about, don't you? Paul and Silas thrown in a dungeon in Acts chapter 16 simply because they brought breakthroughs to a slave girl. They didn't like it. Their praise came at midnight. They chose in a dark, dingy, inner dungeon to praise God at midnight. They sang praises of God. It says they prayed and they sang hymn. Their praise changed the atmosphere, not just for them. It lifted their spirit. They focused on God. Their atmosphere was changed. But guess what? It changed the atmosphere for all of the prisoners. Because when at midnight, after they praised God, the prison doors flung open because of an earthquake, guess what? None of the prisoners wanted to leave because their atmosphere had been changed. Take that in. Praise changes the atmosphere, not just for you and your situation, but for those around you. So many things can bring us down. Circumstances can depress us. Life can stress us out. Things can go wrong. But in Romans 8, in all of these things, we are more than conquerors. We are not in the present nor life. Neither angels or demons, neither present nor future, neither any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation. We'll be able to separate us from the place of our situation onto Him and we give Him praise and honor. We are grateful that God is with us and loves us and cares about us, that He saved us, that He's forgiven us our sins and that we got our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Listen, it makes all of the difference. So shield your atmosphere. Use the power of praise to disperse the enemy's accusations and restore your blood-bought victory. This is why we always encourage, when we come to church, the car, but when we come to church, let's praise to God. You don't feel like it, right? You came in finding things difficult, right? Do it anyway. I'm going to say it's a bit of a funny statement, but fake it till you make it. What I mean by that is this, if you have feelings, praise God anyway. Telling you it's not long before the feelings come in line with your faith stance anyway. We need to get better at this, because the roof is off in our praise of God, regardless of what we're going through. Number three, stand firm on covenant promises. To breakthrough comes with faith in God's character, not our human performance. King Jehoshaphat into Chronicles chapter 20 recognizes complete inability to succeed when this massive multinational coalition army marched against Judah destroyed. What did he do? He admitted his complete helplessness and he prayed to God. Prayer wasn't his last resort. Prayer should not be our last resort. When all else fails, I better pray then. You don't know what to do? Pray. You don't know what to sing? Pray. What does prayer do? It changes things. King Jehoshaphat prayed. He said this, "We have no power against this vast army. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you." He said worship is ahead of him and he changed the atmosphere and God routed the enemy forces even before Judah reached the battlefield. God answers prayer. In 2 Samuel 5 David was a Baal perism. He was facing a massive Philistine invasion right after becoming king. David prayed and sought God's counsel before going to battle. And then after winning the victory, David declares this, "The Lord has broken through my enemies like the breakthrough of waters." And as a result of that, he named the place Baal Perism, which literally is translated, God of the breakthrough. In Mark chapter 5, "The woman with the issue of blood that did God's help because she was not able to go into society, she was considered unclean, yet she bravely tried to move through a massive crowd to touch the hem of his garden because she knew that if she could just touch Jesus, she could be healed." Jesus declared either her faith and made her whole. Trust in the promise of God who healed. Trust in the promise of God who brings breakthroughs. Trust in the promise of God who answers prayer. So when you feel like giving up, it is of God rather than fleeting emotions or temporary sex. So Paul writes to the Ephesians and he says this in chapter 6 verse 13, "Having done all, stand." What is he doing here? He's saying, "Listen, there are times when we do what and where things are difficult in our situations, our circumstances, in our daily life. I don't know what to do, but I do know this. I can pray and I can stand on the promises of God." Having done all stand, Hebrews 10, 22, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from evil conscience in our bodies, hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. Choose to stand firm on God's covenantal promises. Number four, strategize active waiting. Are you still with me this morning? Strategize active waiting. Surviving the wilderness days is not about passive resignation. It's active waiting which is praising before the breakthrough. It shifts the focus on when God will move to who God is right now in my situation. Active waiting utilizes praise as a weapon of faith before the answer comes. Active praise triggers an earthquake just as it did with Paul and Silas in the prison doors were broken open because of praise. Active waiting requires obeying the last command that God gave you. Here's a good one. The last thing that God said to you before receiving a new word from God, "What did God last say to you?" Do it. Active waiting means positioning yourself for a miracle based on what God has already said. The priests that carried the Ark of the Covenant in Joshua 3 had to physically march down to the edge of the Jordan River while it was still at a dangerous flood stage. God didn't part the water until they were, while they were comfortable in their tents, he parted it the exact moment their feet touched the edge of the water. That's when God parted the water. God moves when we step out. God moves when we move. See, active waiting means walking to the edge of your current boundary in faith that God will part in front of you. Active waiting requires mental alertness. It requires spiritual discipline and staying ready that you don't miss the moment when it finally comes. An example, Jesus' parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25. All 10 were waiting for the bridegroom. All of them fell asleep. However, five of those virgins were wise. Or they were active. However, because they anticipated a delay and brought extra oil to keep their lamps burning. The other five, it says, were foolish. They were inactive. They were passive. And they were caught completely unprepared when midnight cry came. Active waiting means maximizing the season you are currently in, even if it feels like a place, in a place or being in prison. Joseph spent years in a literal Egyptian dungeon. He didn't sit in a corner despairing. He didn't think, "Well, I've done all this and God has given me these amazing visions, these dreams." He actively worked. He managed the prison for the warden. He has the interprets of the cup bearer and the baker. See, his active diligence in the waiting room prepared him to run the entire nation and their food program for not just Egypt but for the surrounding nations. Faithful and small, frustrating present, builds capacity for the needing breakthrough ahead. Number five, survey your memorial stones. Survey your memorial stones. When the present is dark, it's so easy to forget past victories. Easy to forget what God has done. And so Joseph was to set up memorial stones to remember the crossing at the River Jordan. Intentionally to recall the times that God had rescued them in the future. God had been faithful in rescuing them. And you know, for each one of us, God has done things to rescue us in the past. God has been there for us when we've needed Him. Our history with God proves that God can do it again in our lives. And so in Joshua 4, he didn't just build one memorial, he actually built two distinct monuments of 12 stones. One for each tribe of Israel. And so the 12 tribes of Attic Stone out of the dry riverbed on their shoulder, they were to pile them up in the base camp at Gilgal. This was to be a public testimony for intended future generations. So when children asked their parents what these stones mean, they could explain what God had done in the miraculous rescue of their ancestors from the Egyptians. But there was also an invisible monument and that was to be in the riverbed that they crossed over. And so Joshua was set up directly in the middle of Jordan, right where he stood with the Ark of the Covenant. 12 stones. And once the river rushed back into place afterwards, these stones were submerged and they were invisible to the human eye. But this monument was exclusively for God and also for Joshua. A deeply personal reminder that even when the water is deep and overflowing, God's faithfulness remains resting underneath. Whatever we're going through, in the depths of our issues that we may face, there is this knowing that God, underneath of us, is the everlasting arms. God is there holding us up. He's supporting us. He will never leave us, nor forsake us. What were these monuments for? To tell the story out. To provoke conversations. So people don't ask what these things mean. To tell to friends and family, to neighbors what God has done for us. This breaks the power of a current dark season and shifts spiritual atmospheres. Maybe then you could come back and we're going to try and land this. I have memories of being a child in church and I'd often hear people praying some weird prayers. One of those weird prayers was, "I raised my Ebenezer." Everybody heard that. "I raised my Ebenezer." I don't think what on earth they're on about. They never explained it. I thought they might be referring to Ebenezer Scrooge. In fact, many years after I learned that here I raised my Ebenezer was from a classic hymn called, "Come Thou Fount of Ebenezer." And in that, it talks about, "Here I raise my Ebenezer." And building an Ebenezer moment, creating a spiritual anchor in our lives that stops us from panicking when a new crisis hits us. The term Ebenezer comes directly from 1 Samuel 7 verse 12. It represents the ultimate biblical symbol of making God's supernatural rescue. The word literally means "stone of help." This concept was born during the time of the nation of Israel. They were gathered at a place called Mitzpar and they were confessing their sins. They were fasting. Their fear set them to launch a sudden and surprise attack. They were terrified. They begged God and Samuel to pray and to ask God to do something. Samuel offered a sacrifice, God-intensive supernatural sons thunderstorm that completely threw the Philo signs into panic and gave Israel a decisive victory. Right after the battle, Samuel did something highly intentional. He took a stone and set it between Mitzpar and Shen. He named it Ebenezer saying, "Thus far has helped me." "Thus far." How many of us can say that about what we've been through in our lives? "Thus far the Lord has helped me." "Thus far the Lord has helped me." When Samuel set up that stone he declared a dual prophetic meaning that applies directly to the dark season that we face. "Looketh at you, thus far, looking backward with gratitude." "Acknowledging the single storm we've survived was because God sustained us, brought us to safety to this day." "It's also thus far looking forward with confidence, thus far." A statement of momentum. It implies if God got you to this specific point, He will bring you, He will be with you. He won't drop you now. He won't leave you now. And so the Ebenezer stone was a guarantee the same God who handled the past is entirely capable of handling the future. So when you feel like a Mother, present, raise a stone, raise your own Jesus. "God, you did it in the past for me and what you did before you can do again." God delivered me from that sickness. He promised me when I lost my job. He restored my relationship and because He did it then, He will do it again. Surveil your memorial stones of gratitude and pass breakthroughs. And memorial stones of confidence that God will bring you through because He who promised is faithful. Let's stand together shall we? I'm going to leave it there, two more points, but I'm going to leave it. Breakthrough doesn't rely on human performance, but on an unchanging character of a covenant keeping God. Do you know the obstacle in front of you never had the final word? The promise keeper does. We may not be able to bypass the seasons waiting, but we can completely dictate how we behave inside them. We actively can shift our perspective, pull our eyes away from terrifying dimensions of the giant and fix them onto Jesus, the leader and perfector of our faith. We can shield our atmosphere, we can transform the midnight dungeon into a house of praise, actively trading a victim mentality for a victory posture. We can stand firm on covenant promises of God. We can stand our ground. We can refuse to waver. We can remain fully assured the same God who brought you thus far is already orchestrating your victory that is yet to come. Let's pray. Dear God, pray this prayer this morning that we could actively in faith pray this prayer in our hearts. Dear God, I come before you today, acknowledging that you are the Lord of the breakthrough. Lord, right now Lord, I make a deliberate choice to shift my perspective. I take my eyes off my obstacle, off the storm, off the wilderness experience, and I fix my gaze entirely upon Jesus. They are so much bigger than any obstacle I face. Lord, I choose to shield my atmosphere right now. Though my externals haven't yet changed, I lift up the sacrifice of radical praise. I refuse to be a victim of my feeling that you are good, you are faithful and you are all the glory. I declare that nothing and all creation can separate me from your love. And so I plant my feet firmly on your unchangeable covenant promises. I do not rely on my own performance but on your flawless character. You are the God who fights my battles. You are the God who breaks through my enemies like raging flood. So that when my emotions tell me to give up, I choose to hold fast to the confession of my hope without wavering. You who promise to our faithful, help me Lord with active waiting. I will manage my current situation with absolute diligence. I will find things to do that align perfectly with my future purpose. I will make a way where there is no way. I will fortify my resolve. I tighten my armor. I choose to stand. My breakthrough is coming. Amen. Before we sing, let's just bow our heads for a moment. I wonder today, whether today the Lord Jesus Christ knocking on the door of your heart and asking for you to surrender your life to Him. Open up and invite Him in. I wonder today, whether today could be a day of salvation for you in Jesus' name. Jesus died for you, that your sins can be forgiven. He died for you, that you can live. He rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father and right now is praying for you. The Bible says that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. What does that mean? It means that saved from the judgment of God that is yet to be, if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. Our names will be written in the Lamb's Book of Life. One day when we stand before God, He will find our name and He will invite us into heaven. I want to give you the opportunity, I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray to God, my name's Phil, and if you, God's calling you to come home to Him today and to invite Him into your life and to believe on Him, to live for Him, you can say these prayers in your heart. And just at the end of I said these prayers, I'm going to ask you, why are heads about to raise a hand? Did you say that prayer and you meant it today? Let's pray. My name's Phil. Thank you that you made a way to deal with sin and with death by coming to die in a cross, that my wrongdoing, my sin could be forgiven and I could be made on. Thank you that you didn't stay in the grave, but that you rose again the third day. Oh Jesus, forgive me for my sin, wash me in your blood that shed, wipe it of my life clean, bite my name in the Lamb's Book of Life. In Jesus' name, I give my life to you today. I open up the door in Jesus' name. Just my head's remained bound. If you've said that prayer and meant it today, just where you are, just step your hand up. I'm simply going to acknowledge it and you can put it straight back down again. I'm going to sing, take the opportunity to give God radical praise and worship in Jesus' name.