The Meantime - Week 4

Lift.

And when we get off course, many times we have

to return to the place we went on. We have

to return to the place we went off course in

order to correct our journey and our destination. Sometimes to

go ahead, sometimes to sometimes to get through the meantime,

you got to go back to the place where you

entered the meantime because you have drifted off course. Come

here for a second, Jeremy, let me, let me want.

I want to I want to illustrate something to you. Okay,

I'm not gonna jump on your back or anything. Although no, no,

not gonna jump on your back. All right, turn around

and uh you see that you set an electrical outlet

right there on the wall. Okay, I want you to uh.

I want you to walk straight that. Now, don't knock

my keyboard over.

I want you to walk straight there and straight back. Okay, go.

A little faster, you get cutting into my time. Pretty

good job. Give him my hands.

No, no, no, no, I'm not done. I'm not done. Not done.

And that's the way we want our lives to work. Right.

We we leave from a point in time and space

and geography, and we walk a straight line towards God's plan.

Towards that destiny, towards that goal we have already coming

back up here. Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna

just correct your travel. Okay, So make your head turn

with your shoulders okay. And then I want you to

walk in a straight line towards where I put your shoulders.

Just that much.

Okay, I want you to take three steps and stop.

Stop all right. You can't tell it, but I can

tell it that he's about six inches off path right now.

He's he's about six inches out of line from where

our original destination was. I want you to continue to

walk in that straight line all the way to the wall.

And when he gets out there, he's off course by

three and a half feet. See here's what happens when

we experience okay, can come straight back now. Now, I

want you to get to push up position. I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. He was gonna do it. He was

gonna give him a hand. See here's what happens. So

many times as we enter these uh, these meantime moments,

these mundane moments, these things where we don't have to

keep anything in front of us. We're just on cruise. Control,

and we only get off a couple of degrees from

where we're headed. We just we're just barely turned. And

tomorrow we look back and we don't realize that we're

off course because we haven't strayed that far off the

destination line.

We haven't strayed that far off.

But then if we keep going and we keep taking

those steps and we don't readjust our trajectory, we don't

reassess and evaluate where we are, then by the time

we get a month down the road, or a year,

or maybe even ten years down the road, we look

and we realize that we're so far off course.

Now.

Even though the correction or the miscorrection was small in

the beginning, we now have a vast disparity between where

we are and where we think we're supposed to be headed.

It's missional drift.

It's that drifting away just a little bit from that place,

that thing that God.

Has called us to.

And sometimes in order to correct missional drift, we have

to come back to the very point where.

We started drifting.

And it never feels good to go back, but sometime

the best way forward is to return to the place.

And I think that there's some of you here today,

that you feel like if you could just get back

where you were, Come on, somebody, that if you could

just get back to the place you used to be,

that you have now taken a step ahead, because where

you used to be is better than where you are now.

Let's read together, I want to start.

We're gonna do those scriptures in reverse order of the

way I gave them to you. We're gonna read numbers

first numbers, chapter thirteen, starting in verse thirty one. But

the men who had gone up with him said, we're

not able to go up against the people, for their

stronger than we are. And they gave the children of

Israel a bad report of the land which they had

spied out, saying, the land through which we have gone

as spies as a land that devours its inhabitants, and

all the people whom we saw in it are men

of great stature. There we saw the giants, the descendants

of a nac came from the giants, and we were

like grasshoppers in our own site, and so we were

in their sight. Thank you for your word. It's the

only change agent on the face of the planet. And today.

Our request to you is.

That you don't leave us like we are, but that

you change us, that you correct our course, that you

call us back to the point of variation. Lord, that

you that you start a work so profound today that

we look back on this moment in time and we

realize that that's where we got back on track to

reach the great and powerful destiny that you've put on

the inside of each and every one of us, that

kingdom greatness that you have set aside for us in

Jesus' name. Amen, this is this is the the narrative,

the story of Israel.

They have they fled Egypt.

They are They've now gotten on the other side of

the Red Sea. They've gone and they have gotten up

to the Jordan River, and they are deciding whether to

cross over the Jordan River. They're deciding deciding whether whether

Moses would lead them over into the Promised Land. So

Moses sent spies out into the land to check out

the land. Now, first of all, I want to remind

you that God never said send spies. God said go

to the Promised Land. God said go When you get there,

it's gonna be fabulous, it's gonna be fantastic. And as

a matter of fact, right before we get this report.

It was a much different report that these same people gave.

They said, Hey, this is a land that's flowing with

milk and honey. Listen, there are grapes the size of

basketballs and bananas the size of canoes. You've never seen

anything like what's over there. The provision that's over there

is unlike anything we could ever imagine. It's more than

what we had in Egypt. It's more than anything we've

had in the journey. It's gonna be a place. And

then they get their eyes on the situations and the circumstance,

and they make a huge assumption.

They make an assumption.

That paralyzes them and keeps them from attaining everything that

God had for them. When we're going to talk about

that assumption in just a moment. But now jump with

me to Joshua chapter two, verse eight. Joshua chapter two,

verse eight. Now, before they lay down, she came up

to them on the roof and said to the men,

I know that the Lord has given you the land,

that the terror of you has fallen on us, and

that all the inhabitants of the land are faint hearted

because of you. For we've heard how the Lord dried

up the water of the Red Sea for you when

you came out of Egypt. And what you did to

the two kings of the Amorites who were on the

other side of the Jordan's sea, Han and Og, whom

you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things,

our hearts melted. Neither did there remain any more courage

in anyone because of you. For the Lord your God,

he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now,

what we may not realize when we read these two

different passages is we are almost in the same spot geographically.

Moses had led the children of Israel to the bank

of the Jordan River. He sent, he sent spies over.

They came back, and this was their report. We're like

grasshoppers in their eyes, and we're also grasshoppers in our

own eyes.

They said, listen, we have measured ourselves again.

It's the people, and we have made the assumption that

they see us like grasshoppers. We have made the assumption

that these people that we see they're better than us.

They're stronger than us, they're more powerful than us. And

there's no possible way we have a chance. There's no way,

we have a chance to overwhelm them, to overthrow them,

to defeat them in any way, So we can't possibly

cross over. Now, First of all, they are spies in

the land. Now, I don't know about you. I mean,

I've never been I've never actually been a spy. First

of all. Okay, contrary to popular belief, i do not

moonlight in the CIA. Okay, I'm not James Bond in

my off time. I'm not a spy. But there's something

that I have gained, something that I have gleaned from

watching the spy movies is that spies work covert. They

don't walk in and announce, Hey, I'm a spy and

I'm here to check you out. They sneak around in

the shadows, They look from a distance, they blend in.

They they observe without interaction because they want to find

out the details for the invasion.

So, if these were spies in.

The land, number one, nobody told them that they were

grasshoppers because nobody knew they were there.

It was an.

Assumption they made about themselves that the people of that

land saw them as grasshoppers. Did you know that God

always will provide to the place where he guides. God

is guiding you somewhere he will give you provision. In

other words, the place he's guiding you to will sustain itself.

The place he's guiding you to will will be enough

to support you and to allow you to thrive and

to allow you to be everything God called.

You to be. And the report that they brought back.

When they went into the land is that there's giant

grapes and big old bananas. I got news for you.

Grasshoppers don't eat grapes or bananas. I actually listen. I

googled it. I didn't do you know, deep Bible reason.

I just googled the grasshoppers eat grapes and bananas. They

do not eat grapes or bananas. Now you google it

and if it comes up with something different, but they

don't eat them. God would not send a grasshopper to

a place that the place wouldn't support. They made an

assumption that we're out classed from where we're headed, and

there's nothing we're ever going to be able to do

to fit in there.

I think some of.

You maybe have reached a point in your journey with

God and you walked up to the edge of your

Jordan river. The Jordan River always represents the place of

no return. When you cross over the Jordan River, you're

in a new place. You're in a place where there

are battles to be fought, but there's also great victories

to be won. And maybe you've walked up to your

Jordan River and you've made an assessment of what's on

the other side, in the unknown, and you've said to yourself,

you know what, I think I may be a grasshopper.

I think I may not really be cut out for this.

I might not be able to do what God has

called me to do. You know, Pastor Clay said something

during that song. He said, listen, I just want you

to prophesy it until you can see it. If you

can't see it, I just want you to prophesy until

you can see it. I just want you to say

it until you can see it. I want to take

you another step beyond that. Not only do you prophesy

until you see it, but listen to this. Once you

see it clearly, let me say it again. Once you

see it clearly, you can possess it fully.

Oh.

Once you can see it clearly, you can then activate

your faith on it, and you can possess it fully.

Anything that you can see, anything.

That God gives you a vision for, anything that God

presents to you and you can see it clearly, God

will give it to you fully. And here they knew

what was in the land, but they just didn't have

the fortitude to go get it. Now, let me tell

you what happened. Meantime happened. And not only was it meantime,

it was mean time. There was nothing easy about that meantime.

As a matter of fact, from when they crossed over

the Red Sea, so they arrived at the Jordan River

geographically is at about an eleven day journey, eleven days

they walked between the Jordan River and the Red Sea

for forty years. They were in the meantime for forty

years because they weren't able to take the initial step,

because they made some assumptions about themselves that just simply

were not true. Now, let's jump back to the second

passage of scripture we read over in the Book of Joshua.

This is Joshua has now led the children of Israel

to the same place. They're standing on the bank of

the Jordan River. They're getting ready to go over and

possess the land, and God speaks to Joshua, and God says,

now you can send spies into the land. It's okay

for you to send them into the land, but you

choose them. That was the mistake that Moses made.

He didn't pick the people.

That were going to try to see it clearly, he

let the people pick the people. You know, sometimes we

take advice from the wrong people. Sometimes we go to

we go to people who we actually know. Listen, if

you got somebody in your life, y'all need to write

this down. You know, I told you the most spiritual

thing I was ever gonna teach you last week was.

Write it down. I'm gonna teach you.

The the second most spiritual thing I'm ever gonna teach

you today. So you've got the top two things in

two weeks. The second most spiritual thing you're ever gonna

hear is if you have negative people in your life

and you go to them for advice, it's going to

be negative. Negative people will give you negative advice. And

let me tell you this, negative people often in the

moment become quite popular because their negativity is louder than

everybody else's positivity. And the squeaky hinge is the one

that gets the oil. So now he said, listen, you

pick the people, because we don't want a bunch of

negative nancies going over in there and then bringing the

same kind of report back.

Because I've already told you to go. I've got a

new view.

I'm gonna put them in a place so that they

can get some information that those other spies didn't have.

So we sent these spies over and they end up

at at this lady's house named Rahab, a prostitute, a

lady of the night, a lady of ill repute, but

that had all the info of the goings.

On in the city.

And they show up at her house and he says, listen,

I don't know what is but I'm gonna hide you

because they're looking for you. They're gonna kill you, So

come on up to the roof and hide. So she

goes up there in the evening and she says, hey,

here's the deal. I don't know if you know this

or not, but everybody is terrified because y'all are camping

on the other side of the Jordan River.

Their hearts have melted.

They're all overwhelmed with fear because they know your God,

they know your God is the God of heaven above

and of the earth beneath. That your God is the God.

And they heard, and I want you to start building

a timeline in your mind.

Here. They heard.

That God opened the Red Sea for you. He did

that exactly one time. This was not a new Red

Sea splitting occurrence that she's talking about. It's the old one.

And then she said, and then we also.

Know how you utterly this destroyed the two kings on

the other side of the Jordan River the first time

you came. So let me give you some some fireside

chat that happened after she went back down. It's not

recorded in scripture, but I know guys, and they were

sitting around.

They started talking.

They said, She said, they're terrified because of that whole

Red Sea deal and because of those kings that we

utterly destroyed forty years ago. So why did we wander

around in eleven day circle for forty years If they're

still scared forty years later, why didn't we just march

across the river? Then the reason is because then they

thought they were grasshoppers and.

Now they think they're giants.

Before they were objects, and now they are the focal

point before they were the subject of an assumption placed

on them by themselves, and they allowed that to dictate

their actions. Now, forty years later, they stand in the

same spot, after forty years of meantime. Let's talk about

what the meantime looks like for just a second. They

woke up in the morning and they went out of

their tents and there was magically bread on the ground.

They would go out and they would gather the bread,

and they had to gather enough for a whole day

because that next night it was gonna spoil. They couldn't

gather enough for an extra day, and they would get

up the next one. They would walk out and the

bread would be this called manna. This uh, this what

is it?

Bread?

They didn't know what it was, but it was able

to sustain them, and they just that.

They they ate and they they grumbled and they complained,

and they they walked, and then they.

Gained and then they gathered some bread, and they grumbled

and they complained, and they walked, and.

Then they gathered some bread, and they grumbled and they

complained and they walked.

Kind of sounds like I get up in the morning

and I eat breakfast, and I take a shower, and

I go to my job and I complain about my boss.

And if you are the boss, yes, they are probably

complaining about you.

Just frame that how you will.

Then I'm gonna go to bed at night, and the

next day I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna repeat

the cycle.

God has more for you than that.

John chapter ten, verse ten says the thief comes only

to kill, to steal, and to destroy. That's all he does.

He comes only to kill, to steal and to destroy.

He comes to kill your hopes and dreams. He comes

to steal what little you have and to destroy the

hope that tomorrow can be better than today.

That's what he comes to do.

You want to be pretty depressed and passages of Scripture

if it's stopped there.

But it says the thief.

He comes to kill, only to kill, to still and destroy.

But I Jesus is saying this. You got one of

those fancy multicolored bibles that's in red. But I have

come that you may have life.

Now.

Walking in the wilderness is life. Picking up manna is life.

But he said, but I've come that you may have life,

and life more abundantly life to the full life that

looks different than everybody else that don't know me.

Life.

That's just it's something about my life that people look at. Now,

I want you to take some self evaluation and see

if there needs to be a coarse correction.

Does your life look like a life.

That other people look at and say, hey, I want

some of that?

It's just a fault or is it? Woe? Is me?

Beat down? Not gonna make it.

It's the last one I can take, or I'll be

on the floor if I get any lower.

I don't think I can. I'm gonna try to. The

devil's on my back and now he's wearing me out.

And we go to work and surrounded by people that

are looking at their lives because they know go to church.

We go to that crazy church where they speak in

tongues and clap and do all that stuff.

You know.

My prayer for you is that you live a life

that is flamboyantly pentecostal. You Now, I'm chasing a rabbit,

but it's okay. You should have it somewhere in you

that if there's somebody sick sitting at the desk across

from you, that you go over and lay hands on

them and pray for them in the Holy Ghost. Or

you walk up to somebody trying to decide whether they

want cheerios or honey nut cheerios in the grocery store,

and you walk up to them and say, thus saith

the Lord.

He wants you to have honey nut cheerios.

Because he's taking you to a fland that flows with

milk and honey, and he wants you to get a

little taste of it right now as we are.

Huh. Now, let me get back to my message. That

was free.

By the way, when you give an offer, it doesn't

even that was just extra.

They're here at the same place.

They've returned to the same point so they can make

a new decision about their next action because the destiny

did not change. Even though they wandered and complained for

forty years, the destiny never changed because the call and

gifts of God are without repentance.

It's there.

You may have pressed it down, you may have stomped

on it. You may have tried to forget it. You

may not want it. But the gift and call of

God is still there and ready for you. And now

He's brought you back to the same place to make

either the same decision or the right decision. But it's

time for you to course correct this morning and cross

the Jordan River Clay.

You guys can come and get ready.

Because what's on the other side grapes and bananas, smoothies,

a place where listen, you will reap.

Where you did not, So you know.

I believe that we have stepped into the last days.

I believe we have been living in end times. I

believe we stepped into the last days. I believe we're

getting close.

Believe.

I believe maybe that Angel is already practicing. I believe

right now in a back room somewhere, if you slipped

up to the door and put your ear against the door,

you would hear he's practicing because he don't want to

get it wrong. You don't want to play that trumpet blast.

Out of key right.

You want it sharp. And nothing has to happen. All

the requirements have been met. But there's some things that

are probably gonna happen, like a wealth transfer from the

hands of the wicked into the hands of the righteous

to fund the great Last Day revival. That I still

believe it doesn't have to come, but I believe it's

going to come. And he's positioning us because we're all

about to go through some life change.

I believe.

I believe us things get harder to get and things

get more expensive, that people are going to be open

to the Gospel and to a move of the Lord

more than they have been.

In a long time.

He's positioning America that we could lead that last great outpouring.

It might be us that he's positioning to do that,

And I just want to be part of it. I

don't have to lead it. I just want to be

part of it. But we've come to.

This place, and I believe that.

If we'll cross the Jordan River, there will be battles

to be fought, but there will also be reaping where

we did not. So in other words, somebody else did

the work and you got the harvest.

The battles are already one.

You just have to fight them. Doesn't matter what the

cities look like, it doesn't matter how many giants are there.

God has got you. And listen to this. The enemy

already knows.

The enemy, your adversary already knows that you are covered

by and led by the God of heaven above and

the earth beneath, and all you need to do is

cross the river. All you need to do. Let's take

a few steps in the right direction, stripped.

A gear hold. He's waiting on you.

Listen. I can preach and preach and preach, and we

can sing and sing and sing.

And man, we can launch groups.

And groups and groups and teams and teams and teams.

But at some point got to figure out where you are,

where you need to be. Get your feet wet. Now.

I know he parted the river for them, but I'm

telling you, for a grave as big as a basketball,

I would have swam for a banana.

The size of a canoe, I would have held rocks

and walked across on the bottom. But you got to decide.

Am I happy with manna.

Or do I want stake? Am I happy looking into

what God told me I could have? Or do I

want to actually live in what God told me I

could have. That decision you make this morning, everybody's staying

with me all over the building.