This Is A Season of Preparation

Destiny is always driven by your distinctives. The things about

you that make you different are the things that will

drive you into your destiny. Often, the things that embarrass

you about yourself are the very things that God has

empowered you with to make a difference in your world.

Come on, Blakeney. I know I'm not normally on the screen, but.

You can clap because a lot of times we spend

our time running from the things that God wants to

use to lead us into our new season and into

our greatest effectiveness. Touch somebody next to you and say.

Be distinctive.

Israel was always meant to be different than the other nations.

God never intended for them to fit in.

In fact, the reason that he called Israel was so

that he could have a special possession, something different than

all the surrounding nations, a nation on which his name

could rest. He wanted them to be distinctive, and it

broke God's heart more than anything when his people tried

to pretend like they were what God had called them

out of. It broke his heart when they wanted a

king for themself, a human king, when.

God wanted to be their king.

And I think it still must really break the heart

of God when we try to get out of other

people something that God himself desires to give to us,

something that only he can give. If you're a business owner,

raise your hand, or if you're an aspiring business owner,

an entrepreneur of any kind, one of the things you've

got to do if your business is going to succeed.

Or be great.

Remember we said that greatness is a product of separation,

preceded by separation, preparation and separation and bookwork. I mean,

I screwed it up, but the other one worked too.

Even my mistake was annointed. Just now, that's how great

University City is. Now watch this.

There's something to that separation, preparation. There's something to that,

isn't there? Because because Moses had to spend.

Forty years in Midian in the desert, separated from his

people in order to go back to his people and

lead them to a place that they no longer believed

they were fit to go into.

And sometimes God has to pull you away from people,

and sometimes God has to pull you away from from

comfortable circumstances to propel you into your calling.

Separation is preparation.

Jesus often had to go away when it was early

and he had to go away and pray, away from

Peter and away from John and away from James.

I love y'all, but I can't be with.

Y'all all the time because I got a calling, and

in order to fulfill my calling, I gotta be separate.

I gotta be consecrated. That's the church where consecrated.

What does that mean? Separate, set apart. Another popular spiritual

term is sanctified. It means set apart.

For a purpose.

Sometimes God has to pull you away from people to

set you apart for purpose.

And you see it in Moses's life. God was preparing

him to be a deliverer.

But in order to prepare him to be a deliverer,

he had to give him a distinctive feature. So Moses

is born at three months old, he goes through his

first separation where his mother had to actually send him

down the Nile. And the reason she had to do

that is because Pharaoh was so afraid of the Israelites

because they were becoming so numerous that he started killing

all the firstborn boys and so so Moses's mom had

to send him out and then when he was taken up,

he was taken up.

By one of Pharaoh's daughters.

So now he's an Israelite by birth, but he's living

in an Egyptian culture.

He's no stranger to separation.

He knows what it means to be living in one

place but to have come from another place. And some

of you know that feeling as well. It's to be

separated from your background. It's to be separated from the

things that that are in your blood. It is to

be separated. Is to say, you know, everybody in my

family didn't go to college, but but I think I

might get a degree.

You know, all the males.

In my family ran off and left, but I think

I must say and raise my kids. You know, my

father was an alcoholic, but I don't think I need that.

I think I'm applying that temperate addiction. I think I'm

looking at addicted to fulfill in my purpose, if to

uplishing the call it. There's a separation, a separation. So

he's born in Israelife or Hebrew. He's raised in Egypt,

but then one day he murders an Egyptian because the

Egyptian is beating the Hebrew, and he's torn between the

people that he came from and the people that he's

had to live with, and he doesn't know what to do,

so he responds in the wrong way because sometimes it

feels like life is pulling you apart, between your past

and your present, between who you were and who you

can be, and you don't know what to do, and

so he does the wrong thing. But he ends up

on the run, and that's why he went to Midian,

and that's why he ended up in Midian tending.

Sheep for forty years.

And that's why he ended up separated not only from

what he was born into, but what he was raised in.

And then God speaks to him about what he was

called to do in a scene called the Burning Bush,

and that's where God said, take off your shoes, Moses,

take off your shoes.

Take off fear.

I'm not taking these off because I know there's some

sneaker heads come up and grab them. He said, I

want you to separate yourself from who you are so

you can see who I am. The place you are

standing is holy ground, and Moses, I've chosen you, and.

I've made you distinctive.

I've set your part, I've given you a destiny. And

Moses has all these excuses you know it's like, well,

I can't talk very good, And God said, you know,

your distinctive feature isn't your ability to talk. Your distinctive

feature is the words I'm going to put in your mouth.

So I need you to separate your view of yourself

from my view of you.

I need you to separate yourself from your excuses for

a minute so.

You can embrace purpose. What was God doing.

He was creating a separation between what Moses was not

and what God certainly was. He was creating a separation

so that Moses, when he went back to Egypt, wouldn't

think like the people who were still there. That's what

the loneliness was about. The separation was preparation for purpose.

I didn't preach this to be a dating seminar, but

I just felt God say that there are some people

who are holding out for a person that will compliment

your calling, and you're.

Not giving yourself up, and you feel.

Kind of weird about it, and you feel kind of

strange about it.

But I needed to tell you.

To hold on because if you compromise what's distinctive about you,

you will disrupt your destiny by chaining with something that

doesn't look.

Like you, that won't walk with you, that won't work

for you.

So I wanted to tell you you're separate on purpose.

You're here for a reason in this season. And many

scholars have have have postulated that the Exodus account, where

Moses is leading the people out of Egypt, is meant

to parallel or mimic the Genesis account when God created

the earth, and that gives us a further insight because

the scripture says that when God was getting things started.

How many feel like God is starting something in your life?

How many want God to starts something in.

Your life, in your family, in your business, in your career.

So it said, in the beginning, God created.

Everybody, say created, He created the heavens and the earth. Okay, separate.

In the beginning, God created what's the title of my sermon, creating.

Separation?

You get it in a minute, because it said He

created the heavens and the earth. And watch this, this

me me happen now. The hearth was formless and empty.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep. I need

to show you something because if I don't show it

to you, I'm afraid you won't pick up on it.

It says the darkness was over the face of the deep.

It doesn't say God created the darkness. First John one

five says that God is light and in him is

no darkness at all. God didn't make the darkness. God

didn't create sin. God didn't create shame. God is not

the author of confusion.

So the darkness was there. But then something happen.

The spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and

God said, how did God create what you see by

what he spoke? So he said, let there be life?

And there was life.

How many know?

God wants to speak some things over your life today,

some distinctive features.

He wants to speak some things.

About what He puts you here to do, about what

He gave you your gifts for, about what you were

created for.

So he spoke that watch watchwalks. That's not the good part.

That's not the good part. Tell somebody that's not even it.

And he saw that the light was good. That's what

he spoke.

And he he saw what was there that he didn't create.

Then he spoke what he wanted to see.

And then he said, I need to separate what was

there before I.

Spoke from what I spoke. Now here's what I think

about that. I think God wants to create a separation

in your life today, a separation between what was there

before God spoke, what people said about you, what's your

pastor is saying about you, what's your weakness.

Informs about you? And the better word that he's speaking

over your life.

Let's get all that other stuff out of here, all

that darkness, that time, all that dysfunction.

You gotta.

Got up.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

What God did in Genesis with the arm he did

through Jesus, come on, done gone.

And now he's saying the old is God. The move

has gone, come on, getting praised on every camp.

That's what God's doing in this flash today. He's separating

no one from the darkness. He's separating your purpose from

your past. He's separating his words over your life from

your worry about your future. He said, I got to

create a separation so that the only thing that shines

is one.

I stopped.

Play my own organ of riches, so good, anything to

think the feature I think the future.

Stand out.

Child of God. Stop trying to be so similar, Stop

trying to look like what you came from.

Why he's so scared to stand out.

Why are you so scared to stand out?

I didn't start a church to be like.

All the other churches in the area. How many know

That's why you're here, not because it was so similar.

But God wants to do a special thing. Don't trade

in special for similar.

And this is this is.

The process by which God creates separation. You know, I

heard that term before, but I never heard it in

a sermon. I heard it in sports. They talk about

basketball players who have the ability to create separation so

they can take a shot with a higher percentage, and

they talk about it in even in fighting they.

Talk about a rich advantage.

They talk about you know, if this guy can create separation,

he's going to make his opponent miss. My friends plays football.

I told him, I said, I'm gonn preach about creating separation.

And I said, what would you say about this, because

he's a receiver. He said, Well, tell the people that

creating separation.

Isn't always about being fast.

It's about knowing your route. I'm running out of time,

but let me take a moment and hit on the

comeback route. It's interesting the way that God leads us

out of situations and into purpose isn't it. It's not

usually a straight line. That was one of the things

that was so confusing to Moses is that God gave

him some instructions that seemed insane. He said, I could

take you straight into the Promised Land. This is where

the people of Israel were headed. They were headed. And

I know a lot of you may not have a

ton of Bible background. You don't need to know all

this to get what God wants you to have. You

just need to embrace at the level that you can.

And I'm using the Promised Land that they were going

to to talk about all the promises that God has

established and has spoken over your life. But the way

God took them was unusual. The way he led them

wasn't in a straight line. He told them to kind

of go around an interesting route. And I want to

read you this in Exodus fourteen Dumbina back up before

that point where the water separated and they went through

on dryground.

It says in verse one.

That when God was telling them where to go, he

said to Moses, tell the Israelites to turn back and

encamp near py Hiira, between Migdahl.

And the sea.

And I could stop right at tell the Israelites to

turn back. That's what's unusual to me about the instruction.

They leave Egypt after ten plagues, after Pharaoh has resisted,

because God gets the greatest glory out of your life

in the face of the greatest resistance.

Always easy. It's not supposed to be a campbig.

People can't see how strong your God is if your

battles are never fierce. But when they finally leave and

they're walking out, and they're they're they're leaving Egypt, they

start going and God says, tell them to turn back.

Do I have any football fans, any big football fans.

You can help me, help me you big, okay, just

come help me real quick, just with this one point

coming up, both you guys.

Who's you know? These guys. I love these guys, all right,

look just real quick, we don't have long.

I'm I'm I'm really eating into my my sermon time

here and they'll start leaving at the other campuses if

I go long and and I don't want that.

Are so come here. We're doing a little mock up

football scenario.

You know, you know a comeback route in football, So

just demonstrate real quick because a lot of people out

here on football fans, and you know, they don't know

what I'm talking about. But this is what my friend

was telling me about. So just just run a little

comeback round.

You'll be the defenders go.

So watch that's that's a comeback round.

It means, well, I won't appreciate it so bad.

Because where he's trying to go the goal is over here,

but he's got a defender on him, and if and

if the defender's too close, watch go out, go out,

go out, go out. If the defenders too close, he

can't get what he's supposed to carry. So in order

to make progress, in order to get to the goal,

eventually he has to come back.

In the wrong direction.

Momentarily, Let's do it again, because I think they're starting

to get it.

So what I'm.

Saying is hut.

I'm saying sometimes hut.

Sometimes they're going out and God will say, come back

so I can hit you.

Let's do it again. Let's redact that. It's the replaying.

God says, sometimes I'm gonna send you up, but what

I'm gonna bring you back to create how separation? Thanks

making the guy the Bible.

I'm gone. What's all?

But God said well, we just said on that stage

what the receiver does on the football field, sometimes I.

Need to do in your life.

That is, sometimes when it looks.

Like you're going backwards.

All I'm doing is making a space where I can

bless him.

So you can.

Does someone leave your life recently, It's all right.

God's got you on a comeback round. Did you lose

your chop recently? It's all right, it's a comeback rot.

There's somebody break your heart, sweetheart, that's okay.

There's somebody better that's this way. Don't send it or

to bring you to reestipt. Hey, thank you for watching.

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