You’re Not Stuck, You Just Stopped

We're concluding a series today called The Wilderness.

And the title of today's message is this.

You're not stuck, you just stopped.

You're not stuck, you just stopped.

And if you have a Bible, I want you to turn to two places.

Deuteronomy chapter 1, Genesis chapter 11.

Deuteronomy 1 · chapter mention Genesis 11 · chapter mention

Deuteronomy chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 11.

Deuteronomy 1 · chapter mention Genesis 11 · chapter mention

This week we are going to dispel what I believe is the greatest myth as it relates to the wilderness.

Here's the myth.

Most people believe that God sticks you in the wilderness for a predetermined period of time, and there's no chance to get out early under any circumstance.

Most people see the wilderness like an oven that God sticks us in, cranks the heat up to about seven bazillion degrees, sets the timer on, then walks away from and does not return to the oven until the timer goes off.

That's how many of us see the wilderness.

This is not true.

This is not the wilderness as God sees it.

God does not arbitrarily assign a number to us and say, well, you get 40 years, you get 60 years.

Here's the reason that people misunderstand this and just believe God puts us in the wilderness for a set period of time.

The wilderness for Christians is almost synonymous with a number.

I'm going to prove it to you.

In a moment, I'm going to count to three.

And when I count to three, I want you to say out loud the first number that comes to your mind when you hear the word wilderness.

Okay?

Everybody got it?

Alright?

So I count to three.

Whatever number comes to your mind when you hear the word wilderness, say it out loud.

You ready?

One, two, three.

Someone said a lifetime.

That's not a number.

One, two, three.

Forever! No, that is not.

How many of you said 40?

Put your hand up, okay?

Most of us think of the number 40.

Why?

Because the most famous wilderness that we all know of is a wilderness the Israelites spent 40 years in.

And we have gone so far as to assume that before God ever even created the Israelites, that He predetermined how long they'd be in the wilderness.

Now, obviously, I believe in the foreknowledge of God.

God has all knowledge and he knows how long I'm going to be in the wilderness before I'm even born.

But I do not believe God looks at Preston and says, Ooh, troublemaker, 45 years.

I don't believe that God looks at you and says, Ooh, you get 37 years, and you get four months because you're kind of a Mother Teresa type.

And you, you get 66 years because you, my friend, you're a little Bielzebub.

I don't believe that's what God does with us.

But yet many of us believe that we are stuck in this wilderness until God says it's time for us to leave.

Last week we learned that the wilderness is where God tests us.

The wilderness is a test.

And I believe the wilderness is a test.

God wants us to turn in early.

You remember when you were back in school and you had to take a test?

And let's say your class was 50 minutes long, and right next to you was the valedictorian of your high school.

You walk in and the teacher has a stack of blank tests on his or her desk, and you grab the test and you go sit down.

And if your valedictorian was anything like mine, 18 minutes into the test, 122 questions are done.

I'm on question seven.

And she's done with 122.

Did you ever see your valedictorian go to the teacher's desk, set the test down, and the teacher respond with?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

We are unable to accept your test at this time.

Well, I'm done with my test.

I'm sorry.

The time allotted for this test was 50 minutes.

And even though you're done at 18 minutes, you are not technically done with this test until the 15 minutes of allotted time are complete.

Most of us see the wilderness just like that.

But the wilderness is a test.

God says, please turn in early.

I'll show you where I get this.

This is Deuteronomy chapter 1, starting in verse 6.

Deuteronomy 1 · chapter mention

This is a retelling of the story of the Israelites going through the wilderness.

When we were at Mount Sinai, the Lord our God said to us, You have stayed at this mountain long enough.

Now, does anyone know how long the Israelites had been in the wilderness at this time?

Not forty years.

They had been in the wilderness around two years when God came to them and said, Enough is enough.

It's time to leave this wilderness.

And that's when the Israelites took matters into their own hands and sent spies into the land and started to freak out because they got a bad report about the giants in the land.

See, we believe that the wilderness was the Israelites' consequence.

It was not.

The wilderness was the place God asked the Israelites to walk through.

Most of us believe the wilderness is a consequence where we go to serve our time.

But the wilderness is the place where we walk until it's time.

The Israelites were not punished and sent into the wilderness.

God sent them out of Egypt and into the wilderness.

And listen to what he continues to say in verse 7.

It is time to break camp and move on.

Go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all the neighboring regions, the Jordan Valley, the hill country, the western foothills, the Negev, and the coastal plain.

Go to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon and all the way to the great Euphrates River.

Look, I am giving all this land to you.

Go in and occupy it.

For it is the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to all their descendants.

Here's the first point you're not stuck.

You are not stuck.

God didn't stick you in this wilderness.

Just like he was saying to the Israelites, enough is enough.

It's time to move out of this wilderness, it's time to leave.

Well, Preston, I feel like God stuck me in this wilderness and I can't get out of it.

Can I make a suggestion?

If you're anything like me, when I feel stuck in the wilderness, I'm not really stuck in the wilderness, I'm stuck in my ways.

The reason God said to the Israelites, two years, they had done what God wanted them to do.

And then he said, Let's go into the promised land.

And now I want you to listen what happens.

In Numbers chapter 14, verse 34.

Numbers 14:34

God says, Because your men explored the land for 40 days, you must wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

A year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins.

Then you will discover what it is like to have me for an enemy.

Whew.

That's a strong talk.

But that's not how God was talking in Deuteronomy 1.8, when God was saying, Look, I'm giving you all of this land.

Please go in and occupy it.

You've been in the wilderness long enough.

It wasn't until the Israelites became disobedient that God said, now it's punishment time.

As a parent, do you walk into your home and arbitrarily punish your children for no reason?

Then why would you think if God says, you being the great parent that you are, imagine how much better I am at parenting you?

Why would you think that God would look at you and say, you're in trouble?

I'm sending you to the wilderness for the next 70 years.

Probably because you thought God did that to the Israelites.

He didn't.

It wasn't until they disobeyed that he extended their season in the wilderness.

When I get stuck in my ways, I get stuck in ruts.

My way is a rut that I get stuck in.

His way gives me rights I get to walk in.

And when I'm not walking in the promises of God, the first thing I look at is my obedience.

David says to his son Solomon, at the end of his life, this is how big obedience is.

Towards the end of his life, he gives Solomon one charge, and here's the charge.

So now, with God as our witness, in the sight of all Israel, the Lord's assembly, I give you this charge.

Be careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God, so that you may continue to possess this good land and leave it to your children as a permanent inheritance.

Disobedience has long been recognized as the easiest way to prolong the wilderness and the fastest way to be asked to leave the promised land.

Listen, how can God trust me to live in the land he tells me to if I won't do the things he tells me to do?

Obedience is huge, and if you feel stuck, you're not.

Just take an obedient self-examination.

Ask yourself this question: Am I doing everything God told me to do in every area of my life?

And if you feel stuck, here's the best way to not feel stuck anymore.

If you say, I'm not doing everything he told me to do in every area of my life, here's what you do: you repent and you go back and do the last thing he told you to do.

Sometimes in life, the easiest way to change the seasons is simply to repent and do the last thing God told us to do.

Obedience is huge if we want to walk into the promised land.

You're not stuck.

Here's the second point.

You just stopped.

You're not stuck, you just stopped.

Stuck is what we call it when we stop, but want to blame someone else.

Stuck is what we call it when we stop, but want to blame it on someone else.

A couple years ago, my daughter uh was playing around in the house and she was playing in the kitchen, and she stuck her arm.

Uh, you know the handle on the oven?

You know?

The oven wasn't on, so it's not gonna be one of those stories, okay?

She stuck her arm down in between the handle and the oven, and she got stuck.

And we were outside playing with the boys, and so we didn't know what was going on.

She'd just come in the house.

Well, she gets frightened.

And she starts screaming at the top of her lungs.

I'm stuck, I'm stuck, help me, I'm gonna die.

You know, don't laugh.

You know how we do when we get stuck.

We start to freak out, you know.

She was freaking out, she's yelling at the top of her lungs.

Holly comes into the house, she hears Riley screaming, she goes in and she simply pulls her arm out and Riley gets away.

Riley's yelling, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck.

But here was the reality.

She wasn't stuck.

She just stopped in the wrong place and did the wrong thing.

When I feel stuck, there is nearly a 100% chance that I have stopped in the wrong place and I am doing the wrong thing.

Flip over to Genesis chapter 11, starting in verse 31.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

This is the story of, in the middle of the story, of Abram, whose name would be changed to Abraham, Abram and his father Terah.

And you probably know that Genesis 12.1 is very, very popular, and many people know it.

This is what precedes Genesis 12.1.

It says this one day Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai, and his grandson Lot, and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans.

He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there.

Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran.

He was headed for the land of Canaan, but stopped at Haran and settled there.

If you're taking notes, you can write this down.

Anytime we stop before the promised land, we are settling for less than the promise.

When I stop before the promised land, I am settling for less than God's best.

Terah was in Ur, heads to Canaan, stops in Haran, and settles there.

Now in Acts chapter 7, in verse 2, we know that God had already spoken to Abram before they settled in Haran.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Most people, because Genesis 12, 1 is the famous scripture where God says, Abram, leave.

Leave your father's family, country, to the place that I'll show you.

God had already spoken that to Abram before they settled in Haran.

Now here's why that's important.

Because God told Abram to leave his father's family.

Yet his father and his family traveled with him.

Why?

Here's why.

I believe this is how it went down.

One day God tells Abram, I want you to leave.

And I'll tell you when you get where I want you to go once you get there.

I'm gonna make you famous there, and it's gonna be an incredible place.

It's a land flowing with milk and honey, but I need you to leave.

And I believe Abram walked into his father's bedroom and said, Dad, I gotta leave.

I'm sure Tara probably said, What do you mean you gotta leave?

Well, God told me I have to leave.

Well, where does God want you to go?

Well, uh to Canaan, and he wants me to do it right now.

Well, why does God want you to go to Canaan?

Well, Dad, I believe this is the place that God has spoken to me, that this is where our anointing is as a family.

This is where God's richest blessings are waiting for us.

I believe this is the land of our promise, and I have to leave.

And I believe the more Abram talked about Canaan and how wonderful a place it was, the more Tarah began to think, I'm going with you.

The Bible says that Terah left Ur heading towards Canaan, but stops in Haran.

He stopped.

Now, there are times when God wants us to stop along the way and rest.

But if I'm not resting when I'm stopping, I am stopping for all the wrong reasons.

God wants me to rest when I stop.

The enemy wants me to compare when I stop.

Let me explain.

The enemy will come to you on this journey into the promised land when you're really worn out, and he'll come and whisper in your ear, hey, just stop.

Take a break.

You're worn out, you've been going forever.

No one's been running as fast and as long as you.

Just stop.

So we say, that's a good idea.

We've been going for 500 miles since we left Ur.

Let's stop in Heron.

And here's why the enemy wants us to stop.

Because the moment we stop, the enemy starts pointing out all of the people that are passing us.

He gets us to compare.

My daughter started competitive swimming this summer.

And she had her first meet a couple weeks ago and her second meet on Friday.

Now, if you are into this competitive swimming thing, I never was.

I'm just now learning how it all goes.

What they do is they take your time from your previous race, all the racers, previous time, and they rank you for the next race based on your last time.

And then if you're in an early heat, it means you had a slower previous time.

If you're in a later heat, you're one of the fastest swimmers in the pool.

Well, Riley was in the second heat of four.

And she doesn't know anything about this ranking system and all that stuff to her.

She's just racing.

Gun goes off, she jumps into the pool, and from the moment she jumped into the pool, she was ahead of the other swimmers.

And she's been working very, very hard to improve as a swimmer over the last couple weeks.

She jumped in that pool, and you could tell immediately she wasn't the same swimmer as the first race.

Every meter she swam, she pulled further and further away from her competition.

By the end of the race, she gets up out of the pool and turns around, and she sees she's about 25% ahead of second place.

And the moment she turned around and saw where second place was, I could see it on her face.

You could see the swagger just rise up.

And it was like she got out of that pool, turned around, and saw second place, and all of a sudden you got this.

Now you know where she got that from.

She got it from her mother.

She got the whole winning by 25% part from.

Not really.

She's swaggering.

Why?

Because she feels like she just blew away her competition.

We're yelling her name and celebrating and going crazy.

And Riley thought we were celebrating because she was beating everyone so badly.

You know what we as parents were celebrating?

Her improvement.

We were celebrating her progress.

She was celebrating her apparent victory.

Two more heats go by.

All the faster swimmers are in those heats.

Seven more racers swim faster than Riley did.

And when we get the results, we find out she finishes eighth, and we tell her, baby, you finished eighth place.

And immediately her countenance changed.

I thought I finished first.

No, you finished eighth.

There are a lot of good swimmers that came after you.

And I could see it on her face.

She was this close to saying, I don't ever want to swim the freestyle again.

Isn't it amazing that when you're running your race and you feel ahead of everyone else, you feel like the fastest swimmer in the pool.

But the moment you stop and start comparing your pace to the fastest swimmers in the pool, you feel like the slowest swimmer in the world.

That's how we get.

That's why the enemy wants us to compare.

The enemy knows that if I start looking sideways at my competition, anywhere I am looking, I will end up walking towards.

The enemy knows if I'll begin comparing to the people that I think are running this race with me, that I will end up following after what they're chasing.

We can't compare when we stop.

Here's what we need to do when we stop.

We need to rest contently.

Well, Preston, we're in the wilderness.

How can you be content with the wilderness?

I didn't say be content with the wilderness.

I said be content in the wilderness.

One of the ways that we graduate out of the promise, out of the wilderness into the promised land, is learning to be content in the wilderness.

Here's what contentment means: contentment is the ability to have peace when nothing changes.

Can you be content in the wilderness where God has you walking through?

Or do you find yourself so exhausted from running for so long that just like Tara, you make the decision, I've gone far enough, I have to stop.

If you feel stopped right now, if you have stopped, here's all you have to do.

Get up and keep walking again.

God didn't say stop if you're not resting.

So if you're done resting, get up and walk.

And that brings us to our third point.

It's time to leave not to move.

It's time to leave not to move.

Look there in Genesis chapter 12, verse 1.

Genesis 12:1

The Lord had said to Abram, Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to The land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you and make you famous.

And you will be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.

All the families on earth will be blessed through you.

So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed.

Here's what's significant about this.

I want you to notice.

God tells Abram to leave.

God says of his father that he moved away.

There's a big difference between moving and leaving.

If I move away from something, in a moment of crisis, I'll be tempted to move back to where I'm comfortable.

You see, what's important about Haran, Haran was the place that Terah lived before he left, before he moved into Ur.

He lived in Haran, then lived in Ur, then headed towards Canaan and went back to Haran.

Isn't it amazing that when we get exhausted and we are walking towards the promised land, that our flesh begins to tempt us into going back to the place where we're most comfortable?

God said of Tarah, he moved away.

God said to Abram, you have to leave.

Here's why God says, you have to leave.

Because anything you go towards, you'll want to go back to.

But if you leave something, you don't even look back.

Ask Lot.

Better yet, ask Lot's wife, who turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at what God told Lot to leave.

Here's what God's saying to all of us.

Don't disobey me by going back to where you're most comfortable.

And don't disrespect me by looking back at where you came from.

Preston, you need to trust me that what I have put ahead of you is so much greater than what is behind you.

I just need you to let go of Aaron's hand, grab onto my hand so I can walk you into the promised land for the rest of your life.

But most of us as believers have what I call empty hand anxiety.

We gotta have something in our hand.

We hate to have empty hands.

I believe God made us that way because He created us to desire to hold nothing but His hand all the days of our life.

But here's what happens when we feel like God has abandoned us, we start grabbing on to the herons in life.

We start grabbing on to the things that make us feel most comfortable.

And Abram said, I can't do that.

I know this is where my father was comfortable.

God told me to leave.

And where it was his father's intention to make it to the promised land, it was Abram's commitment to get to the promised land.

Tara meant to get there.

Abram was determined to get there.

I know you feel knocked down a little bit.

I know you feel like you're stuck in this wilderness.

But God didn't stick you here, put a clock, start it up, and say, You gotta sit here until it's over.

God asked you to walk through the wilderness.

Listen, it's when we get overwhelmed in the wilderness after having been there so long that we start to look around, get comfortable, and make that our new normal.

And this is how people end up dying in the wilderness, God told them years before merely to detour through.

You were not meant to die in the wilderness.

Well, Preston, that's what happened to the Israelites.

No, not all of them.

The ones that disobeyed.

If we will walk in obedience, hold God by the hand, and leave the place where we were most comfortable.

I believe God will walk us into Canaan and we will conquer there for the rest of our lives.

When I was 18, I grew up most of my life in a Metroplex.

And I remember the day that God told me that I was supposed to go to Phoenix and go to college.

I had only been to Phoenix once, and that was to check out of school, didn't know anything about Arizona, other than it's a dry heat.

I don't care what you say, when it hits 118, it doesn't matter what kind of heat it is.

And I remember the Lord saying, Preston, I want you to leave.

I remember saying to the Lord, God, I don't know anyone there.

I've never even been there, but once I don't know anything about it.

Lord, this is my home.

This is where I'm comfortable.

I know everyone here.

My opportunity is here.

Please don't ask me to leave what I know and walk into the unknown.

Preston, I need you to leave.

Just trust me.

Had I have stayed where I was comfortable, two years later, I would have never met the woman I'd been begging God for since I knew I would have one.

Had I have stayed where I was comfortable, I never would four years later have been given the blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl that I begged God for since I was 14.

And I never would have been given a firstborn son that was everything that I asked for times 10.

And I never would have been given a secondborn son whom I'd be able to give my name.

Had I never been willing to leave what was most comfortable, I never would have been able to step into the promise of God.

It's not time to move out of the wilderness.

It's time to walk through it.

And I know you want to leave the wilderness, but we'll never be able to leave the wilderness until we make a commitment to leave Haran, the land where we were most comfortable.

It's not time to move.

It's time to leave.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you?

Maybe you're settled in Haran and you didn't even realize it until the Holy Spirit began to speak to you about the fact that, yes, God did tell you to stop.

But the time for resting has passed, and it's time to leave.

If you're here today, every head is bowed and every eye is closed, no matter what campus you're at, no matter where you're watching this right now, if you know God is saying to you right now, it is time to leave Haran, the land where you were comfortable.

I want you to stand up right where you are.

No one's looking around.

Just stand up.

Don't be ashamed.

Not going to ask you to come forward and embarrass you in any way.

Listen to me, do this for the sake of your children and their children and their children.

The only way to leave Haran is to first stand up to take the first step.

Take a step.

Make your declaration.

I am not staying as a settler in Haran any longer.

I don't care how hard I have to work.

I don't care how much it costs me, but I am moving on to Canaan where God created me to conquer.

And I do it by standing up today.

This is my first step.

And I am not looking back at where I came from.

I am looking forward to the God who is calling me to Canaan.

Lord, I pray right now that as we close this service, as everyone stands, Lord, I know there are people in this room and in all of our campuses who need to receive ministry this morning.

Lord, I pray that you would give them the boldness to come forward and receive ministry.

This could be the day that changes not just the chapter, but the entire story.

Today could be the day they tell their grandchildren about.

Many years from now, the day they left Haran and never looked back.

God, give them.

If they need to come forward and receive ministry, give them the boldness to do so.

Lord, I pray for every one of your people, your richest blessings.

I pray they'd feel nothing but your hand and theirs as you lead them through this wilderness and into your promise.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.