Getting out of being stuck | Pr Ronson

You're listening to a message to go from axt church.

We hope this message will light up your day.

I have a very short word for us. It's very

dangerous when a pastor say short, because you went up

to be a very long message, but I hope to

keep it within time frame. Today, as I was preparing

for this message, a word came to me, and the

word is stuck. Stuc k stuck. This word came to

me on a Friday, and the burden became behavior on Saturday.

The word stuck. I guess in our life we have

been in a situation where we felt stuck. We have

been in a situation where we are expected to make

a decision but we are just delaying the decision, or

we are just procrastinating because we feel stuck. Or sometimes

in our career we feel stuck. In life, we feel stuck.

Feeling stark is a very I can't describe the emotion

trying to find a word to it. Feeling stuck basically

feels the word I'm stuck, right, Yeah, it feels like that.

It's like you want to progress, but you're not sure,

and you feel that you're not growing, and you feel

that you're in a place where you're just stagnant. You're

just going through the motion daily they are the word

is you're just existing and consuming oxygen day by day

without having that sense of purpose. And it's not a

good place to be in, if we're really truthful with ourselves,

it's not a good place to be in. So, if

you are in a position where you are stuck, I

believe that today the Lord wants to minister to you.

If you have your Bible, you can turn to the

Book of First Kings. We're going to take the reading

from chapter eighteen, First Kings. There was a king in Israel.

His name was Ahab And for those of you who

read your Bible, you will know that when you think

about it, aheap, there will be another character you most

likely wild think about, who is Jezebel ahep was known

as a spineless king, a king where he didn't know

how to lead his nation, a king who didn't know

how to lead the nation. To the Lord, you must

understand that when the children of Israel came out of Egypt,

the Lord commanded them not to take foreign wives. Now

there's nothing wrong with foreign wife, but what is wrong

is that the Lord says that when they take in

foreign life, their hearts will go astray. They will then

worship other gods, forsaking the very same God who have

delivered them out of Egypt. So Jezebel was a foreign wife,

Ahap took her in, and true enough, AHAP's heart groogle

turned from the Lord and turned to idle worship, turn

to the gods of bales. And ja Zebel was in

essence having a stronger influence over Ahap. And because of that,

the entire nation of Israel gave their hearts to idolatry worship,

which the Lord himself said is forbidden and is against

the commandment of the Lord. They are not supposed to

worship idols, they are not supposed to worship things that

represents God, but they have decided to do so simply

because the King allowed it. Jezebel was also a wicked person.

How wicked she killed all the prophets of the Lord.

In a modern day context, if you have a king

in this land, your pastor most likely will be murdered

first before all of you. It was dead serious. So

because of that situation, God sent judgment to the nation

of Israel. God sent a drought. Maybe it's harvest. We

are so blessed we have never experienced a drought before.

But staying in Slangor, I had my fair share of

water carts many years ago. It was so bad that

you can imagine in a land called Malaysia, I needed

to pick up water from the rain because what started

from three days water cart ended up to be one week.

I think longer. Drought is a time where waters are scars,

rivers were drawing up. And for three and a half

years back then, they were all living in drought because

God sent the judgment to the nation. And when you

think about Ahm, you probably would have thought about Elijah,

a prophet that God had raised up to bring his

word to the nation of Israel, to bring his word

to the king. And when you think of Elijah, you

would think about this famous mountain called Mount Carmel, where

Elijah confronted four hundred or four hundred and fifty of

the prophets of bail. So this is the context of

First Kings chapter eighteen. And when he first confronted the

king and the people, Elijah asked him a very profound question,

which is in verse twenty one. And Elijah came to

all the people and said, how long will you falter

between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him,

but if bail follow him? But the people answered him

not a word. Here you have a nation who was

probably stuck as well. They couldn't make up their mind

whether to follow God wholeheartedly or to follow Bow. That's

why they couldn't give an answer. Probably in your day

to day conversation, when you have conversation with people, when

they are indecisive or they couldn't make an answer, it

is an indicator that they are most likely stuck or

they're still finding the answer, they're still finding their way.

But in this context, there was no reason for the

children of Israel to be stuck to begin with, because

clearly they knew who God was. Clearly the story of

their deliverance, the commandments of the Lord was passed down

to them from generation to generation. Essentially, they have a

choice to make, and their choice is to follow God.

But they chose not too. You see, the drought here

sometimes can be a symbolic of a spiritual drought in

our life. We are blessed as a nation, we don't

go through drought. But if you reflect the time when

you're stuck. Was there a spiritual drought in your life

where you felt God was far away from you, where

the things of God, his word, his community no longer

becomes your priority. And we begin to stray away from

the very thing that can save us. We begin to

stray away from the very thing that we need. So

when Elijah confronted the prophets of Bail, what did he do?

He said, choose for yourself about and I will select

a bull, and we will call out to our gods.

The god who answers by fire, he is the true God.

So the prophets of Bayel what they did. They laid

the bull, They call on the Lord, I mean the

air gods from morning all the way to afternoon, and

nothing happened. They begin to cut themselves, hoping that the

God of Bail will answer them, and Elijah began to

bomb them. Perhaps your God is slipping, Maybe you should

cry out louder. So obviously bel didn't answer it. Elijah

didn't say, bring me the bull. Cut the bull. The

very first thing Elijah did was he repaired back the

altar of the Lord, and by signifying the unity in Israel,

he put up twelve stones that represented that repaired altar.

Put the bull, And you must understand, in a time

of draft, water is precious. What Elijah did he asked

them to pour water on the sacrifice. It's like a

double offering. To me, I will interpret it. It's like

you put a bull and you put on something even

more precious, which is water. Or it could also be

some people say that it's to show to the people

that the God who answers by fire will consume even

this water. So you call on the name of the Lord,

and we know God answered by fire. It was when

the people finally repented that the rain came in verse

forty five. Now it happened in the meantime that the

sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was

a heavy rain. So when I was just preparing the

scripture and reading it, time of refreshing can only come

when one truly repent before God. Had the people not

repented back then, I believe the rain would not come.

So whenever you are stuck, you got to ask yourself,

am I with God? Or am I away from God?

Because the very first step we should do is to

always abide in God. Spiritual drop also can mean we

try to do a lot of things, hoping that by

doing these things it will satisfy us, only to find

that there will always be that droughtiness, there will always

be that emptiness, yiness. So the people of Israel back

then needs to make a choice. If you believe in God,

follow him likewise. Today God is challenging you and me

if we were to believe him wholeheartedly, follow him holeheartedly.

There is a contemporary saying, right, if Jesus is not

Lord of all, he is not lord at all. In

other words, he cannot just be your lord on a Sunday.

Where on Sunday we come to church, we worship him,

we pray, and from a Monday to Saturday we neglect him.

When we want to make decisions in our life. We

do not factor in his counsel through his word. We

do not factor in Godly counsel. And it's always a challenge.

I can tell you to live a life that is

surrendered before God and to follow him whoheartedly. Why because

the world that we lived in is often filled with temptation,

things that appears to be good, but it's not godly.

But yet God has always called his people to pursue Godliness.

So if you're in a situation where you often struggle

with the tension between what is worldly and what is godly,

it only tells me and here that we are only human.

There will always be the challenge. Remember, Paul says, the

flesh will always war against the spirit, and the spirit

against the flesh. What we should not do and do

not want to do. We ended up doing what we

should do, we ended up not doing. So the struggle

to choose between God and the world is very very real.

James chapter one versus one to it, I must say

that in the rule that a had had, the nation

was supposed to be prospering, but they were in. They

were in. So it tells us that without God, without

being faithful to God, sometimes our enduver will not prosper.

Why I say sometimes is because people can still prosper,

but prosperity without God in the picture will often lead

into a form of emptiness. So in James Chapter one

Versus one to eight, he says, my brethren counted all

joy when you fall into various trials knowing that the

testing of your faith produces patient Where now faith is tested,

it just means that God is looking for something in us,

and one of it is patient. But let patient have

its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete,

lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him

ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach,

and it will be given to him. Many of us

needs wisdom to make decisions. The wisdom of God is

the key that will unlocked us from being stuck. If

you are in a situation where you need wisdom from God,

the Bible tells us that we should ask of Him

and he will give it to us liberally. But there

is a condition. Always remember that when we ask of God,

inasmuch as he is an unconditional God, but to leave

out his principles, there is always a condition. Please do

not fall to this part where God is all about grace. Yes,

he is one hundred percent grace, but yet he is

also one hundred percent righteous. So there's a principle if

we want wisdom. In verse six, it says, but let

him ask in faith without doubting. For he who doubts

it is like a wave of the sea driven and

toss by the wind. For let not that man suppose

that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is

a double minded man, unstable in all his ways. So

when we ask wisdom from God, we must not doubt.

Have you been in a platform where it is unstable.

Let's say you're floating somewhere, or you sat on a

board and there's no control. Or you probably have seen

objects that have been floating. They don't know where they

are going, They're just going by the waves the water flow.

As people of God, God has a purpose for you.

Your life has a purpose. But when we begin to

doubt God, and when we begin to reject him, we

will live our life just like what the Bible described,

double minded and unstable. We cannot live a life that

one day we say God is good, the next day

we enter into the cave running away from God. We

cannot live alife not having stands and conviction, because without

having conviction we become unstable. Let me start. We cannot.

We just have to choose between Christ and the crowd.

The day will come where the crowd will tell you

that Jesus is just one of the way. Jesus is

not the only way to salvation. The day will come.

In fact, he has really came, actually, but as a Christian,

how would you choose? Do you choose according to the

crowd or do you choose according to christ John forteen

and six. I believe He is the Way, the Truth,

and the life. So the tuner of Israel's back then

needed to choose between the Lord and Bail. I wonder

in this season where you feel stuck, what are you

choosing in between? What are your options? Are your options

in alignment to what God requires of you? Or are

your options seems to lean towards the world. It's getting

hard to choose God each day if you do not

have an anchor. What would keep you being rooted? Is

having anchor in God? I guess today I want to

share my heart from a perspective that many are lost

in life, even Christians, because they have left their first

love and as leaders. If you are not careful, sometimes

ministry can replace your first live. If you've got to

choose between ministry and Jesus, always choose Jesus. Why God

sent judgment through Ahap and his nation was basically this.

They knew the truth, but they are not leaving the truth.

They have seen God's glory, but they have decided to

reject God and hence God was angry with them, and

God said a judgment. Now you might say that, wow,

that is bad, but I understand there is always that principle.

When we live alive away from God, we open up

ourselves to things that it is just unfruitful and unproductive.

That's why we all need Jesus. He gives us a grace.

And the Bible did says that while we're alive, it's

good to come to know the lot. Because while we're alive,

it's good to return to the Lord, because the day

will come, you and I will stand at the judgment throne.

There was also a situation before it had in Numbers

chapter thirteen, where Moses sent the child spies to spy

the Lamb. They were supposed to progress to the Promised Land,

but ten spies brought a bad report. They says that

the land was indeed a good land, but they were giants.

We are not able to overcome them, and as a result,

the entire generation didn't enter the Promised Land except Joshua

and Kill. The greatest giant in our life is not

what you see. The greatest giant often is in you.

That is the giant of unbelief, the giant of fitlessness.

Sometimes the giant may not necessarily be people who are

opposing you. The giant may not necessary be people who

are unfavorable to you. The giants may not necessarily be

people who are making life difficult for you. In fact,

when I think about the story of David and Golia,

in as much as Golia was huge, probably minimum nine

feet and above, he was just a giant, but there

was a bigger giant in soul that he didn't overcame.

That is unbelief some ofs and the reason why we

are stuck in our life is because of the stronghold

of unbelief in our life. We say that we believe,

but if we tick down check in our heart, there

is that form of unbelief that we need to deal with.

Because it was not fear that stopped the Israelites from

progressing to the Promised Land. It was unbelief. So in

any emotion there is always that root. Let me give

you an example. Fear can be in many form, but

often why some people fear is because the root is insecurity.

Sometimes why people fear it is because there is a

deeper root. Fear is just a manifestation of the root.

Fear can be a fruit, but often the root there

is something. If you read your Bible, you realize across generations,

for the Israelites was unbelief. It was simply that unbelief.

So when Jesus was walking around the streets, he also

did mention, how long shall I bear with you your

perverse an unfaithful generation. We can be seated in church,

we can be a Christian for many years, but if

we don't deal with our unbelief, we will always be stuck.

So unbelief needs to be dealt with. Hebrews Chapter three,

verses sixteen to nineteen. This was reference to the Israelites,

for who, having heard rebelled. Indeed, was it not all

who came out of Egypt led by Moses? Now with

whom was he angry forty years? Was it not with

those who sin whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And

to whom did he swear that they would not enter

his rest? But those, but to those who did not obey.

So we see that they could not enter in because

of unbelief. We got to deal with our unbelief. But

kind of has said before unbelief if achieve nothing nothing,

what is unbelief is basically means you refuse to have

faith in God. You refuse to believe that He has

a plan for your life. You refuse to believe that

His plans are greater than your plans. You refuse to

believe that His ways are higher than your ways. That

is unbelief. So when we are stuck, the first question

we should always ask is is their unbelief? You know?

So the way to counter unbelief is to trust in

the wisdom of God. And God's wisdom can only become

can only come through his word. God's word is truth,

and truth will always stand the test of time Hebrews

chapter four, wards two. For indeed, the Gospel was preached

to us as well as to them, to them, meaning

that Israelites, but the word which they heard did not

profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who

heard it. Hearing the word of God is one thing,

but for the Word of God to be effective in

your life, you've got to mix it with faith. Remember,

we are called to be doers of the Word, not

just here. So people can come in Sunday after Sunday.

They can come in homes after homes listening to the

Word of God, or they can tune into messages that

they hear online, following their favorite preachers, and all a

lot of hearing. But if we don't mix our hearing

with faith, we achieve nothing Hebrews four twelve. For the

Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than

any two aged sword, piercing even the division of soul

and spirit, and of joinings and marrow, and is a

discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. I

always look at the Word of God as a mirror.

How many when was the last time you look at

a mirror today? I hope when you woke up your brush,

your did you look at her mirror? Right? Every day?

If you're a guy, minimum one time you look at

a mirror. If you're a lady, probably minimum twenty times.

I don't know, we all know, Okay, what is a

function of a mirror? A mirror can ever lie? What

you see is what you get. If my face has

a pimple here on my nose, I look at the mirror,

the mirror will reveal there is a pimple that a knows,

all right. The only mirror that lies is this one

in this thing. I can't remember the show mirror, mirror

on the wall. Who is the first snow white? Was it?

There's the only mirror that lies. Mirror, mirror on the wall.

Who is the fairest of them all? Then the mirror

have to say you are. God's word is like a mirror,

not your friend, not even your pastor. Your pastor can

try their best. But essentially God's word is a mirror.

For the word of God is living. It means God's

word is not outdated. It is still relevant for us today.

Why because God's word is alive, it still speaks actively today.

So whoever has the thought that the Bible is just

a boring document, please tell them no. Because God's word

is alive. God's word is powerful. It will always accomplish

what God sends it to do. That's why in Isaiah

fifty five, when God releases his word, it will not

return to him what The word doesn't just judge our action,

but it also examine our thought and our motive. Often

God's word will reveal to us if we are proud

or if we are humble. It's funny, isn't it. The

very thing that will grow us is the very thing

that we spend less time in the very thing we

should be meditating on is the very thing we meditate

the list. But what if we were to hide God's

word in our heart and to follow it. God's word

will always produce results when it is mixed with faith

and not unbelief. So last year there was a word. Uh,

Oxford gave a word of the year. Right, word of

the year from Oxford. I think every year they'll give

a widler they'd call it the word of year. Do

you want to make a guess? What is the word

of the year last year from Oxford? No, not covid.

The word of the year they gave last year twenty

twenty four was manifest. Okay. So in the secular world,

the word manifest basically means positive thinking and visualization. It

means before you embark on something, you gotta visualize that

you will achieve it, you're gonna win it. In fact,

you will follow contemporary song, recently I heard something that

certainly they sing the word manifest like wow, It's like

you walk into the room, you're supposed to manifest. Something

manifests your I don't know very energy, how you your posture?

So last year was manifest. So I think about this

word right in the contemporary sense, and I think about

it in the spiritual sense. In the Christian term manifest

basically means for God to make known to you, reveal it,

reveal it to you. Right. That's how you say, God

manifest your presence. It's for His presence to be made

known to you. Lord manifests your glory. It is for

his glory to be made known to you. Now when

it comes to the word of God, the people of

God should also pray. God, which sh you manifest your

word to me. He will show you. He will reveal

it to you. So two years ago God gave me

Isaiah sixty worst three as a specific word for me,

where it says all nations shall come to your light,

or the specific words is the gentiles shall come to

your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.

I do this every year when I hear a word

from God, I will keep it in my heart. I

would keep it, pray and ask God to manifest his

word because his word is true. Remember, God will do

exactly what he says he will do. And many people

are living a life where they are missing out. Please

don't have fore more fear of missing out of what

the world can give you. You should form more what God

has for you, and you're missing out what God has

for you. If going to fear, fear God. Don't fear

missing out what the world can give, fear missing out

what God has for you. So this word spoke to

me closely because in my role in my current workplace,

God gave me the burden to prove for my company

weekly and for many years now, I give up at

least one day, one lunch stand, one hour to pray

for my company, and eventually we started mid week service

as well as an opportunity to be a breach for

people to come to know God and for people to

be connected to a church. So in twenty twenty three,

I felt very retired. I felt that in my company

when it comes to doing the things of God, I

felt like an Elijah. Also, I felt very lonely. I

felt that God, why is it always me? We all

felt that way before where nobody stepped up and been

new that stepped up. Have you felt the way before

where nobody wants to do anything, but it's always you

that you do. It's very discouraging, I can tell you honestly.

So I was in that season where I was very discouraged,

and I say that God, I would like to give

up this role. And I encourage my colleagues whoever would

like to step up to pray, step up to organize,

they are to do so. And no one did so.

For one year, I didn't pray. One year I didn't

do anything. And it's not a requirement of the company anyway,

It's just something that I feel got places in my

heart to do. In was also in that year where

the Holy Spirit reminded me ronson, why are you leaving

my house empty? I felt convicted, but I didn't do

anything until the late twenty twenty three, Ronsome, why are

you leaving my house empty? I felt stuck. Actually, on

one hand, I have the desire to do more for

God in my marketplace. On the other hand, I felt

that I just couldn't. I felt stuck, and that one

year honestly was quite miserable because I knew I didn't

obey God. Servas, we may feel stuck because we know

we're supposed to obey God, but we didn't, and we

decided to delay. It's called delayed obedience, And honestly, it's

a very not a very nice feeling. It's not a

condemnation feeling here, it's a different feeling. The enemy will

cause you to feel condemned, so say you are wordless,

et cetera. That is condemnation. But the feeling that's not

easy is like, how many of you here you have

disappointed your parents and you know that you are just

wrong and your parents are right. It's very bad, right,

The feeling yeah, very better is that feeling like? That

is the feeling until this verse came in twenty twenty three.

The gentile shall come to your light and kings to

the brightness of your rising. It was in twenty twenty

four we decided to launch a mid week service, and

since then I can tell you there are a lot

of testimonies coming true. But in regards to the context

of this scripture where the nations will come, it was

in twenty twenty four dead out of the result of

this ministry, we saw someone from a particular country which

the gospel is restricted or limited. He came, he was

connected to the local church, and he was what a

baptized before he returned to this country. Every time I

feel that I'm stuck in the ministry, I'm trying to

do at work. I remind myself of this scripture because

it inspires faith in me. We are a very small

fellowship at work. Every week we only have eighteen people meeting,

sometimes fifteen, sometimes twelve. Our prayer fellowship is very small.

Sometimes we have three, we're four, we're five, sometimes we

have two. But the grace of God, the favor that

the owner have shown was amazing. He has given us

a very good place to meet and all. And recently

God drawed me in to say that pray more. The

space is given. Go in, and I would go in

and stand in the gap for my company alone. And

I remember one day this year after our service, I

was just walking around campus. Suddenly I hear a community

of people singing and they were singing in Bahasa right

in one of our classroom. I was so curious. I

decided to step in the moment I opened my door

and step in, and everyone starts staring at me. Is

he going to stop us? I say no, I say,

I say Puji to her. And I found out that

they are an Indonesian church uh an Indonesian community, and

I was connected to them. I say that, hey, look,

I understand how it felt worshiping in classes where sometimes

you will be stopped because you don't have permission, and

sometimes you can't worship freely, thinking that people will stop

you because it's classroom. So I offered to them, why

don't you come and use our space that the owner

have given us. From there, the scripture came again, nations

will come to your light, because I always feel that

the space is meant for the nations. God has sent nations,

thousands of them in that location. And a couple of

weeks ago, we have a pastor that came. He volunteers,

no actually he's a full time worker for an angio

that reached out to international student. He's from Pakistan and

he came to Major in twenty thirteen because his family

was persecuted. They reach out to people who have strong

associations to terrorists so their lives were in danger. They

came and was Pakistan. And when I was just connecting

to him, I say, hey, brother, you're welcome to use

our space. We have a lot of South Asian students

as well. You speak Urdu, you want to run a

Urdu service, You're welcome to use the space. And then

the scripture just came again. All nations will come to

the rising of your light. So every week I gave

up my Wednesday lunch, I gave up my Thursday to

build this ministry in my marketplace. And I can tell

you that it hasn't been the most easiest because to

do anything that God requires of you to do, it

will cost you something. It will cost you something, will

cost you your time, It'll couse your energy, it will

costs you different things. But I can tell you when

you do it because of obedience. Isaiah one nineteen says,

if you're willing and your obedient, you will eat the

good of this land. So be encouraged to choose God,

even if you can't see God yet. In that situation,

that's where faith kicks in. That's where faith kicks in. Yeah,

now the feeling of stuck came. The word is feeling horrendous.

We feel horrible. I just feel horrible. I don't want

to be stuck. And I believe that none of you

wants to be stuck. All of you want to progress

in the things of God in your life. And all

it takes is just yes, lort, yes, lort.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

information on our church, please visit as church do org.

We are also active on Facebook and Instagram. We're believing

that this week is going to be a good week.

I hit for you. God bless