Dharius Daniels - Burn It Down

Our foundational passage on the day in the book of Joshua offers us some insight on breakthrough because this is the argument of this series: in order to experience breakthrough in an area, I have to get breakthrough in the area I can’t see. Real breakthrough is when God does more than stop the cycle; it is when God shows me the thing that keeps starting it. Did you hear what I just said? I said real breakthrough isn’t when God stops the cycle. Real breakthrough begins when God reveals to me the thing that keeps starting it, which causes me to make promises to myself and break those promises. This prevents me from sustaining the change I make because it’s one thing to change and another to sustain that change. So, before I get breakthrough in the area I can see, I need it in the area I can’t see, and this text is an example of what I mean. We read one verse in the book of Joshua, chapter number 7, but to understand the context of that conversation, we need to be clear on what’s happening in chapter 6. Chapter 7 makes no sense if we are not clear on what’s happening in chapter 6. This book called Joshua is named after a man named Joshua. This man Joshua was the successor to a man named Moses. Moses was a man appointed and assigned by God, and he had the responsibility to lead God’s people, Israel, out of a place called Egypt, where they had been experiencing bondage and captivity for over 400 years. There’s a word that the Bible uses to describe what happened when God led them out of Egypt: it is the second book of the Bible, called Exodus. The word Exodus means exit, so everything in the book of Exodus shows us how God got Israel through the exit sign out of Egypt. Exodus teaches you and me that God is the God of exits. If God is the God of exits and you are a child of God, it means you’re never trapped. You cannot be a believer and be trapped. You may feel trapped; it may look trapped, but if you are a believer, your God is the God of Exodus. The Red Sea story is not in the Bible to motivate us to stand in front of the Delaware River and wait for God to part it. The Red Sea is in the Bible to reveal to you and me that there will be times when you’re standing in front of something impassable, and the same way God parted the waters and made a way for Israel, He’ll part the waters and make a way for you. I’m getting ready to tell somebody in here today that something’s getting ready to part. I feel God on that! I said something is getting ready to part. I don’t know what’s in front of you, but it’s getting ready to move, and if you believe it by faith, you ought to shout «move!» If you believe God is getting ready to move what’s in front of you, open your mouth and say «move.» Because God is the God of exits. So, in order to experience the promise, they had to overthrow what was occupied because they had been in bondage for hundreds of years. They didn’t see themselves as soldiers; they still saw themselves as slaves. They were out of Egypt, but Egypt was still in them. And God knows you’re not ready to fight the fight waiting for you when you get to the promise, so he says, «Let me park you for a season in the wilderness so I can get Egypt out of you.» Even though you’re out of Egypt, I need to help you see yourself correctly because you need to see yourself right when you’re in a fight. When you’re fighting, you’ve got to know who you are, or you won’t fight right. So, He took a season to speak over them about who they were: «You’re the head and not the tail; you’re above only and not beneath. You’re not where you came from; you’re not your mistakes; you’re not your bondage; you’re not your vice; you’re not your weakness; you’re not your past.» He began to speak over them so that they could reorient themselves and begin to see themselves the way God saw them. He used that wilderness time. But during that period, there were a group of people who got stuck in what was supposed to be a season. That little period in the wilderness was supposed to be temporary; it ended up being 40 years. That’s not a season; that’s a cycle. But there were two people, one named Joshua and another named Caleb, who looked at all the other people who wanted to stay and said, «I love you, but I love my calling more than I need company, so I won’t let you guilt me into staying in something that’s less than my potential.» You tell me if I love you, I will stay; I’m telling you, if you love me, you will move. Come on, touch me! Why do I always have to stay at a lower level? Why can’t you move to another level? Are you hearing what I’m saying? Because if I have to be less than my best to be with you, that means I’m trying to take a relationship that was ordained for the past into my future. It means that that relationship fit with who I was, but it doesn’t fit with who I’m supposed to be.