Dharius Daniels - I'm Expecting The Unusual

Mark chapter 6, verse 1 says Jesus left there and went to His hometown, accompanied by His disciples. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed. «Where did this man get these things?» they asked. «What’s this wisdom that’s been given to him? Where are all these remarkable miracles he’s performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?» And they took offense at Him. Jesus said to them, «A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives, and in his own home.» And He could not do many miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them.

I want to talk from this subject in our time together. This is an affirmation; it’s a declaration of ours: I’m expecting the unusual on this first Sunday of 2021. I’m expecting the unusual. If that’s you, put «me too» in the chat. «Me, me too.»

I can recall growing up in Mississippi, where my father had a unique interest in the animal kingdom—an interest that bordered on the extreme, almost a healthy obsession with everything animal-like, to the degree that he would watch movies like «Crocodile Dundee,» watch shows from National Geographic, and read articles from something called an encyclopedia. Yes, because we had one television in our home, we had to watch whatever he watched. Initially, I thought these animal shows were boring until I began to reflect back as an adult on those experiences and saw how they were actually beneficial.

I see evidence of our eternal God’s ability to use everything and waste nothing. God is a sovereign steward who will take even the most seemingly random, non-consequential, irrelevant experiences in our life and use them in a way that adds value, weaving them together in ways we could not have planned for, prepared for, or even known how to pray for. I need to pause for the cause right there and remind somebody: because your God is a sovereign steward, there’s nothing in your life that’s wasted. You may not know the value of that experience yet. That experience may have seemed to take more from you than it added to you, but I want to remind you not to become presumptive and label something prematurely as irrelevant.

Because the Bible says God takes all things and works them together for your good. He’s going to weave this thing together with that thing and that thing together with this thing. If you’re observing it in isolation, it’s going to seem irrelevant, but when you allow God to begin to put all the pieces of your life together, you’ll see, like a puzzle, that He’ll make something beautiful, beneficial, and something that’s going to be a blessing to others. I want to tell somebody: nothing is wasted. Nothing’s wasted. Nothing’s wasted. He said, «I put your tears in a bottle; nothing’s wasted.» He said, «Those who sow in tears reap in joy.»

Remember this: Kierkegaard said, «Life is lived forward but is only understood backward.» So when you’re crying, you think you’re just hurting. What you don’t realize is you’re sowing. You didn’t hear what I just said. You don’t even know that when you’re crying, you’re sowing, but you won’t know you’re sowing until you get to a season where you see the harvest from those tears. Those same things that you said broke you in one season are the same things you’ll look back on and say, «That made me.» I thought it broke me, but it actually made me because I wouldn’t be who I am right now if God had not allowed me to go through that.

Nothing is wasted. Nothing’s wasted. Nothing’s wasted. Nothing’s wasted. Nothing’s wasted. Nothing’s wasted. And because He’s a sovereign steward, it means He has the final say regarding whether or not something’s wasted—not you. Y’all better understand that. I said, because He’s sovereign, He has the final say about whether something’s wasted—not you.

So even when you waste seasons, because He’s a sovereign Savior, He’ll redeem time. He said, «If I left your welfare and well-being up to you, you would have blown it. You would have mismanaged it. You would have wasted it. But I am so determined to get you where I want you to be; I will not let you get in your own way.» Now, I need somebody to be honest right here and admit, «I am where I am because God did it in spite of me, not because of me.» Because there are times when the devil wasn’t in my way; I was in my own way. But because my Savior is sovereign, He has the final say over my life. He wastes nothing, and even when I was sitting in a house with only one television, feeling like I was underprivileged and missing out, God was using that season to prep and prepare me for my assignment.

I want you to catch this. I realized later in life that watching these shows and my interest in animals improved my hermeneutic. What does that mean? It means the glasses that I put on when I read Scripture. We can read the Bible, and not all of us see the same thing; it depends on the glasses you’re wearing. You understand what I’m saying? There are people who have good hearts but bad eyes.