Dharius Daniels - Take The Oil With You

There’s a scripture; it’s the 23rd Psalm, Psalm 23, verse 5. This is what I want to read because this is what David says: «You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.» And listen to what he says, y’all—please don’t miss this: «You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.» So, here’s the thought I want to use, this is what I want us to contemplate during our time together: take the oil with you.

Listen, family, I think the scriptures are clear that the call of the Christian, the result of spiritual formation and discipleship, is that you have an altering impact on the world. I’m going to say it again: every Christian has two kinds of calls. You have a unique calling, which is a specific way in which God uses you, and then there’s a universal calling—this is the mission that God has given to the whole body. God has called all of us, in some way, to have an altering impact on the world.

This is God’s mission revealed in John 3:16: «For God so loved the world that He gave, ” not the value system of the world, but the world itself, the people in it. He loved it so much that He gave. So, Jesus was, watch this, Jesus was a response to God’s priority of changing the world. The coming, the incarnation of Jesus, is an indication of God’s intention to change the world. Don’t miss this now—“the word world changes» is actually a proper description of a Christian who’s functioning the way God intended. It shouldn’t be an adjective used to describe people who are operating uniquely; it should be a term used to describe believers, followers of Jesus, who are actually living out God’s intention for their lives.

When you’re doing Christianity the King’s way, the result is an altering impact in the world. However, this can’t happen unless believers begin to evolve in their understanding of what it actually means to live on mission. We can’t do that until we get out of church. I’m going to say it again: we can’t do that until we get out of church. I am not minimizing the importance of the church; I love the church. I am a leader in the church, using my life to serve it. I am not deprioritizing the church; what I’m trying to do is to encourage us to evolve our understanding of what it means to be the church.

You see, the majority of people in scripture who made world-changing impacts were not those whose roles were confined to the church. Joseph changed the trajectory of an entire generation; he did not work in the church. Daniel did not work in the church. Nehemiah did not work in the church. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not work in the church. But wherever they went—y’all are about to make me preach—wherever they went, they took their oil with them.

And I need to pause for the cause to tell somebody watching this session today: wherever you go, take your oil with you! Because if you have authentic oil, if you have real oil, then your oil will work wherever you go. The oil is meant for you to be the church—not just to have church. I said, the oil is to empower you to be the church, not just to have church.

Joseph’s gift worked even in jail—did you hear what I just said? Joseph’s gift of interpreting dreams worked in jail. He was in prison, and the gift still worked—persecuted, and the gift still worked—falsely accused, and the gift still worked—lied on, forgotten, forsaken, and the gift still worked because the oil is not for us to have church; the oil is for us to be the church.

The only way you can change the world is to invade it. This is the imagery Jesus uses in Matthew chapter five when He says, «You’re the salt of the earth.» Come on, you are the salt of the earth; you’re the light of the world. The thing that is so dope about the energy that He uses with salt is that salt is invisible but impactful. So sometimes you don’t even know it’s there, but when you taste something, you recognize it’s different because your saltiness is in how you impact. Your saltiness isn’t just in your appearance; it isn’t about how holy you think you are. Your saltiness is in your impact.

It’s when you get involved in things that they become different. When you get into the office, is it different? When you get into government, is it different? Because the only way we can change the world is if God sprinkles us there. But what’s happening is there’s this troubling trend, where there is an obsession with elevation in the church, and people are missing their assignments outside of it. We’re arguing about who’s the next elder and who’s a prophet or a prophetess when God is saying, «I want to use people with prophetic gifting to ask prophetic questions in the marketplace.»

So one of the reasons we can’t take the oil with us is that we are tied to expressions of gifts that only work in the context of church, where people actually understand them. See, you can have a prophetic gift, but that doesn’t always mean it expresses itself through prophetic declarations. That’s not how it works in the boardroom; sometimes a prophetic gift in the boardroom works through prophetic questions.