Dharius Daniels - I Don't Know What's Going On With Me

I want to read a few verses of scripture found in the Book of Matthew, chapter one, beginning at verse eighteen. Matthew, chapter one, beginning at verse eighteen. I feel like it’s a little chilly here, a little chilly in New Jersey; it might be chilly online too. But I just feel like it’s going to be a Talk Back Sunday. I just feel that— I feel like I’m going to hear New Jersey all the way here. I feel like ATL, I’m going to hear you, and I feel like online you’re about to set the chat on fire! We don’t watch the preacher preach here; we help the preacher preach. Amen. Matthew, chapter one, verse eighteen says, «Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, ’ which means ‘God with us.’ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.»

I want to talk from this subject in our time together today, family. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I don’t know what’s going on— clap your hands if you’re ready for the Word. (laughs) Family, there are a number of words that are often used to describe the nature and character of God, but for the purpose of this presentation today, I want to lift up one that I think is extremely important yet often overlooked. Here it is for all my notetakers: God is a teacher. As a matter of fact, He is one of the most interesting teachers you will ever experience. He is the only teacher that will take you to school and not tell you you’re in class. You don’t even know you’re learning something when you learn it. All of a sudden, you see yourself in a different chapter in the story of your life, and you realize and recognize you learned some things in the previous chapter that you didn’t know you were learning when you learned it. Is there anybody here that can honestly admit God was teaching me some things in some circumstances where I didn’t even know it? That’s not a circumstance; that’s a classroom. That wasn’t a trial; that was a classroom. That wasn’t a breakup; that was a classroom. He is obsessed with our learning because God understands the impact of ignorance. Ignorance is expensive. Did you hear what I just said? I said ignorance is expensive. It costs you to be ignorant. Whatever area we are ignorant in, we suffer in. Here’s the way the Bible puts it: my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Do you understand then why God is so obsessed with teaching us? Because if we are destroyed by a lack of knowledge, then spiritual learning is actually an act of spiritual warfare. I’m going to say that one more time: if we are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge, then spiritual learning is actually spiritual warfare. See, the enemy, the evil one, is called the Prince of Darkness, and darkness is not just a metaphor for evil; darkness is a metaphor for ignorance. The enemy operates in the area of ignorance. He wants to keep us uninformed; he wants to keep the wool pulled over our eyes. He is a deceiver that wants us to operate in deception. Therefore, when we start learning spiritually, it’s an act of spiritual warfare because it disarms the enemy of the weapon of ignorance. That’s why the enemy is upset with you in this season—because you want to be more than excited; you want to be informed. You want to be equipped. There are some things you’ve been called to do, some places you’ve been called to go, a person you’ve been created to be, and you need to be informed so that you can evolve into all that God has called you to be. I want to know if there’s anybody here that refuses to let the devil keep you in the dark. Thank you. Yeah, the enemy doesn’t mind excitement as long as we’re not informed, because he understands something. Y’all okay this morning? He understands something called the Law of Exposure, and the Law of Exposure says once you’ve been exposed, you can’t be unexposed. See, once I’ve been excited, I can move out of that excitement, but once I’ve been exposed, I can’t be unexposed. Exposure awakens in you an appetite for something that you didn’t want before because you didn’t know it was possible. But once you got exposed to possibility, it created an appetite on the inside of you for something that God wants to give you, but He couldn’t give you if you didn’t have the want to. Did you hear what I just said? Some people don’t understand this, so they become jealous of what God’s trying to use to inspire them. God’s like, «I’m not exposing you to what I’m exposing you to so…»