Dharius Daniels - I Had No Idea

I want to use as a subject for this particular sermon a statement that came to my mind when I read verse number two, where the writer says, «Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?» They answered, «No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.» Here, I want to talk from this subject: Family, I had no idea! Clap your hands, everybody! I had no idea. This passage in Acts 19 is a powerful picture of something that, if you’ve been at Change for any significant period of time, you’ve heard me rehearse and repeat regularly. It is something I’ve affectionately entitled «The Principle of Exposure.» Somebody say exposure! This principle simply suggests that God will use exposure to awaken in us an appetite for something we didn’t know we needed because we didn’t know it existed. My God! God arranges exposure to orchestrate what I call a holy ruin, where He ruins your appetite for anything that is inferior to His best for your life. It is when God gives you a spiritual allergic reaction to settling; it is when He makes you intolerant toward those things that you used to crave and settle for. God understands the way we have been wired because He wired us this way: once you’ve been exposed, you can’t be unexposed. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Come on! So God, by His grace, will expose us to individuals and to opportunities and to information to create desire on the inside of us because desire is the prerequisite for improvement. This is why I believe, from time to time, believers need to be reminded that maybe your exposure is an expression of Divine Providence. Providence comes from a synthesis of two words: «pro,» meaning before, and «video,» meaning to see. God sees before; and because He sees before it happens, He strategically starts moving the pieces of your life, getting you ready for what’s coming that you don’t even see is on the way. Come on! Yes, it is God putting you where you need to be so that you can see what you need to see to become who He’s called you to be. I call this prophetic positioning. This is when God prematurely puts you in a place in your present that will only make sense in your future. It is God putting you in a place before you need to be there so that you will already be there when what He is sending gets there. It means that you have to sit in a season now that will only make sense later. Some of us have experienced this. You don’t have to take my word for it; there are some people sitting on your row who can testify this is true. Because when they were sitting in some seasons, they were wondering why they were there, and now they look back on those seasons. Now they see: when I was in it, I was calling it one thing; now that I’m out of it, I’m calling it another. When I was in it, I called it a breakup; now that I’m out of it, it’s a breakthrough. When I was in it, I called it rejection; now that I’m out of it, I call it protection. When I was in it, I called it a closed door; now that I’m out of it, I thank God for leading me away from the wrong door. Now, everybody’s not about to feel this, but I want those of you who have enough spiritual discernment to thank Him for closed doors, to praise Him for that. Thank you for the stuff that didn’t go my way! Thank you for when I tried to go in the wrong direction; you supernaturally sabotaged it. I cried about it then, but I’m praising you for it now! Am I making sense? He will put you in places strategically to expose you to that which you wouldn’t be exposed to if He hadn’t prophetically positioned you there. So at some point, you need to ask yourself the question: if you don’t believe this kind of exposure is random, haphazard, and coincidental, you have to ask yourself this question: Why has God let me see all the things He has let me see? Oh, did you hear what I just said? You need to ask yourself the question: Why did, out of all the people that could have seen this, out of all the people that could have been in these rooms, out of all the people that could have had these conversations, out of all the people that could have been in proximity to this, why did I just randomly end up being exposed to what I’ve been exposed to? Is God exposing me to all this just to show me what He doesn’t want to do? But He uses exposure to awaken in you an appetite for something that you wouldn’t want unless you got exposed to it. And sometimes He uses individuals to give you that exposure, not so that you can want what He’s done for them—that’s covetousness—but so that you can look at what He’s done for them and say, «I don’t want what He’s done for you, but now that I see He’s in the business of doing it, I want everything He’s got for me!» I want somebody that’s getting this revelation to say it so your neighbor can hear it: I’m not jealous; I’m inspired! Yeah! I’m not jealous; I’m inspired! I don’t want anything He’s got for you, but I want everything He’s got for me! I’m inspired! I’m inspired! I’m inspired! Sir, I’m inspired! I’m inspired! And this is…