Dharius Daniels - What I NEED From You Is Understanding

Here’s the subject of today’s sermon. I solicited this topic from some sisters, «What I need from you is understanding». Come on now, you be singing it to us! Let me go to this side over here. I say y’all sing it to us: what I need from you is understanding. As we ease into this introduction, I’d like to lift up a quote credited to the late and great Dr. Miles Monroe. He is credited with this quote: «Wherever purpose is misunderstood, abuse is inevitable.» In other words, he is essentially arguing that we will eventually and inevitably misuse what we misunderstand. The enemy is aware of this reality, and this is why he attempts to instigate and orchestrate misunderstanding.

As a matter of fact, one of the images used to describe the work of the adversary in the Old Testament is the Leviathan image. This Leviathan is a metaphor for a twisting spirit; it represents the enemy’s influence in causing us to misunderstand what has been communicated. The twisting spirit is one that influences us to read what someone is not writing and to hear what they are not saying. You said that’s wrong; they heard you wrong. You said that was dumb; they heard you’re dumb. It’s Leviathan—it is a twisting spirit because the enemy operates in the arena of misunderstanding.

As a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul clearly communicated to his audience in one of his Epistles that God is not the author of confusion. So if God is not the author of confusion, it follows that the enemy is the author of confusion. He wants confusion in your home, confusion in your church, confusion in your mind, and confusion in your money because he realizes that wherever there is ignorance, there is vulnerability. He operates in the arena of misunderstanding. Am I making sense? Yeah. He attempts to instigate and orchestrate misunderstanding, first of all, with us personally. Did you hear what I just said? I don’t really have time to cover it all because time won’t allow me to unpack that.

So, when he cannot stop you from believing in God, he twists your understanding of the God you believe in. I don’t even have time; that’s how he got Adam and Eve in the garden—he twisted their understanding of God. But not just theologically; personally, because he knows when you don’t understand, you will subject yourself to unnecessary abuse. Where value is absent, settling will be present. Whenever you see a person who settles, you are looking at someone who has not gotten a revelation of who they are. The devil wants you blind to who is inside you. I don’t even have time to deal with this, which is why when many people encounter their calling, it often involves God highlighting their old identity. Did you hear what I just said?

The first thing God had to do was talk Moses out of his old identity. He said, Moses, I’m calling you; Moses starts telling God who he is not. He said, Jeremiah, I’m calling you; Jeremiah starts telling God who he is not. He says, Gideon, I’m calling you; Gideon starts telling God who he is not. The enemy knows you will always behave in a way that is consistent with how you see yourself. So if he can get you to misunderstand yourself, he knows he’ll eventually get you to misuse yourself. He wants to orchestrate misunderstanding theologically—he doesn’t want you to understand God correctly—and he wants to orchestrate misunderstanding personally, so you don’t understand yourself properly. Additionally, he seeks to orchestrate misunderstanding relationally, so you don’t understand others correctly. Whatever you misunderstand, you will misuse.

There are numerous different relationships we can discuss regarding the importance of understanding, but because we are in this series called «Manology,» we need to explore the implications of understanding in our relationships with men. If there is a word I hear consistently that describes the state of many men I have had the privilege of doing life with, serving, or leading, it is this: many men feel like Shamgar; they feel misunderstood. This is why, on this Father’s Day, in addition to whatever expression of love or gift of generosity you are going to give to the man in your life, there is an additional gift you need to consider: a gift called empathy. Somebody say empathy! Yeah, empathy is not enablement; empathy is not accepting excuses; empathy is not being an accessory to the crime of self-sabotaging behavior. Empathy is imaginatively stepping into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions.

Somebody say empathy! Men need empathy. Your masculinity does not erase your need for empathy. Our text is a powerful illustration of what I am attempting to articulate. This is important because our text reveals to us a short yet significant story about an individual named Shamgar. The text says that Shamgar, the son of Anath, defeats 600 Philistines with an ox goad. An ox goad is a pointed stick used to prod oxen when they were plowing. When an ox veered off course, it needed to be directed back into a straight line.