Paul Daugherty - It's Your Move - Part 1
One of the guys that got baptized right here, come on up here. He, in the last 10 days, has experienced a life change. Jordan, just hop up on stage here and um…real quick. Ten days ago I met you at a church service here. You came down to the altar on the oh, it was last Sunday, seven days ago. I preached the sermon «Death to Maybe». You can down to the altar and you told me that you had just moved here from?
— Boston.
— And what God was doing in your heart.
— Death to maybe.
— You were going on in with Jesus, death to maybe.
— I gave up everything that where I came from and I was deeply involved in things that I shouldn’t have been and God gave me one opportunity to change my life and I decided to just leave everything behind, my family, my friends. Everything that the world was offering me and I came straight here with faith, came with nothing and God gave me a whole family and gave me something.
— Come on, man, and today you got water baptized and you got healed the other night at the Bill Johnson service, your femur, right?
— I had hurt my femur playing football and I was telling some of the guys, like I was, it was my Super Bowl game my junior year and I thought we were going all the way and then got up downed by safety and a linebacker and my femur just popped right out and then my bone never healed properly, so it was always one on top of the other and then Lucas, a buddy of mine, he was praying and Bill Johnson said let’s pray for the bones to be restored and he started feeling my thigh like shake a little bit and then I was like, don’t play with me, don’t play with me. And then I started bending and I didn’t hear no crack, no pop, no nothing. I started running up and down. I was like there’s no way. This is all Jesus.
— Come on, Jesus. Hey, if God did it for Jordan, he could do it for you. Come on, give him a big hand. So powerful. 2 Kings chapter 5, verse 1, the king of Aram had great, was commander of the army of the king of Aram, so there was a man named Naaman and he was a main leader. He was a general, a captain. He was a great man in the site of his master. He was highly regarded by people because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but, everybody say but.
— But.
— Everybody has a but in more ways than one. We all have something we’re good at, but there’s something we need to work on. We all have something that maybe we’re thankful for, but there’s something that’s missing. And it’s not bad to have that because that gap is where God shows up. That space is where God wants to move in our lives. That weakness is an invitation to receive his strength, right? Our vulnerable weaknesses are really the space where God says that’s my favorite space, that’s where I want to move, not where you’re strong, but where you’re weak, where you need my help.
So, Naaman was good at this, but he needed help over here. He had leprosy. He had a sickness that he couldn’t cure. And bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel and she served Naaman’s wife, so this young girl, she’s a foreigner in this land. This is a male dominated society and she uses her voice in this moment. She says, «Mistress, if only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy,» so here’s what we see here. Naaman was strong and mighty but his weakness was showing. You can hide your weakness for a while, but eventually it starts to show. You can hide your sickness for a while. Leprosy doesn’t begin to show at first when you have it. It can sit dormant in a body for five years before it begins to surface on the outside. But eventually what’s happening on the inside will begin to surface on the outside.
And when that begins to happen, we have a couple of choices. We can try to hide it, we can try to pretend it’s not there, ignore it or we can address it and this young girl used her voice to speak up and say God can heal that, too. Turn to someone next to you and say God can heal that, too. There’s some things that sometimes we aren’t sure if God can heal. Well, we see what God did for Jordan. He can heal Jordan’s femur. We see what God did for other people. We see how God set other people free of certain addictions, but then we wonder could he do it for this, could he do it for that. Could he touch that spot. God can heal that, too. She was saying God wants to heal that. And Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl said and told him how there’s someone in Israel who can heal me. By all means, the king said, I will send a letter to the king of Israel so Naaman left, taking him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold and 10 sets of clothing.
So, the king felt like maybe if I give you enough wealth and enough, you know, fashion and style, we can buy your miracle. We can pay for your life change. We can earn our way into your turnaround. The letter that he took to the king of Israel read this. With this letter I’m sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy. As soon as the king of Israel read this letter, he tore his robes and he said am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of leprosy. See how he is going to pick a coral with me, so the king is angry. He’s like I can’t do this. I’m not a god. I’m not able to heal, I’m not able to restore. There’s certain things that people can’t do. Doctors can’t do, scientists can’t do, counselors can’t do, only the Holy Spirit can do.
When Elisha, the man of God, overheard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message, I love this. This is where the story gets really good. He says why have you torn your robes? Have that man come to me. Have that man. He’s just a man. Have that man come to me. We’re just people in need of a Savior. No matter how great you are, no matter how many trophies you have, you’re just a man. You’re just a woman in need of a healer, in need of a great physician. We all need Jesus. We all need his hope. We all need his help. So Elisha says tell that man to come to me. Have him come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel. He will know what if your setback was a setup for God’s glory to be revealed? What if your problem, your weakness, your insufficiency was an invitation for God’s glory to be revealed?
What is Jordan’s life was leading up to this moment so that there would be hundreds, if not thousands of other Jordans in the room or watching online to see what God can do in his life. What if what the enemy meant for harm against you, God’s gonna use as a set up for his glory to be revealed to give a testimony that would change other people had you not walked through it, had you not experienced it. See, there are certain moments where Jesus says this miracle, this problem, this sickness was a set up for God’s glory to be revealed and in this moment, Naaman went with his horses and his chariots and he stopped at the door of Elisha’s house and Elisha sent a messenger to say to him. Elisha doesn’t even leave the house. He’s inside the house just sitting there. I just imagine Elisha sees him out the window and he’s like I’m not going out there.
So, the horses, the chariots, the whole entourage is outside and Elisha doesn’t go to talk to him, he just sends a message to him. God wash yourself seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed. Go wash yourself. Turn to someone next to you and say go wash yourself. Maybe they needed to hear that. That’s why they got baptized today, just getting their bathtub in today. Go wash yourself. Elisha said, he really just said it’s your move. You want it? Go get it. You want a miracle, you want a breakthrough, and oftentimes our miracle, our breakthrough is on the other side of something very humbling. I’ve never seen life change happen without an act of humility. Humility is your only path forward if you want to see a miracle, if you want to see a breakthrough, if you want to see real transformation in your life, it’s gonna require humility. It’s gonna require letting go of your ego, your pride, your need to impress everybody.
See, Naaman was good at coming across impressive and that’s why Elisha, I think, was calling him to do something very unimpressive, to go wash in a dirty river without a profit without a church service, without a famous pastor with him down in the river. Go do it by yourself. Go do something very humbling on the other, and I’ve had this vision about two weeks ago. It was almost like a high school gym. I just, I don’t know, I was reading my Bible and I closed my eyes and I was praying and I just saw like this picture of a high school gym. Ash and I, we’ve attended some of our relatives' wrestling matches and the gym is filled with multiple mats and multiple wrestling matches happening for different weights and different sizes and ages and it’s spread across a gym and I had a vision of this gymnasium, of all these believers in a wrestling match and it was intense and they were holding each other, they were wrestling with each other, but in the vision, they weren’t wrestling against like demons or the devil. They were wrestling against God.
And I was reminded of the story of Jacob in the Bible that Jacob had to wrestle with God through the night until finally he surrounded in the wrestling match and God named him, changed his name from deceiver to Israel and in that shift, in that breakthrough, it was in the wrestling match of Jacob fully humbling himself to God that God was able to do the work he needed to do in him. In this moment, I just see this internal wrestling match that Naaman is having with the prophet’s words and what he feels. In fact, he says in the next verse, in verse 11, Naaman went away angry. Everybody say «angry».
So, Naaman’s angry, he’s like what? What? And his first words out of his mouth was I thought. Oftentimes my thoughts get in the way of God’s plans. My thoughts get in the way of God’s commandments. I thought I didn’t have to do that. I thought I was past that. I thought I was above that. I thought I graduated that. I thought I already dealt with this. I thought I already went to an altar call. I thought I already repented of that. I thought I already dealed with that. I thought we already talked about this. I thought and oftentimes I thought gets in the way of I surrender. So I thought, he said I thought the prophet was gonna come out to see me. I thought he would at least leave his house. I thought he would come and stand in front of me and call on the name of the Lord.
What he says in verse 11. I thought he was gonna call on the name of the Lord, wave his magic wand and all the leprosy would be cured, that he would just touch the spots where I’m sick and he would cure me of leprosy. I thought he was gonna do it that way. In verse 12, it says, «Are not Abana and Pharpar the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel»? So, here he is. He’s saying there’s better places I could wash. There’s better plan…there’s… There’s easier paths for me to see a breakthrough. There’s easier ways for me to see the change that I want to see.
Couldn’t I wash in some cleaner rivers? Couldn’t I deal with some less humbling circumstances? Do I really have to go through the rehab? Do I really have to go see the counselor? Do I really need to go down to the altar call? Do I really have to confess my sin? Do I really, what do I, are you telling me I have to do this thing to be cleansed, that I have to wash in a dirty river, so he turned away and he went off in a rage. He went off in a rage. And Naaman’s servants went to him and said my father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, you would’ve done it. We know you. How much more than when he tells you something small to go wash and be cleansed, so he went down and he dipped himself in the Jordan River.
Let’s go to James chapter 2, James chapter 2 and we’re a word church and I’m a word kind of preacher, so I’m just gonna share some scriptures with you today that go in line with this idea. James said, «What good is it my brothers and sisters if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds. Can such faith save them. Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food and one of you says to them go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs. What good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by actions is dead». What good is it if I just say something, but I don’t follow through with an action?
«Someone will say you have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you without faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God, good. Even the demons believe that and they shudder,» right? Even hell believes there’s one God. «You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless. Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son, Isaac, on the altar»? You see that his faith and his actions were working together. His faith was made complete by what he did and the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness and he was called God’s friend. You see a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
«In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and she sent them off in a different direction. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without actions is dead». So, this is the point here is James saying you’re gonna have to put some actions with your faith. You can’t just hear a great sermon and go I believe it. You’ve gotta apply it. The real transformation happens in the application. It happens in putting action to what you believe and before God will change your circumstances, he wants to change you. He wants to change your inside before he changes the outside.
Elisha was calling, I keep wanting to say Haman but it’s Naaman. There’s a Haman and a Naaman and Haman’s a whole nother story, but Elisha was calling Naaman to do something that would require an internal change. Pride is an internal thing. I mean, we see it on the outside, but it’s an internal, it’s an attitude of the heart, a pride, a stubbornness, I know what’s best for me, I know what I need to do. I can’t learn anything from them. I’m not gonna follow instructions if it requires me to do something embarrassing and that’s a pride and so Elisha was telling him, there’s a change that happens in here before the change happens out here.
The external disease you’re dealing with has a connection to the internal problems inside your heart and in order to see a victory, you’re gonna have to get vulnerable, you’re gonna have to do something humbling, you’re gonna have to do something, if you’re waiting for me to give you points, I’m already sharing something here. You’re gonna have to do something that shows how desperate you are for a change in your life, 'cause until you’re desperate enough to do something foolish, you’ll never see a change. Until you’re desperate enough to do something humbling, you’ll never see a change. And he deals with his thoughts. So, Naaman, yeah, Naaman Naaman is dealing with this internal I thought God was gonna do it this way. I thought God was gonna do it that way and it isn’t until he goes down into the water that he sees a change.
I need some help. Can someone help bring that podium down here for me? I’m gonna preach down by the water and I’m looking for someone who’s ready to go all in here and who isn’t afraid to, thank you, can we get Pastor Antonio a big hand? What an awesome youth pastor we have here. The water for Naaman represented the word of God, the presence of God, the power of God, the miracles that God wanted to bring, can you bring it a little closer? Thank you so much. Do you wanna stand in the water? No, no, you don’t have to. I’m gonna get in the water. I’m gonna get in the water today, but I’m gonna need some help. Oh, my goodness, I wasn’t ready for that.
Now, I wanna just, I might need your help, Antonio, to hold my mic, but not yet, not until I go all the way in here. How many times did Naaman go into the water? Why did he have to go down seven times in this? Why wasn’t it just once? Seven, what does the number seven mean? Completion. Seven days in a week. If we’re gonna see lasting change in our life, we have to develop a complete cycle, a complete repetitive habitual, if you’re gonna break habits that you do every day, you’re gonna have to start doing something every day that’s different in those bad habits. I believe what Elisha was telling Naaman, I don’t know why I keep wanting to say Haman, Naaman, was that you’re gonna have to do something repetitively.
Last week after I preached the sermon, «Death to Maybe,» there was a call to action, Jordan made a change, a humbling action to come down to the altar, to surrender his life to Christ. Every sermon has an invitation. After the message, we went over to my mom’s house to celebrate my son’s birthday and my mom said, «Paul,» and Ashley said, «Paul, the sermon. It ministered to everybody». And my nephew, Isaac, goes, «Not everybody». My nephew, Isaac, he keeps me humble. He just reminds me not everybody’s touched by the word. It’s all good. It’s all good. But the point is, is that there’s a requirement, there is an application, a change that has to happen.
So, go back to that verse there in 2 Kings chapter 5, verse 14. I want us just to look at what happens here. So, he goes down, Lord help me with this. Okay, Antonio, I need you to hold this mic. He goes down. I’m gonna go down the first time here. Come on, Jesus. Let’s talk about the first dip. Let’s talk about the first dip. The first dip, I believe, was dealing with the mind. This week we’ve been dealing with changing our minds, renewing our minds to what God thinks. Romans chapter 12 says, «Be transformed by the renewing of your mind».
The first thing that Naaman tried to do was think his way out of obedience. He was trying to, he goes, I thought I could go into a better river. I thought I wouldn’t have to do something so humbling. I thought I wouldn’t have to follow the instructions of a prophet that won’t even leave his house. This week someone came to me and they said, «I wanna repent to you, Pastor Paul, 'cause I’ve received by so many other speakers and I’ve had attitude issues towards you and God dealt with me this week that it’s time for me to start receiving from you». I said, «Man, hey, I love you, I forgive you, it’s all good». They gave me a big hug and they said, «I feel like I’ve missed out on so many messages because of my judgment towards you».
And I just got this tear in my eye and I’ve been there before. Right, 'cause sometimes our thoughts will talk us out of really receiving a message from Lisa Bevere or from Bill Johnson or John Maxwell or Paul or Ashley or Sharon Daugherty. Well, I just…I can’t learn from that person, da, da, da, da. And in this moment, Naaman almost talked himself out of a word that he didn’t like from a messenger who didn’t do things the way he wanted. Don’t miss out on a miracle because your thoughts have pushed someone out of the ability to speak into your life. We gotta get our minds renewed and I’m telling you humility is key. Humility is key. If my mind can come into a humbling place to receive what God wants me to receive, if I can just go Lord, renew my mind. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.