Paul Daugherty - It's Your Move - Part 2
How many of y’all experienced just an encounter with Jesus this week in some way? Whether you got healed, you just felt a touch from God, you got direction, you felt you got a word from God this week? We had another guy, last week I was telling y’all, he brought all of his bottles of hard liquor to the church and said, «I am done with the past. I’m saying goodbye to it. I am leaving behind this addiction». Well, today he got water baptized. And I don’t know where he’s at, where’s my brother at? Where you at? Wave your hands right here, come up here real fast. And um… he brought two boxes full of all of his liquor, and just threw it in the trash can at the church. He said, «I am not going back to this addiction that has messed with me». Come on… tell everyone your name.
— Rodney.
— Rodney, what did God do?
— I’m free.
— Come on Jesus.
— I’m free, I’m home now.
— Come on, you are home. When he was getting into the water baptism tank, I said, «New season, new day». And he looked at me and he said.
— New man.
— Come on, you’re looking at a new man in the room today. This is what it’s about, church. We’re not here to play church, we’re here to change lives, change cities, change nations.
— So go back to that verse there in 2 Kings 5:14. 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. 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 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». And 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 know too, I just, I can’t learn from that person, 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. All right, let’s go into this second dip here. Whoo! Ha ha, come on, Jesus. The second thing God wants to deal with is your mouth. As I get spit outta my mouth here.
See, some of us, our mouths have been speaking negative. We’ve been calling other people things we shouldn’t call them. We’ve been saying things about it, we’ve been saying stuff over ourself. We haven’t been confessing God’s Word over our life. We’ve been looking in the mirror, putting ourself down. In this moment, right, Naaman wasn’t just thinking things, he was saying things to himself, self-talk. If your self-talk or your private talk is negative about others, or about yourself, or about God, you’ll never experience the miracle God has for you. This year, it’s your move. God has already spoken, now it’s time for you to speak. God’s already, he’s already began a genesis work in your life, «Let there be light». Let there be new things. Let there be fresh stuff. But I gotta get my words in line with God’s words. I’ve gotta begin speaking life over me, over my children, over my wife, over other people.
How many y’all need to get better at speaking some better words over yourself and over others? How about 2023 is the year that you let Jesus lead. Let him lead your language this year. If you’ve had trouble just saying negative things, or cussing, or just speaking whatever it is that’s on your mind, just letting things outta your mouth, that this would be a year you just put a guard over your mouth, and you say, «God, I’m gonna let you lead my words this year. And the second I say something I shouldn’t of said, I’m gonna repent of it, and I’m gonna allow you to cleanse me». All right, you ready to wash again? Here we go. Whoo! Ha ha, all right, the third thing God wants to deal with is your vision. Y’all are like, «I’m not used to seeing you like this».
Me neither, I’m not like, I’m not used to preaching like this. Normally I have other people doing my illustrations. Now I’m getting a taste of my own medicine, Daniel Henshaw. Your vision, Pastor Lisa Bevere preached about this this morning, and even Bill Johnson touched on it yesterday, being able to see what God sees, that if you’re gonna have victory this year, you gotta get a vision for victory this year, to see what God sees. What does God see in your future? God sees you growing into the man, the woman he’s called you to be. My dad used to speak things over us of what he saw, «You’re a mighty man of God,» in moments where we felt like maybe we were not that great.
I remember him speaking it over other people, just a vision over other people, that I thought, «Dad, don’t you know, the current reality is they’re like addicted. They’re messed up, sleeping around, doing all kinds of bad stuff». But my dad had a vision that was bigger than their current reality, and he was seeing the potential of where God wanted to take them, that God had a vision. And listen, a vision is something not just that we see, it’s something we need to write down. This year, I started writing down on my journal a vision I have for Victory, that every single week we’re gonna see revival in our church, that alters are gonna be filled, that the youth group is overflowing, that Sunday 11:00 a.m. services are packed, that there’s not a seat left in the room, that people are coming from the north, south, east, and west. Habakkuk says, «Write the vision down, so that you can run with it».
I’ve got a vision to reach people in other nations. I’ve got a vision that we’re gonna begin doing greater missions trips in evangelism this next year, that we’re gonna see an increase of people going out into the streets, locally and globally, reaching people with God’s love. And I’m writing that vision down. Then a vision that Ashley and I have for our family, for our children. God wants to wash your mind to have a vision that he has for you. I want the band to come out, 'cause I got like four more dips left, here we go. Whoo!
Ha ha, all right, the fourth thing God wants to deal with is your habits. What habits have you allowed into your life that you need to break this year? What habits that God wants to change in your life? Deuteronomy 30:19 says, «I set before you life or death, blessings or curses, choose today». It’s your move, my friends. It’s your choice. What habits do you want to allow into your life this year? What are you gonna repeat every day? What if you made a habit every day of praying at the start of your day? I love that Lisa really challenged us to not open our phones up, and go immediately to emails, work, social media, entertainment, news articles, that our first thing we should do in the morning is either worship or pray, that we start our day off.
What habits do you wanna start this year applying into your life? What if every single day you started with prayer? What if every single day, come on, we talked about this last week, that the NFL was experiencing revival a week ago, as they saw these grown men on the field, on their knees praying together. Their first response in a crisis was prayer. In order for our first response in a crisis to be prayer, we gotta have habits of daily praying in our life, because your habits come out in a crisis. Your habits are revealed when you’re walking through something that doesn’t make sense.
What are you doing on a daily basis? Getting in the Word of God, that you just spend time in prayer, spend time in the Word, spend time on habits that are going to grow you this year. Some of you, some of us in this room, we gotta get some better habits, not just spiritually, but physically, that we would get outside more this year, that we would get more exercise in this year. And I’m telling you, there is a connection between the physical and the spiritual. There’s something about doing something in the physical that also connects with the spiritual. That’s why fasting and prayer, those two things go together. It shifts our appetite for more of God. We’re replacing something that we crave physically with something we need spiritually.
All right, here we go, dip number five. Come on, Jesus, y’all better cheer on dip number seven, y’all, I’m doing this for you guys. All right, number five is my attitude. There’s an attitude issue that I’ve seen growing more and more. You know, Bill Johnson talked about this at the luncheon yesterday. He said, «Right now we’re seeing people build entire platforms off of an offense towards somebody else. Entire ministries built from an offended place, just attitude, 'I’m just angry at the church.' People building a platform just angry at men, or, 'I’m angry at this, ' or, 'They won’t let me do this, and so I’m.'» And he said that, number one, God never blesses a bad attitude. God never blesses an offended attitude. God never blesses a complaining attitude. The Israelites missed out on the Promised Land because they just grumbled and complained.
«Well, why did God not do, why didn’t God give us better food? Why did God bring us out of Egypt, but now we gotta walk through wilderness»? And their complaining, that attitude, limited their altitude. In order for God to do a miracle in your life, Naaman, Paul, Ashley, I’ve gotta get my attitude in a place of humility, to say, «Lord, if there’s anything, if there’s any pride in my attitude, if there’s any complaining, if there’s any shame in my attitude, if there’s any anger in my, just a resentful chip on my shoulder, mad at people, Lord, help me to live this year with a pure heart, with an attitude of praise. Lord, help me to live this year with an attitude of gratitude, that I’m more thankful than I am complaining about what’s going on».
All right, here we go, number six. Come on! What is he saying? Yeah, my son’s got note cards for me down here. He’s saying, «Do it seven times, Daddy, do it seven times». I will, I will, son. Number six is my surroundings. God had to get Naaman out of his comfortable surroundings to do a miracle. Naaman wanted to dip in a river that he knew. He wanted to be in a place that was easy for him, that he understood, that he had seen what’s in the water. He understood, but his surroundings had to shift in order for God to do the new thing in him. And one thing that I feel in my heart to challenge all of us is to do something new this year. If you’ve never served on the Dream Team, start serving. If you’ve never led a Connect Group, or gone to a Connect Group at Victory, start leading one, or get involved in one. If you’ve never gone through our Discipleship Track, get in our men’s and women’s Discipleship Track this year.
If you’ve never joined the church, and you’re just kind of attending, this year is your year to go all in. Come to our Growth Track, get involved this year. If you’ve never served at the Tulsa Dream Center, get involved in the Tulsa Dream Center this year. If you aren’t helping out mentoring a young teenager, don’t complain about teenagers, get involved with helping shape and raise up the next generation. Get involved in Victory Children’s Church. Pastor Amy is always telling me, «Man, we need more moms and dads, and teenagers, young adults that have a calling to invest into the next generation of children, Liam, and Benny, and we need more men and women that have a calling». It might be an uncomfortable environment at first, but I’m telling you, your breakthrough is on the other side of something fresh and new that God wants to do in you and through you this year.
All right, here we go, dip number seven. Come on! Come on, stand to your feet all over this place. Dip. Dip number seven. Dip number seven is the heart. Ultimately, God wants to heal your heart. He wants to heal you of spiritual hurt. He wants to heal you of relational hurt. He wants to heal you of pain that you’ve been carrying around, wounds you’ve been carrying around, grief. There was a moment where God spoke to Samuel the prophet, «Your grieving time is up, it’s time to move forward».
There’s a time to grieve, there’s a time to lament, and then there’s a time to move forward. And I believe God wants to bring healing to some hearts today. God wants to bring healing to some homes today, some disappointment you walked through in 2022, don’t let it go with you into 2023, that this would be a year that you go, «I’m releasing it. I’m throwing it in the Jordan River. I’m dipping, I’m letting him renew my mind about people, about things, about stuff that I carried wounds towards, anger, rocks that I was holding towards churches, towards people».
This is the year to get healed in your heart. This is the year to let God do a fresh work in your life. Would you just bow your heads and close your eyes all over this place? Lord, we just thank you, God, just for your goodness and your grace. Lord, I just feel even just refreshed going down in that water. I just feel like, Lord, I’m just drenched in your grace, and your mercy. And God, I’m praying for people today that just need to release shame they’ve been holding, hurt, disappointment, failure. Just because you missed it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. God has fresh things for you, new things for you. This is a year God wants to bring honor into your life. God wants to restore, he wants to heal, and he wants to reconcile, Naaman, and he wants to heal you.
The Bible says after the seventh time, Naaman’s leprosy completely left him. All the skin disease was gone. Today is a day to get healed, to get restored, to get free, to start the process. Maybe today is the beginning of the dipping. Maybe today is the beginning of starting some new habits in your life, fully surrendering, really taking this conference, and going, «I’m not just gonna hear it. I’m not just gonna write about it in my journal. I’m gonna apply it in my life».
This is the year God wants you to move in the prophetic. This is the year God wants you to move into a new realm of spiritual authority over the enemy. And so with heads bowed and eyes closed, if that’s you, all over this room, I want you to just lift your hand up. If I’m talking to you and you’re saying it, «Yeah, there’s some moves that I need to make. There’s some things that I need to apply today,» all over this room, if you raised your hand, or you wanted to raise your hand, I want you to just leave your seat, come and find a place at this altar.
Let’s make this altar just a consecrated, almost like the Jordan River, saying, «I am going down into that river. I’m laying down my pride. I’m laying down my fear. I’m laying down shame. I’m laying down hurts. I’m laying down disappointments. I’m laying down failure. I’m laying down wounds and offenses, and I am picking up a fresh attitude, a renewed mind, a renewed vision, a renewed heart, a renewed mind, in Jesus' name».
Let’s just worship God all over this place. That’s it, just begin to sing it to him. Lord, I want your love to lead me, to guide me, to direct me, Lord Jesus. He’s breaking off addictions. He’s breaking off generational curses. He’s healing you, in Jesus' name. He’s redeeming you, in Jesus' name. I will put my trust in you, Lord. Come on, just sing it to Him. Let Him wash you, let Him renew you. Let Him revive you, let Him restore you. Let Him heal you, in Jesus' name. Lord, I pray for healing today, healing minds, healing hearts, healing families.