TD Jakes - Intentional Floods
Joshua 3, beginning at verse 6 and ending at verse 17. When you have it, stand on your feet; if you don’t have it, fake it. I’m going to be reading out of the King James Version. And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, «Take up the Ark of the Covenant and pass over before the people.» And they took up the Ark of the Covenant and went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, «This day, watch this closely, this day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the Ark of the Covenant, saying, 'When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in the Jordan.'»
And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, «Come hither and hear the words of the Lord your God.» And Joshua said, «Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you.» Wait a minute! So Joshua talks to God; now Joshua is talking to the people. «Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you and that He will, without fail, drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Gergashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites.» That’s what God wants you to know. He says, «I’m going to drive out all of those squatters that are sitting on your land.» Behold, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan. Remember the River Jordan.
Now therefore take you twelve men out of every tribe of Israel, a man from each tribe. And it shall come to pass that as soon as the souls of the feet of the priests that bear the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand upon a heap. Good Lord! And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant before the Lord, this is what happened. We heard what he said, now we’re hearing what happened. And as they that bear the Ark came unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the Ark were dipped in the brim of the waters, watch this, for the Jordan overflowed all his banks at the time of harvest.
Wait, go back to that verse. For the Jordan overflowed all his banks; in other words, it’s a flood in the midst of all the time of the harvest. The sign of the harvest is the flooding of the Jordan. Keep going! Then the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far from the city of Adam that is beside Zerethan; and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the Salt Sea, failed and were cut off. And the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground until the people had passed clean over Jordan. Can you say amen?
I want to talk about intentional floods. Intentional floods. You say God is intentional, and when you say God is intentional, you think of blessings, but I want to talk about how God is intentional about trouble. God is intentional about floods. I told the Lord I was worried about my daughter, who, incidentally, just texted me. She said, «I’m watching, Daddy.» I said, «Lord, by now I realize that my children are really yours, and by now I’m starting to understand that they are yours before they are mine, and they will be yours when I am gone.»
So we are co-parenting with God. So, I’m not going to worry like I did, or I’m going to try not to worry like I did, as if I were raising them alone, because we’re co-parenting. I’ve come to understand that whether you have children or don’t have children, life brings floods. I don’t know whether it’s like this for you; everybody has problems, but you go through a season where it comes from everywhere. Why are you trying to straighten out this? This happens. While you’re trying to straighten out that, that happens. While you stretch, after a while, it seems like the water keeps getting higher and higher, and you start frowning in it.
I was getting ready to catch a plane to go to London, and it was starting to flood in Dallas. The newscaster said part of the reason for the flood is not just the deluge of rain, but the drought that preceded it that made the ground so hard that the water just slid off of it for the first few hours, which created flooding. My property, the back end of my property, is in a floodplain; it floods down into the back end of my property. I have seen it flood so badly that it damaged trees, property, and barns that we had to replace, because the entire gazebo was underwater because it was in a floodplain. God can bless you in a floodplain, but every now and then, the flood will overwhelm you if you’ve been built in a floodplain. To think that God is intentional begs the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Intentional floods. Let’s pray.
Father, in the name of Jesus, as we embark upon this journey, I pray that the power of the Holy Spirit would overshadow us in such a way that we are supernaturally endowed with the kind of grace that enables us to be effective at communicating outwardly what You breathed inwardly into my spirit and into my life. I feel as though this is a prophetic word. Speak, Lord! Answer questions, unveil mysteries, feed Your flock as only You can do. I thank You in advance for what You’re going to do among Your people today. Show off—throw Your weight around! Show the devil who’s boss. I believe You for miracles in this place, great God, and we’ll stand still right where we are until we see clearly what You’re doing in this season. I trust You right now in Jesus' name. Shout amen!
You may be seated in the presence of God. Disclaimer right off the top, before I get too deep into this: the book of Joshua just excites me. It just does it for me. The book of Joshua does it for me in the same way that the book of Ephesians does in the New Testament because neither book is for wimps. The book of Joshua is for people who have been in a period of wandering, and the wandering has now stopped, but that doesn’t mean that the fighting has. You go from wandering. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what’s going on in my life. I don’t feel understood. I don’t— that’s the wandering period. But then, when you come into your own, you have to start fighting for your place. They’re in the middle of a transition from wandering to fighting.
They are a new generation coming into a new place for the first time. Abraham’s seed is finally reclaiming the land that was theirs but has been inhabited by somebody else. There are some things that God has promised you, like He promised Abraham, that somebody else is sitting on right now. God says, «I have given you the land. I have not changed My mind from what I told Abraham.» And don’t let the squatters fool you; it’s still yours. God said, «I have given you the land, but you have to possess it.» So you can’t be timid and just sit back and wish for it, pray for it, and hope for it. You’ve got to be bold. Don’t read the book of Joshua if you’re going to be whimpish, because the very first thing it says is, «Joshua, be strong and very courageous, for I am with you to deliver you whithersoever thou goest, and I will give you good success.»
Good success suggests that there is bad success, and God is not timid about telling you, «I’m not just going to wrap it up in a bow and hand it to you. You’re going to have to possess it. You’re going to have to snatch it. You’re going to have to fight for it. It’s not just going to happen for you.» Joshua is in transition too because he is the successor of Moses. Now, if you’re ever going to be the successor of somebody, you don’t want it to be Moses because Moses was bad. Moses was amazing. Moses was incredible. Moses was praying for 40 years in the house of Pharaoh and 40 years in the house of Jethro before he started his task. Moses was incredible at 80.
When you’re incredible at 80, you’re incredible anytime you walk across a desert at 80 years old leading a bunch of disgruntled people. He’s doing his best miracles in his old age. Though Joshua is younger, he is less endowed than Moses was. Joshua works for Moses, leading armies down in the valley into battle. I could refer to that, but in reality, Moses is up on the mountain, doing more by raising his arms than Joshua could do with his sword. Joshua was strong; the problem is that Moses is now dead. Joshua now has finally gotten maybe what he wanted, what he hoped for, or maybe what he didn’t want either. Regardless of what he wanted, God wanted him, selected him, and made him Moses’s successor. He is leading a people who have been led by the mighty Moses, and they grieve for Moses for about 40 days at the bottom of the mountain; they couldn’t stop crying.
So they are walking with a guy that they don’t really respect. They are transitioning from being wanderers in the wilderness to fighters in the Promised Land, from a desert place to a fruitful place, from an old leader to a new leader. This is powerful. Faith and fight are the prerequisites to reading this book. If you’re not willing to have faith and fight, see, a lot of folks fight but don’t have faith. A lot of people have faith but won’t fight. In order to step into the pages of the book of Joshua, you’ve got to have faith and fight. You’ve got to pray and take your medicine. You’ve got to talk in tongues and exercise. You’ve got to pray and work out. You’ve got to have faith and fight for where God is getting ready to take you.
That’s why you’re logged on this morning. You have got to have faith and fight to survive; you got to have faith and fight to keep your marriage; you got to have faith and fight to keep your mind; you got to have faith and fight to hold down what God has given you. You’ve got to have faith and fight, and now you’re getting ready to go into new territory that is yours, but you’ve never seen it, and you’ve got to have faith and fight like never before. Because write this down: This will not be that.
So as you transition from where your proficiencies are, they had learned how to survive in the desert but knew nothing about possessing the Promised Land. Years ago, I preached a message called «Desert Babies.» It was extrapolated from the fact that this was a generational message about the transition from one generation to another. The people who left with Moses have, for the most part, died in the wilderness. The people who are marching with Joshua have, for the most part, been born in the wilderness. Oh, I wish I could just camp out there! When you’ve been born in the desert, your idea of normal is different. It is not so much that they miss the leeks and onions of Egypt; that was their father’s problem. But now they have very little to miss.
Most of what God did to deliver the Hebrew people out of captivity, they didn’t see. They heard about it but didn’t see it. They definitely were not transformed by Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob because all of them were dead. All of the stories about the happenings on the night of the Passover and the blood on the doorposts, they missed all of that. That was not something they had personally experienced. For them, it was tradition. Now, listen to this good: Are y’all with me? Tradition is important. I know you don’t like to hear that, but tradition is important. Tradition is important; it gives us a sense of identity to know our history. Tradition is all about defining, «This is who we are.» It causes us to understand our history.
Today, tradition is almost a four-letter word, but tradition is the foundation that contemporary thought builds from. I was thinking about this on my way to church, considering what you all call traditional gospel was contemporary gospel when I grew up. The oddity about what you call contemporary is that it’s only contemporary in this season. Your children will call it traditional. What you are singing as new songs, they’ll say, «Back in the day, my mama used to sing,» because life keeps on turning, and the stage keeps on changing. All the rules you’re making are going to become tradition in a minute. I’ve lived long enough to see it. I’ve lived long enough to see it. I can remember when Mahalia Jackson was contemporary. I can remember when they would not allow her in certain churches because of the way she sang.
She sang, «They called it honky-tonk gospel,» clapping your hands in church and singing that kind of music. Mahalia was controversial; now she’s ancestrally traditional. Times change, and to totally disregard tradition is like disregarding a crack in the foundation of your house. New windows and new draperies won’t fix a broken foundation. If you don’t have a foundation, I don’t care how you decorate it; the house is coming down.
Now, I know you’re not builders and you may not be in construction, but you still need to take note because that is also relational. If you don’t build a solid foundation, don’t be shocked five or ten years later when the marriage collapses, when the company collapses, when the vision collapses, because you were picking out drapes when you should have been building a foundation. I didn’t get much praise on that, but it’s important. If there’s a crack in the foundation, new carpet will not fix it. Tradition is extremely important. One of the great challenges of marriage is that you’ve got two different family traditions coming together. Your idea of normal and her idea of normal is built on your ancestry, your background, your exposure, and where you came from.
When the two traditions collide, they often conflict because your idea of a good husband and my idea of a good husband is defined by what we saw or didn’t see. Tradition gives us foundation, but it doesn’t give us revelation. Tradition gives us foundation, but it doesn’t give us transformation. Transformation is formation in movement, and we are being formed while we’re moving. A woman doesn’t have a baby just laying still unless there’s something wrong with the pregnancy; she is transitional, and yet the baby is being formed in transition. Most of us are being formed in transition; hence, we have transformation. But you can’t stop moving because you’re forming; you have to keep it moving even though you’re in formation and put up with all the haters who point out all the areas that aren’t formed yet.
But you have to keep it moving and not let them shut you down because they’re talking about where you are, and you’re focused on where you’re going. Transformation happens in movement. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Not past tense; renewing is a process, not an event. «Oh, I came to church this morning, and my mind was renewed.» No, no, no, it’s being renewed, and that word has to work in you. It has to form in you; it has to develop in you. It has to become a new normal for you. It has to come into fruition as you work it out. I’m trying to work it in on Sunday, and you have to work it out on Monday. I will not see you on Monday; I will not see you on Tuesday; I won’t see you again until Wednesday. But in the meantime, your homework is to work out what you heard on Sunday.
If you don’t work it out, you still have tradition, but you’re not seeing transformation. The word «form» itself implies process, and when the potter works with clay, he’s forming it. It’s in process. Listen, when you’re in process, you are neither this nor that. The best advice I got when I moved to Dallas came from Pastor Ed Montgomery in Houston, Texas, when he called me up and said, «Remember, leave everything you learned in Charleston in Charleston because this will not be that!» Whoo! How it helped me! Whoa! It blessed me! Who spoke to me? Because I really came here thinking that this was going to be just another version of that. I thought, «I have been pastoring for 20 years; I know how to do this.»
I came here ready to repeat the experience I had in Charleston, and the first thing he drove into my head is that none of that matters. It doesn’t mean anything. Everything you learned, this will not be that. And if you turn this into that, you should have stayed with this. We step into this text where Joshua is being formed into a leader. We step into this text where the wanderers are being turned into fighters. We step into this text where they’re not quite in the promised land and they’re not quite in the desert. They’re in this nebulous, indescript place, which is frustrating all by itself. When you cannot define where you live, it’s troublesome. I don’t know how you are; you might be able to do this, but when I travel to another city, the first place I want to go is to my hotel.
If you let me get to my hotel and drop my bags, I’m good to go anywhere. But I can’t leave my bags in the car and start going places because I need to know where I live. I need to know something that’s stable before I become transitory. I need to know that I have a place to stay, my room is good, my bags are good. Let me drop the bags; I don’t even have to unpack them. But when I drop my bags, I’m saying to my soul, «I live here!» Even if it’s just for three days, for the next three days, I live here. When you don’t have an address, you have a problem. I’m talking about the uncertainty of being between places, the uncertainty and the anxiety that it brings to your soul when you are between places.
Let me show it to you another way. When you are not quite an adult but not a child, you are in adolescence. Parents know that adolescents are difficult to raise because they are too grown for you to treat them like you used to, yet they are too childish to bear any responsibility. So you want to be a grown man, but you don’t pay any bills. You want to be a grown woman, but you don’t add anything to the house. It gets on my nerves because you don’t want me to treat you like a child, and you say you’re grown until you get in trouble. Oh, y’all ain’t gonna help me! There are two times of transition in your life: one when you’re a teenager and in adolescence, and the second is during a midlife crisis or menopause. I must have hit somebody in this room because they hollered! You start tripping out because you’re too young to be an old lady, but you’re too old to be a young woman.
You can’t drop your bags anywhere; you’re too young to be an old man, but you’re too old to run with the people you’re trying to be with. So you go out on the basketball court and try to shoot hoops and pull a hamstring. The hamstring is an announcement that the old great man just ain’t what he used to be. The old great man just saying what he used to be ain’t what he used to be. That was a nice example, brothers. I could give you other examples, but I’m gonna stay right there with the hoop. You’re gonna hoop with me this morning, right? There are wake-up calls that your body gives you. So, while the women are having night flashes, the men are having panic attacks. Because—never mind.
Okay, so suddenly you’re trying to prove something to yourself that you can’t prove: that you still got it, you still got it. That’s why he runs off with the young secretary. It ain’t her youth; it ain’t her looks; it’s him trying to prove to himself that life is not doing what life does. It doesn’t have anything to do with you as a wife; it has everything to do with what he’s scared of. And besides, you’re sweating anyway, going through mood changes. «What? You better— I don’t know! Get out here! Don’t ask me nothing! Don’t ask me nothing! Why are you frustrated? Because you have no place to put your bags! You don’t know where you live! You’re not quite in the desert and you’re not quite in the promised land!
You’re close to the milk and honey, but you can’t eat it! The sun is at your back, but you can’t go back, and you can’t be who you used to be! You’re not quite where you’re gonna be; you’re in this nebulous, indescript, foreign place for which there are no rules, and you have no address. I could stay here all day! I can’t, but I could! I could, I could stay here all day! Let me just go one hair deeper. One of the big traumas of slavery that we never talk about is not just the atrocities, the abuse, the beatings, the hangings, and the murders, but the absence of culture, language, identity, and even last names. I was explaining to my African friends when I was in London, „The thing I most admire about you is you know who you are. I am Matthew Hashemaloa. I have come from the tribe of so-and-so, and my ancestors come from such-and-such a place.“ I said, „I don’t have a last name.“ „Jake’s“ is German.
Clearly, you can see there is a certain trauma that comes purely from the loss of your tradition. The loss of your tradition makes you nomadic—floating, moving, uncertain. Inasmuch as you can tie into your roots, you can produce your fruit, but there can be no fruit without a root. What is my language? When I was in Nigeria, a guy said, „You’re Igbo from the tribe of Igbo,“ because they had done some research, DNA research, to prove that my ancestors were Igbo, and he started speaking to me in the Igbo language. He said, „This is what your language sounds like,“ and I started crying because I had never heard it! No root! This is where these people are. They have heard about the miracles, they have heard about the Passover night, they have heard about the Red Sea, they have heard about it, but they didn’t see it.
They have heard about the death angel, but they didn’t see it. They either were children, and now they are walking with a God that they have never seen in his fullness, and they have no root like their parents did to the miracle. The miracle at the Red Sea was so important that even after this generation is dead, God still refers to „Am I not the God who brought you through the Red Sea and through the wilderness?“ That was the point of reference for the relationship with God. The problem is this generation didn’t have that point of reference. We have a generation today that doesn’t remember when John F. Kennedy was shot, that doesn’t remember when Dr. King was killed in that motel room, that doesn’t remember the civil rights movement.
So, you think Black Lives Matter is the beginning of the struggle? No, no, no, no! You don’t have a root, and you don’t remember. Oh, you’ve heard about it, but you didn’t experience it. We have a generation today that’s trying to build a marriage on a movie. So, you are having arguments about what a husband ought to be and what a wife ought to be, when in truth, you have no idea what they ought to be! You’re basing it on movies and what your girlfriends told you and what you read in Essence magazine or Woman’s Day magazine, whichever ethnicity you like to read; that’s your definition of what it is. It amazes me that women write the books they read about what men ought to be, especially when they didn’t grow up in a house with men!
It’s amazing to me that men sit up and base their ideas of what good sex is on pornography! I’m gonna get out of this in a minute. I got stuck in it, and I’m gonna get out of it in a minute. So if she doesn’t perform like a flick you saw on your phone, I saw one brother start sweating. I think you’re going into menopause right in the middle of the message because your ideas are locker room ideas. When men talk to each other, we draw conclusions about what your wife ought to be, and you go home mad at her because she’s not living up to a fantasy. They are in this nebulous, indescript place called the „I don’t know“ place.
The greatest thing to know is what you don’t know! Write that down. I’m not gonna say anything more important. The greatest thing to know is what you don’t know. You will never be smart until you can admit what you don’t know, and yet we’re living in a society where you like to brag to everybody about what you know even though you don’t know what you say you know, and you don’t know what you don’t know! That means there’s no room for you to learn or grow because you’re already filled up with your own need to impress everybody with what you don’t know.
The beginning of wisdom is ignorance; the beginning of full is empty; the beginning of up is down. If you would humble yourself, God would exalt you. But because you’ve exalted yourself, there’s no room for promotion in a vessel that’s already full! Somebody say, „I don’t know!“ One of the things that we learn in running a corporation is that we are afraid of saying, „I don’t know.“ So, the first thing they’re teaching in crisis management is to get people together and get them scripted, so that everybody who answers the phone directs people to the right people. Because we feel embarrassed to say, „I don’t know,“ so we say stuff that we’re not sure of, just so we can appear informed. Say it again: „I don’t know!“ Say it again: „I don’t know!“ The best doctors in the world are the doctors who can say to you, „I would rather…“
I didn’t know what was wrong with him until all chances of healing him were gone. Finally, he says to him, when it is too late, „I don’t know.“ Not being able to say „I don’t know“ can kill a marriage, can kill a ministry, can kill a company, and can kill a person. Your arrogance is a lethal weapon that ought to be registered because you cannot say „I don’t know.“ A little moment for preachers: it’s not what you know about the text that makes you a great preacher; it’s what you ask of the text. If you come to the text as a fool, you will leave as a professor, but if you come to the text as a professor, you will walk away as a fool. Say it again: „I don’t know.“ „For we know not what to pray for as we are, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings and moanings that cannot be uttered.“
We don’t know; we don’t know; we don’t know; we don’t know. We don’t know what it’s gonna be like; we don’t know what’s gonna happen; we don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna bring; we don’t know how to live in the promised land; we don’t know how to fight this kind of fight. We don’t know Joshua like we knew Moses; we don’t know where we are; we’re in transition, and when you’re in transition, nobody has to say anything for you to be irritable. You’re irritable because you’re scared. You’re irritable because your norm has been shattered. You’re irritable because you’re in a nebulous place. You’re irritable because you have landed in the city, but you haven’t checked into the hotel.
Tradition will not produce transformation. Transformation is personal. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2). That’s personal; that’s not congregational. You don’t get transformation because you go to the Potter’s house. You can go to the Potter’s house until you’re an old woman, but if you are not transformed by the renewing of your mind, you won’t be able to make it in. In Romans 8, when it talks about, „We know that all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord,“ it finally says, „We know not what to pray for as we are.“ That humility of saying „we know not“ is, „I don’t know.“ Joshua, you don’t know how to lead Israel; you don’t know how to follow. Joshua doesn’t know how to lead.
I know he doesn’t know how to lead because the first thing he does is pull out his sword against an angel and ask God, „Whose side are you on?“ What „I don’t know“ produces is a praying church that wants God to be on your side more than you seek to be on His side. Are you spending all your time trying to talk God into blessing what you plan, or are you humbly coming to Him and saying, „Lord, give me Your plan because I don’t know“? I don’t know how to do this. Today I’m going to talk to you about three things, and I’ll be gone. I’m going to talk to you about influence, I’m going to talk to you about impediments, and I’m going to talk to you about instigators.
I’m going to talk to you about influence, I’m going to talk to you about impediments because that’s what the flood is—an impediment—and I’m going to talk to you about instigators. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be done. What God says to Joshua is vitally important. He says, „I am going to magnify you in the eyes of the people,“ which means God says, „I am going to give you influence.“ Don’t confuse affluence with influence because there are many people who are affluent but don’t have influence. They’re affluent; they’re well-known; they’re recognizable; they have big names; they have big offices; they have big suites, but they don’t have an effect on the people who follow them. Affluence does not equate with influence.
God says to Joshua, „I’m going to give you influence.“ Influence is leadership flowing out of him; it’s what flows out of you. It’s not just what you say; it’s stuff that subconsciously emits. Influence is like lava that flows out of a rock. It’s not just what you’re doing or saying; what is flowing out of you affects everything around you. The subconscious things that you emit into the atmosphere are influence. So we have affluence, we have influence, and we have influence. He was already affluent, or he wouldn’t have been commanding or leading people. He was a warrior, but just because he was a warrior didn’t make him Moses. Influence, however, is the ability to have a measurable impact on others' decisions, behaviors, and outcomes.
There’s not a person in this room or a person watching online who doesn’t need influence, even if it’s just over your daughter, your son, your job, your position, your team, or your staff; whatever it is that’s under your auspices, it’s a terrible thing to lead something without influence. When we think of great influencers who positively or even controversially affected the world around them, we mustn’t confuse their affluence here, either. In reality, many influencers may not have been affluent at all.
Martin Luther wasn’t affluent, but when he translated the Latin scriptures into the German language in 1522, it gave him influence that led to the Protestant movement of which we, and Baptists, and Methodists, and Ames, and United Methodists, and Church of God in Christ, and Church of God, and Church of God in Prophecy, and everybody else is a part of the collective protests that came when the Bible fell into the hands of people who could read it. It gave him influence because it affected our behavior, our decisions, and our choices.
How effective are you at influencing other people’s behaviors, decisions, and outcomes? That influence doesn’t come by yelling, screaming, arguing, nagging, complaining, cursing people out, breaking dishes, or going at them with skillets. You can’t make people respect you. You cannot buy respect. Giving me gifts, sending me cards, or giving me money doesn’t make me respect you to the point of affecting my decisions, my outcomes. Oh my God, I’m preaching! God said, „I am going to magnify you before the people.“ Don’t confuse titles with influencers. You get more, „I’m the apostle.“ That’s the big thing now: „I’m an apostle; I’m a chief apostle; I’m going from a bishop to be an apostle; I’m going to be an apostle, but I was a bishop.“
And the other guy is an apostle, but he’s getting ready to be consecrated a bishop. Shut up! Changing the title doesn’t change the impact. If you have influence, you’ve got influence, whether they give you the title or not. Titles are not influence. Don’t confuse degrees, education, and intellect with influence. You can have more degrees than a thermometer and influence absolutely nobody. God says to Joshua, „I am going to magnify you in the eyes of the people.“ Here is the question: because some of you, God is getting ready to magnify you in the eyes of the people. If God magnifies you, would you magnify Him? „Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together!“
If God gives you the power to influence people’s decisions, outcomes, and purpose, would you then magnify God or would you magnify yourself and brag about how smart you are and how capable you are? Because God has not given influence in this season to people who need self-aggrandizement and self-promotion. God has given influence to humble people who will lay on their faces before God and say, „To God be the glory for the things He has done.“ Are you in the building? Give me some power on the mic. Are you in the building? Are you here? In the building? Are you in the balcony? Are you up there in the balcony? Anywhere? Are you online? Is there anybody left that God can magnify, and you will remember to magnify the Lord?
Make some noise if I’m talking to you! Respect is never given; it must be earned. When President Zelensky said to America, „I don’t need evacuation; I need ammunition“ in Ukraine, he said, „I don’t need evacuation. Do you need a way out?“ No! He said, „I don’t need evacuation; I need ammunition.“ Immediately, his influence went through the roof because that’s the kind of leader that everybody finds attractive: not one who flees, but one who fights; one who stays and says, „I’ll get drowned in the dirt, and I’ll fight till I die before I give up on my heritage, my culture, my tradition, my background. This is my country; this is who I am. I need somebody who’s going to be on the front lines, not pushing me from the car.“
Joshua was a fighter; now he’s learning how to be a leader. God created trouble; watch this! God created trouble to give him influence, which leads me to impediments. I’m going from influence to impediment. Can I take a little bit longer today? Because I came fully loaded. I didn’t bring a happy meal; I brought a five-course filet mignon dinner served in segments and courses with sorbet in between each segment. Are you ready for this? The flood was an impediment. The flood was an impediment that God used to increase Joshua’s influence. You’ve been asking God to move the impediment, but if God removes the impediment, you won’t have the influence. How you respond to your impediment is what gives you influence.
Watch this! Oh God, I’m excited! I’m so excited! See, Joshua, when he was under Moses, had seen the grapes; he had seen the grapes of the promised land; he had fore-tasted the grapes, but he had not seen the flood. The flood was associated with the harvest, so it didn’t flood all the time. The last time Joshua was there, he talked about the giants that were in the land, the sons of Anak, but he doesn’t mention the flood. He had sent spies over but they don’t come back talking about the flood. They had not seen the flood.
Remember Joshua 3:15? The Bible says, „Jordan overflowed all its banks all the time of harvest.“ The flood and the harvest are connected. Joshua has come to the promised land at the time of the harvest, which means it’s raining a lot, and all the waters of Jerusalem have no place to flow but down. I’ve been to Israel; I’ve seen the Sea of Galilee; I’ve been to the Jordan River; I was shocked when I got to the Jordan River. Were you shocked when you got to the Jordan River? I was shocked when I got to the Jordan River. I was disappointed when I got to the Jordan River! I was expecting to at least see the canal river, the river from Charleston. I thought it would be like a river. I got to the Jordan River, and man, it looked like a creek! I said, „So John was baptized here?“
The Jordan River is no wider than this stage! I was so disappointed because in my head, I saw something that was big, but when I came to the Jordan River, it was not during a flood. So if you come to my backyard and it hasn’t been a flood, it’s actually quite dry. But because it’s in a flood plain, if you come at another time, bring your swimming trunks! Because the little pond in my backyard overflows to the point that I had to claim insurance and rebuild, not because I live with the river in my backyard, but in that season, it flooded. You are in a flooding season, and the Lord wants you to hear this word today because the Lord ordered the impediment of the flood to give you influence.
How you handle this flood will determine the influence for the rest of your life because you are leading a group of people who have no point of reference. So God has simulated a crisis to prove His promise that as I was with Moses, so shall I be with you. So God has turned a creek into a river so that He can demonstrate His power in your life. Instead of rebuking the devil and pleading the blood, I want you to thank God for the flood in your life! Come on, come on, come on! Because the flood is a sign that the harvest is in process, and the flood is a sign that God is about to give you influence beyond your wildest dreams! Because how you deal with this impediment will determine the influence that you walk in for the rest of your life.
And if you don’t cross this Jordan, you will never kill the Canaanites, the Gergesites, the Hivites, the Hittites, or the Jebusites. Everything you’re going to be depends on how you handle this flood. It was a creek when you saw it; now it’s a flood when you get up to it. And you’re standing there at the Jordan, wondering what to do. You don’t need evacuation; you need ammunition. Joshua is leading the people to where he has already been, just like Moses led them to the place he had already been. You cannot lead people to places you haven’t gone!
So stop trying to be a tour guide in a place you don’t know anything about. So Joshua’s leading them to a place that he has been before. He is proficient at crossing the Jordan when it’s not a flood, but now it’s a flood, and all he has is the promise of God that as I was with Moses, so shall I be with you. The only difference is I’m a heretofore; the only difference is that at the Red Sea, Moses stretched forth his rod, and the waters parted, and they walked across on dry ground. But when Joshua gets to the Jordan and the flood has turned it into an amazing river and Joshua stands there at the Jordan River, standing there is not working. He can’t stretch forth his rod; that’s not working. God said, „I’m gonna be with you like I was with Moses, but I’m not gonna do it like I did with Moses.“ So you can’t imitate your Moses and cross your Jordan. Who am I preaching to in this place?
Slap your neighbor and say, „I’m about to cross over! I’m about to leave the old me and cross over to a new me. I’m about to leave my old place and cross over to a new place. I’m about to step out of this zone and step into that zone.“ Everybody won’t be able to go with me, so some people are going to have to stay on this side of the Jordan because not every tribe can cross a floodplain. But the Lord sent me here to preach to somebody standing in front of a flood. You can’t bring everyone with you; some people have to pitch their tent out in the desert because they are desert babies. They are not kingdom builders, and you have to let them rest within their comfort zone. But there are a few of us who have come too far to fall short of the promise of God.
Is there anybody in this house that has come too far to settle in the desert? You’ve been through too much, cried too many nights, and endured hardness. Whatever you have to go through, I’m going to step into this Jordan and make something happen. Give me thirty seconds of crazy praise! I’ve got to go all the way. If Mama doesn’t go, if Daddy doesn’t go, if Sister doesn’t go, if Brother doesn’t go, I’ve got to go all the way. I don’t know how to work it; my rod isn’t working, but I’m going to do something to get my miracle from the Lord. Maybe you stretched forth your rod and it worked for Moses, but it didn’t work for you. It’s not Moses’s method; it’s Moses’s anointing that is on you to cross over into this new season in your life. If I’m answering prayers, if I’m answering questions, if I’m speaking to your destiny, hallelujah!
There is no way to get to grace without dealing with the impediments. The things that impede your progress are a sign of your progress. There wouldn’t be an impediment if there weren’t grapes on the other side of this. If there were milk and honey on the other side of this, slap your neighbor and say, „Get to the other side!“ If you’ve got to crawl, if you’ve got to get muddy, if you’ve got to stretch out, if you’ve got to do something unusual, if you’ve got to be disruptive, if you’ve got to break a chain, if you’ve got to break a yoke—make something happen! The Lord told me to tell you, „Make it happen!“ Type it on the line: „I’m going to make it happen!“ I can’t hear you! You ain’t loud enough, you ain’t radical enough, you’re not aggressive enough.
I’m going to give you another chance to make some noise if you’re going to make it happen! In times like these, people don’t know what to do because we have never seen times like these. We’ve never seen plagues like these; we’ve heard about it, but we’ve never seen it. It’s been a hundred years since the bubonic plague was out; we’ve never seen the disruption that we are seeing right now. Our banks are overflowing! Oh, hallelujah! Our markets are overflowing; our stock markets are overflowing. The price of our rent is skyrocketing, the price of a piece of chicken is soaring, and we’ve never seen prices like we’re seeing right now. But I serve notice on the devil: I will not stop until I cross over! Where are my crossover people? Yes, yes, yes!
Here you are standing in front of an impediment. It could be a financial impediment, an emotional impediment, a physical impediment, a sociological impediment. I don’t care what kind of impediment it is; you’re going to have to instigate a miracle. Moses was able to part the waters without getting wet, but in order for Joshua to get his miracle, he had to step over into what wasn’t moving. The Lord told me to tell you it looks like it’s not moving, but step into it anyway! Where are my instigators? I’m going to instigate a miracle! I’m about to set it off in here! I’m about to step into something that isn’t working. I’m about to put my foot into the Jordan River.
Slap your neighbor and say, „Step in the water!“ I stepped in the water; the water was cold; it chilled my body, but not my soul. I stepped into a job; I stepped into the storm; I stepped into the haters. Step into it! Type it on the line: „Step into it!“ What I’m trying to tell you is you have to get your feet wet. You can’t just look at the impediment; you have to instigate your next miracle. Look at somebody and shout, „Instigate!“ There are people in the Bible who only got a miracle because they instigated it. Naaman would have died of leprosy if he hadn’t instigated a miracle. The blind man Bartimaeus would have died blind, but he kept on yelling until he instigated a miracle.
If you’re going to instigate, shout at the top of your lungs! He yelled until Jesus stood still; he yelled until he got God’s attention. The woman with the issue of blood knew Jesus was passing her by, but she said, „I’m going to instigate a miracle! If I’ve got to get down and crawl, I’ll crawl until I get to Jesus.“ Because I’m an instigator! I need 500 instigators to jump out in the aisle and set it off! The rest of you stay where you are; you’re waiting on the loan; you’re waiting on some help. You’re in need of a big brother to come; you’re waiting on someone to break you out. But I need 500 instigators who are getting ready to get your feet wet! Step over into the water, step over into your miracle, step over into your dream, step over into it!
Give your God a praise! You gotta hear this; you’ve got to hear this! The Word says that when Joshua stepped out into the water and the priests stepped out into the water, nothing was happening. Nothing was moving; nothing was changing. They stood in the middle of nothing changing. That’s why when you all started singing about standing, I almost lost my mind. Because there is a moment when you’ll stand in it, and it’ll look like it’s not going to move. But when you stand on it, the rock you stand on, even though you can’t see it, holds firm; you were standing on a promise, a vision, a dream. You were standing on God’s Word. We’re going to quit; you were standing on God’s Word. You were standing on what God said: „Stand on it, stand on it, stand on it, stand on it, stand on it!“
Somebody holler, „I’m an instigator!“ That means I’ve got to get my feet wet so that the people following me can cross on dry ground! I’ve got to step in the water so they can step on dry ground! Somebody better grab my microphone because I feel like preaching! Get your feet wet! Stand on it! Stand in the middle of it! Instigators, when you first stand on it, your feet will get wet, and it will look like it didn’t work. But God is training you not to walk by sight but by faith. And the Bible says that as the priests stood in the water, they couldn’t see, but when God saw them standing in it—Now this is where it gets deep! There is a moment in faith when you step out there and nothing changes, and you have to stand in uncertainty, stand in fear, stand in doubt, and stand in anxiety and not go back. Because of the level of influence God is about to give you, you can’t go back because it doesn’t look like it’s working.
When they stood in what wasn’t working—be it a marriage, a job, entrepreneurship, raising a child, building a building, or starting a company—every successful entrepreneur I have ever known stood in water for a while. Over budget, no profit, no increase, but they stood there! I’m standing here today just because the Bible said while they were standing in nothingness, uncertainty, fatigue, and fear, God stopped the waters coming down off the mountains! He dammed it up at Adam, a city miles away. And see, what I’ve got to show you right quick: The Sea of Galilee flows into the Jordan River, and the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because it has so much salt that nothing can live in it.
The Jordan feeds the Dead Sea. Why? Jesus was baptized in the Jordan to symbolize your sins being washed into the Dead Sea, never to live again. It was important that John baptized Jesus in the Jordan because the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea, and God says, „Your sins I will remember no more.“ Watch this! God shut up the waters that were coming from Galilee and stopped them at the mountains of Jerusalem. He dammed them up on one side and shut it down on the other side so that everybody who came after them would cross on dry ground. That is what being a leader is: making it possible for the people who come after you not to have to deal with what you dealt with to get to where they are trying to go!
So the Bible says that after all the people had passed through on dry ground, God said, „Don’t leave this place without getting the stones from the places where the feet of the priests stood firm.“ God said, „The only thing that’s valuable about this process is where did you stand firm?“ He said, „Go rescue the rocks that you stood on and leave them as a memorial to your children.“ Because your children don’t have roots; they don’t have traditions. So when they ask you, „How did you make it?“ take them to the rocks! Let them know that success is not easy, that survival is not easy, that endurance is not easy! Let them know that I had to get my feet wet! I had to stand on a rock I couldn’t see, but the rock withstood the flood!
I saved my rocks for the next generation to see that what Mama did wasn’t easy! Mama got wet so you could be dry! Daddy got wet so you could be dry! Daddy took on two jobs so you could go to school! Mama took on two jobs so you’d have a chance to go to the NFL! I worked harder so you could work smarter! This is where my feet stood first! So that whenever you come to your flood, you will understand the flood is never a reason for you to give up. It is a reason for you to have influence! The impediment made you an instigator, and being an instigator gave you influence! Every time you withstand the flood, you gain influence! Because somebody is watching how you handle the unexpected!
How you handle the unexpected will determine the level of influence you have! You see, respect can never—somebody cut the lights out of this! Okay, respect! The devil’s got to do something! Respect! He’s got to do something! I don’t blame him; I’d do something too! Respect can never be given; it must be earned! So I’ve called this message, „Intentional Floods.“ Because whenever God is going to give you new influence, He’ll create a flood to simulate an experience that Moses didn’t have to create so the people will see you as Moses!
Your flood is your credentials, and if you stand up to it, I wish somebody would sing „Stand!“ But if you just stand when everything in you wants to run and hide! If you just stand in a nebulous situation of great frustration—if you, after you’ve done all you can and you’re tired, your feelings are hurt, you want to give up, you want to break down, you want to walk away, and you tell yourself, „It ain’t even worth all of this"—God sent this flood to test your ability to stand in water, to stand in that which is overwhelming! The waters had overwhelmed the banks of the Jordan!
So what I saw was not what Joshua saw, because I didn’t see it in a flood! You’re in a flood zone—a flood of hate, a flood of gunfire, a flood of political chaos, a flood of racism and sexism, and every other kind of hurt! You’re in a flood—a flood of emotional stress, chaos, and uncertainty! God says you’re standing on what they can’t see! A rock is somewhere in that flood! Stand on the rock, and you’re going to instigate God to create a dry path! Hear me good; hear me online! A dry path will come after you stand! The way you instigate your next is to stand firm against your now! Stand on it! I know it’s hard, and your emotions are going crazy! But if you just stand on what you know—stand on what you’ve been taught, on what God promised you—stand on His promise in your life!