You Think What You Can Hide Is Fine. God Disagrees

Sermon outline

A new season is entered by meeting God's requirements, not by making more requests: a new level of worship, a new understanding, consecration and circumcision of the heart, and then God gives the divine strategy.

1. Life is not about requests, it is about requirements

   Many Christians think the walk with God is to ask, ask and ask. But salvation is free while discipleship is costly, and with maturity come requirements. God asks whether we are ready for what we are asking for; we cannot go our own way and expect Him to follow us.

   Illustration: If I ask the Lord for a million rand right now but I have the mentality for only a double digit, how would I handle what He gives?

   “Salvation is free, but the walk of discipleship is really costly.”

   • Isaiah 55:8-9
   • Matthew 6:33
   • Matthew 4:19

2. Key number one: a new level of worship

   Before he took the throne, Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on the bronze altar, and God saw a man who wanted intimacy and friendship with Him. Intimacy works in the hand and in the heart: giving because God is who He is, not to get something, and praying and reading the word rather than giving God our leftover energy. Yesterday's intimacy will not carry tomorrow's season.

   Illustration: When we want to marry, we go to the jeweller and look at one carat, two carats, three, four, because more carats means more love. Where are the carats towards the Lord? For some, the thousand offerings means getting to church on time; for some it means the whole tithe, not spending more on the car than on the tithe.

   “Yesterday's intimacy is not the requirement for tomorrow's new season.”

   • 2 Chronicles 1:6
   • 2 Corinthians 9:6

3. Key number two: a new understanding

   After the offerings God told Solomon to ask for anything, and he asked for wisdom and knowledge to lead God's people. God gave him that and also wealth and honour no king had had. God already takes care of our needs, as He does the lilies and the birds, so the cry of our heart should be for understanding to do what He has called us to. What God gives without our asking is His favour and grace.

   Illustration: Favour is when the bank turns you down for a car and someone buys it and hands it to you with the logbook; when the money runs out mid-build and God provides; when your child cannot get into a school and someone opens the door.

   “We need to stop focusing on our needs and allow God to fulfil.”

   • 2 Chronicles 1:7-12
   • Matthew 6:26-30

4. Key number three: consecration

   Before Israel entered the promised land, Joshua told the people to consecrate themselves, because tomorrow the Lord would do amazing things. Our job is to consecrate and God's job is to do the amazing things, and there is no shortcut. Consecration can mean a ceasefire between husband and wife, separating from toxic friends, or moving away from gossip and the old nature.

   “Our job is to consecrate, and God's job is to do amazing things.”

   • Joshua 3:5

5. Key number four: circumcision of the heart

   God told Joshua to make flint knives and circumcise Israel again, which shows a connection between victory and circumcision. The obvious things the people who love us will point out; the hidden things nobody sees are the ones God says must be cut away. We excuse what we can hide because we think it affects no one, but Jesus taught that even the thought is already sin. Circumcision means separation and a mark of distinction that we belong to God, not the world.

   Illustration: He lists what some need to cut away: the habit left over from COVID of coming one week and missing the next, Netflix, ladies' night and boys' night, Friday drinks, the sangoma, palm readers and horoscopes, anger, conniving ways and being two-faced.

   “What we can hide, we think it's okay, it's dismissible because nobody else is seeing it.”

   • Joshua 5:2-3
   • Hebrews 12:1
   • Matthew 5:28

6. Then comes the divine strategy

   Only after worship, understanding, consecration and circumcision did the commander of the Lord's army appear to Joshua, and the strategy for Jericho came: march once a day for six days and seven times on the seventh, then praise. Divine strategy often does not make sense, like Noah building an ark, and it may mean starting again, changing direction in business, or moving away from relatives who beset you. He applies this to the family, and to every mother whose children are not where they should be.

   Illustration: On his way back from Umtata a traffic officer stopped him, and he gave her a word of knowledge that her son, who had left home, would come back that day. He came back that same week and is now in ministry. Earlier, speaking to the mothers, he likens the four keys to parenthood: when a child is born, a mother puts everything else on hold, and that is consecration.

   “Divine strategy from God doesn't always make sense.”

   • Joshua 5:13-14
   • Joshua 6:3-5
   • Genesis 6:14

In this message