Hey y'all this is Troy Black so I want to talk about three reasons why you
might be walking through a wilderness right now.
and when I say wilderness I mean anything spiritually that feels dry to
us any season that we're walking through we're questioning God or saying, "God why
hasn't this happen yet?" or maybe God has given us a promise about something and
we're expecting it to happen but it hasn't come about yet and so we're
asking God, "God did you really promise this to me? God can i really trust your
word through this season? God can I really trust the things you've given me
to do, Lord?" and you know, every single Christian, every believer goes
through one of these seasons where we're walking through this wilderness. And so I
want to give you three reasons why you might be there today to help encourage
you and build you up so here they are - so the first reason why you might be
walking through a wilderness today is that God might be drawing you closer to
Him. So anytime we go out into the wilderness to go camping, we're going on
purpose, right? We're taking all the supplies we need with us but sometimes
in our spiritual walk with the Lord we get caught in this wilderness and we
were not prepared for it. Sometimes God allows things to happen to us and he
does not ask our permission whether or not those things can occur and suddenly
we find ourselves in this situation we weren't expecting and we feel unprepared
and we might even end up, you know, in a state of despair and maybe maybe even
weighed down by what's happened to us and you might end up spiritually looking
like I look right now - we had our power go out last week, we had
this crazy storm come in and blew a lot of trees a lot of power lines down, a lot
of debris everywhere and so this is what I look like after a few days without
power. Yeah, I don't know how to shave with a normal razor so if I was ever
caught out in a real physical wilderness unprepared I would start looking like
this real fast. And you might feel like you're in a position like that today so
I want to read you an encouraging verse from Acts. Acts 17:24-27 says, "The
God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as
though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and
breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of
mankind to live on the face of the earth," -check this out- "having determined their
appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek
God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from
each one of us." So the first thing I want to pull out of this verse is the fact
that God has put limits on every single person's life. He knew what the limits on
our lives were from the beginning of time. He knew what things we were gonna
walk through what things he was gonna give us what things he was gonna hold
back from us, and you might be asking the question, "Well, if God really loves us,
especially like those of us who are his children, if he really loves us why
doesn't he just give us everything we want, right?" Well look at it from the
perspective of a loving parent. I've got three little girls and I work from home
so I see them all the time and they're always asking me for things you know and
and I want to give them the things that they need, but if I always gave them
everything they wanted I wouldn't be a very good parent because a parent can
look at what a child needs and know better than that child actually knows,
and when that child grows up and gets older they realized they didn't really
need everything they thought they needed, and actually some of those things were
not going to be good for them in the long run. The reason why God restricts
some blessings in your life is because he wants you to seek Him. He knows that
you are better off finding him than finding all the things that you want in
life and the really good news is, as we read in Acts, He is not far from each one
of us God draws near to those who seek Him. So that's the first reason why you
might be in a spiritual wilderness today, the second reason is that God might be
testing you. God might be asking you the question, "Hey, you've been trusting me and
you've been seeking me, but are you gonna continue trusting and seeking me if
times get hard?" He might be using this situation to build your character. Exodus
16:4 says, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for
you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I
may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction."
so God rescued the Israelite people out of Egypt, out of slavery into freedom and
He made the promise that He was going to take them into a promised land, but
here's the truth of the matter: God did not take them directly from bondage to
the promised land. No, there was a wilderness in-between and the reason
there was a wilderness was because God wanted to test His people. See the
Israelites were able to trust God when they were walking out of Egypt, when they
could see what He was doing for them. But when they were in the wilderness and
they couldn't necessarily see what was coming
next, that trust went away and instead they responded to God with unbelief and
with complaints and with doubt. And what ended up happening was - the time they
spent in the wilderness became much longer than God originally intended it
to be. The question God was asking the Israelites and the question I believe
he's asking us today is - was my deliverance enough? He was asking them
was my deliverance for you out of Egypt enough? And He's asking us - was what I did
for you on the cross enough? Is it enough? Do you really want to know me, is that
the most important thing to you, or are you just after what I can give you?
Here's the third reason you might be experiencing a wilderness today - and
don't take this as if I'm saying it just directly to you because I'm speaking to
myself as well, because the truth is I've been going through some wildernesses
personally this last year spiritually, and even recently within the last few
weeks, and I've been asking these same questions, "God, why? You know, if you've
really promised this to me, why is this still happening? Why haven't I gotten
there? You know, why can't I see what you're doing right now?" And so here's
another answer to those questions, the third reason we might be in a spiritual
wilderness today is that we might be running from God. We might be delaying
the provision and the blessings that God wants to give us simply through an act
of disobedience. So I should have looked up before making this video how to
pronounce Haggai or Hag-e-i, or I don't know. I think it's Haggai but anyways,
don't quote me on that, you can google it yourself.
But I want to share with you a verse out of Haggai - if I'm saying that right - that
shows this exact principle at work. So in the book of Haggai the Israelites were
at this place where they were focusing and rebuilding their nation,
they were rebuilding their own houses and their infrastructure
and all these things, but they were not focusing on building the house
of God, the temple of God. And God is showing up through a prophet and
he's saying, "Hey, y'all have been working so hard at building your own kingdoms
but now it's time to build My kingdom," and so here's what he says, "You have sown
much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you
drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is
warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes." That was
from chapter 1 verse 6 and we see that God is responding to the Israelites
actions of disobedience, they weren't disobeying Him necessarily in
what they were doing, you know, the things that they were doing. They were
disobeying Him in what they weren't doing, because of the priority of their
heart. See God looks at the heart, man looks at the outside - we can look all
Christian, we can look all good at church, we can look all good to our friends, but
God is not looking at those things, he's looking at the heart and he knows that
our actions eventually are going to start over flowing out of what's
actually in our heart. So the Israelites; the priority of their heart was
what can I do today to build up what I have, my possessions, my house,
my household, you know, my image - all these things and they had pushed
aside the priorities that God actually wanted them to have. But here's what's so
cool about this passage, they actually listen to the Prophet who's speaking to
them from God and they repent. And repent just means to turn around, to turn the
other direction, so they turn away from that way of thinking and they turn back
to what God has asked them to do. And when they do that, God makes this amazing
statement in chapter 2 verse 19. He says, "Yet from this day on I will bless you."
Some of us today need to repent, we need to turn away from one attitude that
we've had - maybe it's toward our work, maybe it's
toward our finances, maybe it's toward our family, maybe it's toward success
or the way people see us, maybe it's toward, you know, a relationship - it's
an attitude that goes against what God knows is best for us and we need
to turn away from that, we need to turn back to Him and say, "God, how can I
prioritize you in this area in my life? How can I
prioritize your will for my life and your kingdom first?" And I think the first
thing that comes to our minds a lot of times is 'what do I need to start doing?'
You know, what are all the actions, the things, the good things I need to start
doing? But here's what's so amazing about the New Covenant - is that it's not about
all the actions, it's not about all the things we're supposed to be doing right,
one rule after another, instead it's about a real relationship with God.
And if you read the book of Haggai that's what God was really interested in, a real
relationship with His people. And guess what? Nowadays, it's a whole lot easier
for us because anyone who believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior gets to
have a real, personal relationship with God. Look at what God says in the same
book later on: Chapter 2 verse 5 says, "As for the promise which I made you when
you came out of Egypt, My Spirit is abiding in your midst; do not fear!" God
wants His Spirit to be dwelling in our midst, He wants us not to have to be
afraid of anything in this life, even if we're walking through a wilderness He
wants us to be able to turn to Him set our eyes upon Him and know that His
Spirit is with us. And no matter how difficult right now seems, today may seem,
we can find hope, we can find peace, we can find direction, and we can even find
a promise through His Spirit through a personal relationship with Him today. And
that is what He wants for each and every one of us. So if you're listening to this
right now and you're thinking to yourself, "You know what, I don't know if I
have that real relationship with God, I don't sense His Spirit with me," or maybe
it's been a long time - you've been running from God and it's been a long
time since you've been close to Him. Here's the amazing news - I want you to
take all three of the points I listed today and apply them to the life of
Jesus. The first one is that God might be drawing us closer to Him.
Guess what? Jesus Christ was the closest human being - He was God and man and He
was the closest person who's ever been in a relationship with God, in fact Jesus
said, "I and the father are one," He was in perfect fellowship with the Father. The
second point is that God might be testing us and here's the thing, Jesus
was tested, too. As soon as He was baptized, the Spirit led him out to the
wilderness, and He went through 40 days of walking in a literal wilderness and a
wilderness where He was tested, and the Bible says that He was even tested in
every way, every sin that was common to man, that He experienced that temptation.
And guess what? Jesus passed the test every single time. He was perfect and He
lived that perfect life for us because He knew that we would not be perfect and
that none of us can live a perfect life. But here's the thing, God's standard is
perfect and instead of having to live that perfect life, instead of God holding
us up to that standard - because He knew we were gonna fail - He said Jesus is
gonna come and He's gonna live that perfect life for you because He can do
it. And then what happened at the end of His life is - this is where the Third
Point comes in - is that Jesus was crucified on a cross for something he
didn't do, for something that we did, and when he died on that cross he took the
punishment that we all deserved for our sins, for running from God, for
prioritizing other things, for disobeying God, for whatever it might be, Jesus took
the punishment for all of that on the cross so that if we're running from God
we can turn around today and we can come boldly before the throne room of grace,
so that we can believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And when we do that, God
sees us as His redeemed, forgiven, perfect children. He doesn't look at us through
that lens of sin and stain and shame anymore, He doesn't look at us - doesn't
matter how long we've been running from him - He looks at us through the lens of
the cross and He sees how good Jesus was, and He sees the price Jesus paid, and He
looks at us and He says come on in, you can have fellowship with me through the
Holy Spirit, I want to know you, I want a personal relationship with you.
If you know you need this, if you need this don't wait, don't put it
off, don't say I'll do this later on, do it right now - I want you to pray with me
and I'm just gonna pray a prayer - it's not a magical prayer, the prayer in and
of itself doesn't change anything, what has to change is what's in your heart.
Your heart has to change from, "God I want to do this my way," to "God I realize I
can't make this work my way. God I realize I desperately need you to save
me, please save me." So if you know you need this, pray with me right now, "Dear
Jesus, I thank you so much that you came to earth and you lived a perfect life,
that you are God and man and then that you died on a cross to take the
punishment for sin, the punishment I was supposed to take, and then you were
buried and you rose again. And I just asked right now that you would come into
my heart, that you would begin a personal relationship with me, that you would
forgive everything wrong I have ever done and that you would help me to
understand how much God really loves me, how He really sees me now. And just thank
you so much for the gift of grace and salvation that you've given to me, and I
accept it by faith right now, in Jesus name. Amen." If you just prayed that prayer
I am so very proud of you. There's two things you can do for me; the first is
that let me know in the comments if you prayed with me today, and the second one
is share this video with someone else who needs it.