Pivot Series# 3, Decisions

Pivot Series# 3, Decisions
By: Bobby Sullivan

Quote of the week: Todd White

What decisions have you made already in 2021?

TO PIVOT YOU MUST BE PLANTED.

Pivot:— fixed point supporting something which turns or balances.

Let me ask you a question: When was the last time something significant happened in your life that you initiated?

One of the key distinguishing, definitive marks I have seen in some of my most influential friends was their willingness to take initiative.

Initiative is the conscious decision to move without being coerced , intimidated or manipulated

Lester Wunderman was a legendary New York Ad man in the 40’s and 50’s. After being fired from his job, Wunderman got up the next morning and went back to work anyway—without pay. The head of the agency, Max Sackheim, ignored him for a month before finally walking into his office and saying, “Okay, you win. I never saw a man who wanted a job more than he wanted money.”

Wunderman went on to become one of the most successful leaders in the history of the advertising industry and is widely regarded as the father of direct marketing.

It is in our nature to seek recognition before the reward

Here’s what I want you to know: It will take a bold step from you today to reach your potential tomorrow.

Napoleon Hill wisely said, “The starting point of all achievement is desire.”

Wouldn’t it be neat to have HOLY BIBLE 2.0 and your story be in it?

The only way you’ll be able to recognize opportunity when it comes is to know what you want.

President John F. Kennedy said this, “There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

Conrad Hilton, wildly successful hotel executive said this, “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”

The Children of Israel were in a cycle of sin, rebellion, deliverance. They did not have a king at this time. They did not want God to be their king so God would have to keep raising up leaders to deliver them from the hands of their enemies.

Judges 13 Vs1 “Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

NOTE: What’s interesting is we always hear about God delivering people out of things but here it says, God handed them over or delivered them over to the Philistines for 40 years.

He gave them to their enemy!  UH?

² Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children.

NOTE: “Barrenness was a sign or perception of displeasure with God. It wasn’t that God was displeased. It was there interpretation.

³ And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴ Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. ⁵ For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” 

Wait!!!!!   WHAT?? VS 1 said, “the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines”

Note: The precise identity of the “angel of the Lord” is not given in the Bible. However, there are many important “clues” to his identity. There are Old and New Testament references to “angels of the Lord,” “an angel of the Lord,” and “the angel of the Lord.” It seems when the definite article “the” is used, it is specifying a unique being, separate from the other angels.

The angel of the Lord speaks as God, identifies Himself with God, and exercises the responsibilities of God. The appearances of the angel of the Lord cease after the incarnation of Christ. Angels are mentioned numerous times in the New Testament, but “the angel of the Lord” is never mentioned in the New Testament after the birth of Christ.

It is possible that appearances of the angel of the Lord were manifestations of Jesus before His incarnation. Jesus declared Himself to be existent “before Abraham” (John 8:58), so it is logical that He would be active and manifest in the world. Whatever the case, whether the angel of the Lord was a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ (Christophany) or an appearance of God the Father (theophany), it is highly likely that the phrase “the angel of the Lord” usually identifies a physical appearance of God.

⁶ So the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me, and His countenance was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His name.

The woman went to the man and said “another man came to me who looked like an angel and uh…. he was awesome.

⁷ And He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God (dedicated) from the womb to the day of his death.’ ”

Note: “The English word Nazirite transliterates Hebrew “nazir”, meaning “set apart.”

⁸ Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, and said, “O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.”

Basically, he is saying, I’m not sure about this thing but can you send the man of God back because I have some serious questions to ask him! I need to hear this myself.

I need to understand the method behind the madness. In other words, I need to know the purpose behind the plan.  What path am I to pursue? If you gave us this promise I need to know the provision for the plan.

PROVERBS 16:9 A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

The Bible guides us to: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5, 6).

And that is exactly what Manoah needed at that moment: clear guidance on what path to take!

God really gave us the idea for planning when He said in Jeremiah 29:11-13, “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

With all that said, planning can become a problem.

⁹ And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her.

This is a little weird because Manoah prayed, God heard, but the Angel came to the woman and not him!

ANOTHER PIVOT!!!

God doesn’t always do things the way you want or expect him to do.

¹⁰ Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me!” ¹¹ So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said to Him, “Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?”

And He said, “I am.”

Here is the HINT in the HUNT    

¹² Manoah said, “Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?”

Instead of giving Manoah the plan, watch what the angel does…

¹³ So the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful.”

The Angel pivots from what Manoah asked to what he needed to know at the moment.

Some of us hold on to the promise and the plan without letting Jehovah Jireh our provider prepare the way.

Manoah machined gunned questions, but the Angel just pivoted and said ask your wife.

We always look at Gods hands but sometimes we need to look at his feet because the pivot will always change directions. It changes our focus.

Confused I’m sure, but we need to know how to go with the flow, trust the pivot, trust God that any divine interruption is for our good. In 2021 I wonder if God is going to try and pivot our prayer life, pivot our perspective, pivot our passions, pivot our plans so that it puts us in a posture of trust?

Sometimes we let the words of Captain prophet speak louder than the words from the bible because we are too lazy to read it for ourselves. 2021 will be the year you rediscover the Bible.

SHERYL COME UP and let me show you what I mean

Prophetic words are different than the words of a prophet.

WHAT IS PROPHECY?

Prophecy is a supernatural enabling by the Spirit of God to hear His voice and then deliver the message of what that voice is saying.  You cannot prophesy without the unction of the Spirit. If you are prophesying without God then you’re not prophesying from the correct source. The difference between psychics and prophets in the Kingdom of God is the source of their revelation. We get our source directly from the Holy Spirit. Biblical prophecy is speaking the words of God by the unction of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise it’s an opinion.

Look at your neighbor and say, “There is power in the pivot” 

Your perspectives change based on the position of your pivot.

Sometimes it’s the small moves that sets the direction or even a different one.

We are always trying to find him in calculation, analysis, logic. God is spirit and you can’t get to him through strategy. You get to him on your knees. You will never figure him out and be one step ahead of him.  You go high by going low!

We cannot in these last days (remember last days is” a period of time that has not yet manifested itself” keep “doing” church and start being church.

I’M CONTENDING FOR THE NEW NORMAL AT IMPACT in 2021

Quit trying to manipulate God, debate God, question his motives. When you trust someone, you surrender doubt.

There is nothing as vital to a relationship and yet as fragile as trust. Trust in the Christian faith is the nonnegotiable element interwoven between the creator and the creation.

Faith is not a formula. We keep trying to classify and categorize and organize our faith. What’s good, what’s bad, what faith, what not, what’s good teaching, bad teaching, what pleases our flesh, what challenges our faith, etc.

Manoah was confused but, in that confusion, he had a mental pivot that changed his confidence

¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain You, and we will prepare a young goat for You.”

¹⁶ And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain Me, I will not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord.)

¹⁷ Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, “What is Your name, that when Your words come to pass, we may honor You?”

¹⁸ And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?”

One translation said, “it is beyond understanding”.

That’s the pivot! Beyond what you can understand. Everything you can name and figure out is not God.

When you get beyond your ability to work it out, that’s where “I AM” is.  He is beyond our logic and our immature grasp on reasoning, philosophy and comprehension.

¹⁹ So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering and offered it upon the rock to the Lord. And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on— ²⁰ it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar!  

The angel was not found in the logic, he is found in the flame. 

²¹ When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the Lord.

²² And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”

²³ But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such things as these at this time.”

²⁴ So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at ^[b]Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Everything is going good until…..Samson pivoted.

14 Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. ² So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”

Problem is now he is in love with the ones he was born to defeat!

Write this down: “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay. and take everything you have in the end

³ Then his father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” And Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well.”

The destiny of the nation is now threatened by Samsons decision!

Grasp this! What is the destiny of the Southshore? Can the course be changed by our decision? Yes! How? We need to Pivot from safety and security.

^4 (But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord—that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.) NIV

Sometimes the pivot is found in pause, in the parentheses.

There is a purpose in the parentheses.

THERE IS A PURPOSE IN EVERY PIVOT

You may have to pivot to the purpose even when you feel paralyzed.

God uses Samsons dumb decision to deliver a nation!  How much more will God use us in all of our frailties, inconsistencies, and short comings?

Closing:

What is God saying to me about Impact Church?

• Pivot to the supernatural: I have heard it say, “if you have never met the devil face to face, chances are you’re traveling in the same direction he is.” With that said, as I reflect over the last few years, my walk with God has not had many confrontations. Not that I’m looking for them, but I think it has been an easy walk.

I heard Todd White say this week, “People want to avoid difficulty so they avoid everything they can that’s conflicting so they can do everything they can to gain pleasure.”

• Don’t be afraid to take risks. Maybe a new shirt Addicted to Jesus.
• Live out truth. Authentic Christianity will challenge you. It’s not your bible knowledge that will set people free! It’s the power of the Holy Spirit flowing, ruling, reigning and residing in you.
• I don’t want January to be resolution as much as a restoration of revelation. Personally, I want hot bread right out of the oven. I wish you could see what life was like for us back in the “glory bubble” I not only want that for me but for everyone.
• The reason why I want to add unlimited to IC Kids is because I want them to experience the unlimited depths of grace, signs, miracles and wonders. I want them to flow in the power gifts and dumbfound the adults. I want our church to offer them more than games. I want them to be exposed to more than what the world can give them.

Religion hates the miraculous! I want to raise up warriors, little Davids that will slay spiritual Giants in the land.

Todd White said, churches need to model what it looks like to “walk with Jesus”

• I want to see water baptism monthly