Protect Your Edge | Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts
Protect Your Edge | Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts
Sometimes, you have to disrupt your routine to accommodate God’s gifts. His revelations are not designed to fit into your program. They’re designed to liberate you and lead you to something greater. It’s not sufficient to just be saved — you have to be transformed!
This means being flexible enough to step out of your comfort zone and allow the Holy Spirit to guide you. It’s OK to acknowledge your struggles, but after that, stop to reflect on God’s faithfulness, and let it strengthen your resolve. Your persistent pursuit for holiness will get you right where you need to be.
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[Music] God gave me something to say my subject is protect your Edge and I am in numbers 20 verses 2-13 this is the new King James version context is that Moses is leading the children of Israel into the promised land and they’ve had this same cycle over and over again where they get there but then well they get close but then something happens that makes them wish that they could go back to Egypt over and over again for 40 years we see them repeating this cycle they are closer than they have ever been when we find
them in this text and yet they’re still struggling with this notion of trusting God in the wilderness of trusting God in this next stage of their life and Moses has been selected as the leader who will guide them into the promised land in verse 2 begins it says this is at this point in the text they have no water they’re in the wilderness of Zen Miriam his sister has died so Moses is carrying the weight of leadership while also dealing with the heaviness of loss and the complaints of a people who don’t
just get it now there was no water for the congregation so they gathered together against Moses and Aaron and the people contended with Moses and spoke saying if only we had died when our Brethren died before the Lord why have you brought up brought up the Assembly of the Lord into this Wilderness that we and our animals
should die here and why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place it is not a place of GRA or figs or vines or pomegranates nor is there any water to drink so Moses and Aaron went from the
presence of the assembly to the door of the Tabernacle of meeting and they fell on their face and the glory of the Lord appeared to them then the Lord spoke to Moses saying take the rod you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together speak to the Rock before their eyes and it will yield its water thus you shall bring water for them out of the Rock and give drink to the congregation and their animals so Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before
the Rock and he said to them here now you rebels must we bring water for you out of this rock then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod and watered came out abundantly and the congregation and their animals drank then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron because you did not believe me to hallow my name in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them Spirit of the Living God I need you I desire more than anything to be used for your purposes
for these your sons and daughters God I ask that you would fill me with the love that you have for them and that from that place of love that I would be filled with prophecy wisdom insight and strategy that could only come from Heaven God I pray for the hearts and the Destinies connected to this moment that their hearts would be open to receive that their minds would be more malleable than they have ever been God I pray that this would be a Divine encounter with your grace your anointing your word and that it would
forever transform them God give me strength give me power give me energy give me Pace that I may not miss a single crumb that you seek to serve them I yield myself over to you and I say Have Your Way great God that you are in Jesus name I pray amen Amen Let It [Laughter] Rip I love that I grew up in this church as most of you know and as people who grew up in church environments like I did I had like my biological aunts and uncles but then I had surrogate aunts and uncles that were so close to me growing up that they felt like they were
biological family and one of the things that I enjoyed the most was being raised by like these country uncles they taught me everything from playing SP SP and not just like playing Spades but like you got to put the card on your head kind of playing Spades you know where you got to Humble people tell them study long study wrong you know they taught me how to play dominoes but of course they didn’t call them dominoes they called them bones and I don’t know if they kept the Crown Royal bag from before they got saved or but
for some reason the dominoes were always in Crown Royal bags I didn’t ask no questions I just shook the dominoes up like they asked me to we would slam dominoes down I was probably like 11 or 12 years old I’ll be slamming dominoes down and I call my low points I say 10 they be like 10 top roof don’t leag I’m like huh five you killing me with these nickels like it was just such a good country black experience amen these same uncles when it was time for me to start driving you know I was taking driver education and I would
learn things like keeping my hands on 10 and two and they like ah you don’t need 10 and two you just need to put one hand on there and I’m like the book says 10 and two and so I would go to Driver’s Ed but then they would take me out to go driving and when they would take me out to go driving they would undo everything that they told me I need to do in driver’s head when in driver’s dead when parallel parking they say take as many times as you need now you got to be able to do it in one swoop baby girl one
swoop why like do I get street credit if I do it in one swoop then say when you get really good I’m going to teach you how to drive with your knees now I’m lost because why are we driving there nowhere in the handbooker they talking about driving with your knees I’m just trying to figure out how to drive I’m getting in the car I got to turn the music down I can’t afford to change the air conditioning when I first started driving I’m like I cannot afford to have any distractions at all and you
all are talking about driving with your knees it was crazy then they told me once you get your routine once you get your Rhythm you’ll be able to add other things to it so I finally figured out how to drive it became like innate where it didn’t require as much studying so I could turn on music right I could add something into it cuz now now I’ve gotten the pattern down I’ve gotten the routine down now I can change the air conditioning maybe I could take a drink of water I was really learning and
progressing fast I still haven’t learned how to drive with my knees I’ll be honest then in early 2000 I think most of us recognized that the world was experiencing a shift where the cell phone devices that we possess were something that were not just useful and handy because we were able to communicate with people but it was also something that was becoming a part of our routine so much so that because we were driving and texting that we had to start putting up parameters to keep us from incorporating into our routine something
that could be damaging to our lives or the lives of other people I feel like that is one of the funny things about routines to a certain extent our routines have some flexibility you can add some things to them once you get down whatever your rhythm is going to be for school runs once you get down whatever your rhythm is going to be when it comes to driving you have the opportunity to incorporate other things but there comes a moment though where you can’t ask your routine to stretch any further than it already
has you have to be willing to change your routine to accommodate whatever it is you’re trying to now fit into your life it’s hard though for us to do this because our minds are wired for routine literally our minds are constantly thinking of the quickest most efficient way to accomplish any task when we learn something for the very first time this is controlled by our cerebral cortex once we’ve repeated this action multiple times it becomes routine once it has become it is stored in a part of our rain that makes it almost extremely
impossible to delete so it starts off something that we have to do with real intention then it becomes something that is a part of our routine so much so that we would rather fit something in our routine than change our routine Al together I had a friend and she became a mother I think she was in her 40s and she had had this you know life of being single and traveling all over the world and she got married and she got pregnant and she told me you know one of the things that I’m going to do differently is when I have my baby I am not going to
change my life to accommodate the baby I’m going to make the baby fit into my life and I was like cool I mean just seven days into it she’s a completely different person she’s like I don’t think I’m ever going to see the life that I once lived again because I could not make this baby fit in the context of my routine I had to be willing to let go of my routine in order to accommodate this gift this is part of the reason why many of us struggle to enact change in our life is that when we say we want to
change what we really mean is I want change to fit within the context of my routine I don’t want to change my routine I just want it to fit into the context of what I already know not people in this room you have to say that cuz people get so sensitive these days but there are some people who were tired of being the strong friend it’s a routine that they created for the people around them where you can count on me I have no needs my life exists only to serve you and they want to change that but they also don’t want
to be vulnerable enough to tell people I’m going through a depression or I actually need some help right now they want to change their routine but they actually just want people to accommodate a version of themselves that they are not willing to introduce into their routine because they if they introduced it into their routine it would changeed everything that people have known about them and they don’t want to abandon their routine there are some people who say I want to find a way to rest and have more
balance in my life but I also don’t want to change my routine so your goal is only as good as the routine that you’re willing to implement to support what you’re going after that’s why if we’re going to introduce change in our life we have to be willing to have what research calls cognitive flexibility cognitive flexibility is what happens when we give our mind the ability to not be locked into the routine that we understand into the ways that we are used to showing up in the world but instead we allow ourselves the
capacity to do different things like taking a new way home or changing the way we communicate because if I get stuck in a particular routine it’s going to be even more difficult when it is time for me to break out of that routine and so I’ve got to have some cognitive flexibility I think one of the incredible things about this church is that as many incredible pastors as we have we all have different styles and if you are here then you recognize that though we have different styles it’s the same anointing and you have become
better as a result of the cognitive flexibility required for you to attach to different sounds and different voices sometimes you’ve got to sharpen up your mind because if you’re going to be used in the Earth by God you cannot be used by God in the earth and stay within the comfort of your own routine you got to be willing to have cognitive flexibility that’s why when we say stuff like anyway you bless me God I’ll be Satisfied it means god I don’t need you to bless me in the way that you blessed me last year
God I got enough flexibility that any way you bless me I want my spirit to be open enough to see that that’s a blessing it doesn’t look like what you did last time but I got enough flexibility to understand when you’re working in a way that feels different than before we have to have cognitive flexibility to even be in relationship with God Scripture says your thoughts are not my thoughts your ways are not my ways that means that in order for us to be in relationship with God we must be willing to recognize that we’re going to have to
be flexible God I wish I could say that better to recognize our relationship with God and to maximize it to its potential we have to recognize that the same God that can be present with us in this moment can be present with those who are watching online because God we got a he’s got so much flexibility God is faithful he is consistent but God is also flexible that same God that healed your past can reach ahead into your future and go ahead and make that crooked path straight because he’s got enough flexibility you’re
worried about what’s happening now but while I’m standing in the presence of God here God’s working out things at home because he’s got flexibility if you don’t understand the flexibility of God you will think that you are abandoned if you don’t understand the flexibility of God you will be sitting in the same spot Waiting for God to show up in the same way but when you understand the flexibility of God you start keeping your eyes open to anything God I don’t know who you’re going to use to bless me
God I don’t know what you’re going to do in this situation but I know you got so much flexibility that I don’t want to lock you into what I’ve known and I believe that one of the greatest disservices that we have done is not elaborating on the flexibility of God that God could use you in spite of your shame that’s flexibility where man says I’ll never touch you where man says I’ll leave you alone God says I got more flexibility than your mother had I got more flexibility than the culture has I
can restore what the Locust have eaten because I got flexibility nothing is too far gone nothing is ever over because we serve a God who has flexibility and the heavens wrapped in flesh in the womb of a woman I got enough flexibility to wrap myself in flesh and still be the father I got enough flexibility to not just be crucified and raised but to also leave you with the Holy Spirit I got enough flexibility the disciples were crying because they thought they were losing Jesus Jesus says don’t wait the comforter is coming you’re going to
receive power when the Holy Ghost is fall because just because I’m gone doesn’t mean you are without of God I got enough flexibility to make sure you’re still covered even if I’m not sure oh I don’t know who needs to hear that but I feel like God wants someone to understand that you’re still covered even if you don’t see covering in the way that you once saw it God says I still got you covered I got a plan I know you feel forsaken I know you feel abandoned but I still got you covered
