TWWC2025 Equipped for Emergence 2: Day 6 - Pastor Tilewa Emmanuel

 Father, as we go into your word tonight, teach my fingers to speak your words, endow this lips of clay with your divine words that hearts may be touch and lives transformed

I've seen by experience that the word of the Lord grows in the heart of believers by emphasis. There is never something like 'I know it, because I've heard themselves say it before'. There is progression in the word of God and as the Word of God is being taught, it brings Revelation to the heart of the man that hears it.

This is why you will discover that the same thing that we're consistent with the Letters of Paul to the Romans were what he wrote to the Church in Corinth and Philippi. There were consistent themes across the books of the Epistles.

It will be funny for a man  of God to read the Book of Ephesians and say 'I do not need to study the Book of Philippians anymore because I have studied the book of Ephesians'. It is important to understand the value of consistency across time and the word of God taking in the meaning of the Word of God and as these things are being emphasized, it transforms the person.

In 2 Corinthians 3:18 KJV, Paul exaplains that "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord".

As we look at, behold and study the word of God, there is a transformation of the person of our inner man to resemble the word that we are reading as we see in

In1 John 3:2 KJV, We are made to understand that Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

 So the word of God is so vital that anywhere it is spoken, it must find reverence in your heart

See, one of the many reasons why believers today hear God's word and are not transformed is because they do not revere it

Many people would stay awake to listen to the words of men, but when it comes to God's word

Sleep suddenly finds a path into their eyes

You cannot become what you don't honor

 What does not have a place in your heart, cannot cement its place in your life and as such would never have impact

The teachings are available, the word of God asks you to continually meditate on it

It can never be too much Joshua 1:8 Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

While this may have been talking about the books of Moses

It nevertheless has so much relevance in our lives today

The word of God must be so close to your heart, that it must become who you are.

Pastor Jerry Eze of NSPPD said something so profound "Your positive confession is not God's word". Don't always think that your positive confession is the word of God.

So you saying 'I cannot be sick' and all are good but people of other religion also do positive declaration.

There is a particular school of Buddhism that practices positive speaking, they look into the mirror and make affirmations. There is another where they amp themselves into a particular phase (spiritual essence) and start to declare words and as they declare them, they become their essence.

In essence, positive affirmation is not God's word, it is God's word internalized that will be able to guarantee your victory

 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

 All scriptures must be our guide, must be our instructor

 We must never live a live where we are not motivational speakers, rather, we must become instructors of the word, pointing people to its essence and it's riches, then and only then can our word carry much weight that it dismantles the kingdom of darkness.

 We have a word tonight, such a powerful theme

‘Equipped for Emergence’

 We have heard the definitions of these words and they are so profound as they were given

 A man staying under a covering or an institution of learning until he is ready to be unleashed upon his world

 The first thing we must see here, is that there is no institution that does not require a man to stay; Whether university, or apprenticeship.

Any institution would require training for a while, until they deem fit that you are good enough to be let go.

 Interestingly, in God's kingdom, it is not different.

 Across scripture, we see stories of people, men of faith who God's raised through equipping, yet he didn't unleash them until they had received adequate training

 Let's start with Abraham, look at a man who walked with God, whose seed God was going to use to deliver the nation's of the earth

 He waited and waited, let me tell you or even ask you

‘Did God not have the power to give him a child after 1 or 2 years?’

 Of course he did, but he waited, his waited drew him to God. At a point, see what God said

 Genesis 18:17-18 "Should I hide my plan from Abraham?" the Lord asked. "For Abraham will certainly become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him.

God spoke of a man in this wise

God swore to a man, a man called Abraham

 The kind of man he became in his years of waiting, was the kind of man that would be able to incubate and deliver the kind of seed that God desires

 The time of equipping is not just the time of waiting, it is the time of training,

 What you attain or become in your time of equipping, often determines what you become in your time of emergence

I want to draw you to a sharp contrast

 Samson, had no record of a time where he set himself apart to be with God

 Baba emerged and of course he did damage to his enemies, but we all read what happened to him

 See the process is as important as the destination

 What you don't learn in your time of equipping is waiting to become your downfall in your time of emergence

As children of God, our emergence must never be dependent on the walk of strategy

Social media can push you in the direction that God has not sent you to be, you see so many fliers of different churches and programs, if God has not sent you to go, be like Moses and say (Exodus 33:15 KJV)

 "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence". This is because talent is not enough

Talent in itself is not an indicator that you are equipped enough, that you can do all the stunt and performance is not an indication that God has said you should go

The only way to know when you should go is when God says go

 So like I was saying, strategy is not usually indicative of the work of the spirit

I say this with all form of humility, I was listening to a short sermon by a man of God recently

And he said something, our generation is so encumbered with knowledge that we fail to see that there is something that matters more

 And that is being a man of God

A man of God is a man that has stayed with God so much that God has rubbed off on him

 And so I can attend a meeting and all I got was happiness that departs before I even left the venue

Whereas I attended another one where the power of God was so strong, that my heart burned for weeks

Those guys, on their road to emmaus

They said in Luke 24:32 They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?"

There is something that happens when you stay with this Jesus that equips

See Jesus, a man that was in ministry for 3 and half years, yet the effectiveness was so great that unbelievers came out to the desert and wilderness to hear him speak

See my people, age is not a determinant of success of calling. It is good to start young, so good

But if all God wants you to be doing for now is to serve, stay there

 Learn patience, learn humility, learn how to be with God

In the same vain, old age is not a marker also, but learn the stay

If there is one thing you would take away from here tonight, it is that your staying desire must be greater than your desire to 'blow'

Don't let anyone deceive you, or pressure you into a work that God has not called you to

 The second dimension of what our theme speaks to

Is the emergence part

Many think of emergence as success in ministry, the place where people are opening car doors for you and you are stepping out of airplanes

See ehn, the plans of God are the metrics that determine your emergence

 Success as defined by the world is not the same thing with God's definition.

You can be the biggest shot in your circle, yet you have ignorantly started what you should never have started at all

The claps of men and their hailing you is not necessarily a sign from God

Someone spoke in the Bible, people ascribed his voice to God's voice, yet, God disapproved and showed it immediately

What about many today who have killed their conscience, just because they have to measure up

The hype men and women of the world have somehow found their way into the church and are hyping believers to their own destruction

 Jesus said when men slept. The enemies came and planted wheat amongst tares

The tares know they would be burned, but they don't want to be burned alone

They want to at least take some of the wheat with them

 Emergence is also not a time where you have graduated into independence

God gives more grace to the humble and resists the proud

 After Jesus's emergence

 He would still go back to meet God

And fellowship with God

You will never outgrow devotion

You will never outgrow the basics

 The time of emergence is a time to live out what you have been equipped with

 It is a public show of what the training process has built you into becoming

 You must never stay away from those principles, from those standards that you have learnt.

Jesus was literally God in the flesh

God in human form, He had all the power and splendour

In fact in the teaching of the Trinity, God the one Triune God, God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, we say conveniently and consistently that Jesus is no less than God neither is He less than the Holy Spirit

In that case, Jesus, after being publicly declared to be God's beloved son and I am please with Him, he entered into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days

I thought after manifesting power, the next stage is ministry straight and honorarium and disciples

But never, Jesus showed us a perfect example, the next thing is to live out the principles learned during equipping

In the school of the spirit, there are classes, but there is no graduation date

Every day, we learn, everyday we grow, until we become like Jesus, until we see him, until we hear good and faithful servant

Our equipping is not done

Pastor E.A Adeboye, a man over 80 still teaches and keeps his devotion.

Brother, You have no single excuse

How would you feel when men like that are giving their testimony and you are standing

Ready to tell God, that your emergence was spent more living hypocritical that truly doing the things that makes a man of God

 

In closing, equipping happens by staying with God

Having such a deep connection with God

That you basically dance to the rythms of His heart

Ask yourself, do a check, in all the years of attending meetings and seminar, what am I doing for God, that is devoid of selfish ambitions

If God keeps me here for years to come, will I be contented and boldly say, “for to me to live is christ and to die is gain?’

Is my prayer all about 'blowing', or am I concerned more about who and what God wants me to be

Do I study so I can sound intelligent, or I truly desire to know this God.

In fellowship with God, He begins to rub off on you such that your life is never the same.

And at the end of the day, you become like Him, your world is better because you are in it, your community experience light because of your equipping, and you would have so learned, that glamours and glory will not get into your head

Prayers : You will stay and not leave the place of equipping

The earth will be so filled with the knowledge of the Glory of God, by our mouths, by our hearts and our actions.

Where God has not sent me, may I not go

What God has not sent me, may I not start

May my heart yearn continually for God, until all idols die, and I live only for you