Wet Wood | House Fire Part. 4 | Dr. Dharius Daniels

we've got god's gonna do great things as a result of it well listen i'm excited about this message today we're in a series of sermons called house fire and that's what we're believing god to do in your life to set your life your house on fire and there's a message i want to share found in the gospel of john chapter number 12 verse number 42. the gospel of john chapter number 12 verse number 42 this is what it says it says yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him but because of the pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue listen to verse 43 for they loved human praise more than the praise of god they loved human praise more than praise from god i want to talk from this subject in our time together family subject is two words as we step into part four of this series of sermons called house fire i'll talk from this subject wet wood wet wood i frequently remind um those of you who are part of our spiritual family that i was reared and raised in a small town called kill michael mississippi last uh population count according to the last census was over 630 people no stop lights no police officers well one police officer one full time one part time we had a doctor there when i grew up my dad just told me we don't have a doctor anymore and the fast food restaurant is a gas station don't hate on gas station food now it's it can be kind of but i remember this this this lady so we all it's a small town so almost everybody knew everybody literally and there's this lady who lived in i guess what would be considered a neighborhood we called the miss della to this day i don't know her real name but we just called the miss della and i had friends that lived in the area with miss della sometimes my friends uh well there were a couple friends that actually live with miss dell and so i would go across it wasn't a street because it's not paved i would go across the road sometime to see my friends at miss della's house and i always noticed something we didn't have this we had gas heaters but miss della had a fireplace and every now and then miss della's sons or grandsons would go outside and they would cut firewood i noticed though when they cut the wood they brought some wood inside the house they kept other wood outside the house but the wood they kept outside the house was underneath something we called a shed they never left the wood exposed to the elements it was either in the house or under the shed it was in the house or under the shed it was in the house or under the shed and i am by nature sometimes to a far a bit inquisitive so i asked ms della's son i still don't know his real name we call him bug say that's a bug and say bug why do y'all keep the wood under the shed y'all build the shed just for the wood he said yeah because it keeps the wood from getting wet and as i started thinking about that res that experience i felt like that experience has some exegetical value and being a bit inquisitive as i reflected on this experience i started doing some research and i discovered that it matters not how intense the fire is if the wood is wet it inhibits its ability to catch on fire and when we think when we when we think about how we can utilize this analogy and apply it to our own lives i believe there are many of us who are watching some of us who are even seated in this space today that that want our lives to be on fire however what i've learned is based on that experience in kill michael mississippi what i've learned is we not only have to get close to the fire we also have to constantly assess the condition of our wood this is interesting now this is interesting because because i think this is a powerful principle that we can apply not only to our own lives but a powerful principle that we can apply when it comes to helping and aiding and assisting others because when i say wet wood it represents listen to me those that are unimpacted by exposure to and access to fire yes redwood represents those that are unimpacted by exposure to or access to fire so if i'm exposed to fire if i have access to fire and i'm not catching on fire i need to ask is my wood wet now this is what i discovered regarding wet wood huh wet wood isn't wood that's drenched with water wet wood is characterized by any wood any type of wood that's been saturated with 40 to 60 percent water wow so it doesn't have to be dripping to be wet but if 40 to 60 percent of the wood is saturated with moisture it inhibits its ability to catch fire are you hearing what i'm saying and so i think we all got to ask ourselves am i saturated with 40 to 60 percent of something that is keeping me from experiencing the fire that god wants to bring in and through my life listen to this wood only gets wet by being exposed uncovered when wood gets wet when wood gets wet the rain's not the problem it's not the presence of rain that's the problem when the wood gets wet it's the absence of covering that's the problem did you hear what i just said so it's not the rain because it's going to rain it rains on the just and the unjust in the bible rain symbolizes blessing doesn't it but it also symbolizes burdens doesn't it and that's the imagery paul uses when he says it reigns on the just and unjust it means that people can live live an ethically appropriate life and the unexplainable happened to them and people can live a life that's ethically inappropriate right and then great things happen to them okay he says so he says it represents blessing and burden so it's going to reign in our life they're going we're going to be exposed to to some things that can impact our fire so i can't avoid that the question is do i have covering now i could talk about that spiritually from a spiritual perspective right i want to talk about it practically because i'm a bit of a pragmatist so don't talk about it practically because oh listen to this we didn't do a lot of fancy stuff in kill michael mississippi all that shed was was some logs and some tin that's all it was all it was was structure and structure stopped the wood from getting unnecessarily wet are you hearing what i'm saying and so if i don't have structure in my life i'm going to be exposed to some things that i would not necessarily be exposed to and that exposure to those elements can impact the wetness of my wood see sometimes we are exposed to stress because there's not enough structure sometimes oh my god sometimes we are exposed to unnecessary overwhelm because there's not enough structure sometimes we are exposed to toxic relationships and parasitic partners yeah people who love us but leech from us because there's no structure to set boundaries that delineate between healthy and unhealthy relationships i see your prayer but where's the structure and i see your praise but where's the structure and i hear you quoting the scripture but where is the structure because it's structure that protects the wood some prayer problems aren't prayer problems they're structure problems some business problems aren't business problems they're structure problems some church problems aren't church problems they're structure problems there are some things that that that we get exposed that other that some people get exposed to and others don't because of structure it covers it covers the wood i saw something else are y'all ready for this that wood huh can get 40 40 to 60 wet not just because rain gets directly on the wood but because the wood keeps rubbing against other wood that's wet so i don't know if you've ever picked up firewood before but if you picked up some firewood like one side of the wood can literally be wet and fragile and brittle and another part can be dry and strong and steady what happened maybe that one part of the wood got exposed to rubbed up against other wood that was dressed and saturated and as a consequence of his proximity to that which was wet it it drenched its own ability to catch fire here's my question now what wood are you rubbing up against because you can go into a room filled with positivity and rub up against the wrong people and walk out filled with negativity right you can start your day with optimism but then get in a certain space and place with people and then end your day with cynicism because it doesn't just matter what kind of wood we are what also matters is what kind of wood we rub up against but i believe i'm talking to some people now who have grown beyond being imprisoned by other people's misinterpretation of the way you got to manage your life in this season there was a season where you would be so consumed and concerned with what they thought and how they felt that you wouldn't make necessary adjustments but i believe there's some people in this season that realize that without fire i'm fragile and i'm dealing with too much pressure and too much stress i got too many decisions to make to be fragile right now so i gotta get by some wood that's strong and steady and sturdy i gotta be around that which positions me and conditions me to catch fire i know you grew up together but they wet wood hallelujah i know you i know they were for you they were for you in a rough season in your life but their wet wood and i know y'all got amazing memories but they're wet wood and i know they're going to say you change but they'll wet wood and you got to realize and recognize that i got to get to a season in my life where i am living with and on fire and an example family of wet wood is seen here in john 12 oh my i just read to you a part of an exchange that jesus has i just need the policy that jesus has with people he's trying to help see this this message here on what this is for every parent this is for every mentor this is for every discipler this is every coach this is for every spiritual leader it's for every manager it's for anybody who is serious about investing in people i want you to see this jesus now there's a difference between spending time with people and investing in them you got me so the question is are you a people investor are we investing in people that the apostle paul told some christians he was dealing with he said listen he said by this he said you still have need for people to teach you you said by this time you should be teaching others at that point meaning it says there have been so much inv paul saying i've made so much investment in you that you should be reciprocating in some way by investing in others the overflow of what i've invested in you so at some point if you're growing as a christian you should be investing in other people for mentoring coaching training challenging does that make sense y'all do know this alone what i'm doing won't completely change people's lives there's absolutely no accountability accountability for the implementation of what i'm teaching right now so i am teaching this and i believe i'm teaching biblical truth but there's absolutely no accountability for the hearer to do anything i say faith comes by hearing change comes by applying this is why james says don't just be a hearer of the word and deceive yourself see read the whole text he says don't just be a hero of the word and deceive yourself it means that that that the acquisition of knowledge being in a room where you're experiencing spiritual energy experiencing divine deposits or impartations can cause us to assume that i've experienced something that i hadn't quite experienced it can cause me to think that knowledge is growth it's not need knowledge for growth but knowledge isn't growth so this alone doesn't change you right so so this is part of why there's such a lot of people don't admit it there's such spiritual dissatisfaction once people get beyond infancy in jesus have you noticed that it's the people that are infants in jesus that are most zealous and those of us that have walked with them for a while are fires flickering am i making sense there it's because there's a degree of transformation that only comes with application and that only comes with investments and accountability from other believers it's the only way it works the only way it works right there people listen to this message and i'm never gonna be able to ask you did you pray this week because you're kind of short like you know you you're irritable so how's your devotional time oh my come on am i making sense oh no no no you got had a kind of relationship my wife and i had that kind of relationship like you've been with jesus cause accountability comes in the context of relationships and we need accountability for applications because nobody's perfect we need help i mean you're weak it means you're human so this is so important like when you're mentoring jesus is the master mentor he's perfect he knows what to say he knows when to say it he knows how to say it and the bible says there's this group of people here in john 12. i want y'all to see what happens here that could not catch on fire i mean in john 12 this is after john 11. come on i preached john 12 a couple weeks ago this is after john the this is after lazarus miracle so they just observed a medical anomaly and they still not on fire are y'all ready for this see i believe i believe this is one of the reasons when jesus sends his disciples out two by two in matthew 10 he's training them to be mentors when he sends them out two by two he prepares them on how to deal with wet wood he says because i don't want you to think that your anointing overcomes the wetness of the wood your anointing works on dry wood he says that's why in john 5 before he even acts before he performed one miracle he actually meant do you want to be made whole he says so i'mma send you out two by two when you go into places and spaces and people don't want the investment shake the dust off your feet it doesn't mean you give up on them remember you give them up to god i did a whole lesson on this call five types of people you can't help i mean jesus he's teaching these people these perform miracles and the bible says verse 42 says that many other leaders believed in him some received many of these believe him so that means some receive but it says some rejected they were both exposed to the same fire but the issue wasn't the fire it was the wood see the same way religion work you know some people say religion don't work it worked for me bro it's working great for me yeah so maybe it's not the fire maybe she'll would yes i'm through with church ain't the church done enough for me hey it's not my fault you didn't find a good one see let's see this yes i'm not back up that's not my fault you didn't find a good one i mean i i don't know i don't know what to tell you i'm not judging you but it worked for me it's kept me sane hey it's messing the church it was messing noah's ark with all those animals but no water got in there hey it's messy but i'm keeping my mind hey it's messy but my spirit is strong it's messy but when adversity knocks me back i get back on my feet and i say no weapon formed against me shall prosper no same fire if i'm burned and you not it's not the fire but it's so easy to blame the fire it's so easy to blame church it's so easy to blame religion it's so easy to blame the fire but if somebody else is being burned is it not the fire it says that verse 22 many bel leaders believed but we read verse 43 it says that others could not because they liked the pray oh my the praise of men more than praise from god they will wet wood in my own life i gotta discern have i hit a season where it's rained on me you got cause no wood stays the same condition in all seasons are you hearing what i'm saying yeah i spent tons of time in florida this past couple years and i noticed in florida around about may to like september it's going to rain every day y'all missed that already it's going to rain every day because it's rain season didn't have firewood in floyd but you could put firewood outside in florida from september to april and think living life with no structure is safe but if you keep that wood out there rain is coming and some got me and so sometimes we can have dry wood and think it's because we got good structure when it's just not made in florida you hadn't hit one of those seasons where it's just raining and raining and rain and rain cause no wood stays the same condition all the time and life can happen and your wood can get wet now remember now remember remember this wet wood family remember this well it's not saturated it's not consumed it just has to be 40 to 60 percent so how do i do a wood check come on i think that's that's practically if we're going to apply this we need to ask how do how do i do a wood check for me and how do i do wood discernment for others i hope i'm not coming off like harsh but i think i think i need to be really clear on this because some of some of you some of you who are who are investing in people you're not making wise investments and it doesn't mean you're a bad person it doesn't mean the other person is a bad person but you're doing the exact opposite in in a you got a bad theology of love and i'm gonna deal with that i think in may when i do a series called tough love theology's bad theology love them that's causing you to blatantly disobey jesus's commandment for investing in people in matthew 7 6 do not give that which is holy to the dogs and do not cast your pearls before swine so a bad theology of love is causing you to mis mismanage the gifts that god's given you and you're not and you're squandering pearls you know what pearls pearls only are produced when the agit when oysters gone through agitation so these pearls of wisdom and insight that you have come through seasons and experiences where you were agitated you didn't just learn that lesson because you read a book you lived through something and you birth that pearl as a result of that agitating experience and jesus like don't just give that without discernment discernment before deposits discernment before deposits discernment before deposits discernment before deposits i need to discern where i'm supposed to be depositing how do i do wood checks for me and wood discernment for others gosh are three things you need to check for that i think contribute to bad wood number one bad theology bad theology bad theology yo but somebody write this down please somebody put this in the chat for me please your belief affects your burn your belief affects your burn i want y'all to catch this your belief affects your burn i just gave you i just gave you in my opinion a quintessential example of this a let's say somebody's got a bad theology of love what are they going to do they're going to invest in anybody that wants an investment they're not going to live with any boundaries so they're going to equate biblical love they're going to equate long suffering they're going to equate that with abuse and assume that long suffering means i subject myself to that which is emotionally and spiritually exploitive and abusive what's that that's bad theology and if you keep subjecting yourself to that it's going to suck the life and the veracity and the enthusiasm out of you you're going to go from an optimist to a pessimist you go from full of faith to full of frustration and you can't be frustrated be full of frustrated be full of frustration and on fire at the same time who's on fire were you frustrated but it's bad theology which is why i want some of you to care more about teaching than dancing and we we dance but i want you to care more about teaching now i want you to care more about your spiritual education than what kind of experience you have do you know i mean we don't have a problem we're not struggling for members but do you know there are people who literally said you know i love your church i never teach i can't come y'all don't dance enough you mean we don't dance enough in church we dance out of church though cause we got the joy of the lord because we like life out of church too and we don't have to use the church as relief from life we come to that's what oh yeah yeah we don't have to just run the church to get relief from life we come to church to learn how to live life and we start experiencing the joy of the lord not just on sunday we gotta dance on monday we walk into the refrigerator desk cause something's in it in jesus nah whoa hallelujah yeah we walking in the house to our marriage is dancing because we like who in the house just telling you bad theology of love bad theology or like spiritual formation you know i read somebody dallas will at one time who um he said something that's so powerful he says like so these miraculous or these unique encounters that we have with god are a part of our spiritual formation but they're not a substitute for spiritual formation this makes you know how we're in church we have like these moments and god just like meets us what dallas willow was correcting he was correcting a thought process that is in a lot of christian charismatic spaces that i need that to change me when those things are sporadic so it's a part of your spiritual formation but you need more than that to be spiritually formed got me that's the equivalent of john 5 waiting for the angel to stir the water for me to be changed so i'm supposed to use the moments but not live on the moments because this i won't tell you how that see that right there perverts perverts i think a healthy theology of worship because what happens is you can be you can begin to unintentionally idolize those moments so it means you cease to worship god because he's worthy and you start worshiping to try to get a moment did you hear what i just said there when that happens the motivation for your worship is to get a moment not to express worth so you just compromise the purity of worship because you're not worshiping worshiping him for who he is now you're worshiping him for a moment you want to get because you think god is only here in the moments bad theology is what would so some people before you can help them you got to identify things that need to be corrected when it comes to what they believe about god and bad theology doesn't just come from like people we all get theology from different places we don't just get it from the bible we don't just get it from church some of us get it from experience life can happen to people and then they form a theology based on that a trial can happen in a form of theology based on that they start believing things about god based on that i have to do so much correction from time to time whenever there's tragedy in people's lives to say god tempts no one with evil god tests no one with evil god tests no one with evil god tests no one with evil he is inherently completely unequivocally good goodness is his nature there anything that is good anything that is not good is not god good is god's nature now we might have two different perspectives of what's good thorns don't feel good and god's like that's good though i've never been worse she's like you've never been better never been in this much pain you've never been this much prayer i've never been this agitated you've never been disappointed i got you where i want you now so sometimes our perspectives are good but man like tragedy will happen and people blame god for it and then i've seen people get up and teach this and say you know god took them to a better place and it's just so inconsistent with scripture you tell me god just took my kid and i'm on fire i'mma stay on fire it's bad theology bad theology i'm done y'all number two bad thinking bad thank you now i'm not i'm not preaching positive thinking here but you can't preach biblical thinking without acknowledging that biblical thinking thinks positive you understand what i'm saying and so man there's so much many of you know what i don't two years ago maybe three years ago i did a series i don't even know if it's up we did a series a long time ago called i changed my mind and um the series wasn't about i changed my mind about something it was about no i literally changed my mind and i think this is this is the essence of what the apostle paul says in romans 12 um he says don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind since you can have a new mind without having a different one he said i want paul says now that you're saved i need to spend the next season's plural of your life rewiring the way that you think and pull you out of pessimism cynicism and pull you into faith and optimism bad thinking this is what a theologian not the activist but a theologian named martin luther said not martin luther king he said i can't stop birds from landing on my head he said but i can stop them from building a nest there and i'm telling you i'm telling you it's so hard to change the mind because they're not it's not just psychological factors they're also physiological factors and brain wiring and habits that have to be broken but and this is what paul tells believers in corinth he was like all right the way you're gonna have the way you're gonna deal with these strongholds these nests these fences that the devil's building in your mind he's like you gotta you gotta take every thought captive that when that comes you literally got to war that's warfare you got to war in your mind i'm not going to think about this right now and it's hard to do that at first but as your mind becomes renewed that becomes a part of your spiritual subconscious and now your default response is i'm not going to dwell on that did a whole teaching on this years ago called mind the field where your mind is a field and the bible says jesus tells his parable about how there's this field and people will sleep and when they went to sleep the enemy came and sowed seed in the field sleep means you're un you're not conscious you're not aware so we can be awake mentally and be sleep and the enemy can be planting seeds of negativity in our mind and so we've got to be clear on what open doors does the enemy use to plant these seats and how can you close those doors think about that when you read something what do you read that makes you feel better what do you read that makes you think worse you need to close that door because if you keep leaving that door open watch this if you won't stop then becomes a stronghold and you can't stop and this is a completely different message i hadn't taught on this in years but those open doors is what actually when the bible says don't give place don't give a foothold don't give a door crack to the enemy that's what opens people up to spiritual oppression suppression or what the bible calls demonization will you have literally given over your will to an influence other than the influence of the holy spirit bad theology bad thinking i mean you just can't be on fire just thinking negative i know that sounds so like not deep does it but it makes your wood wet and last but not least bad theology's wet wood bad thinking is wet wood bad thinking is wet wood the absence of gratitude watch this the unwillingness and the inability to properly perceive god's generosity to you are you properly perceiving how generous he has been have you not discerned his displays of generosity that we did not deserve one of his greatest indictments against israel in the old testament was like man y'all don't remember he says i told you to be an altar so that you can remember i instituted all of these feasts so that you can remember i told you once a year do passover so you can remember how i had you put the blood on the doorpost and when the angel of death came he passed over your house i had you institute the feast of purim because i wanted you to remember how i used esther to deliver you he institute he said i did all these things to try to help you remember and you keep forgetting remember remember remember remember remember remember remember remember remember when you get houses you didn't build wells you didn't dig vineyards you didn't play you shall remember remember remember why is he saying remember because we're prone to forget and i want us my time is up to remember to reflect for a minute on how generous god has been so good so good and that recognition of that goodness it just sets sets of fire in your soul so let's do this let's just pause i don't know just 30 seconds and reflect on his goodness and just think through what you have to be thankful for jesus thank you father so father i just pray today that you give us the grace the unearned ability to assess our own wood and discern the condition of the wood of others as we make deposits i pray that you would help us father with with theology that that may be causing us to believe the wrong things about you or believe the wrong things about what you expect from us theology that that teaches us that we are loved only with conditions theology that does not teach us that where sin did abound grace did that much more about theology that doesn't remind us that in our holy estate we're as filthy rags lord deliver us we need some of us need your supernatural assistance deliver us from bad thinking renew our minds i i pray of their minds that are held hostage to trends and patterns and predispositions and wiring that just causes them to go dark deep and fast i just pray that you would deliver them deliver their mind set them free from the those yolks and chains of bondage and i pray that our heart will be overwhelmed with gratitude and gratefulness for who you are and what you've done we thank you for your goodness to us in jesus name we pray amen and amen come on right here in the studio let's let's give god praise

Channel: Dharius Daniels TV

Views: 40,025

Rating: 4.930459 out of 5

Keywords: dharius Daniels, change church, td jakes, Steven furtick, John gray, chad veach, chris durso, Levi lusko, rich Wilkerson jr, toure roberts, keion henderson, dr. jamal bryant, Craig groeschel, mike todd, carl lentz, ron carpenter, Robert madu, trent shelton, Eric the hip hop preacher thomas, Stephen chandler, dr. Matthew stevenson, Judah smith, devon franklin, dr. Tony evans, mike McClure jr, John maxwell, Joel osteen, Bishop Dale C. Bronner, Pastor Miles McPherson

Id: ZN7f3eJ56MY

Length: 42min 32sec (2552 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021