The Circle Cycle
I had witnessed it then in the lives of countless young people as I crisscrossed the nation and now after 6 years of working with our incredible congregation that God has and continues to gather is that so many of us, even after sitting in powerful worship services, hearing powerful preaching, pursuing personal times with God, and even longing for life transformation, continue to circle and circle and come back to the same issues of bondage, and brokenness year after year and often decade after decade. We seem to break free for seasons and then the cycle repeats and we find ourselves seeing the same scenery, the same history, the same shortcomings and issues circle around again! My greatest desire is for us to break free from the cycle of circling.
So by visiting the account of the first circlers (the Israelites) we can learn how to break free. See it isn't enough for me to yearly talk to you about the fact that you were born for freedom and destined for freedom if I fail to equip you to maintain the freedom you obtain in here on the weekend! How many of you know obtaining is easier than maintaining? If you don't know that, then you have never owned a car or a house. If you don't know that, then you have never dated anyone for more than a month or been married more than 2 months. Obtaining freedom is the easy part. Maintaining freedom is much more difficult. And the simple truth is that if you can't maintain, then you haven't really obtained.
Text: Exodus 6:6-9
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the Lord. And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.
Exodus 6:9 But when Moses delivered this message to the Israelites, they didn’t even hear him—they were that beaten down in spirit by the harsh slave conditions.
I can tell you are born to be free but many of you are so discouraged, so disillusioned, so beat up in spirit by the slave conditions that you have been living in and enduring for so long that you hear the promises of freedom and victory but you can't even believe it is for you!
You can literally sit next to people in the same row who testify to healing, deliverance, and miracles and acknowledge that something has happened for them but never believe the same can be true for you!
The Israelites were not in bondage to the Egyptians. They were slaves in their mind.
I think you have that wrong pastor they were in bondage to the Egyptians. The Egyptians were in fact their taskmasters however, I think I can prove to you that they were in bondage not because of taskmasters but due to their thinking. How? God intervenes and delivers them! Yet, instead of living and operating in that freedom and possessing all that was promised to them these freed folks circle in the wilderness for 40 years. They were bound because of their slave mentality. They were armed for battle, they were dressed for battle, they were mobilized for a takeover and instead because they were slaves in how they thought they acted like slaves and circled.
If you don't change how you think you will experience freedom on Sunday and live in bondage on Monday! Freedom comes not from a changed environment (that is geography)! He sets us free when we get a new revelation or perspective about our environment. If in your mind freedom is dependent on you seeing something change in your environment then you will remain bound. It isn't until you realize that you can be free in any environment if your mind changes about that environment that you will experience freedom. That is why Paul could be chained between armed guards and declare "I am free!"
Listen . . . just because you had a great encounter with God today or in some service last month doesn't mean your environment is going to change! No . . . your environment can not determine or dictate your freedom!
Some of you are going to continue to face battle from this day forward but if your perspective changes to God is with me and the One with me is greater than what I face, then you can remain free even in the difficult environments of sickness, brokenness, and struggle.
So why do we circle? What is it that keeps us bound in our thoughts and our walk? We can't get out without first understanding the things that keep us circling in the first place. Paul thankfully does us a favor and lists the reasons the Israelites (and they are the same for us) spent day after dizzying day plodding in circles. He states in I Corinthians 10 that:
1. They lusted after evil things. Passions are given in to and you are driven for evil things. This is why otherwise good men fall to obvious traps.
2. They had idols. Anything that comes between you and God. Anything that you trust more than Him. If you weren't worshipping those things they wouldn't be so hard to give up! Your ability to line out may very well be tied to your willingness to give up some things and because you are unwilling to give up a relationship, a habit, a preference you remain circled.
3. They were involved in sexual immorality. As long as you continue to cross boundaries, lower your viewing standards, participate in what God says is sin you will circle in destruction! Those boundaries have been set not to harm you but to protect you! What may feel good for a season will circle you every time!
4. They tested/tempted the Lord. We tempt God because we encounter God but don't obey God. We get instruction in here and refuse to actually do what we have heard. And once we know to do right and don't do it it becomes sin!
5. They murmured and complained. They were whiners. We are the whiniest generation I have ever seen. If everything isn't the way we want. it, when we want it, how we want it we whine and complain. Service has to be the right length, right volume, right style or we complain and not only do we miss we will talk others into missing as well! We complain when we don't get attention. We complain when we do get attention. We complain when we aren't confronted about our sin. Then we complain when discipline is prescribed for our sin. Instead of complaining about your life, your wife, your church, your pastor maybe a spirit of thankfulness should overcome us so that we quit circling.
This is why we circle. These things cause us to repeat the cycle.
These issues rounded them out. These issues determined their course. These issues forced them to march on their daily route to nowhere. So if the things that caused them to circle cause us to circle then perhaps what enabled them to stop circling will also enable us to stop circling.
Joshua 3:1-4
Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.”
So they are leaving the circling behind. Now listen to what the instructions are! Joshua does some things that causes the cycle of circling to be broken in their lives!
Joshua 5:1-15
So it was, when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted; and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel. At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.” So Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way, after they had come out of Egypt. For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness, on the way as they came out of Egypt, had not been circumcised. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people who were men of war, who came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord—to whom the Lord swore that He would not show them the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers that He would give us, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Then Joshua circumcised their sons whom He raised up in their place; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way. So it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day. Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. And they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain, on the very same day. Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year. And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” Then the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.
So real quick there are 4 things that we see here that must take place in our lives if we want to break the cycle of circling in our lives.
1. You have to do something new.
Joshua receives word that in order to break out of circling you have to go a way you have never gone before! In other words, if you want to stop falling in the same areas you are going to have to do something you haven't done before. Your listening habits may need to change. Your friendship may need to change. Where you spend your time may need to change. If you do what you have always done you will get what you have always gotten! Circling is broken by doing something new. If your relationships continue to fail maybe quit going to the club to find love maybe you should look at church instead. If you repeat the same thing you will go right back into slavery. Take steps you have never taken you before! If you keep trying unsuccessfully to live on 100% maybe you should try living on 90% instead. Refusal to take new steps will keep you circling. Not reading, not attending, not involved in a small group, not faithful in attending, and our routine is comfortable but it may just keep you circling. We start in the march to freedom when we are willing to walk a new way!
2. Possession requires purity!
They were in the Promised Land. You aren't called to visit freedom you are called to possess freedom! Joshua understood that you can't possess freedom if you aren't pure! I have taught you in the past that purity is the prerequisite of power. You may taste freedom without purity but you won't keep it. It isn't a dance, a praise, a song that will keep you free. Your level of purity determines your level of possession. Why? Because sin still carries the same price as it always did . . . death. You can't sin and not circle. To enable them to line out Joshua cuts some things away. For you to remain free you are going to have to cut some things out of your life. We want the promise without the pain of cutting!
3. They remained in their place until they were healed.
God wants to put some of us in our place. He has a place designed for us that will produce healing in our life if we will stay there. Too many of us never line out because we keep looking for the cool thing and the hot thing! But we refuse to stay in our place long enough to be healed. As soon as God brings us into a place designed to heal us and people start getting close to you and start asking painful questions designed to help you heal and you get scare and run to surface level again. Listen if God orders our steps then you are in the right place and you need to stay long enough for God to heal you and prepare you to possess freedom.Some of you bail to quickly. You hop from one place to another, one friend to another, one confidant to another, one church to another and the result is you never heal! Yes you need to be holy but you also need to be whole! That means staying somewhere long enough that people discover your flaws and failures and then help you heal from them!
4. You have to get God's Word!
Joshua after doing something new, purifying the people, and allowing them to heal, asks this question "What is the word to your servant?" Joshua understood the need for a word. We will cycle in circles if we don't get a Word from God. You have to take responsibility to get the Word. It is a lamp unto our feet. It shows us how to walk. His Word lines us out! His Word sustains us! His daily Word enables us to stay free!
I see too many of you circle. We can almost calendar it. Every 3 months, every 6 months, every 9 months you circle. I want to see you line out. Walk out straight!
You are created for freedom and to take the Promised Land.
We refuse to circle anymore!
