Transcription
The greatest thing to know is what you don't know. Write that down. I'm not going to say anything any more.
Importantly, the greatest thing to know is what you don't know. You will never be smart until you can admit what you don't know. And yet, we're living in a society that you like to brag to everybody about what you know, even though you don't know what you say you know, and you don't know what you don't know. That means there's no room for you to learn or grow because you've already filled up with your own need to impress everybody with what you don't know.
The beginning of wisdom is ignorance. The beginning of full is empty. The beginning of up is down. If you would humble yourself, God would exalt you. But because you've exalted yourself, there's no room for promotion in a vessel that's already full.
Somebody's saying, "I don't know." One of the things that we learned in running a corporation is that we are afraid of saying, "I don't know." So the first thing they teach you in crisis management is to get people together and get them scripted so that everybody who answers the phone directs people to the right people because we feel embarrassed to say, "I don't know." So we say stuff that we're not sure of so we can appear informed. Say it again. I don't. Say it again. Say it again.
The best doctors in the world are the doctors who can say to you, "I would rather you say, 'The reason my father is dead today is because he went to a doctor who treated him for a long time and didn't know what was wrong with him until all chances of healing him were gone,' and finally he says to him, when it is too late, 'Uh, I don't know.'"
Not being able to say, "I don't know," can kill a marriage. Can kill a ministry. Can kill a company. Can kill a person. Your arrogance is a lethal weapon that ought to be registered because you cannot say, "I don't know."
A little moment for preachers: It is not what you know about the text that makes you a great preacher. It's what you ask of the text. If you come to the text as a fool, you will leave as a professor. But if you come to the text as a professor, you will walk away as a fool. Say it again. I don't know.
For we know not what to pray for as we are, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings and moanings that cannot be uttered. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know what it's going to be like. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. We don't know how to live in the promised land. We don't know how to fight this kind of fight. We don't know Joshua like we knew Moses. We don't know where we are. We're in transition.
And when you're in transition, nobody has to say anything for you to be irritable. You're irritable because you're scared. You're irritable because your norm has been shattered. You're irritable because you're in a nebulous place. You're irritable because you have landed in the city but you haven't checked into the hotel.
Tradition will not produce transformation. Transformation is personal. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2. That's personal. That's not congregational. You don't get transformation because you go to The Potter's House. You can go to The Potter's House until you're an old woman, but if you are not transformed by the renewing of your mind, you won't be able to make it.
In Romans 8, when it talks about, "We know that all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord," for we know, we know, we know. And then it finally says, "We know not what to pray for as we ought." That humility of saying, "We know not," is, "I don't know."
Joshua, you don't know how to lead Israel. You don't know how to follow. Joshua doesn't know how to lead. I know he doesn't know how to lead because the first thing he does is pull out his sword against an angel and ask God, "Whose side are you on?"
What? What? "I don't know" produces a praying church who wants God to be on your side more than you seek to be on His side. Are you spending all your time trying to talk God to bless what you plan, or are you humbly coming to Him and say, "Lord, give me Your plan, 'cause I don't know. I don't know how to do this"?
Today, I'm going to talk to you about three things, and I'll be gone. I'm going to talk to you about influence. I'm going to talk to you about impediments. And I'm going to talk to you about instigators. I'm going to talk to you about influence. I'm going to talk to you about impediments, because that's what the flood is, an impediment. And I'm going to talk to you about instigators. Give me a few minutes, and I'll be done.
What God says to Joshua is vitally important. He says, "I in the eyes of the people," which means God says, "I am going to give you influence." Don't confuse affluence with influence, because there are many people who are affluent, but they don't have influence. They're affluent. They're well-known. They're recognizable. They have big names. They have big offices. They have big suites, but they don't have effect on the people who follow them. Affluence does not equate with influence.
God says to Joshua, "I'm going to give you influence." Influence is leadership flowing out of him. It's what flows out of you. It's what flows out. It's not just what you say. It's stuff that subconsciously, like the influence, it's the lava that flows out of a rock. Influence is what it's not just what you're doing and what you're saying. What is flowing out of you affects everything around you. The subconscious things that you emit into the atmosphere is effluence. So we got affluence, we got influence, and we got effluence. He was already effluent, or he would have been command, or he would not have been commanding or leading people. He was a warrior, but because he was a warrior, it didn't make him Moses.
Influence, however, is the ability to have a measurable impact on others' decisions, behaviors, and affect outcomes. Influence. And there's not a person in this room, or a person watching online, who doesn't need influence. If it's just over your daughter, if it's just over your son, is this just in your job and in your position, or with your team, or on your staff, whatever it is that's up under your auspices, it's a terrible thing to lead something without influence.
But we think of great influences who positively or even controversially affected the world around them. We mustn't confuse their affluence here either. In reality, many influencers may not have been affluent at all. Martin Luther wasn't affluent, but when he translated the Latin scriptures over into the German language in 1522, it gave him influence that led to the Protestant movement, of which we and Baptists and Methodists and Amis and United Methodists and Church of God in Christ and Church of God and Church of God and Prophecy and everybody else is a part of the collective protest that came when the Bible fell into the hands of people who could read it. It gave him influence because it affected our behavior, our decisions, and our choices.
What are, how effective at you? Are you at influencing other people's behaviors, decisions, and outcomes? That influence doesn't come by yelling, screaming, arguing, nagging, complaining, cussing people out, breaking dishes, going at them with skillets. You can't make people respect you. You cannot buy respect. Giving me gifts, sending me courage, giving me money doesn't make me respect you to the point of affecting my decisions, my outcomes. Oh my God, I'm preaching.
God said, "I, God said, 'I am going to magnify you before the people.'" Don't confuse titles with influences. You get more out of the Apostle. That's the big thing now. "I'm Apostle. I'm a Chief Apostle. I'm going from a bishop to be an Apostle. I'm going to be an Apostle." But I was a bishop, and the other guy's an Apostle, but he's getting ready to be coordinated a bishop. Shut up. Changing the title doesn't change the impact. If you have influence, you got influence whether they gave you the title or not. Titles are not influence.
Don't confuse degrees and education and intellect with influence. You can have more degrees than a thermometer and influence absolutely nobody.
God says to Joshua, "I'm going to magnify you in the eyes of the people." Here is the question: Because some of you, God is getting ready to magnify you in the eyes of the people. If God magnifies you, would you magnify Him? "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together." If, if God gives you the power to influence people's decisions, outcome, and purpose, would you then magnify God, or would you magnify yourself and brag about how smart you are and how capable you are? Because God has not given influence in this season to people who need suffering, grandizement, and self-promotion. God has given influence to humble people who will lay on their face before God and say to God, "Be the glory for the things He has done."
Are you in the building? Give me some power on the mic. Are you in the building? Are you here in the building? Are you in the balcony? Are you up there in the balcony? Anywhere? Are you online? Anywhere? Is there anybody left that God can magnify you, and you will remember to magnify the Lord? Make some noise if I'm talking to you.