The Expiration of Isolation - Sarah Jakes Roberts

3:02 I got a word I want to share with you. I'm in Exodus chapter 12, verses 2 through 13. You know, I'm going to get into my message, but you know how you probably have never had a situation where you let somebody borrow some money. and then you looked up, and they was spending money on things that one would assume you couldn't spend money on if you needed to ask for money. I'm trying to figure out how Bishop Jackson got me installed as co-senior pastor. Now, he didn't took the time. He's now got a Next Chapter podcast. I'm just trying to figure out.

4:00 Now, Bishop, you're supposed to be somewhere resting, and you done gone and got you another job. I don't even know. That wasn't even a part of the plan. I believe you're going to have to start preaching again since you got so much you want to say, Bishop. I'll see you here. We running revivals in our next chapter, Bishop. I'll see you back at the storefront. Okay. Just had to get that off right quick, because what you mean you got a next chapter? You supposed to be sitting down somewhere, Bishop. Amen. If you're visiting for the first time, we're not usually this crazy, it's worse. But if you wave at us, if you're visiting for the first time, will you wave at us? We just want, hey. If you sit next to a first time guest, make sure you show them some love. All in the balcony, we see you. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Come on, if this is your church, make sure that they do not leave this place without feeling the love of the house.

4:58 Thank you so much for taking the time. If you keep your hand up, our professional ministry technicians have a gift they want to give you. It's just our way of saying thank you. You could be, there's so many amazing communities. And to be honest, you could be at home in the bed. But you made the sacrifice to come see what God was doing here at our house. And hey, girl, not they point you out. You tried to not. Hey, girl, welcome, first-time visitor. We love you, and we're so grateful for you. Please make sure she gets her gift. and we're just so grateful. If this is your house, can you just make some noise so they know they're good and welcome?

5:35 We love you. We love you tremendously and we don't even know you yet, but we sure would be glad if you stuck around so we could get to know you better. I'm in Exodus 12, chapter two through 13. Context is the Lord has appeared to Moses and sent him back to Egypt to tell him that his people must be delivered. He's heard the cry of his people, the cry of the children of Israel who have been enslaved. And so he extracts Moses from where he is and sends him back to Egypt. Well, when he gets to Egypt, there are a number of plagues that are released over the land. This is God's way of letting Pharaoh know that he is the one and true God and that he must have his people free. What's interesting about the releasing of the plagues is that he turned the water to blood.

6:31 There were frogs that covered the land, gnats, flies. I mean, plague after plague after plague. And yet it didn't work. It's almost as if they cried out to the Lord. The Lord said, I heard you. But then what the Lord was trying to do on their behalf didn't get them the results that they anticipated. I wish I could say that good. in our scripture if you look before verses before chapter 12 and you read the full context what we learn is that as the plagues were released that it actually hardened pharaoh's heart it made things worse for them which i know you all can't relate to this idea of i cried out to god and it seems like things got a little bit worse god you're here with me but some kind of way it feels like things got a little worse. When we enter the text in chapter 12, the Lord is about to release the final plague. But imagine being the children of Israel and you've seen plague after plague after plague and nothing has worked. But this plague is different. This plague is different because unlike God performing the plagues on their behalf, this plague will require their participation. In all the other plagues, God spoke the word and it occurred in the land, and sometimes they were impacted by the plague, sometimes they weren't. But in none of the other plagues did it require their participation. But in Exodus 12, the Lord makes it clear that for this next one, the one that leads to your deliverance, the one that actually secures your freedom. For this one, the one that will allow the oppressor to finally let you go.

8:20 For this one, the one where the enemy must let you go, it's going to require your participation because deliverance is not just something that God does for us. It's something he does with us and through us. And verse 2 begins, the Lord is speaking to Moses and Aaron, and he wants them to understand that this one's going to be different. I'm reading from the New King James Version. It says, this month shall be your beginnings of month. Mind you, they're still in oppression. They're still in oppression, but God is beginning to help them formalize who they will be on the other side of oppression. one would think that God would give them the form once they had the freedom but he gives them the form when they're still in oppression because he's not worried about your current situation when he knows what's on the other side so even while they're yet in oppression he says I have to prepare you for who you'll need to be on the other side of oppression Thank you.

9:26 You don't get delivered and then formed. You're formed and then I deliver you. This month shall be your beginning of the month. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel saying, On the tenth of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons, according to each man's need. You shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.

10:28 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts on the lentil of the houses when they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh that night, roasted in fire. With the leavened bread and with bitter herbs, they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw, nor boiled, all with water, but roasted in fire, its head with its leg and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And thus you shall eat it with the belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. This is going to be complicated.

11:08 This isn't going to come easy. It's going to require sacrifice. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover, for I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night. If you do this right, if you follow my instructions, if you listen to the form that I have told you to step into, when I pass through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Oh, God, help me. And the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. The blood will be a sign.

12:03 If you participate in this deliverance, if you coordinate yourself properly, if you collaborate, there's going to be a sign, and that sign will be the blood is over you, and the plague will not destroy you. God, we are living in a world with many plagues. Thing after thing, issue after issue, and yet we recognize that as your people, we have a promise in the midst of the plagues. God, it is my prayer that our hearts will be open to hear the form you would like us to take, that our ears will be open, that we may be sensitive to what thus saith the Lord. God, I pray even now that you would begin to tear walls down in this room, that those who are watching online would begin to hear your voice more clearly than they have heard it in a long time.

12:57 And God, as for me, I thank you for resting on me, for allowing your spirit to breathe through me. Have your way, great God, that you are. Let there be no separation between you or I. Where there is anxiety, let it flee so that the anointing may arise. I trust you, God. And we thank you because we know that it is done in Jesus' name. Amen and amen again. my subject for those of you who like to take notes is the expiration of isolation the expiration of isolation I want to start this message first by taking a little bit of inventory if you will of the people in the room I want to know if you are in this room and listen And clearly, you love asking for help.

13:58 It is easy for you. The moment that you begin to feel frustrated or you feel overwhelmed, it is your first go-to. You don't wait to figure things out on your own. Your first call is to someone who you know can help you. You don't mind asking for help. You don't think people will judge you. You don't mind asking again, even if someone rejects you. If that's you, I want you to pop up. Oh, is somebody else, you stood in this one person. God has favorites, ladies and gentlemen, because the rest of us have a little bit of a struggle bus issue. Can you just thank God for what he did in her life, and that's it. It would overflow into the lives of other people, mainly me, because I'm one of those people who struggle to ask for help. Somewhere along the way, I'm not exactly sure, I learned that it was best if I kind of figured things out on my own.

15:01 And there must be a few other people like me in this room who learned to figure things out on your own. Maybe you didn't quite fit in. Maybe no one came to save you, so you had to figure things out on your own. It's not that you wanted to figure things out on your own. It's just that you didn't have the mentor. Your parents didn't have the capacity. You had to figure things out on your own. They opened up once and maybe they experienced betrayal. You just had to figure things out on your own. You could be in a room full of people and yet you would never let them know that you needed something. And it's not necessarily because you don't have the need. You just learned that it wasn't okay to have the need. You don't know how to express the need. sometimes we find ourselves in this form of isolation. Not just physically isolated, sometimes emotionally, spiritually, mentally isolated. In a marriage with friendships, but isolated.

16:04 In corporate worlds, but still isolated. And isolation is very unique because isolation begins to make us believe that no one quite understands us fully. We could be in a room full of people and be having a worship experience, but if we really, really allowed God into that space where we have experienced isolation, we would maybe cry and never stop crying because we don't even go in that space of isolation. Sometimes we don't even know how to invite the presence of God into that space of isolation. Sometimes we're so busy functioning with the walls that we have built around our heart that we don't even know how to get in ourselves anymore. Has anyone ever been isolated? I don't mean where people weren't around you. I mean isolated. No one understood my thoughts. No one understood what was happening in my world. I felt isolated.

16:57 No one understood the gifts that were on the inside of me. I felt isolated. Has anyone ever felt like it was just me? Not that I'm the only person in the world, but I'm the only person with this kind of world. Isolated growing up. I mean isolated from stage to stage to stage. in my life. I look back over my life, and even though I was surrounded by people, I felt isolated. It was a gift that was on my life that made me feel isolated. There was a trauma I experienced that made me feel isolated. I've been in this thing for so long by myself that I don't even know how to invite someone into the isolation. It's not that I don't want to love you. It's not that I don't need your friendship. It's just I don't know how to let anybody in because all I've ever known is how to figure it out on my own. I've been isolated. And I found safety in it. And it's how I protect myself. And it's how I make sure that I can survive because the last time I let someone in, I got violated. People aren't just isolated for isolated sake.

18:00 Isolated because I'm trying to protect something. Isolated because I can't take another rejection. Isolated because I don't know how to communicate with that partner. Isolated because God called me into a space. Come on, I'm thinking about David and the kingdom of Saul. I'm isolated because God's called me somewhere that I'm ultimately meant to change, but until the change comes, there's no one else like me. I've been isolated. I'm thinking about the woman at the well who'd gone through husband after husband after husband that now no one wanted to touch her, and so she had to live to function around the outskirts of society. She had been isolated. You see, some of us met God in big crowds. Some of us met God in a room full of other people. Some of us met God because the spirit moved and it touched everyone, but some of us met God because God invaded our isolation.

18:52 I'm going to have testimony service all by myself. What couldn't be done in a room at church, God saw me in the midnight hour and taught me who he was in isolation some of us didn't get to go to choir rehearsal every week I had to learn who God was in isolation I grew up in church but I had my first encounter with God outside of church because sometimes the only place where you can be vulnerable is not the place where everyone is but God invades your isolation and says you're gonna know who I am by any means necessary. I wish there were some people in this room who have had some one-on-one encounters with God. I've just come to church to get topped off. Where I really have encounters with God is when I'm in it all by myself. I get in my prayer closet. He meets me in my car. He comes and taps me on my shoulder in the office.

19:45 He knows how to invade my isolation. When I didn't want to be bothered, he sends a word for me anyway. He invades my isolation. I'm going to be honest with you. God told me I'm going to invade somebody's isolation on this Sunday. Depression's been trying to isolate you. Anxiety's been trying to isolate you. Worries been trying to isolate you. But God says it is time for us to invade that isolation. You can't be in it on your own any longer. You got to learn to let somebody in. And when you don't learn to let somebody in, God forces his way in. He leaves the 99 to go get the one because I won't allow you to be isolated. He stopped everything he was doing with the disciples. He said, I've got to go to Samaria. Why does he have to go to Samaria? Because there's a woman living in isolation who needs to come out of that situation she's in. Sometimes God invades our isolation.

20:44 because he doesn't want you to think that you can afford to stay segmented any longer. I wish I could say this real good. You will become comfortable in an isolation that was meant to be a vessel of transformation. when the caterpillar turns into the butterfly it does go into isolation but isolation is not its destination and some of you have made isolation your destination when it was supposed to be the place of encounter so that you can be transformed and then release but because we're so afraid of what will happen if I open myself up again we've made a home in isolation but God says that's got to end today because what I need to do in you and through you I cannot do with you being isolated you are going to have to open up and let my glory in because when you let my glory in I transform you into a new form you're isolating an old version of you which is keeping you from transforming into what God has always known I'm gonna need you to surrender that place of isolation Hannah got into the presence of the Lord in isolation and she did business with God she didn't even know nobody else was in the room she just started praying cuz she realized that I've been trapped I've been stuck in this condition for far too long but God says if you would open up to me in your place of isolation I can bring fruit where you were once barren I need you to Let me in to your secret place.

22:23 Has anyone ever wondered how the woman with the issue of blood even heard about Jesus? If you think about the woman with the issue of blood and you understand the context of what it meant to be a woman who was experiencing that issue, you would know that customary in Jewish culture meant that she should have been isolated. She should have been at home where no one was touching her. She should have been at home where no one understood what was happening with her. She should have been isolated. But God was so serious about making sure that she got her healing that some kind of way word reached her in isolation. And when she got a word about who Jesus was in isolation, it built her faith so much that it broke her out of isolation. It was her faith that made her whole because faith invaded her isolation. There's got to be point in your life where you begin to understand that my isolation is not my destination I've got to break out of this but I gotta have faith before I break out of this and I hear God saying I want to give you faith to break out of the place where you have settled God can meet you and I he met Gideon in isolation he met David in isolation God can meet you in your isolation all he needs sometimes is an invitation sometimes he doesn't even need an invitation sometimes God places the right people around you who he knows you cannot deny I want to thank God right now for people who don't allow me to stay in isolation you may be depressed but you're not going through depression by yourself you may be grieving but you're not going through grieving by yourself you better thank God for making sure you had a lifeline in the middle of you going through your hardest time God made sure that that all that thing meant knock the wind out of you but God says I'm gonna make sure that there's somebody who can still get some life support to you you would have never made it through that grief but God made sure that there was a praying grandmother somewhere that

24:30 would back the enemy up off of you God made sure that you had a friend somewhere who would make sure you didn't face that thing on your own I know it was hard I know you barely made it I know you cried yourself to sleep but look at you standing tall look at you on the other side look at you made it to the other side anyway. God says, I'm going to make sure it doesn't kill you because I know how to make sure that that isolation doesn't get the best of you. I rebuke right now in the name of Jesus, the spirit of suicide in this room. I rebuke right now in the name of Jesus, the spirit of depression in this room. You never know what somebody is going through, but God allowed you to be the person they sitting next to. You won't go through this thing on your own. I won't allow you to be isolated you may be divorced but you still got love you may be separated but you still got unity I want to come on be the body of Christ we did not come here to be entertained we came here to establish the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of heaven cannot be established through isolation that poor young man scored a touchdown on Monday and ended his life later on in the day don't allow the fact that somebody's in here dressed up and smelling good make you believe that the enemy has not backed them in a corner but you are sitting next to somebody that God loves somebody that God has a plan for somebody that God says I can prosper and not harm and you gotta make sure that your attitude doesn't get in the way of love coming through oh I wish we could take about a minute I don't know who you are in this room but you've been in pain for a long time and you've been feeling isolated and you don't know who can see you or who can hear you and I hear God saying I hear you and I see you and I won't allow that thing to get the best of you come on this is a life-saving ministry I'm not talking about rebuking cancer though we can do that I'm not talking about rebuking the devil though we can do that

26:36 I'm talking about saving somebody's soul right here right now I'm talking about letting somebody you better turn to the person beside you and just let them know you I don't know what you're going through but you're not going through it alone right now you got heaven backing you up right now my faith is gonna build your faith right now I'm rebuking devils on your behalf somebody's tired of fighting on they own but they mess around and came to the potter's house because the potter's house got something for they house I plead the blood of Jesus over your mind I plead the blood of Jesus over your house you won't be okay you won't make it through this whether the government shuts down or opens up again God's gonna supply all of your needs whether AI takes your job or doesn't take your job God's gonna make sure that you can build it anyway you wanna build that ministry you wanna build that family I've just made an executive decision today I'm not the minister you are today I'm not the pastor you are you sitting next to one of God's sheep and if you just took five seconds and made sure that they felt connection if you just took five minutes to be the hands and feet of Jesus Can you imagine, with all of the faith in this room, what the Lord could do?

28:14 Somebody's marriage is falling apart. They're in isolation. But they're in a room where God can do exceedingly and abundantly, where healing could break out, where miracles could break out, where joy could come back, where peace could come back, where they don't have to bear the burden on their own anymore. We're in this together. yeah this is the only way we gonna make it through these times that we're living in the only way we'll make it through the times we're living in is if we take responsibility for the people who we're making it with oh I wish I could say that real good and now I'm out of my notes, but I'm into the word that God gave me. God told me that the plagues that have been running rampant in our land can be defeated and overcome, but not with us in isolation.

29:20 Oh, God, help me. It's not going to happen with us in isolation. We are going to have to learn to not just serve others, because some of y'all are real good at that, but to allow ourselves to be cared for. Oh. God help me. Everyone's going to have to bring not just their strengths to the table, but you're going to have to let somebody else take care of you. even if it's just for the minute we're in this room, you can't afford to do it on your own any longer. Because there comes a point where isolation becomes devastation.

30:14 Isolation is meant to be a tunnel that we pass through a vessel of transformation. But when isolation becomes your destination, it leads to devastation. Ask an expectant mother. The fetus is supposed to be in the womb. And sometimes it comes early and sometimes it comes late. But there comes a point where the doctor says, it's been in there too long. and what was meant to be a place of growth for them will now become a place of damage if we don't get it out. Feel bad on this.

30:59 In isolation, you forget who you are sometimes. When it becomes your destination, sometimes you forget even what you believe. When Peter was isolated from the disciples, in one of the gospels it says he was just a few feet away, many feet away from the disciples, he started denying who Jesus was.

31:23 Because when you're in isolation, sometimes you forget what you believe.

32:23 David was supposed to be at war, yet he was at home. And when he was at home, not only did it lead to him assaulting and abusing power, it ultimately led to murder because he was isolated at a time he was supposed to be activated. what happens to us when we are isolated at a time when we are supposed to be activated?

32:53 And most importantly, what happens to the world we are called to serve as members of the kingdom when we are isolated at a time we are supposed to be activated? your fear isolated you. Your shame isolated you. But it's okay because God can meet you in isolation. But God doesn't meet you in isolation to keep you there. I transform you there. And then I release you. Oh, one of my favorite, favorite parts of the woman with the issue of blood, I say this all the time, it's not when she touches the hem of his garment, it's when Jesus goes out of his way to identify who she is. You've heard me say this before. That woman who spent most of her years in isolation dealing with this issue, she touches the hem of Jesus' garment. She gets her healing, but then she goes back to hiding because she knows isolation more than she knows anything else.

33:53 Healed but in isolation. Transformed but in isolation. And Jesus goes, no, no, no, no, no. I got to figure out who touched me because she can't go back into hiding when her life is meant to be a testimony because now you're not hiding your healing your issue you're hiding your healing I got to make sure she comes out. And I study scripture and I look at all of these moments where God and Jesus met people in isolation. And I also realized that isolation is not just the place where we experience transformation. Isolation is also the place where if we are not careful, the enemy will strike. Isolation can be a place of transformation or devastation.

34:58 This can be the place where God meets me and I become transformed. Or this is the place where the enemy strikes and I am deformed. If you don't believe me, ask the woman in the garden. She was by herself. When the enemy said, you know what? Did God really say? but I don't have to tell you that God that the enemy can meet you in isolation because he never picks on you in rooms like this and he never starts tormenting you when you're with your prayer circle he waits until you get ready to close your eyes at night to start telling you that you will never make it he would never say that when you're in the presence of God because when you're in the presence of God you got backup When you're in the presence of God, you got authority. You got power. He waits until you are down to your weakest thoughts.

35:52 And he goes, you know what? Now is the time to try and thwart their destiny. The enemy's got a plan for your isolation. That's why you got to make it a habit to invite God into those moments. I've had some moments where the enemy started picking on me, and I could feel the depression rising, and I could feel the anxiety rising. And I started thinking