Staging for Takeoff: Life Is About Stages

Cleaned from the live recording. Lightly edited for reading.

Life is about stages

I did not clip on my mic this morning because I did not intend to come up here to say anything. Let us stand.

What I'm going to say, I want to wrap it up. Life is about stages. Life is about progression.

The story with Elijah and Elisha. When Elijah met Elisha, Elijah threw his mantle upon him. At that time he was plowing. He was doing farming. He was in business. When Elijah threw his mantle on him, he left that. He burnt it and he followed Elijah (1 Kings 19:19-21).

There's some things in the past you just need to get rid of. Burn it up. You can remember some clothes you still have in your wardrobe, waiting to get finer, waiting for some way to put them on again, and you have them there about ten years. Or you have some clothes you really can't wear now, and you waiting for them to come back in style, but it seems they're never coming back in style. You just need to get rid of it. Clear the clutter.

There are things in our lives like that. We have some dreams, some things we're thinking about, some bucket list. Let's forget about it and move on.

When you can't lean on somebody else's mantle

Elisha reached another stage in his life, as Elder Esther shared. The same man that put his mantle upon him, that he walked with and served, was now going to be taken up (2 Kings 2:9-14). Another stage in his life, where he's not depending on Elijah's mantle now.

There are some stages in our life where we are depending upon the apostle's anointing. Where we depending on somebody else's grace. Every time something happens to you, you need to pick up the phone and call. you need to pick up the phone and call. Somebody didn't talk nice to you in church, you have to pick up the phone and call. The boss didn't talk nicely on the job, you talking with a colleague the whole night about the problem. Sometimes you just have to. Put those things aside.

Elijah's mantle parted the Jordan. But there came a time it moved from Elijah's mantle to Elisha's mantle. There's some adjustments you need to make in life.

Little children in big people bodies

Paul said when he was a child, he thought like a child. I will tell you the next part: when I became a man, I put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11).

You'll hear me say many times, we have little children in big people bodies. When you listen to them sometimes, you realize this person is a child. They have some gray hair, a little bald, but it's childish thinking, childish attitude. Sometimes it causes you to wonder what happened in the development. It's like they skipped 30 years of development. I hope there's nobody like that in here.

How many of you still throw tantrums? Don't answer. How many of you, nobody can talk a little stern to you, you take offense? How many of you, people can't tell you the truth, you take offense?

Harsh words from a brother are still better than kisses from an enemy (Proverbs 27:6). Taking kisses from people is good for a certain stage, but sometimes you need a little tough word. That's what helps you improve.

Imagine if you're 10 and you can't take some tough words. 20, you can't take some tough words. 30, you can't take some tough words. What do you think will happen to you when you get married?

You have a lot of marriages breaking up because people crying abuse because somebody told them the truth. You're in the marriage, but nobody could tell you you're wrong. Nobody could stand their ground, because you're accustomed to tantrums and everybody giving way to you. So when the man or the woman stands their ground, now they don't love you. They're harsh. They tell you the truth, and you're suffering emotional abuse. You out of the marriage. Then you enter another marriage and it's the same thing. And you look at some marriages in Hollywood and realize they've married five, six, seven times and can't figure out who's the problem.

You can change external circumstances, but if you don't change internally, you're wasting time. You can change partner, you can change church, you can change job, but if you don't change, you're wasting time. Those external circumstances will not make you better.

Letting go of the past

And so with stages in life, we have to let go of certain things. You have to let go of certain people.

You have big, big people still talking about trauma when they were three. Still talking about trauma when they were 10 years old. Who hurt you? This person hurt you. Who did what to you? As if those persons are responsible for your healing. As if all those persons are responsible for where you are at present. When you had three decades, two decades, one decade to change your circumstances, you held on to the past. The people died, some migrated, some forgot.

Let it go. There are stages. Say it to somebody: there are stages. And that's why the Preacher says there's a time for everything under the sun (Ecclesiastes 3:1). I just want this to sink in.

Why people get laid off

One other point I want to make. How many of you have ever been laid off before?

Some people get laid off the job because all they were accustomed to is what they were doing. They may need retraining. But I hear some people say, I studied too long. Some places lay you off not because you're bad. They lay you off because you don't serve any purpose in the company anymore. I know places they lay you off, not because they're tired of you. You're not upskilling. You're not adapting to the environment and the changing needs of the company. And because you're not adapting, they need to find someone who has adapted, and replace you.

Look at the church, and you'll realize, I've been seeing this over and over. You took the church thus far. But the church cannot survive with you if you don't refuel. You could put your hands together. I know some of you don't want to put your hands together, because these things sound harsh, but it's reality.

If you don't understand that, try doing something you used to do 10 years ago. Those in their 40s, try doing something you used to do physically 20 years ago, and see what your body does to you. The doctor will tell you, you can't be doing this the same way you were doing it in your 20s. Even your body's natural responses make those adjustments. We need to make them mentally also. Say: I will adapt.

A work ethic from 50 years ago

I hear many guys complaining the Spanish are taking away the jobs. Why? Because you're not adapting.

You heard me mention the truckers complaining about the Chinese bringing in their own trucks and fetching their own sand. The Chinese said, in essence, this work ethic here is backward. This is a work ethic of 50 years ago. You can't build a great country, extraordinary infrastructure, with this type of labor force, working only from 8 to 4:30. You'll get nowhere. You can't reach like Dubai and some of these other countries with this level of labor force, in the time frame we want to work, even in the next 100 years, if we continue like this.

Even here, the president is now talking about going like Dubai and importing labor. When you go there, you'll be surprised. When you walk around the city, you think you'll see Emiratis, but there are many international people there. They understood. If they wanted to be like the United States, they had to change. They couldn't hold on to strict Islamic culture. They had to open up for tourism, because tourism money builds nations. So they had to adapt and relax certain of their cultural laws to accommodate the foreigners.

Just say: I'll adapt. I'm adapting. You can't be like belly fat, stubborn. Some of you don't know what that is yet. A few years from now, you'll try to change, but that belly is right there. It won't change. You have to adapt.

Preparing the church for increase

So in the coming weeks you'll see we'll have a Covenant Sunday, and every member of the church will be required to make a covenant with Throne Room and the Lord.

You'll notice soon, when you come in the door, you'll see our organizational chart, with the leaders of every department and who they are reporting to. We'll be meeting with all the leaders one on one, giving you your job description, what you're expected to do.

Each department needs to have a standard operating procedure. When you come in, you switch on this, you do this, you do this. Each department will have a reporting structure. If the drum cymbal is not working, who you report to, and by what time the leader should give you a verbal response or take action and inform you. We'll have escalation mechanisms for the church. There will be mechanisms for you to report things without your name being mentioned.

And training. Persons will have to go through retraining in communication, in dealing with tools, and people skills. We take this for granted, but many times as Christians we move into leadership positions in church and we've never gone through any type of training in dealing with people. And don't tell me you read your Bible and the Bible covers the fruit of the Spirit. Some Christians, the only fruit they know about is not in the Bible.

So I'm saying this to the church. We're not doing this because the church is doing badly. When we ran an assessment, we're doing reasonably well. But we're preparing for a new dimension. We're preparing for increase. And we need to adapt our presence and our behavior. We might be able to accommodate 100 people now, but we want to move to where we start with more people.

"...retooling, and preparing for the next season of my life. Amen."