Paul Daugherty - Coming Out of Confusion - Part 1
I wanna title this message "Coming Out of Confusion". Coming Out of Confusion. And this is a word, I've really felt like God gave me this word for someone this week, that it's time to come out of confusion. In 1 Samuel 30, David was not yet the king. He was anointed, but not yet appointed. And sometimes, we're there. We have a dream in our heart, a prophetic word, but it hasn't happened yet. We're waiting. We're in the in between season. And so, in 1 Samuel 30:3, David and his men had reached a town called Ziklag. This is where they lived. David had a group of broken men, men who had walked through abuse, trauma, pain. They were insecure. they had walked through painful situations in their marriage, in their family, in their health.
And they drew towards David 'cause David was a broken man. David was hiding in the caves from his father-in-law, King Saul, who had been trying to kill him for the last 10 years. And so, all these men who were in distress gathered around this King of the Caves, David. And so, David, before he was the king of Israel, he was the King of the Caves. He's living in the caves, he's living in Ziklag. He's got these men, and they had an army. He turned a group of broken men into an army. God's about to turn a nation of broken men into an army, and it starts at Victory. Come on, the mighty men of God are in the house today. If you're broken, you're in a good place. If you've walked through some stressful situations, you're in a good place.
So, here David is with his mighty men, and they just returned from war. And when they get back to their town in verse 3, it says, "They found their town destroyed by fire. Their wives have been kidnapped. Their sons and daughters have been taken captive. And David and his men begin to weep aloud". David began to weep uncontrollably. Here's what confusion does. Confusion causes deep grief. And usually, confusion is the result of loss. Confusion comes from either the loss of a job, the loss of a friendship, the loss of a comfort zone, the loss of a loved one. Like when my father passed away, everything was normal, everything was predictable. I knew what to expect each day, each week. But when he passed, it felt confusing there for a season. I was trying to figure out, what? What in the world is going on? What in the what is happening?
You ever been there before where you're going, what is happening? What do I do? I thought I knew what to do and now I don't know what to do. I thought I knew the answers and now I don't know. Or when there's a painful situation that happens in your life, confusion begins to stir. You gotta know where it came from. Why did this confusion come? When did it start? Did it start in January this year? Did it start two years ago? Did it start two weeks ago? And typically, it's the result of a loss in your life. So David and his men, they're weeping. And then in verse 6, David is so overwhelmed. It says, "He was greatly distressed". Confusion will either send you towards your knees in prayer or it will send you into a place of hatred, and you start looking for someone to blame.
So, David is greatly distressed. Here's why. Not only has he lost his family, not only is his house burned to the ground, but now his employees, his team, his army, his soldiers are talking about killing him. In verse 6 it says they begin to talk about, how can we kill David? 'Cause in their confusion, they start playing the blame game. It's somebody's fault. Someone's responsible for the loss that I'm walking through, the pain that I'm in, the confusion. This hallway is hell and I don't know how to handle it, so I gotta point my finger at somebody. And sometimes, people will point their finger at the church, they'll point their finger at a president, they'll point their finger at their ex-husband, their ex-wife, and after the divorce, there's greater heartbreak and pain and confusion than there was leading up to it.
There's greater heartbreak, confusion that can happen as a result of not knowing how to handle where this confusion is coming from. So in their hurt and pain, they start wanting to kill somebody. We need blood. We need flesh. I want a pound of flesh for the person that put me in this confusing state. They start talking about stoning David. It says they were bitter. Look at this in verse 6, "They were bitter in spirit". The Bible says bitterness rots the bones. Bitterness is like a cancer. It begins to spread through a person's mind and heart. I am bitter, I am angry, I am mad. I wanna burn the whole system down. I'm so mad right now, right? We're in the age of outrage. 2022, the aftermath of COVID is that so many people are in a place of confusion. This is a word for the church, not just the local church, but the global church. It is time to come out of the spirit of confusion.
The devil, more than anything, wants to divide and conquer. If he can get Christians fighting with each other, then we stop fighting the real war. If the devil can get us angry, and confused, and divided, and isolated, and I'm going home. I'm gonna go where there's no hypocrite. I'm mad, I'm confused, I'm overwhelmed. I'm gonna watch Netflix where there's more confusion. I'm eating food. I'm going to go to a corn maze and get more lost in a corn maze during October pumpkin patch. Our world is obsessed with confusion. You know how many corn mazes are in Tulsa right now? We took our kids to the corn maze this week. People pay money to get lost. They're like 15 bucks? Yes, get me lost in the corn maze. I wanna be lost in the corn. What is wrong with our society? We like getting lost. We got TV shows about lost. We wanna get lost on Instagram and we'll just scroll.
We get lost in Facebook, reading all the comments on YouTube. Lost in politics, lost in news. It is time to get out of this spirit of confusion and stop wasting our time fighting frivolous battles that aren't the real enemy. Y'all, the real enemy is the devil, the prince of darkness. It is not a pastor, a church, a person, a government leader. We gotta stop fighting flesh and start fighting in the spirit. I'm not after a brother. I'm not after a sister. I'm after the spirit of this age. So David's here, and he's overwhelmed because his brothers wanna kill him. They're like, "It's your fault that we're going through this mess". And David, instead of defending himself, I love this. Sometimes you can't convince people who've already got a narrative in their head about you and you waste your time trying to fight that battle.
So David just goes right here. It says in verse 6, "He found strength in God". Before you try to get out of that hellish hallway of confusion, get on your knees in prayer and say, Lord, reveal what needs to be revealed. Heal what needs to be healed. Speak to me in a way, God, that is unmistakably Your voice, that there's no way that I wouldn't know it's You. 'Cause Jesus said in John 16, "My sheep hear my voice". John 10, "My sheep hear my voice. They follow me. They don't follow the voice of the stranger". If it's confusing, it's not the Holy Spirit. If it's confusing. God is not the author of confusion. He is not the author of confusion. So here David is, he's going, I don't know what to do.
In verse 7, it says, "Bring me an ephod". This doesn't make sense to us 'cause we're going, what in the world is an ephod? And ephod was a symbol of direction. It was something the priest would carry to try to know what God wanted them to do next. It was an Old Testament thing that they would do is they would hold the ephod and they would ask God, God, what do You want to do? It's basically like you got a journal, you're writing your vision down for your family, for your life, for your next season. It's basically saying, God, here's the pen. You tell me what to write next. Do I marry this person? Do we move to this state? Do I overreact? Do I send this email? Before you send that email, before you cancel that person, before you get angry at this situation and react, make sure you have asked God, God, is this the wisest thing to do? We're living in a time where people are living in their emotions. If I feel angry, I'm gonna do it. Impulsive actions.
So David says "God," verse 7, "What shall I do? Do I pursue? Will there be success if I pursue this enemy? Or do I just stay here"? And the Lord says, "Pursue, pursue, pursue". There are certain things that you cannot get through. You can't go over it, you can't go under it, you can't go around it, you gotta go through it. The only way is to face Goliath. The only way is to face the trauma. The more you run from things that are scaring you, the bigger they get. The more you hide in the cave of confusion, the bigger Goliath gets. But the second you make up in your mind, I am coming out of this confusion, I am coming out of this spirit of fear, this spirit of anxiety, this spirit of victimhood where I've been listening to podcasts that just affirm my victimness. I'm walking in victory today. I'm coming outta confusion. I'm getting out of every lie of the enemy.
Let's talk about, how do we come out of confusion? First off, you need to know in 1 Corinthians 14:33, Paul the apostle says, "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace". You need to know God's not sending you in a confusing state to teach you a lesson. Did anyone see the movie "Maze Runner"? And there was a trilogy of these movies, and these young adults are trapped in a maze. And the world watched these movies. It was similar to the "The Hunger Games," these movies that came out all around the same time. These young adults trying to find their way through a maze. They would turn one corner and they would hit another wall. They would think they're coming out of the maze and they're trapped in a new maze. And this maze just kept them running. They would run fast.
And in their maze of being lost and confused, they got exhausted, they started hallucinating. They became divided with each other. They started forming factions and teams. I know the right way. And there was someone who was watching it all. There was a maze creator. There was a group of people, they were scientists, and they were doing experiments on these young adults. And you get kind of, as the person who's watching the movie, you're like, what in the world? They are playing games with these people's lives. That's what the devil's doing. He's playing games with people in the church and he's got people in mazes, and he's got people trying to figure it all out.
And then he's got people thinking, God wants you in this maze. God wants to keep you confused for a while. God wants to keep you in this place of confusion so that you never know His will, His way, His plan, His heart. And it's got people wasting time. Time is running out. We don't have time to waste in a confused state. We've gotta get free from confusion. Now, you need to know, confusion is not a sin. It's not a sin to be in confusion, but it can lead to a sin. It can lead to a distorted sin. Here's what confusion does. Five things confusion does. Confusion distracts you from your purpose. So really, confusion is a distraction. It's a distraction. A couple months ago, someone was asking me my thoughts on Will Smith and Chris Rock and the slap. They were like, "What do you think about the slap"?
And I was like, I don't know. I guess I haven't been thinking about it. They're like, "Well, let me tell you the backstory". So they start telling me the backstory and they're like, "It's a whole tangled". You know, you ever had to untangle a rope or a water hose? And they start untangle. And I'm like, I'm confused listening. This is not my story. This is not my business. Why am I wasting time? Sometimes we are distracted by someone else's confusion and we're confused because we're trying to figure out the drama of the royal family or the drama of someone else's marriage. You've got enough drama in your own life. Stop wasting time being confused by someone else's drama. It ain't your business.
Let me tell you two free vacation spots in 2022. No lines. You don't have to pay for airline tickets, you won't have to wait in line at Disneyland. Two free vacation spots, your own business, your own lane. 'Cause everybody else wants to know, well, what's going on over here? I just can't wrap my mind around this. I just can't figure this out. I've been trying to untangle it. I'm so confused. There's so many different stories. Stop wasting your time being confused about someone else's confusion. You gotta focus on your own lane, your own life. Confusion distracts me from my purpose. Secondly, confusion distorts my vision. It distorts me. I start seeing things I shouldn't see. I start hallucinating things.
There was a movie that came out several years ago called "Vantage Point". And everybody had a different vantage point to the same story, same situation. So the movie is like "Groundhog Day". Every 10 minutes, it starts over again, the same story, but a different angle. And I'm watching and I'm getting more confused as I'm watching the movie. I'm like, I thought I knew the story, but this person's vantage point tells me a different side of this story. And by the end of the movie, I was more confused than when I started the movie. You just need to turn the movie off. It's distorting your clarity. Thirdly, confusion depletes people of energy. It depletes us of energy.
So here David and his men, they're supposed to be fighting a battle, a war, and they're exhausted. They're overwhelmed, not because of fighting, but because of feeling stressed out. It depletes. The enemy is getting the church to feel exhausted, depleted. Fourthly, it discourages. People start losing their confidence. I just don't have the boldness I had before. Don't have the courage I had before. It's 'cause there's a spirit of confusion that's robbing your home right now. And guess what? You can get that robber out. You have a stand your ground law here to say, hey, no more thieves coming into my house tonight. I got a weapon, it's called the sword of the spirit. It's a two-edged sword. And this thing, this has the power to divide bone and marrow. This Word right here can divide confusion from truth.
Here's the truth, the devil is a liar. I'm a child of God. I've been bought by the blood of Jesus. I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And the enemy will get you in a place of discouragement confusing you that God doesn't love you, that God doesn't forgive you, that you're being punished for some mistake. Fifthly, confusion detours you from God's purpose. So people will spend years on a detour thinking, well, you know, we just need to stay away from wherever. We need to stay away. We're just gonna go on this path for a long time. You don't have to be on that detour. You can type in the right plan.
This last week, I was spending time with a pastor in my life, Larry Stockstill and his wife Melanie. And they're in their early seventies and they've walked many years of marriage and life. They celebrated 50 years in the ministry, 47 years being married, raised six kids, so they're talking to me about family, and I was with them in New Orleans. I went there 'cause I'm getting my master's degree, going back to school. And so, we were walking the streets and he goes, "Paul, New Orleans is the most confusing city I've ever been in". And he said, "I can say this 'cause I live here". He said, "These streets are confusing". Anyone ever been to New Orleans? Y'all know the voodoo that's up in there? And it's in the streets too. We don't know which way we're going. There's so many different streets that are a one-way, you can't get around. And we were getting lost. And we were supposed to be walking to a restaurant and we couldn't find our way.
And someone starts shouting at us, shouting at him. And as he was saying this, I realized so many people are on a detour because of confusion. We're lost. We're far from where we need to be. And then we're trying to figure out, how do I get back? How do I get back on a right path? How do I get back on a path of purpose? How do I get back on a path of joy, a path of peace, a path of life? Maybe I need to listen to some more podcasts from Joe Rogan. Maybe I need to follow CNN or Fox News. Maybe I need to read a book like "The Alchemist" or some book that teaches me a new age version back to, no, you need to get back in the book that's outlasted all books, that's outlasted all the podcasts, that's higher than all the confusing situations we got going on in our world right now. And I'm not saying we can't gain wisdom from other voices, but our wisdom needs to first come from God above. This is where the real wisdom is at.
So let me tell you real quickly, five ways that we can come out of confusion. Number one, confront your thoughts. I wanna just challenge myself, and any of us in the room today, to think about, who is responsible for our thought life? Who's responsible for your thoughts? Is it God? Is it your spouse? Is it your parents? Is it the family you've grown up in? Is it society? Or is it you? Are you in charge of your thoughts? If you're in charge of your thoughts, stop delegating your thoughts to everybody else.
2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "Cast down imaginations". If I have an imagination that comes up because of what someone has said to me, or because of what I've heard, or just because something just popped up in my head, that doesn't mean I have to let it stay there. A thought doesn't become a sin just because it pops up in your head. It becomes a sin when you begin to meditate on it, activate it, engage in it, do something with it. But just because a bird flies over your head doesn't mean you gotta let it make a nest on top of your hair right there, start laying eggs on your head right there. "So cast down imaginations, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bring it into captivity, every thought, make it obedient to Christ".
Get your mind back. To come out of confusion, you're gonna have to get your brain back. You're gonna have to tell the devil, no longer are you in charge of my thoughts. There's always a movie that's going on in people's minds. And oftentimes, the movie is not true. It's suspicious thoughts. It's assuming thoughts, it's thoughts about people's opinions about you. It's thoughts about people whispering about you. It's thoughts about people laughing at you. The enemy wants to convince you of things that aren't even true. Hallucinations, imaginations. This is why Peter says in 1 Peter 5:8, "Be alert and of sober mind".
Now, I've seen someone who was not sober, and it got wild. They were drunk out of their minds. They were shouting stuff they shouldn't be shouting, doing stuff they shouldn't. I mean, it was wild, and I had to help calm this person down. Don't act all holy that you've never had a moment where you weren't sober in your mind. But here's what I'm trying to say, we gotta get our minds back and say, hold on, this is not wise. This is not from God. I'm overreacting here. I'm imagining things. My mind is on cruise control. I'm not paying attention to the thoughts that are popping in there. I'm not paying attention to the meditations that are happening there.
This is why Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:7, "Remember, Timothy, God has not given you a spirit of fear". One version says, a spirit of confusion, a spirit of intimidation, a spirit of reckless thinking. If there are reckless thoughts going on in your head, confusing thoughts, it's not from God. Take captive and say, Lord, I thank you I have the mind of Christ. Just put your hand on your head for a second. Say, Lord, thank you that I have the mind of Christ. I'm gonna think good thoughts. No more confusion. In Jesus' name.
All right, number two, confront your emotions and feelings. Now, this one might get personal for some of us in the room, your feelings aren't always right. Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's the right thing. The the world says, follow your heart. Your heart will lead you in the right place. Just follow your heart. All heart, baby, except for when your heart's wrong. Hold up, Paul, God gave me this heart. That's right, He did, and it's wrapped in flesh and it doesn't always feel the right feelings or have the right emotions. Jeremiah the prophet, in 17 verse 9, Jeremiah, he says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick".
Desperately sick, look at that. "Who can understand the heart of man"? It's in a desperate, and you go, well, that's Old Testament, Paul. The New Testament says, I've been born again. I got a new mind. You're right, but you're still wrapped in flesh. This is why Paul the apostle, even after he got saved, he talks about how he wrestles. He goes, "There's things that I don't want to do, but I do them and I shouldn't do them and I know I shouldn't do them, but it's my flesh fighting against my spirit". It's my heart of flesh fighting against the heart that's been renewed by God. It's all together. You're connected. Until you get to heaven, there's a battle.
Billy Graham said, "Even in my old age, I feel the temptations of the flesh, after being saved for 80 years," right? There is no believer out there that's too sanctified to not have a fleshly heart. Every believer out there, every holy person you know out there that pretends to look holy in church as well. Everybody has fleshly temptation. They get angry, we get impatient, we get frustrated, we become assumptive about people, and we've gotta guard to heart and go, hold up. If this isn't from God, I don't need to be feeling these feelings. I need to check my feelings.
Proverbs 28:26 says, "Whoever trusts in their own heart is foolish, but whoever gets wisdom will be delivered from confusion". If I get wisdom, I can be delivered from my own heart. You know who I need to get free from? Me! You know who you need to get free from? You! You're like, there's a lot of haters out there. Yeah, but you're your biggest enemy. A lot of people trying to block my dreams, but you're your biggest blocker 'cause oftentimes, it's not the voices out there, it's the voices in here.