FROM MOURNING TO DANCING

My Change Has Come!

By Pastor Michael Olawore
 New Wine Church, London

Sunday 27 November 2011

Foundation Scripture: Psalm 30
‘I am moving from mourning to dancing – my change has come!’ This is the prophetic word to this house: God is moving you from sorrow to joy; the days of sorrow are over in Jesus’ Name! The shout of celebration and rejoicing will not depart from your life in Jesus’ Name. This is a prophetic word  - God wants to adjust situations and address the circumstances that have hindered your life and He has sent me to say to you today ‘Your change has come!’
God specialises in turning mourning to dancing and in situations that men have concluded to be impossible, He flexes His muscles and proves Himself to be able to bring joy out of sorrow. All things are possible, particularly in situations and circumstances that appear to be impossible.
In Luke 1 26- 37 the angel Gabriel who appeared to Mary to announce that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit and give birth to Jesus, the Messiah, explained to her that Elizabeth, Mary’s elderly relative who had been barren, was in the sixth month of her pregnancy and concluded ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible.’  Elizabeth had been called barren but God refused to permit her to remain in that condition but being a progressive God who moves those who serve Him from where they find themselves into their destiny, invaded her situation and moved her from barrenness to fruitfulness; from mourning to dancing. Similarly in the Old Testament, despite the 400 years of oppression, God moved the children of Israel out of bondage and into their promise.
There are many issues that we face in which conclusions have been drawn that they are impossible. Anyone using the term ‘impossible’ to describe their situation in my view, simply proves beyond doubt that they do not know God as with God there is nothing that is impossible. In Isaiah 43: 16 God announces Himself: “I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea”.  Making a way through waters and paths through the sea He makes it abundantly clear that nothing can stop Him and that He will always make a way for His children.  Later on in verse 18-19 He declares that His previous acts in defeating the Egyptian army are nothing compared to the new thing that He is about to do and that indeed, He has already begun to do and that paths will be made in the wilderness and rivers will be created in dry wasteland. Do you not see or sense change; you are living in a moment of change. This is the God that you serve; this is the same God who is saying to you today “I am doing something new.” The bible is full of examples of impossible situations being turned around – in Genesis despite the darkness covering the earth, God called forth light and light came into being.  The children of Israel were in captivity for 430 years but in one day, were brought out into freedom. Hanna having been mocked taunted and brought to tears due to her barrenness was given a son and able to declare ‘My heart rejoices in the Lord!’ As in the account of the widow of Nain in Luke 7 who was on the way to bury her only son when she encountered Jesus who told her ‘Do not weep’, I declare to you, weep no more, the day of change has come. In the account in Luke 7 Jesus approached the funeral procession and touched the coffin and the bearers stopped; at Jesus’ word instructing him to arise, life returned to the boy in the coffin and he began to speak.  Similarly, I declare to you that everything that is taking life out of you must stand still; I resist everything that the devil has sent to you to take life from you in Jesus’ Name; life must return to every dead situation that you face. Psalm 126: 1 says ‘When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter and we sang for joy!’ I declare to you that the Lord will surprise you this year!
Now that we have established that God specialises in turning situations around, what should we do in order to make this our experience? In considering this question, I want to look at the life of Abraham, in particular recounted in Romans 4: 16-23 from which we can extract 7 distinct learning points: (i) Abraham received the promise; (ii) Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life; (iii) Abraham kept hoping – believing that he would become the father of nations; (iv) Abraham’s faith did not weaken; (v) Abraham did not waver at the promise of God; (vi) He remained convinced that God would fulfil the promise that had been spoken of; (vii) He was accounted, or credited with righteousness.
Let’s look in more detail at Abraham’s faith, in particular the object of his faith and the obstacles of his faith.
(i)                 The Object of Abraham’s Faith - Romans 4 makes clear that Abraham believed God.  The quality of faith depends on the object to which faith is attached; the person to whom your faith is anchored. Abraham knew God to be one who makes dead things come alive and calls things out of nothing. Abraham knew the God to whom his faith was anchored and this determined the quality of his faith. From this we can extract the importance of focussing on the bigness of God, despite our situations.  
(ii)               The Obstacles to Abraham’s Faith - An obstacle of faith can be hopelessness of the situation faced. From the life of Abraham we see that he was about 100 years of age with a body described as being ‘as good as dead.’ Essentially, although there was a promise, there was nothing visible to sustain the promise. The situation was compounded by the fact that Sarah was barren and yet God had declared that he would be the father of many nations. There was therefore a contradiction between the promise and the circumstances with which Abraham was faced and many of us face such situations – such as when God has declared you to be a millionaire and yet the bailiffs are in pursuit of you. In such situations, what do you do? Well, the clues are in Romans 4: 19 which says ‘And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.’ From her we see that he did not pay attention to or observe the physical situation, namely the deadness of his own body or Sarah’s womb, but focussed on the bigness of his God.
We see this in Matthew 14 when Peter was empowered to walk on water by Jesus’ instruction “Come”, he was able to do so as long as he kept his focus on Jesus. Once he began to pay attention to the wind and the waves, he began to sink. From this therefore we can understand the importance of giving our attention not to the situation but on the bigness of God. Each time Abraham thought about God, he was encouraged and instead of rehearsing the problem, he rehearsed again and again, the magnitude of the God he served. When he looked at himself and Sarah, he saw not the deadness of their bodies but the God who quickens the dead. A situation or a set of circumstances can only be dead until it is introduced to God; once it is introduced to God, it must come alive. I declare to you that everything that the enemy has killed in your life must come alive – before the end of this year, you will celebrate.
A further obstacle to faith can be the promise itself. In Abraham’s life the promise was that he would be the father of nations although as Genesis 18: 11 makes clear, he and Sarah had no child at all and were both past child-bearing age. As Abraham was asked ‘Is there anything too hard for God?’, is there anything about your family, your finances, your health, indeed any part of your life that is too hard for God?
How did Abraham deal with the magnitude of the promise? The answer lay in his revelation and understanding of the nature of God that he served. He looked on the God that he served. Let me ask you: ‘What is it that you see?’ Do you see your problem or your God? Abraham remembered that God calls into manifestation substance out of nothingness and hope began to well up inside him. We are told that he hoped against hope, when there was nothing apparent on which to base his hope, he hoped still because his focus was on God. Faith we understand is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. When there is no hope therefore, there is no faith and when there is no faith it is impossible to please God. However, I have news for you: there is hope in your future.
Hope is the assurance that something will happen, the confident expectation that what you believe for will come to pass. Abraham hoped against hope; I believe that as he hoped, he kept his joy alive, rejoicing in his hope in God. I can imagine him singing at the top of his voice ‘Things are getting better for the Lord is on the throne, things are getting better’ and despite the taunts and raised eyebrows of his neighbours, only singing the louder, “Things are getting better, things are getting better, for the Lord is on the throne, things are getting better!” Well, the results of Abraham’s unstoppable faith in God are recorded in Genesis 21: 1-3 when we are told that ‘the Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised’. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son who was named Isaac and declared ‘God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me.’
“I declare to you that every word that God has spoken over your life will prosper and come to pass. One thing that never fails is the word of God - nothing that God has spoken over your life will fall to the ground. God will make you laugh – the days of weeping are over! Isaac means laughter; I release the blessing of laughter over your life – the manifestation of your Isaac is on the way. As Abraham was moved from mourning to dancing, you too will move from sorrow to joy and celebration - Your change has come!”