Unpossessed Possession Part 1 by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Joshua 18:1-3

And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and the land was subdued before them. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, how long are ye slack to go possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers had given you?

Subduing a promise and possessing a promise are two different events. After all the battles of the wilderness, Joshua took a census in the promised land and found that, even there, seven tribes still had no allotted territory. They had walked out of slavery and into the land God swore to their fathers, and were still squatting with their brothers, without any inheritance of their own. You can be redeemed and still be stranded; redemption is not reduction. The struggle a believer is still living in was never the fault of their salvation, it is simply unclaimed ground still sitting inside a promise already given.

Unpossessed Possession Number One: Uncommon Support

Genesis 35:18

Benjamin, the son of his father's right hand, was the beloved of Jacob, singled out by Joseph for a double portion. Yet when the land was finally divided, Benjamin's tribe still had no place of its own. Being loved and being provided for are not automatically the same thing. Working hard is dignified, but there is a category above ordinary labor, favor, uncommon support that brings a result no amount of personal effort was going to reach on its own. Psalm 5:12 promises that God surrounds the righteous with favor as with a shield; that favor is what distinguishes and separates, pulling a person out of an undifferentiated crowd and into recognition.

Unpossessed Possession Number Two: Being Heard

Genesis 29:32-33

Leah, unloved, named her second son Simeon, believing that this time her husband would finally hear her. He did not. A person can be gifted, talented, and genuinely called, and still remain unheard simply because no one has recommended or amplified them yet. Even Jesus, at His baptism, was declared the beloved Son in whom the Father was well pleased, and still walked through real limitation before that identity was fully manifest at the Mount of Transfiguration. Boaz, in the story of Ruth, was not even the closest eligible kinsman in line, yet the man who technically had first right stepped aside, and it was Boaz who became the ancestor of David, and ultimately of Jesus. Being overlooked by the obvious channel does not mean being overlooked by heaven. What is genuinely carried by a person, gifting, calling, capacity, will eventually be announced by something bigger than the platform currently available to them.

Stop Measuring the Promise by the Past

The most common mistake is checking present circumstances against past disappointment instead of against what has actually now been declared. Whenever God is speaking, dwelling on what didn't happen last year, or ten years ago, or how long a person has already served, becomes the very thing that blocks reception of what is being offered now. A season of genuine outpouring is not evaluated by the track record of every prior season; it is received on its own terms.