OCT 29 2017 | Joshua 3:3-6

Sea Change Church · "Joshua 3:3-6" · Adam Stadtmiller · October 29, 2017
Joshua 3:3-6
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

How good it is to be together here at La Jolla Christian Fellowship. I'm Pastor Jim and we are in Scripture this morning just before Pastor Adam comes. Joshua chapter 3, verses 3 through 6. We'll begin at the outset of the chapter. Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan where they camped before crossing over.

And after three days, the officers went throughout the camp giving orders to the people. When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about 2,000 cubits between you and the ark.

Do not go near it. And Joshua told the people, consecrate yourselves. For tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. And Joshua said to the priests, take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people. And so they took it up and they went on ahead. Lord, thank you for your word and may you bless the proclamation of it through our brother Pastor Adam in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jim. Great to have you. Yeah, we have an amazing team here. I hope you are enjoying it. How fun. Did you ever think church could be this fun? Like, I was looking around during the break. Yeah, it's a value. Fun and play is one of our values. That's right, Spencer. Right on. You're on top of it. Good job, buddy. That's why we let you do announcements on occasion, man.

Fun and play is one of our values. And it's something that we want to do really well at church. We also want to have rest. But we also value things like holiness and God's word and prayer. And today we are talking about God doing amazing things. And I love, this is one of my favorite verses. We are in a series called Things Adam Wants to Talk About.

It might be behind you here in a moment. And it's not so much things that Adam wants to talk about, but on occasion it's things that Adam needs to talk about. I want to continue on this theme of revival. This idea of what does it look like to change a community? What does it look like to change our lives? And how far are we away from that, perhaps in our own personal life?

And the verse that we're really going to key in on is this verse in verse, let me get my glasses on here. I need bifocals eventually. In, I know, it's all in verse 4 or verse 5. Joshua tells the people. Remember, this is Joshua taking the people that Moses didn't have the ability to lead from the wilderness into the promised land. Into the place that they had been promised for so long.

From the time of Abraham to this amazing season of God's greatness in their life. And he says, consecrate yourself for tomorrow the Lord will do what? Amazing things among you. For the last few, couple months I've been studying the revival of the 1970s. It is something I've looked at before. But I haven't often looked about the precursors of that revival.

Meaning what was going on in the society. And like I said, I've spent, I watched Ken Burns' 10-part series on Vietnam. My brother was in Vietnam. He was shot twice. Lost his eyesight. I'm an older brother. My dad had me when he was 60. And he had a family before me. And so that touched our family very deeply. He survived and he's done really, really well.

And so that is something that we understand as a family. But as I began to watch what was happening, I actually was a little bit embarrassed. I consider myself a bootleg historian. I am not Pastor Jim or some of the other academics. I wouldn't consider myself a high-end academic. I can get by. But I was a little bit unaware of some of the things that were going on in the 1960s.

And if you were, I mean, you heard about them. But when you actually watch this movie or this documentary on Vietnam, it talks a lot about a lot of the social unrest. Obviously, this was a time of the sexual revolution. And so you had thoughts and understandings about human sexuality changing drastically. We see that today. There is huge paradigm shifts.

You saw a protest. I did not know that 50,000 people marched to the Capitol building and tried to break into the Capitol building in the 1960s. I had no idea that that had happened. And the massive protests and all the different things that were happening. It was a season of discontent. And I've heard a lot of the songs and I've enjoyed a lot of the music from the 1960s.

Not as much as the music from the 1980s. Let me let you know that for sure. Too many bards and folk singers in the 1960s for me. I like some of the electronic stuff myself. New order. I won't go on anymore. And as I watched through this, I thought you would have thought if you were alive, and some of you were and remember that, you would have thought the world was falling apart.

You would have thought it was being ripped apart. As a matter of fact, it seems worse than it is now. Now, you didn't see as many of, you know, I don't like getting into the things of the day. I try to keep the headlines out of the church. So you can come here and find a place of refuge. I don't think you need to be reminded every Sunday, and plus we would spend 15 minutes of every service these days praying for some tragedy in the world.

You're aware of them, and we want to give you time to get what you need from God so you can actually go be a proactive person, not to get here and get assaulted with the headlines of the day. But back in the 60s, you didn't have as many people going rogue individually. You had a lot of things, but now you tend to have, like we saw in Las Vegas, I'll just leave it at that, that you saw more of that.

But nonetheless, as I look at it, I tend to wonder, and you had a war going on at the same time. We have some of those issues today. I thought, wow, could it have been any worse? It actually, I don't know, for you, I'd have to talk to some of you that were there. Does it seem worse now or then? Because as I look at that, I'm really flabbergasted, would be a great word, at what was happening.

Now, you get into the 1970s, and by 1974, and especially up to the 1980s, God begins to move. God begins to take this group of hippies, the original hipsters, and begins to move amongst them. He takes what many would consider the reprobates of society, so to speak, of the time. Many people were looking at them and saying, who are these kids? They're burning bras, they're burning draft cards, they're having all this illicit sexual activity.

You know, God is casting them aside, obviously, and I'm sure people were preaching that in the pulpits. But God seems to find those people, and he says, those are the ones, in a lot of ways, that I want to begin to work with. And all of a sudden, there is a mass revival. Calvary Chapel was birthed out of this. You look at some of the modern worship music.

Keith Green. Now, listen, if you are under the age of 40, and you've never listened to Keith Green, look, there's a little bit of hokiness in some Keith Green music. Go to Spotify and listen to Keith Green. I mean, that guy is setting the tone for, you know, make my life a prayer to you. And so God begins to move in a radical way. And all of a sudden, God moves.

And by the 1980s, it's not as if the 60s were forgotten, but the 1980s was a very different period. And especially in regard to youth ministry in the church. Now, some of these things started happening with Jim Rayburn in the 1940s and 1950s. He was in Young Life. He was setting the tone for these things. But in the 1980s, there was a radical change in regard to a youth movement.

And many of the pastors that you know today that are my age range, I'm 48 years old, that are in my age range, a lot of the people that are in full-time Christian ministry were birthed out of that 1980s movement. Now, if that is you, if you were in the 1980s and you were part of that, raise your hand if you went to church and were part of that.

So there was a group of people, a lot of us, in this age range that were touched by that. Talked to many pastors. So, what am I saying? I'm wondering if we are not closer to revival than we've ever been before. I'm wondering if we can live beyond the headlines. Now, this is a term I came up with for, I put a little article together that was published this week with Christianity Today called, Your Church Can Be a Refuge.

And wrote, and I think in that one or the one before, I said, how do we live beyond the headlines? This is very difficult to do. How do we have a secret place in our life where the headlines, we know what they are, but they do not become an emotional true north for us. They do not become a, where we get our understanding of what God's doing. And let me just put it out to you that perhaps, much like what happened in the 1970s, the time before, God is on the move and we might be closer to a revival than we've been for years.

The thing about revivals is interesting because I've been looking at, and what is a revival? A revival is when earth becomes more like heaven. That's just the best way to understand it. People get healing in their lives. Marriages are healed. Bars are cleared out. Addiction. People are off addiction. You look at Mike McIntosh from Horizon and these other guys.

There's these radical stories of what happened. But one of the problems I have recently for myself is I keep living on the old stories. You know what I want? I want new stories. I want our stories. I want to see radical stories. And we're starting to see those. We're seeing people healed here. We're seeing people get saved at this church. We're seeing radical things happen.

But I guess I want more. Here's one thing I do know about revival. Studying the Welsh revival. Studying all these different revivals of history. And I have been a bit of a student of revivals. But I had missed the component that one of the keys to revival is often the society deconstructing itself with debauchery. A lot of times, Christians, you'll miss this.

You will see the society consuming itself and think God's wrath is coming. That's what we're often taught to think. We look at that and all the Christians are told God hates this and his wrath is coming. You look in the book of Jeremiah. It's a long book. Take the read. I've gone through it in the last month. Huge. God says all these negative things are happening.

And yes, I'm going to allow the society to deconstruct itself. But then he comes by with a word of hope. Throughout the prophets, there's a word of hope. We have to be the most hopeful people in the world. You understand that. We have to be the most hopeful people in the world. You wonder what one of the most difficult things to find these days?

A person filled with joy. Not with distractive happiness. I'm not saying you got a new car and you get three days of happiness because of that or two weeks or whatever it is until that wears off. I'm talking about someone truly filled with joy. Someone truly hopeful. What would it look like? It is so antithetical to the world today. You would stand out like such a bright light.

And so one of the keys that I have seen about revival is this. It comes with God's people. It starts with God's people being willing to get their act together in regard to following God, especially in regard to sin. Consecrate yourself, which means make yourself holy. Set yourself apart. Look at the things that are in your life. Make yourself holy.

And I will do what? Amazing things. Revival, I have seen all throughout history, has a two-letter word that makes it conditional. That word is if. If my people. He doesn't say if the world figures it out. If those hippies in the 1960s would just figure it out. Or whatever it is. He says if my people. And I believe that in the 1960s that there was a group of believers.

And I don't know them personally. I know some. And I've read the stories. That were committed to say we believe in God's restoration. We are not praying that they would be destroyed. We are not hoping for the worst for them. We are praying that they will be redeemed. And that they will be revealed as the sons and daughters of God. That's who we want to be as a church.

You know how easy it is to be sour upon the world. It is very difficult to look at the world and say God maybe you're closer than ever. And so when you see society deconstructing itself. Often times revival is near. Let me show you. You know if you look in the Old Testament. You were going to find a case for that. Right now we see Hollywood deconstructing itself.

Consuming itself. One of the things I find most interesting is the things that we protest on a regular basis. Or are upset about are often the themes of our entertainment. If what we saw. And excuse me for bringing it up again. But if what we saw in Vegas. Okay. Was an episode of CSI. On the same night it happened. We would have sat there with popcorn and a Coke.

And watched it as entertainment. And not thought nothing of it. Do you understand that some of the most debaucherous things. That we see. I don't know how they write them. I literally. They come up with themes. The first couple minutes. You have to be so careful. One of the things I know the NFL is about. And I'll just throw some shade on the NFL here.

I will be watching the Chargers today. I'm sorry. But I will. Just because I want to see them. I want to see them sack time Brady all day. Melvin Ingram and Bosa. Patriots. Yeah. There you go. Go Patriots. Yeah. Go Patriots. Jim. Jim's from the Mesa. And he's a Patriots fan. One of the things I see in the NFL. Is it's all like. You know. Let's be against violence against women.

We hate violence against women. We're going to. And then the next commercial. That comes on. Is some woman being. By a man comes. And drags her by the hair. And abuses a woman on the commercial. And they accepted the money. For the entertainment. Of a woman being abused. And they stand on the sidelines. And say. We're not going to abuse women. But then we're going to sell the airtime.

So we can watch women being abused. I don't know if anybody else. Sees a disparity in that. But there is. Just a little truth. That was free. Whoa. Let's preach it. It's true. And I just got to say. What. I mean. This is really true. Let me just say this. We got it. We got it. We got to start. Thinking about what we entertain ourselves with. We can't be upset about the things that are happening in society.

When we keep watching it for entertainment at night. The sexual stuff. Especially the violence. The matter. Look at the commercial. I can't even watch a commercial. Everyone's against gun violence. Except every time I watch a commercial. Human beings are being blown away. In movie after movie. And we go to the box office. And just give them our money.

And then we get upset about it when it happens. You cannot consume those things. And expect it not to happen in society. What you put your mind upon. Is what we will do. Moving on to consecration. Consecration is about your secret life. I got a question. You're not going to raise your hand. I don't need you to speak. I don't need you to feel uncomfortable or whatever.

But I just got to ask you. How is your secret life going? I read that today. I read a quote. It says revival comes when we get our secret lives in order. I was one of the early. I think it was Jonathan Edwards. It was one of the early revivalists. We all have a secret life. And it doesn't have to be a bad secret life. Jesus had a beautiful secret life.

He would go up to a mountain by himself. He would sneak away. No one knew about it. They couldn't even figure out where he went. He wasn't broadcasting his prayer time. He would just sneak away. He would give. He would be generous. He would seek people out and heal them. He would go find people. He had this beautiful secret life. There was a secrecy.

Secrecy being a Catholic term where they put all the communion elements. There's a little room where they keep all the holy things. It's called the secrecy. I remember it being on the door when I was a kid. And it stuck with me. It's one of those words. And I thought about the secrecy. How is your secret life going? I don't want to just make you feel guilty.

Because there's some great secret life you can have. Do you steal away in the middle of the day to just pray by yourself? No one ever has to know about it. You don't have to take a selfie of your prayer quiet time. You know? Just spend a little more time with God right now. I think, you know what? We're going to go live. We're going to go live. Check me out.

Dancing before the Lord. Secret life is one of the keys that brings revival to a world. If we're going to feast upon the headlines, John Stott said, take a Bible with you. Read the headlines with a Bible on the other hand so they'll make sense. They need to be filtered through the Word of God. So we sit there and we read and we pray. How's your secret life?

And then, you know, on the opposite side of it, you know, when no one's looking and the bottle comes out. Or you're on the Internet. Or there's a secret life. Or your taxes. Or it's just, it's secret. It's this secret stuff that needs to be cleaned up. And I love accountability partners. We're great about that. In the 80s, we were all about accountability partners.

In our Joshua project, the men I'm leading right now, one of the things that we let them know is, your greatest accountability partner is yourself. The only person that can really hold you accountable is you. And you're going to do what you want to do. That's what I, I've been in church a long time. This is what I learned. People that want to do what they want to do are going to do it.

And people that want to say no to themselves and walk away and get healed do that. It's what we decide and what we want. How is the secrecy of your life and the secretness of your life? And I believe that if we're going to see revival as a church, we need to start looking at our secret life. And we've got to say, God, you know what? Just be honest with God.

God, I love this stuff. I absolutely love my sin. And I don't want to get rid of it. Help. Great four-letter word. Great four-letter prayer. God, help. God, will you get me to the place where I want to get rid of it? You're not, you can't hide from God. You can't fool God. It's like you have this whole area, and I've done it for years. You show up and you have this quiet time, but you know there's a little something.

We weren't going to talk about that, God. We're not going to talk about that. Like, he's like, really? I'm God. I know what's happening. Be honest and begin to consecrate ourselves. You know why? Because God wants to do amazing things. You know, I wonder how many revivals, personal revivals for people, how many revivals I've missed by one prayer. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, or if you pray more, it's going to happen.

I'm not trying to put you on a legalistic treadmill of revival. God knows your heart. It's more of a heart thing. But I do believe that there is a moment where God says that final prayer is the one that I'm going to say yes. You see, with Abraham, God, will you not destroy that city for this many people? Okay. Well, how about this many people? God is saying there is actually a limit.

He's an eternal God, but sometimes there is just that one more prayer. I wonder how close we've been to amazing things and missed it. You know what? I don't want to be willing to miss amazing things in my life anymore. For, you know, I used to tell my youth group, you can have a donut shop or you can have the greasy donut hole. But so often, just, you know, it's a little glazed donut hole.

It looks so good. But there's a whole donut shop. This is my junior high analogist. It's obviously not working as well with the main congregation. One of the questions I said to the men this week, it's a great question in our Joshua project, is where are you being a boy? I got grown men around the table. Where are you being a little boy? Let's stop being little boys.

I said, where, you know, a lot of times we're big men. You know? We got this one little area. You just act like a little child. I said, you know, we got to grow up. We got to move on and stop acting like 13-year-olds. Let's be men and stand up and be men of God. It's a great question. It's a hard question. 1 Corinthians 13.11, not in your notes, says, When I was a child, I spoke and I thought and I reasoned like a child.

But when I grew up, I put childish things behind me. Are you good at doing childish reasoning to get what you want? That little thing that you know God has said no to, but you just go into your childlike way and you kind of reason it. You know, one of the things I've found is you don't need to make an excuse for holiness. Holiness doesn't, it doesn't need to be rationalized.

If you're rationalizing something, if there's a few sentences of rationalization, if I should do this or shouldn't do that, it's probably not holiness. We want to, I think we want to just be radical in regard to editing sin out of our life. Moving into the notes now, and I know where we are and we'll move through this. The final thing, he says, consecrate yourself.

Jordan crossing was symbolic of baptism. That's a cleansing. Anytime we ask Jesus for forgiveness of our sins, we are symbolically being baptized by his washing. John teaches the baptism of repentance. And let me just say this, and I think this is key, because 2 Corinthians 5, 17 talks about being a new creation in Christ. That holiness, that means, that's just saying, it's saying no to yourself on the stuff that you know God has told you or commanded not to do.

It's just saying no. It's a spiritual weapon. Our battle's not against flesh and blood. There are things that have incredible currency in the spiritual life of Christ following. Worship is one of them. That's why we're going to do it here a week, or next Sunday night. Prayer. The Word of God. That's why we have Bibles. You can come in during the week while we're open, and you can write the Word of God by hand.

We believe that these things have a spiritual currency to them that causes the tide to come in of God's consolation and love. One of those is holiness. Holiness will create, as God says here, amazing things in your life. Have you tried it? When was the last time you tried holiness? What I'm saying is not just not leaving a little bit of 10% for yourself.

I'm so good at that. Like, I never tried to be, in college, I was a really poor student in high school. I didn't try. But in college, B plus A minus is kind of where I wanted to land. I just wanted to have a social life, and it was there. And I always kind of just wondered what it would have looked like if I would have actually gone to the next level.

Whatever it is. And so, do you leave a little bit of, just a little bit. What would it look like if you just cleared that room out? Just do it for a day. Try for a day. Clear that room out. And see if God does amazing things. I love right here that Joshua conquered the land spiritually before he possessed it physically. That's really key. The things that we want for our lives, we oftentimes try to do in our own flesh.

But he said, if these things are going to happen, and you will see in the scripture, God does the clearing out for them. God does the fighting for them. He gives God the margin to win the battle. But he prepares himself for the floodgates to be opened. And that's pretty much what God often asks us to do. He often asks us to prepare ourselves. He will win the battle for us.

And then he tells you to go in and pick up the plunder. I've got to say, you know, once again, a when was the last time question. And I do those a lot. When was the last time God won a victory for you, and you just got to pick up all the plunder? God had a massive victory in your life. You got sober, or your marriage changed. And all of a sudden, God did it.

You just prepared yourself for it. God had a breakthrough. Things are better now. And you're just walking around picking up more love in your relationships, better conversation in your home, you know, more blessing. God is moving. You just pick up plunder. When was the last time you just plundered something? Scripture says, Jesus says, he says, we will tie up the strong man.

And then we will plunder. Talking about Satan, we will plunder his home. Most Christians don't think you can plunder Satan's stuff. You can take Satan's stuff if you tie him up. And how do we tie him up? We don't tie him up by ourselves. It says we do it through harvesting the currency of heaven. Worship, holiness, forgiveness, you know, the word of God, prayer.

These are the things that bind up the strong man. And these are the things I want to see happen in La Jolla. I want to see it happen from that cross on down to the beach, out there into the water, and see kids like Sebastian, who didn't come to church before. And he's a great kid. I love that kid. No shirt in the baptismal. The early 1950s pastors here would just have had my head on a platter.

Imagine if I met them. Like, seriously. Like the guy from the, you know, Earl Reeves or something from like the 1940s. He's got his suit. And he, I mean, there's one. They have these pastor pictures they would take at their offices like this. I want to get one made for myself. Like, they're all serious and their hair is slicked back. Great men of God.

But I need this picture at the pulpit, you know. I'd probably be like this. Imagine if, I just think to myself, imagine if they met me, man. I'd be like, oh, no. Well, some of those that are here beforehand, they knew those pastors and they say we're doing okay. So I'm pleased. He conquered the land spiritually. So I want to ask you, you know, to think about your life and think about the things, the obstacles, you know, that are before your life.

These guys had a Jordan in front of them. The Jews had a Jordan in front of them. There was an obstacle. And usually there's an obstacle in front of your inheritance. The obstacle was the Jordan. But God stopped up the Jordan. Are you preparing spiritually? Going to verse 1. It says, Joshua and the people were on the edge of breakthrough. The closer you get to your breakthrough, your promise, the bigger the obstacle becomes.

When they were 10 miles away, that Jordan didn't look so big. But when they got there, God says in this scripture that the Jordan was at flood stage. He didn't call them to cross it during a drought where they could ford it. Now, when you ford something, fording means you can walk across it on your own. God wanted to make clear that this obstacle was bigger than they could do on their own.

God loves to do that. He rarely gets really excited about something you can do on your own. God wants you to live beyond your ability. And so we hear all the time, be the best you you can be. To heck with that. I want to be exponentially, because of God, greater than I could ever be. I want to live in a dominion and a power with God, touching the limited things I can do and causing them to be eternal.

I would say that being the best you you can be is for people that don't understand the eternity and the power of God. The closer you get to your breakthrough, the promise, the bigger the obstacle is coming. How big is the obstacle? And what if, what if you were on the edge of the biggest breakthrough your life had ever seen and you just don't even know it?

I mean, seriously, what if it's like right there? It's like the Indiana Jones movie, you know, the third one that wasn't very good. Where he steps off and then all of a sudden the bridge is there once he steps onto the invisible bridge. What if there's a massive breakthrough? What did it even look like? What if it's right there and it's one prayer away?

What if it's one consecration away? What if it's one addiction away? What if it's one forgiveness away? How close are you to that revival? I want to give you hope that God is in the business of reviving your life and healing your life. And we'd have to come in alignment with him and let our hope for that be greater than our desire for our sin. See, I think opposition is not always a sign that you're going in the wrong direction.

Let me read that again, okay? Because as believers, we so easily get discouraged. Oh, I came to church. I started following God. And then a few bad things happened. And the more I try to follow God, the more bad things that happen. I'm just going to quit going to church. You know? I've actually been tempted not to pray big prayers because I'm afraid of the attack that it will bring.

I don't know if anybody else is there. But sometimes I'm like, you know, if I actually get really close to God, I'm going to face some opposition. I want to say opposition doesn't necessarily mean you're going in the wrong direction. Maybe there's this massive Jordan in front of you right now that is unable. You can't afford it, but it's at flood stage.

But on the other side of that, it's just moments away from God stopping that up. It's right there. That revival is near. They say, do you want for revival in your life? The people camp next to a flooding Jordan and the towering Jericho in the distance, not knowing that once they got over there, God was going to drop the walls of Jericho. And they would go into a scattered city and that they would just plunder.

Opposition is not a sign that you're going in the wrong direction. Turning the page over, circling the tower now, coming in for a landing soon. Verse 3, Joshua did not move until God had moved first. Now, I think preparation is movement. But God didn't, he allowed God to bring the walls down of Jericho. And if you read the story, they marched and they worshipped and they praised and they fought a spiritual battle because we are not called to make the victory.

We are called to take the victory. Let me say that again. For all of us that are self-sufficient, good Western Americans, that are called to forge our own faith and to be people of pioneers, that we are not called to make the victory. We are called to take the victory. We are very good at taking victories. One of the things I tell my staff on a regular basis is if you're going to be in ministry, you have to know how to wear a captain's hat.

But it can't be a pirate's hat. It's a big difference between being a captain of a ship and pirating a ship. And I want to be a person who's not taking things over, but is taking charge and command. And I believe that Joshua knew how to do that in a spiritual realm. There's a word that they used a lot in the early 1900s in journalism. It was called puffery.

I love the word puffery. Grand puffery. You know, you don't have to puff up authority if you are in Christ and know how to harness the authority of God. I was speaking with somebody recently and we were talking about their ministry. And I said, you know, one of the things I noticed is you don't walk in the authority that you have. That you have an authority that it's God-given authority.

Now, for the first 10 years of my ministry, I would try to make authority. I would try to, I don't know, use your different little tools of manipulation or whatever to have authority. It is so much better to rest and relax and let God's authority go beyond you. And people will come up to you. I had a woman at Forest Home. She goes, you speak with a lot of authority.

You know, how do you get the nerve to do that? I said, nerve? I said, you know what? I'm not trying to muster authority. I feel like if you're experiencing authority, it's God's authority. And I just, I'm not trying to do that. Whereas I know before, because people would tell me the first 10 years, you know, sometimes you're being bigger than the word of God.

Does that make sense? You're trying to preach bigger than the word. I want to be smaller than the word of God. I can decrease. So what? He can increase. Joshua didn't move until God moved first. Sometimes we need to prepare. You know, when it comes to giving or tithing or whatever, we're going to do a three-week series next week. Don't miss it. It's going to be awesome.

It's called Blood Money. And it's all about, it's all about currency and how money wouldn't exist. Money exists because of the fall. There was no need for money because the land produced on its own. But I've never heard, in regard to preparing for God to have a victory, I've never heard someone get up and give a testimony. I waited until God blessed me.

And then once he blessed me, I gave away a ton of my money. I literally, I've been in the church a long time. I've never heard that testimony. The testimony I've heard often is, I was really struggling and God challenged me. And I gave beyond what I had to give. And God came and rescued. Now that's just in regard to generosity. And I believe that that's true.

But oftentimes we need to prepare. We need to take the first step. And so what step is God telling you to take? You know it. For every person here, there's a different step that he's calling you to take. Maybe it has to do with your sexual purity. Maybe it has to do with your relationship. You know, sexual purity, it feels like it's a lost battle these days in the church.

It just feels like it's a lost battle. And we need some people to raise, you know, the banner high and say, once again, we need to get back to these things and consecrate ourselves as a church, hoping that the lost might be saved. Verse 4. Circle the tower once, circling one more time. They've told me to land this bird. Verse 4. Joshua knew where to go, but not know how to get there.

Then you will know which way to go, God says. God often tells us where to go, but gives us no direction on how he will get us there. In Genesis 12, 1, God speaking to Abraham, go to the place I will show you. You know, maybe it's just time to set out. Maybe you don't know where it's going to go. They had no idea the story, the adventure. But maybe it's time to just put away the things of the past, to stop acting like a child, like a 62-year-old child.

I don't know if you've ever met 62-year-old children. And if you're 62, I'm not speaking about you directly. There's a tendency to think he put that in there because of me. I don't do that. And if I think about you during a point, I will usually leave the point out. I just want you to know that. So I'm not speaking about you. I know you're incredibly important in my life.

And the whole sermon revolves around you. But nonetheless, I am not bully-pulp-eating you. But maybe it's time to move forward for that amazing thing in your life. And stop acting like a child. Stop reasoning like a child. He didn't know how to go. Because God says it's time to move out. Set out today. You do not have to wait until tomorrow to set out.

Make a step today in that direction and say, God, I'm willing, I want to abandon this. For the end of the year, if you could say in the next three months, I tell my staff on a regular basis, and especially Harry when I speak to him and some of the others I lead, I try to do three important things a week. Like, that's my job. If I get three things done a week, that's a lot.

You add that by 52 weeks in their core important things, that's like over 150 things that I get done at this church. And so I just try to do three things a day, three things a week, three major things by the end of the year. And I would say at the end of the year, by Christmas is coming, right? We're almost there. End of the year. We're going to have our New Year's resolution.

Can we just forget about the New Year's resolution and start today? If you could do one thing that will radically change your life in a direction of following Jesus before the end of the year, what would that thing be today? And what's stopping you from doing it? And maybe that thing is the hinge pin that will release you into a purpose and understanding and a journey like you've never experienced before.

Let's start today. New Year's resolutions. Let's start today. And the final point. We'll go to verse 5. Holiness is a weapon of purpose. Consecrate yourself for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. You know, I'm not a fan of the Western understanding of purpose. I believe that God has a purpose and I'm just loose change in his pocket.

I don't need a purpose. I don't need to be in the center of God's will, balancing, trying to figure it all out. That just burns me out. I'm just, seriously, I don't need to write a book. I don't need to sing a song. I don't need people to know me. I don't need to grow my platform. I just, this whole purpose thing, I feel like it's just something we worship at.

And here's the promise. If you figure out your purpose, you're going to be happy. If you figure out your purpose, then you're finally going to be happy. I promise you, you're going to be happy. You know what? As opposed to this, if you find the consolation of God's love and his heart for you and have a relationship with him and make that your purpose, then you'll have contentment.

That's the deal. Can we please throw away the Western understanding of purpose? I think God has a purpose. It's never your purpose. It's always his purpose. And so I'm not saying we don't go after the things that God has. We don't have things in our heart, desires of our heart, things that we want to do. You might want to be, you know, in Major League Baseball.

You might want to be in a play. You might want to sing that song, write that book. Go do it all. But don't make it your purpose. Just do it for the glory of God. And we can start living for a relationship with God. Let's stand.