You are invited to shift your focus from the worries of this world to the promises of God found in Jesus. By fixing your eyes on Him, you can choose courage over discouragement and step forward into the destiny He has prepared for you. Today, declare that you are no longer stuck, but moving forward in His strength.
Welcome to The Real Church Podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Now join us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
So my name is David John Phillips. I'm the pastor here at Real Church, there's no place I'd rather be. There's no place I'd rather be today than up here getting to preach the good news of the gospel to you guys. I mean, it's it's an honor that that God would ask me to play this role. It's just a role.
It's that's all it is. I'm I'm I'm speaking about Jesus, what he's asked me to do to you, so that you can live out what he's asked you to live out in your jobs, in your communities, in your families. The hope of the world is Jesus in you. I guess the hope of glory. God's hope of glory in this world is Jesus in you.
Period. When you understand who you are in Christ, when you understand what he's done, I know I say that probably every Sunday, but it's a big deal. Everyone around you begins to change. Everyone around you begins to see Jesus in you. Everyone around you begins to hear Jesus as you're speaking, and they want what you have because it's amazing.
So 1, before we get started today, what I would like to do, you ever you ever go to this event where this this, you know, very maybe like the president. You ever if anybody's ever seen the president speak or the president of a large company or the governor of Florida, when when they walk out, everybody stands and claps and honor and that kind of thing. And what I'd like to do is because I believe Jesus is here today. Right? The Bible says where 2 or more gathered, there he is in the midst of them.
So what I'd like to do is I'd like for all of us to stand. And and if you can't stand, that's okay. But I'd like all of us to stand and just we wanna give honor where honor is due. It's it's to Jesus, our king of kings, who is here in the midst of us. So if we could give a big hand clap and just for a few thank you, Jesus.
We honor you right now. We praise you, Lord God. Thank you for who you are. We recognize that who we are is nothing without you. Thank you, Jesus.
Amen? There's just something special about that. Would you agree? So so I'm let's pray together. Father, I just thank you for who you are.
Lord, I thank you that you love us. You love us enough to send your son so we could be in relationship with you. And and he rose again to new life so we could experience his life in the here and now. And and he fills us with his spirit so that we can walk around in boldness and and love people with the same love that you love people with when you walked the earth 2000 years ago. It's exciting and it's wonderful.
Lord, I I rebuke every distraction. I pray that it's not me speaking. I can't change lives. I might be able to preach a good message and tickle people's ears, but I can't change lives, and I don't wanna do that. I don't want people to walk out of here saying, oh, that was good and nothing happened.
Lord, I want people to walk out of here saying, oh, that was God, and I'm changed for eternity. So Lord, we give you this. We give you these next moments in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. You may be seated.
So if that is the case, if if you believe what I prayed, then, man, "sit on the edge of your seats". I mean, you don't necessarily have to, you know, sit on but, you know, sit on the edge of your seats in a way that, man, listen as if you're hearing from God. And and don't take everything I say as as 100% the, you know, the truth. Go against the word. If I say anything that goes against his word, then I'm wrong.
Right? Everything is is tested by the word of God. Period. So with that being said, we are in the month of April. We are in the middle of the series titled Jesus, which I'm excited about.
And you might have thought, if you were here last week, you know, we should be preaching in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, because those are that's where the red letters are. That's that's where Jesus walked the earth. And and yes, I agree. That's very, very important. And at the same time, everything in the Bible points to Jesus.
Everything in the Old Testament is a picture of Jesus. It's pointing to Jesus. So I encourage you if you're a brand new believer or maybe you've walked out of a church and you're just coming back for the first time in 5, 10 years, something like that. And it's time to pick up the word and time to get to know Jesus, who he is, I encourage you to start in the New Testament. Get get used to the New Covenant.
Get used to knowing who he is and who he says that you are. But then when you're when you're comfortable there, when you know that and you're growing in that, go to the Old Testament and see how it points to Jesus. I mean, it's amazing. It absolute is absolutely amazing. We learned last last week as we were going through, we we went to Joshua.
And they're about to take the ark of the covenant across the Jordan River. Right? They're about to go from the wilderness to the promised land, and it and they were gonna follow the ark there. And we when we looked at the ark, we asked, what in the world is the ark of the covenant? And we learned that the ark of the covenant was made of of acacia wood, which is this unblemished wood, and we we know that that wood in the Bible represents humanity, unblemished humanity.
Right? And it's overlaid in this pure gold. And pure gold in the Bible represents God, pure God. So this box, the ark of the covenant, unblemished humanity, and yet pure God, 100% man, 100% God, it represents Jesus. The ark of the covenant represents Jesus.
And we also saw that there were 3 things in the ark of the covenant that represented man's sin. And so, when you when the reason the ark of the covenant was so important to God at that time, because once a year, the high priest would go into the holy of holies, and he would sacrifice the lamb. Have you ever heard of Jesus called the lamb of God? He'd sacrifice the lamb, and the blood would spill out on the mercy seat on the top of the ark of the covenant, representing to God when he looked down man's sin being completely and totally covered, representing what Jesus was gonna do 2000 years later or 3, 4000 years later, what Jesus was gonna do, the the lamb of God slain for the sins of the world, taking his sin I mean, our sin in his body, becoming our sin. Second 2 Corinthians-5:21, he who knew no sin became sin.
He became our sin for us so that in him we might become his righteousness. That's amazing. So we learned that, the ark of the covenant representing *Jesus*. So with that, the Israelites are about to go into the promised land. Where have they been?
Well, let's look in in Joshua. Let's go to Joshua-1. And just a little backstory with what's happening here. You have Joshua has been following Moses around, and and Moses has been leading the Israelites through the wilderness for 40 years. Joshua has been with Moses.
He's he's learned from Moses. He's he's learned well, they're about to they're about to trans transfer leadership from Moses to Joshua. Actually, Moses just died, and Joshua's taken the reins. And God is encouraging Moses in this moment. And in Joshua-1, it says, as I was with Moses, this is 1 verse 5.
As I was with with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. Now let's think about this.
The Ark of the Covenant was Jesus, and and Joshua standing by Moses, probably standing in the front as they're walking, and you have a a trail of 2 to 3,500,000 people walking around the wilderness on the way to the promised land, everywhere that these people went in the wilderness, the ark of the covenant went before them. Now remember, what's the ark? It's Jesus. Everywhere the people went in the wilderness, the ark was there and their eyes, they were to they're focused on the ark, and they were to follow the ark. And as a matter of fact, if if they're following the ark, they're blessed.
Right? They they their food's covered, the manna's coming down from heaven, they have quail, and everything's taken care of. But as soon as they take their eyes off the ark and they begin to go their own way, they get caught up in the wilderness. Right? We're supposed to we're supposed to keep our eyes on Jesus.
So Joshua, in walking with Moses, he would know then that the ark of the *covenant* represented Jesus in his presence being with them, representing God being with them. So he would know that that God was with them. But what does it what does it say? As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.
Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land. Let's keep reading, actually. Verse 7, it says, be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey. In verse 9, it says, have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Let's think about the word courageous. Right?
So it said, be be very courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. What is discouraged? Dis plus courage is what?
Not courage. Right? So it's fear. How do you how do you become fearful? The next part was because the Lord your God is with you.
You're not fearful because you know He's with you. As soon as you take your eyes off of the ark off of Jesus, that's when you become fearful. Where are they going? They're going from the wilderness to the promised land. Jesus is leading them.
And as long they're going to a place that they've never seen, they've never known before. And a lot of times when we follow Jesus in our lives, we have to walk by faith. We want to stay comfortable. We want to stay where we know. But a lot of times, Jesus wants to lead us to a place that we haven't gone, but we have to keep our eyes on him.
Because if we don't keep our eyes on him, we won't we'll be discouraged, we'll be fearful, we will lack we'll we'll discouraged, a lack of courage, which comes from fear. See, there's no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. And who is love? Who's the embodiment love embodiment of love? It's Jesus.
So if we keep our eyes on the ark, we're keeping our eyes on love so there's no fear in us, we're able to walk where we've where we've never walked before, which is where Jesus is gonna call us to go in our lives. Does that make sense? You guys follow me so far? Which is amazing. So they're called to be courageous.
We're called to be courageous. And maybe maybe in our lives sometimes, maybe there's something that God's asking us to do or something. Maybe he's asking us to move forward in life. Maybe he's asking us to stand firm, and it's uncomfortable there. Maybe maybe he's asking us, you know, to stand firm in a marriage or to get married or or or whatever it is.
Maybe he's asking us to take this new job, and and we see circumstances. We see, you know, that man, it's a little harder than we expect it to be, or or all of these things that could happen, but all fear, all all doubt, all discouragement leaves when we keep our eyes on the ark, when we keep our eyes on Jesus in the same way. So let's keep going. And that's Joshua-1. So from discouraged to courage as we keep our eyes on him.
*Joshua-2*. They're sitting on the side of they're sitting on the side of the river, of the Jordan River, and they're getting ready to go in. And here we find ourselves in Joshua-2:24. Then they said to Joshua, the Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us.
Now, what had just happened? Joshua and them have camped. Joshua sent a couple of spies into the land to see what happened, you know, to see to to look out look at the land, to look at who's in the land, and and what's going on. And these 2 spies, they went in, and we look back up in Joshua-2:8. No.
Verse 10. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea. For when you came out of Egypt and what you did in Sihon and Og, the 2 kings of the Amorites East of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed, when we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear. Everyone's courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God of heaven above and God on earth below. So what's happening here is these 2 spies went in, and they ended up at this play they ended up at this place at what's her name?
Rahab. Rahab. Yeah. They ended up in Rahab's house. Exactly.
And Rahab told them that they had heard how Lord had dried up the water of the Red Sea before they came out of Egypt. Let's think about that for a second. Rahab told them that they had how they had heard that they dried up the water of the Red Sea before they came out of Egypt. And their march their hearts had melted in fear. Now this this happened 40 something years before.
40 something years before, you have Moses and the Israelites came out and and before Moses sent 12 spies into the land, into the promised land. So they were they were supposed to go from the wilderness to the promised land. These 12 spies go in and they see this promised land that God had promised to them, but it it's so big, and these people are so big. They saw them as giants. They saw themselves as grasshoppers.
Right? And so, they had a lack of faith, and they come back and they give a bad report. Why? Because they're looking circumstances, not at what God said, not at what God had promised. But but in this verse, Joshua-2:10, it says, Rahab says 40 years later that they had saw how God had delivered them from the from the Egyptians and from the Red Sea, and their hearts had melted with fear.
That had happened 40 years before. So when these spies follow me here. When these spies went in 40 years before and they saw the circumstances, their hearts melted in fear, but they didn't know the enemy already knew who they were and the enemy's hearts were melting in fear. Do you follow me there? I think a lot of times, God has promised us some amazing things and we let circumstances prevent us from walking in what God has called us to walk in.
And the enemy tries to tell us how small we are, tries to tell us that we can't do this, tries to show us every every obstacle that could possibly get in the way. And so we think about the obstacles that could possibly get in the way instead of saying what God has told us, instead of trusting in what God has said, instead of having faith. You know what fear is? Faith Fear is faith in the wrong God. That's what fear is.
They could have had the land. They could have had what God had spoken to them, what God had promised to them, but they walked in fear instead of in faith. And this shows let's read once again Joshua-2:10. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt. When we heard of it, verse 11, our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage failed because of you.
Now, yes, it did add a couple of other things in there, but they had heard of that. When did they hear that? When did that happen? 40 years before. But they let fear of potential outcome, fear of potential failure prevent them from walking in what God had called them to do.
And because of that fear of potential failure, because of listening to the noise, because of listening to all the naysayers, the the 12 spies that came in, 10 of them came back and said, there's no way we can do this. We can't move forward. And the people heard this negative report and weren't able to walk in what God had called them to walk in. Who do you surround yourself with? Are you surrounding yourself with people that tell you you can't?
That tell you you can't move into what God did did did God lay, you know, something amazing on your heart, or is is God doing something amazing in you, and you have a bunch of "naysayers around you" saying, no. It's terrible. No. You can't do this. No.
You can't. Can't. You can't. And just just fueling this fear of the potential outcomes when God says, yes, you can. Who are you gonna listen to?
Are you gonna listen to what he says or what the naysayers say? Surround yourself with what the people who who tell you what he says. Because that's truth. So what happened, the Israelites, instead of following what he said, they ended up spending 40 more years in the wilderness, and they had another opportunity. This time, Joshua sent 2 spies in.
They came back and and gave a good report. All they heard was a good report. They said the people the the people's "hearts are melting" in fear. Right? They had they had a faith report, and it gave them the faith to move forward instead of staying back where we're going back to what they're used to.
**faith moves forward**. Faith follows through. Faith keeps going. Faith doesn't say, oh, it's too hard. And guys, faith follows Jesus.
Faith follows the ark. And Jesus always says, you can. Jesus says, all my promises are yes and amen. I'm with you. Never will I leave you or forsake you.
All things work together for good, for those that love me and are called according to His purpose. Yeah, it might be hard. Yeah, you might have to stand in the midst of a storm, but I'm gonna stand and I'm gonna keep moving forward because He says that I can. I'm not going back. Man, it's beautiful because the Old Testament, not only does it point to Jesus, but it's it's a physical reality of what we experience spiritual spiritually a lot of times today.
How many of you guys are experiencing this in your life right now? Where God has called you to a promise. God has spoken something in your life. God is leading you to amazing things, to closer to your destiny, and yet, there are people back here that are pulling you back and saying, no, you can't. No, this can't happen.
No, this can't happen. And what are you gonna do? Are we gonna focus on what they say, or are we gonna focus on the ark? Jesus. Man, I choose to focus on the ark.
And as I do, I go from discouraged, not courage, fearful, to courageous and strength. Why? Because the Lord is with me, because I'm following the ark in every aspect of my life. Amen? So when we follow Jesus, we go from discouraged to courage.
We go from fear to strength. We're able to move from where we're sucked in to where he wants us to be. Speaking of that so let's move on. Before they cross the Jordan, what happens? The 2 spies come back in Joshua-2:24.
It says, said to Joshua, the Lord has surely given the whole land into his hand our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us. In chapter 3 verse 1, early in the morning, Joshua and the Israelites set out from Shittim. Everybody say, Shittim. Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to Jordan where they camped before crossing over.
There's something significant about Shittim. I'm serious. We're we're gonna preach on this for a second. What what happened before see see, all of these things, before you can move forward in life, you gotta pass the test that that that you failed in the past. You guys got the giggles now.
That's awesome. Because if you don't pass the test where you failed in the past, and you do move forward, and you don't have the character ready for what God wants to bless you with next, then you'll fall even harder. So sometimes, God God doesn't let you move forward until you pass the test. Right? So what happened in Shittim before?
Well, that place is the place where the Israelites came, you know, a while in the past. The Israelites came, and and you had Balaam come. You had this king. The king knew that he couldn't defeat the Israelites. He's like, what's gonna happen?
Well, they're they're gonna take over us. You gotta curse these Israelites. I don't understand what's going on. And they said, you know what? I know you can't beat them, so you should join them.
Send send your send your women into the Israelites camp. And so the king sent the women to the Israelites camp, and the the Israelites were distracted. They took their mind, their eyes off of the ark, and they put their eyes on the women. As a matter of fact, let's go to Luke-18 real quick. You guys remember the the parable of the seed and the sower and all those things?
Right? The the the once was Jesus is telling us the the parable of the seed and the sower, and and he sowed seed on on the path, and the birds came and ate it up, and then he sowed seed on the rocky ground, and and it it grew quickly, but it didn't have any root, and so it died really fast. And then he sowed seed on the thorny ground. This is Luke-8:14. The seed that fell among the thorns stand for those who hear, but as they go on their way, are choked by life's worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature.
Another version says, and they are not effective. Now, it's interesting, because that's exactly what happened to the Israelites in Shittim before. They got stuck in Shittim, and they did not mature. Why? Because they they took their eyes off of the ark, of following where they were supposed to go, they took their eyes and put it on the pleasures of this world.
Interesting enough, the word Shittim means thorns. So they they came back around to that place, and they had to pass the test again. They had to follow the ark where into the promised land instead of being caught. What are the thorns? What are the "thorns that we get stuck" in that choked our life?
It's the worries of this world. It's the worries about riches. It's the worries about displeasures. It's the things that, oh, I can't move forward because I don't have enough money. I can't move forward because, man, life is too good right now, and I'll have to give this up if I go to where God wants me to be.
Man, I can't move forward because of because of this worry, man. If I I'll have to leave this behind, and I can't leave this behind. And Jesus says, no. Follow me. Let the dead bury their dead.
*Jesus* says, no. Follow me. And so they pass the test. They move on. We we take our eyes off of that, and we move on to where God has called us to be because we'll never be able to walk in the promise that he has for our life as long as we're stuck in our proverbial shittim.
So they did. They moved on, and it was amazing. So next, they get to the side of the river after they they they pass that 1. They get to the side of the river, they're then they're about to to cross over from the wilderness to the promised land. And the Bible says in in Joshua-3:11, see the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.
This is Jesus. Right? The ark represents Jesus. Now then choose 12 men from the 12 tribes of Israel, 1 from each tribe. And as soon as the priest who carries the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.
Now, let me give you just a little bit of a geographical picture once again. The Israelites are on the the East Side of the Jordan, and behind them is the wilderness. And you have this Jordan River, and on the other side of the Jordan is the promised land. And they have to go from the wilderness to the Promised Land, and they've been following Jesus in all of the wilderness, and they're about to go into the Promised Land. And the Jordan River, it starts in the in the mountains of Mount Sinai, and it flows down down down.
It it makes it to the Sea Of Galilee, which is this sea that's so full of fish and amazing and and gorgeous and beautiful. And then it goes, it flows out of the Sea Of Galilee, and it continues flowing down down down to the lowest place on earth. It's the Dead Sea. Have you guys ever heard of the Dead Sea? Dead Sea, lowest place on earth.
There's so many minerals and so much stuff. As a matter of fact, if you were to go and get in the Dead Sea, you would just float to the top without even having to try. A lot of people, you you see pictures of of guys floating in there, sitting up, holding a newspaper, you know, because it's just so thick with minerals. Why? Nothing can live in there.
Why? Because it just receives, it doesn't give out. The Sea Of Galilee, it receives and it gives. And it's full of life and it's full of fish, but the Dead Sea only receives. It's a picture of us.
We're created to receive and to give out. We're created to live for God and to live for others. And if all we do is live for self, it's death to us. It just is. So there you have 2.2 to 3,500,000 people on the side of the Jordan River, and it's at flood stage at this time.
Flood stage, it's a mile long. It's a mile wide. So it's long river, but it's a mile wide, which is crazy for 3, you know, 3,000,000 people to cross over, and and so something crazy has to happen. Well, let's look at what happens. Verse 14, so when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them.
Right? The ark goes ahead. We follow Jesus. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touch the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.
It piled up in a great heap, a great distance away at a town called Adam. Remember, if you were part of the big series or you were here for last Sunday, remember, we're all born with this sin nature. We're born with a nature, *Romans-5* 19, because of the disobedience of the 1 man, the many were made sinners. You're not a sinner because you sin. You're a sinner because 1 man sinned.
Period. Right? Because of disobedience of Adam. So you have a nature to sin from birth, and that came from Adam. And then it also says, because of the obedience of the 1 man, the many will be made righteous.
Right? So and I've said this every time, you you you don't teach a 2 year old to sin. They naturally sin. They naturally if they want the Bible or if they want this Bible 2 year old, they'll say, it's mine. Did you do that, Sally?
No. I didn't do it. Jimmy did it. They naturally steal. They naturally lie.
We don't teach them. Why? Because it's a nature. It's passed down from Adam. That is the problem with mankind.
But see, remember, everything that happened there physically in the Old Testament is a picture of what Jesus is doing spiritually. Who the ark who is the ark of the covenant? Jesus. And who stepped into the Jordan River? Jesus.
And where did the river stop flowing? At a town called what? Adam. Where was the where was the Jordan River flowing? To the Dead Sea, representing hell.
Mankind flowing from Adam to hell because of their sin nature, and Jesus steps in and he stops the flow. It's a clear picture. What what did Jesus why does he stop the flow? Because inside of him is the sin of mankind. Because He takes our sin.
He became our *sin* and the sacrifice for our sins so we have relationship with God. So that we could move from the wilderness to the promised land, from death to life, from death to relationship with God. Now, a lot of you guys have given your given your life to Jesus, and when you gave your life to Jesus, maybe in the moment, like, you you have this heart shift, you have this peace, and and and it's amazing. And you walk out of church, and you walk out of that moment, and and it seems like, wow, this is awesome. And you walk out, and then over the next week, 2 weeks, it seems like nothing changed.
What's going on? Nothing's changing my life. Maybe it's just a little bit of of change, but I thought, you know, I'm born again. I'm This sin nature was crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
And now, I'm not experiencing this huge change in my life yet. What's going on? When the ark stepped in the water, it says it stopped flowing a great distance away at a town called Adam, which is about 7 to 9 miles away from the place that it stopped that they they the ark went in the water. 7 to 9 miles away. Now if if if the water is maybe, you know, 5 feet deep or 4 feet deep or something, and you step in and there's a river flowing, and it stops flowing 7 to 9 miles away, as soon as the ark steps in, it cuts it off at the source.
But are you gonna notice the change of the water right there in the moment? I mean, are you is the water gonna, all of a sudden, boom, dry up right there where you're standing if it stopped flowing 7 to 9 miles away? No. You know, sometimes we're believing *Jesus* for for Jesus to do something miraculous, and he did do something miraculous, but you have to stand in the water and and stand by faith knowing that he did it. He "cut it off at the source" and wait for it happen where you are.
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it hadn't happened yet. *Faith* is trusting what he says over what we see. So they stood there, and it dried up. It piled up a great distance away, and eventually eventually, they saw the results of what happened. In the same life, in the same way in your life with Christ.
You gave your life to Jesus. Right? You're made new from the inside out. But really, we still struggle a lot in our mind. Why?
Because the enemy wants us to not realize what he's done in our heart. So he keeps lying to you, telling you're you're condemned. You're not you're not forgiven. You you keep screwing up. This, that, and the other.
And so you believe that you're a condemned, unforgiven sinner, and that's not who you are anymore. And so you you you "run out of the water", you run back to the wilderness because you think that you you deserve to live in the wilderness, and you stay stuck in the wilderness. Why would you do that? *Jesus* said you're supposed to be in the promised land. Follow him to where he's called you to be and stay stay where he's called you to stay.
He says that you're you're born again. He says that you're forgiven. He says that you're not condemned. So what if you feel like that? Put your mind on what he says about you because what he says is truth.
Period. And as you do, guess what? The water is gonna begin to go down. You're gonna begin to stand on solid ground because He's already taken away the root. The root was your heart.
Born again, made new from the inside out. That's amazing. So that we can go from death to life. You know, it's not just for giving your life to Jesus. Man, there's proverbial wildernesses and promised lands in every aspect of your life.
I mean, shoot. There's people struggling with this or struggling with that, struggling with your marriage, or struggling with a sickness and disease, or or struggling with it doesn't matter what you're struggling with. You pray about it. You give it to him. He says that you're healed.
He says that you're forgiven. He says that he's gonna he's gonna fix your marriage. He says he's gonna, you know, bless you with a job. He says these things, and and you either you can either stand with what he has spoken to you, "stand on his" the promises of his word and wait for the water to go down, or you can run back to the wilderness to what you're used to. Man, I choose to stand.
I choose to stand and move forward to His promise. 100%. I choose to walk in courage, not in discourage. Why? Because my eyes are on the ark.
My eyes are on Jesus. I choose to not be distracted by the worries, and by the fears, and by the cares of this world, and by the things that the enemy tried to distract me with, so I don't walk out the destiny that he's put in front of me, like they did in Shittim. I choose to walk forward into the promised land and get out of Shittim. I'm I'm thankful to God for the for for him naming that because it's really a lot of a lot of us choose to stay stuck in that place. But we shouldn't.
We should keep our eyes on what he says on the ark, on Jesus. Let's let's stand if you don't mind. We appreciate it. Father, we just thank you for who you are. Holy Spirit, we we invite you.
We just for more of you, more of your presence. That you lead and you guide this service. You lead and you guide every aspect of this. You lead and you guide our lives. Lord, I I believe that there are people in here that have never trusted you.
That that those crowd this size that have never given their life to Jesus. They don't know what it means to have a new heart. They don't know what it means to experience peace that is in following Jesus. They don't know what it means to experience the promised land. And if that is you, if you've never accepted, you've never believed that Jesus died for your sin, You've never experienced freedom from that guilt, freedom from that shame.
You've been living by your own control instead of giving over control to Jesus who loves you and cares for you and has a future, an amazing promise for you. If that is you and you're ready to give your life to Jesus, and you say, you know what? It's time. It's time for me to do that. If that's you, would you raise your hand on the count of 3?
1, 2, 3. Raise your hand high. You wanna give your life to Jesus. Raise your hand high. Raise your hand high.
Okay. Now, maybe maybe you, there's probably a lot of you. Look at that. Sometimes I find myself here. As you you're kind of stuck in the proverbial wilderness, not willing to move forward with what God has promised.
Keep your eyes on Jesus. And you just want me to pray for you right where you are. And you know what? I'm tired of being distracted by the worries, *fears*, pleasures, or whatever, and it's keeping me stuck instead of moving forward what God has for me. I've been discouraged because I take my eyes off of Jesus and put my eyes on my circumstances.
And I want to move forward to what I know he's promised for me. If that's you, would you raise your hand? I need prayer for that. I see you. I see you.
Hands all over. I see you. There's something significant. I see you. No.
Keep it up. There's something significant about making that say, hey, that's me. I see it. That's awesome. Let's pray.
And just agree with me in prayer, guys. As a matter of fact, I want everybody just repeat this after me. I choose to focus on you, Jesus. I choose to focus on your word. I believe what you say about me.
I am strong. I am courageous. I'm created to live out your promise. I'm moving forward in life. I'm no longer stuck.
I'm no longer discouraged. You encourage me. Thank you, Jesus. Father, I just I pray that over this song, as we sing this song together, that they let it be seen as a prayer. Just all fear, I rebuke it.
All fear we move in Jesus' name. I pray for freedom. Complete and total freedom. Lord, I pray hearts are healed as they see you for who you are. In Jesus name.
Let's sing.
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