Hey, hey, St. City, how we feeling today?
It's good to see you guys. Happy Sunday morning to you that
that promo video reminds me every single time that bumper
that not even one of God's promises will fail.
That's the whole point of that video is to help you see week
after week, month after month as we go through this book, one,
that we're an energetic church, apparently see that.
But two, that not even one promise of God has ever failed.
And the whole book of Joshua is helping you.
And I not only see that, but believe that that God is a God
who keeps his promises, not just to the people of Israel that
we're learning about in Joshua, but to you and I, to his people.
That's who God is. Not one promise failed, not one
enemy beat him only he is the God who is the God who is like
that. Amen.
I I have never had the
experience of tearing down goal posts before on a football
field, but according to my father, it is a legendary
experience. Back in the late 1900s, as the
college students call it 1990, he was a college student at
Northern Illinois University in Northern Illinois University.
You've never heard of it because they're terrible at just about
everything. And not on this day, though.
This day they play #24 ranked. Yet this is the this is the
highlight of their team. They beat the 24th best team in
the country in football on that day.
And what did the student section do before the game?
As the game was wrapping up, the student section stormed the
field. They tore down the goal posts in
triumphant victory over the 24th ranked Fresno State Bulldogs.
In fact, I have a picture of my father helping tear down the
goal post that is him. That is a grainy picture, but
that is literally my dad in a YouTube video ranking down this
goal post with a bunch of students of his.
I think that's amazing. I wish I had that memory.
But they end up not only taking down this goal post, the
students begin. You know, what should we do with
this massive hanging thing? We're going to take it to the
campus lagoon. So the students then proceed to
lift it above their heads and March this goal post to the
lagoon. So it literally, you can't hear
it in the video, but the students like chanting to the
lagoon, to the lagoon, and they're chanting it as they're
bringing it out. They're marching this goal post
in victory and the fight song is blaring behind them.
And they get to the lagoon and they dump the field goal post in
triumphant victory over the 24th best team in the country.
I think that's my fun. The funniest detail about the
whole story. What I find interesting about
that though, is on that day, that student section, they
marched after they saw the victory.
They won that game by 50 plus points and they marched after
they saw the victory. But what God is about to invite
his people to do, you and I to do what he's about to call us
to, is to March before we see the victory.
Joshua chapter 6 is about to help us March in faith, to have
marching faith as God's people, the kind of faith that marked
the people of Israel. And Joshua 6 should be the same
faith that marks you and I today, The kind of faith that
trust God to be the God who cannot lose, who keeps all of
his promises. We are intended to be a people
who March. In fact, turn to your neighbor
and say we March. That's right.
Let's head to Joshua chapter 6, Joshua chapter 6 before we get
there. Joshua chapter 1 is the
introduction of the book. We learned that Joshua's
appointed the new leader and he's like, hey, who's with me on
this? Joshua chapter 2 is about them
doing it right this time and taking the promised land for
themselves. Joshua chapter 3 and 4 is about
them getting to their very first significant and miraculous
obstacle of the Jordan River and they cross it and they remember
it. And Joshua chapter 5 is about
the people of God before they get into this battle with
Jericho, consecrating themselves before the conquest.
That is the book of Joshua so far.
And we get to Joshua chapter 6 and we get to a very familiar
story, probably the most familiar story of the whole
book. It is the battle air quotes of
Jericho, Joshua chapter 6. It says this.
Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the
people of Israel. None went out and none came in.
And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho into
your hand with its king and mighty men of valor.
You shall March around the city, all the men of war going around
the city once, and you shall do this for six days. 7 priests
shall bear 7 trumpets of ram's horns before the ark.
And on the 7th day you shall March around the city 7 times.
And the priest shall blow the trumpets.
And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you
hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people of Israel
shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will
fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight
before him. We'll stop there for a moment.
Why are why is Joshua 6 in our Bibles to help us understand
God? What is it for us in this life?
Jot down this thought, this big idea that cities aren't taken by
strategy, they're captured by faith.
God wants to show you something about himself.
He wants to reveal a part of his character, a part of who he is,
how he works in the world. Cities are not taken by human
strategy. They are captured by faith and I
think that's real. I think that's relevant as a
church plant. We're about 8 months into this
thing and we're looking at a city like Jericho and Tempe and
saying, man, Lord, this feels impossible to break into a city
like this. There's 200,000 plus people
here, 80% of whom do not go to a Church of any kind whatsoever,
have no religious activity. Less than 2% go to any kind of
gospel preaching church. How, Lord, is Saint City going
to make a dent in that kind of darkness?
How are we going to get through the impossible and impenetrable
wall that is known as the veil of Tempe?
How are we going to do it? What kind of faith captures a
city like Tempe? I think this text is going to
give us faith for that. I think it's going to give us
the right kind of faith, the right strategy.
And going after a city like this one.
How are we going to do it? Well, first let's jot down like
this. How are we going to capture what
kind of faith, excuse me, captures a city like Tempe?
Well, we March in faith that first.
He has already won the fight. What kind of faith do you need
to have? What kind of trust, What kind of
trust that you need to put into action that you are looking to
God not just as a concept, but as a being who works and
operates and moves in the world? How are we going to have faith
together? Well, we're going to March in
faith in this conviction that he has already won the fight.
God has already won. He's already done it.
Look back at the text with me verse one.
Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the
people of Israel. Now Jericho there it's it's
helping you remember that this is a very fortified city.
The city of Jericho had two outer walls, 2 walls that
surrounded the city that made it almost inconceivable that anyone
would ever conquer it. The first wall was 6 feet thick,
so my generous here wingspan, 6 feet thick, was the outermost
wall. Then there was a gap, and then
there was two of these 12 feet thick wall, 18 feet of wall to
get into the city. I don't know if you've ever
tried to breakthrough any kind of thick glass or wood or
concrete before, but 18 feet thick feels pretty impossible,
feels pretty impenetrable. And not only do you have a city
that is fortified like this, you have a city that for the time
was very large. Jericho.
The perimeter of the city was about .37 miles wide.
According to church historians, that is the equivalent of
mountainside fitness at Tempe Town Park.
If you're looking at the lake, that's about the distance that
the city was in length. We'll get back to that in a
second. If I want you to feel how
impossible it felt to get through the walls of Jericho, I
want you to have a sense for this army of Israel who is not
trained. Think about this.
These people just wandered the desert for 40 years and now
God's telling them to take a city.
He's telling them that they need to go have a conquest of the
land of Canaan and they are untrained nor do they have the
best technology to compensate for their lack of competence and
God says to them in verse 2 something insane the Lord said
to Joshua and I believe this is continuing the conversation from
chapter 5. I believe this is the commander
of the Lord's army saying to Joshua, here's your battle plan.
See look at verse 2. I have given Jericho.
Do you notice that in your Bible underline?
If you would, I have given not. I will give Jericho not.
I might give Jericho. I have.
I have given Jericho to you, into your hand with its king and
its mighty men of valor. You might see its ruler, You
might see its army, Joshua. But listen to me.
I am the commander of the Lord's army.
And hear me, I have given this to you.
It is as good as done. The fight has already been won.
It is a battle that has already taken place in God's mind, and
there's no stopping his verdict. And this is a hilarious battle
plan, if you ask me. Priests who are not exactly the
most spectacular of specimens. I would imagine they're not
exactly the guys you'd send out to war.
They're going to walk around with Ram's horns and blow
trumpets, and you're going to just take a nice leisurely
stroll around the city of Jericho for a week and then
we're going to call it done. And you know what?
For good measure, you guys can shout about it.
That's how we're going to win. That's the battle plan of
winning the fight. I'm no military tactician.
That doesn't sound like the battle plan of that would work
according to human strategy, but it works here because this isn't
even really a battle plan. This is a victory March is what
it is. It's a triumphant parade that
this is already. This is our city, this is our
land. We are going to take it because
God said it's ours. It was his to give and it's ours
to take. So let's go do a victory parade
before the battle even happens. They're basically tearing down
the goal posts before the game even starts.
Now, St. City, we're not marching around
Jericho. We're not here in the Bible.
That's not us. That's not why this is even
preserved for us. God is not prescribing that we
do that. Though that might be pretty
neat. If one of you guys did the walk,
you can let me know how it goes. But this text, not written to us
but for us, is revealing something about the war we do
find ourselves in, not against flesh and blood, but against
powers and principalities. We do still wage a holy war on
behalf of God as his people. We still are soldiers in a fight
in that God that we serve, that commander in chief that he has
deployed us. Guess what?
He has already won the fight. Do you believe that God has
already won? You are not fighting for victory
for that God. You are fighting from victory.
It's already taken place. It's in the past tense.
We are still on command, on mission for our commander in
Chief. The fields of Tempe are white
unto harvest and we can still get caught up in fear of our
defeated enemies. We have defeated enemies just
like they do. Our enemies aren't Jericho
citizens, but rather there's three enemies that the Christian
has today. It's sin, Satan, and death.
Satan, Sin and Death 3 defeated enemies first Satan Matthew 1618
Jonathan, if you'd like to read your Bible, it says that the
gates of hell shall not prevail against God's Kingdom.
Gates are like Helms deep in Lord of the Rings.
They're holding people back as a defensive weapon.
And guess what? It cannot stop God's people
advancing on the mission of God. Satan and his and his minions
cannot stop Jesus from advancing his Kingdom.
They can't stop him. The church is the one who has
promised to hold the gates, to hold the keys, and saying hey,
we have the gospel, we have a commander in chief, and the
gates of hell will not prevail against God's church.
We will keep advancing. We'll keep taking Kingdom
ground. Why?
Because Satan is a defeated enemy.
We need not fear him. We need not worry.
Spiritual attack is normal, but guess what, he is beaten.
Colossians chapter 2 says that Jesus trampled over death in
Satan and paraded him triumphantly.
Satan is beaten. You do not need to be afraid of
him. He 11 theologian said it this
way, that he might be the devil, but he's still God's devil,
meaning he's still on a leash. That's one enemy that's beaten.
Second, sin. Romans 314 says that sin has no
dominion over us anymore. You might feel like sin is
beating you, that it is not defeated at all actually.
But guess what? The penalty and the power of it
are paid for in full by the blood of Jesus Christ.
There might be some remaining presence of sin in your life,
and there surely is. And one day Jesus will come back
and He will extinguish sin forever.
But listen to me. It is defeated.
It has no dominion over you, believer.
It doesn't have power over you. It is a defeated enemy.
Be strong and courageous. See that the victory has been
given in your hand. You are fighting a battle that
has already been won over the sin struggle in your life.
Don't look at that habit anymore as a giant and you a
grasshopper, but rather look at it and say no, no, no.
My God has beaten it, He has overcome it and he lives in me.
Satan, sin and now death. I want to read for you a passage
from First Corinthians chapter 1522 or 52.
It says this in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last
trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and
the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be
changed. For this perishable body must
put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on
immortality. And when the perishable puts on
the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall
come to pass the saying that is written.
Death is swallowed up in victory.
Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, death, where is your
victory? Listen to me.
You need not fear death, believer.
One of the greatest promises that God will keep for your life
is that when you die, when this earth comes to pass and you pass
on into what's next, guess what? You don't even need to be afraid
of that because you will finally, for the first time,
truly be living. What was thought to be mortal is
now immortal because of the gospel that Jesus Christ has
come to save you from your sin, has come to save you from Satan,
and has come to save you from death so He could have life with
you, everlasting, eternal life. It is available to you.
So we need not be afraid of the enemy of death, that sickness
might come, death might come into our life.
Grief might be real as an experience here.
But listen to me. Though it is a certain reality
that we will die, it could be a certain truth and promise that
you get to spend life forever with God Himself, not under
suffering or sickness or despair, but of life, true,
abundant, flourishing life. And Jericho reminds us that he
has already won the fight over death.
He didn't stay in that grave. That tomb is still empty to this
day. Get on a plane, go to the Middle
East, and you'll find a tomb that was empty, where Jesus
Christ rose from the grave. That's my commander in chief.
That's why I'm following into battle.
And he has already won the fight.
So we keep marching in faith of that, but second, not only
marching in faith towards that, but also he gives no small
commands. Our military leader, in this
case, Jesus Christ. Remember, we're not waging holy
war, slaughtering people. That's not Christian's job.
We love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
But listen to me. Our commander gives no small
commands. Go back to Joshua with me.
Joshua chapter 6, verse 10 says this.
But Joshua commanded the people, You shall not shout or make your
voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth until
the day I tell you to shout. God gives a command right now
through Joshua to the people. He gives further marching orders
to the ones we just read in the first earlier verses.
He elaborates and he says to the people, here's what I want you
to do. I want you to be silent for six
days. Don't talk.
Embrace being a mute for six days.
I imagine to myself how terrible I would be at this.
I, I've, I've watched this show growing up called Silent
Library, where they were in, in tasked with being quiet despite
all kinds of pranks and hijinks happening inside of the library.
And the whole point was to get people to laugh so you could win
the game. And I can just tell you right
now, Brandon de Lodge was not built for that game.
I, I am not a quiet person. I'm not a person who enjoys
silence. I'm not a person who thrives in
being shut up, but the instruction, the command given
to the people of Israel was to stay silent for six days.
And I think in our energy, in our fervor and our passion to be
on the mission of God, sometimes we forget that the small command
of silence is also available to us.
And here's what I mean. I think many of us will go out
on the mission. We will we will share the gospel
and that and keep doing that. We will embrace the human
strategy of going out on corners and partnering with
organizations and doing all kinds of fun things.
But cities aren't taken by human strategy.
They're captured by faith as even forget the faith filled
prayers that sit in silence before God and say God, what do
you want to do with my life? How do you want to reach my Co
workers? How do you want to reach my
family? How do you want to reach my
neighbors? And we think to ourselves, we
need to do more talking instead of just being still and
listening to God, maybe even heard him speak because you're
too busy talking instead of listening to what God has to
say. This is a small command given to
the Israelites to just be silent for six days.
And I imagine as they're walking around the perimeter and they
have to remain silent, I imagine the teenagers wanting to crack
jokes. I imagine the parents wanting to
work through that tiff they just got back in before they even
started the walk. And the command given was as
simple as silence. But it is not a small command.
It's obeying God himself in this case.
It's not the only command. He told them to walk around the
city. They're walking around the city,
just walking around the city. And they're doing that for six
days now. A little bit more than 1/4 mile
walk isn't that far. Doesn't take that long.
They had to do it in silence. And I wonder what was going
through their brain as they looked at that giant wall and
how thick it was as they're walking around this city where
they thinking to themselves, man, my feet must be really
powerful if these are going to come down.
I wonder if they thought, man, maybe he's just going to like
start an earthquake or something.
I have no how, but apparently he just wants me to walk.
They had a daily walk. It was deliberate, but listen to
me. It was also devoted to the Lord.
We are not intended to walk very differently around our lives.
We walk with Christ and we walk through our lives wherever God
would have us, walking and talking with Jesus, saying God,
what would you have me do? What would you have me be?
What would you do in my life? And I would just walk with you.
That is the journey. It is to follow Jesus.
It's just to walk and step with him, one step at a time, daily,
deliberately and devoted unto him.
That is all it means to walk with Jesus.
It's just taking the next step and the next step and the next
step. You see, they didn't just do
this for day one. They did this for day 2 and day
three and day four and day five and day six.
They kept walking and I can't imagine how stupid I would have
felt to just keep putting 1 foot in front of the other.
When is this actually going to happen?
When is he going to do the same thing he said he was going to
do? Listen to me, Do not give up in
walking Jesus just 'cause you don't see the walls come down
yet. Keep walking with Him.
Do not lose heart. Walk and walk.
Just take one step after another, one foot in front of
the other and keep walking with Him.
It is a simple command of ours is to be a disciple of Jesus
Christ, which we have taken to define here at Saints City, is
just taking your next step of obedience with Him.
That's all a walk is. It's just obeying Jesus
patiently day after day, putting 1 foot in front of the other,
walking. Verse 16 gives us one other
small command God gives them. And at the 7th time.
So now they've walked around the city for six days.
Now they get to the 7th day and they don't just walk around the
city once, they walk around it 7 times.
That's God's command for they honored that by the way, they
could have walked around it five times or three times or two
times, but they did what God said.
They obeyed the seemingly strange command of walking
around at the 7th time as if that was the magical number, but
it wasn't what was magical about it.
It rather was what God said. Therefore it activated God's
power. So they get to the seventh time
in verse 16, and at the 7th time when the priest had blown the
trumpets, Joshua said to the people, shout, for the Lord has
given you the city, and the city and all that was within it shall
be devoted to the Lord for destruction.
Jumped down to verse 20. And so the people shouted, they
screamed, they cheered, they celebrated, and the trumpets
were blown. And as soon as the people heard
the sound of the trumpet, they shouted even a great shout, and
the wall fell down flat. Walls still fall, and there is a
time to shout, a time to cheer, and it's not even before you see
the victory, after you see the victory.
It's before you see it that you believe God is still worthy of
worship. He's still worthy of your shout
to praise before you see him do the thing you're praying for him
to do, that the victory. The praise is before the
victory. The shout comes before they see
the walls fall. But they did, and they trusted
God. They took him at his word and
they shouted. The divine demolition of Jericho
was to demonstrate for all people, for all time, that God
is above every city and there is nothing or no one who could stop
him. He is the God who breaks down
walls, the God who would just the shouts of people crush and
flatten 18 feet thick walls. And they captured the city.
There are no small commands. The Israelites follow Joshua's
orders given to him by Jesus Christ.
And they said we're going to listen to God.
We're going to take him at his word.
And so we'll shout, we'll walk, we'll be silent.
We will let trumpets go around. We'll let the order take care of
itself. We will listen to God.
And I wonder if there's a command in your life that you
have shrunk or thought to yourself that it's a small
command. It's not a big deal.
I wonder if there's something that God has asked you to do
that you're like, yeah, it's not that big a deal.
There are no small commands with God because His Holiness and his
reputation is on the line every time.
And he wants what's best for you and for me.
Every time God tells you to do something, it's not because he
wants your life to be miserable, because he wants your life to be
great and he knows what you're made for.
He built you. He said, hey, I made you for
this, Go do this. And you're like, no, I would, I
would like to reject that operating system and I'd prefer
to live a life that I think is better.
In fact, I think that highlights one of the heart postures that
we have to be watchful for. We need to be watchful for
arrogance in our heart when we're trying to obey God's
commands. It's the idea that I know better
than God. Do I know better than God what
to do with my life? Does He get to have a say?
And what I watch, what I say, what I do, who I marry, how I
spend my time, how I spend my money, do I know better than
him? That would be arrogance to say
that you would. But watch for that.
Not only watch for that, watch for impatience.
I think sometimes why we appeal to human strategy instead of
faith is because we feel like we're playing way more of a part
in it than we are. We actually are that God is the
one who's actually behind Saint City, that he is the one behind
your life with his goodness and mercy rushing towards you and
carrying you toward the next thing after the next thing after
the next thing. But I think we in our little
faith, sometimes we look to ourselves and we look to our
impatience and we say, you know what God, I'm sick and tired of
waiting on you. Let me take matters into my own
hands. Let me start dating the guy who
does not know Jesus anymore. Let me start spending my money
this way. Let me start this way because I
think I know better than you. But listen to me.
Human strategy is not what takes over a city.
Faith does. And faith is what needs to be
leading your home. It needs to be leading your
relationships. It needs to be leading your
business. Faith is the thing, and with God
all things are possible. But if it is of man, guess what?
It will fail at some point. But if it is of God, guess what?
There's nothing anyone can do to stop it.
You might be wrestling through your career decision.
You might be wrestling through a relationship in your family.
My appeal to you this morning is to be as watchful after victory
as before the battle. There's a battle that you're
facing and that you are fighting, and as you consider
that relationship, as you consider that move, as you
consider that next step, you need to be as watchful after
Victor as you are before the battle.
Meaning we need to be praising him and thinking that he's
already won and trusting him by obeying his small commands even
here and now before we get to that next thing and appealing to
him in faith and saying, God, I don't know what to do, but my
eyes are on you. So don't let arrogance or
impatience get in the way of that.
Be watchful for them in your heart.
So I think that's what blocks us from taking God's commands
seriously, no matter how small they might seem. 3rd and finally
we March in faith, not just towards the small commands, not
just towards him we already winning the fight, but third and
finally that he will keep his promises.
He will not even one promise has failed.
And God is gracious, He is kind, He welcomes the repentant.
There's a there's a lie that's in the world today that I want
to gently correct. It's that all people are God's
children. That is not true.
What is true according to the Bible is this, that God is
creator to all. He is father to some, which
means if he's father to some, then only some are his kids.
And the ones who are adopted, the ones who went from orphan to
having a spiritual father, guess what?
It came through repentance and faith in him that he was who he
said he was, that he did what he said he did, and that he will
judge those who do not. And verses the rest of this
chapter highlights for us the grave nature of that decision.
Verse 24 and 25 I think captures it perfectly.
The contrast between the two choices that Joshua and the
people of Israel did what God said and they burned the city
with fire and everything and everyone in it, only the silver
and the gold and the vessels, the bronze and of iron they put
into the treasury of the House of the Lord.
So you have destruction. Verse 25 you have deliverance,
but Rahab the prostitute in her father's household on all who
belonged to her, Joshua saved alive, and she, Rahab has lived
in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom
Joshua sent out in Jericho. So Joshua laid an oath on them
at that time saying, curse before the Lord.
Be the man who rises up and tries to rebuild this city,
Jericho, at the cost of its first born.
Shall he lay its first, its foundation at the cost of his
youngest son? Shall he set up his case?
So verse 27, the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all
the land. I think when we read a sobering
text like that, we can be tempted to apologize for God,
that we can try to clean it up. But listen to me.
This is quite literally a picture between human strategy
and a faith. Between verses 24 and 25,
Jericho's strategy was simple. It's God hasn't killed us for
400 plus years, He's not going to now.
Not only that, they are willfully unrepentant.
Rahab knew who God was, saw what God did, and in chapter 2 she
decided to give her life to Him. Every single citizen in Jericho
had that opportunity. Only Rahab in her household took
care of it. This wasn't God being Moody.
He wasn't being impatient all of a sudden in the in the
Canaanites wickedness again. He waited 400 years for them to
turn to him and they didn't. They refused to bow the knee to
him despite in hearing how big and great and powerful he was.
And that's why Joshua 6 isn't about us, it's about God.
It's about the greatness of God, not the significance of a man
named Joshua. They won this battle because of
God. They did not win it because of
him. God made man small in the
universe, big to remind us that we are small and He is big.
And he's giving us all a warning here.
This is a warning passage that He doesn't give small commands,
and if you choose to rebel against his commands, judgement
and wrath is what you have chosen for yourself, that you
got what you wanted, a life apart from God.
And if you think to yourself there's a command small enough
that He won't notice your disobedience, that if your heart
has grown hard and won't listen to Him anymore today, if you
hear His voice, will you not harden your heart?
Listen to me. God loves you and wants to save
you from this. That hell is described as a
consuming and hellacious fire of torment, and it would be
unloving to me to not represent that to you today.
But that's what it means to turn away from God and to live for
yourself, to turn to human strategy and brilliance to save
you from the fires of destruction.
Listen to me. The only way to be saved is not
to save yourself. It's to look to the Savior.
That's it. That's the only hope you got.
You're not smart enough. You are not brilliant enough.
You are not powerful enough. You are not rich enough, you are
not beautiful enough to be saved from hell.
That is not the equation that we're talking about.
The only ticket in is Jesus Christ and his blood and his
righteousness, because you have no righteousness of your own to
bring to God. That would be kind of like this.
It'd be kind of like like the the Bible says in Matthew that
you have to have righteousness that exceeds that of the
Pharisees and the scribes, which would be like me telling you
today that you have to be smarter than like Plato and Elon
Musk. That's what it would be like.
You're like, wait, I have to be smarter than Plato then to get
into heaven and God's like, yeah, that guy's a dummy.
Elon Musk capital D dumb compared to how smart I am.
It would be like that. Don't you see?
There is no, there is no strategy.
There is no way, there is no hope apart from faith in God and
turning to him and belief and saying God, I can't save myself,
but you can save me. It is a self denial to follow
the commander of Heaven faith that you are not big enough,
strong enough or smart enough to earn your way in.
It is risking it all to have it all.
It is putting it all on the line, going all in on Jesus and
saying you know what He is the way, the truth and the life and
no one comes to the Father except through Him.
I am banking my life on that reality and saying I have no
righteousness, I need to be saved like Rahab and her family.
That I don't want to be doomed, I want to be saved.
And faith that God keeps his promise, including the ones to
save all who call upon His name. Jesus Christ will save.
Romans chapter 10 says this. That if you believe in your
heart and confess in your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, guess
what? You will be saved.
And not even one promise, including Romans 10, will fail.
God is a promise. Keeping God there is no strategy
that will save you, no brilliance that can get you
through. Only Jesus Christ, the friend of
sinners who loves you and died for you.
Such you would have life and life eternal is the only way in
in love. He has comes that you would not
be defeated or destroyed. He has comes that you might be
saved, you may have walls that you put up, but listen to me, He
is the God who collapses walls with a word, with a shout of
regular people. And you need to not live shut up
or shut in and shutting God out of your life.
You need not spend your days and doubt over his commands for you.
You don't need to live in that anymore because he's a God who
is a deliverer, A rescuer who's come to save you and all who
would say yes to Him because he lived the righteous life you
need. And on that bloody cross, he
atoned for your sin and he left behind an empty tomb so you
would have victory over death forever.
And right now he sits on a throne ruling and reigning over
sin, Satan and death forever. Listen to me.
Do you hear the words, the good news of Jesus?
You don't have to be devoted to destruction, but rather you
could be devoted to life and life forevermore because of
Jesus. Jesus has torn down the goal
posts for you and he said, hey, come join the parade.
Hey, come be a part of what I'm doing.
Come help me build the Kingdom here on earth as it is in
heaven. Would you join me?
That's His invitation to you so you might be saved from sin.
Jesus trampled Satan, sin and death forever, and Joshua 6
screams fully for you and I. It is by faith alone in God
alone that saves us from our sin.
Would you turn to Him in faith and would you join me as we be a
church for our city? Listen to me.
There are people right now, same city church members.
I'm talking to you right now. There are people right now in
our city who are not yet under the persuasion that Jesus Christ
is Lord, that are headed to an eternity apart from it unless we
do something, unless God uses us, unless we beg God to use us
as a people and His sovereignty. Lord, would you use St.
City to make a dent in the darkness of Tempe, to shine your
light big and bright? Would we be a church for the
city? Because I wonder what it would
be like if by faith we would go to parks and pray that God would
bring people there that would sit beside us as we're hanging
out with our kids and we get to meet them and invite them to
church. That by faith we would go to
Scottsdale Run Club and meet people who do not know Jesus,
who are living for the beauty of this world and say, hey, guess
what, come here, I have a better thing to live for than this.
Hey, by faith could we go and fast and pray that God would
save many this Easter season? By Faith St.
City, would we be a people marked by the courage?
Cry out to God to say, hey, you capture this city and use us to
do so. We would be a church for the
city together. I just think if we do that and
we pray for more Rahabs in our city, God will blow our minds
with what he's capable of. This is the God who made walls
fall, who made a river parts. And I believe that that same God
is still working and moving through people like you and I
today. You don't need to be afraid of
your roommate college student. You don't need afraid of your Co
worker. You don't need to be afraid of
the person at the park and be caught up in what they're going
to think of you. Listen to me.
God is still speaking and moving.
And by faith, as we March toward him, I believe that we can
capture this city for the glory of God.
We'll see new and maturing disciples who worship, walk, and
work witness for Jesus Christ because human strategy and human
devices are not leading this church.
That is not how we're going to capture this city.
That's how we're going to breakthrough it.
But let us have faith together that God has already won the
fight. There's no small commands.
We're going to obey Him at every turn, no matter how strange it
might seem. And we know and believe He's
going to keep His promises. And I believe if we do that, we
will see a city captured by faith, and we'll tear down the
goal posts together. Would you pray with me, Lord?
Thank you, thank you for the opportunity to March in faith
once again this week. That we can March in faith that
God, you are God who keeps his promises, that you are saving,
you will save, and you do save. Oh Lord, we are so grateful for
Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, the one who
purchased for us life and life evermore, who rescued us from
the fires of hell. God, that sounds harsh, it
sounds graphic, but it is the reality of our future if we do
not turn from you. And so in love, I, I ask you
God, I beg you God to open up peoples eyes to see the
opportunity and the gospel. They could be saved by the love
of God who hung on a cross and conquered a tomb so they could
be saved from their sin and have life with God forevermore.
God, you are going to keep waging war against sin.
You're going to keep waging war against Satan.
You're going to keep waging war against death.
And until that day we wait by faith.
We walk by faith, not by sight. And we say God to hell with our
human strategy, but when we March in faith, we March in
faith that you can do it God. You can breakthrough in a city
that might feel impossible and impenetrable.
You can do it, God. So let's lay it aside and let us
run as hard as we can in marching in faith towards you
this week in Jesus name, Amen.