It's good to see you guys. Hey, I want to start like this.
I want you to turn your Bibles to Joshua chapter 3.
If you don't have a Bible, we have one in the seat nearby in
front of you. It's just on the ground in front
of you. It's on page 179.
I'm going to meet you there in just a moment.
And while you're turning there, I want you to imagine with me
this moment. Imagine a man standing next to
the roaring Rapids of a river. He's sitting there and it the
calming, soothing sound of the river, it's just the best.
It's serene. It's nature.
And as he's standing there, he's looking out into the water and
he sees a school of tilapia going by.
And he thinks to himself, man, I wish I brought my fishing pole
today. Then behind him, he overhears
the chatter of the people behind him.
He hears some people gossiping, talking about the weather.
He's like, oh, man, it's just another day.
But then he snaps back into the nature scene, and he sees the
sunrise coming up over the slope.
And he's like, man, the last time I was here was 40 years
ago. And it wasn't like this.
See, 40 years ago, he felt a little bit younger.
His back hurt a little bit worse, his jaw was a bit
stronger, his hairline a bit better.
But he also remembers not just feeling younger and being
younger. He remembers the fight that
happened between him and his friends.
You see, this wasn't the first time he's at this river, but 40
years ago. He remembers the great argument,
10 on one side, 2 on the other. And they're debating whether or
not that they can get across this river and get into this
place and say, hey, we actually belong here.
And on one side with the 10, there's panic and hysteria and
fear. And him and his buddy Caleb, all
they sense is confidence and peace.
But on that day, 40 years ago, in that argument, he wasn't
enough. He wasn't strong enough,
compelling enough, persuasive enough.
He felt the haunting memory of not being the leader he wanted
to be. And if you're there in that
moment in your mind right now, you're imagining not just a
story, you're putting yourself in the shoes of Joshua Chapter
3. That this was a man who's
stepping into not just a chapter of a story, but he had a real
life with real decisions, with real stories behind him.
And as he once again, Joshua the the the title character of the
book of Joshua, as he steps to the Jordan River once again, you
can't help but wonder and imagine what it must have felt
like to be him on that day, to come back to this river that he
and his people didn't get to cross.
They had to stay wandering in the desert for 40 years.
And I bet he'd be asking a question like this.
How do I know? How do I actually know God is
with us this time on this? If God is truly among us, what
is that going to look like? That's a question Joshua must
have been asking himself. It's a question the text is
going to answer, but I think it's also a question that many
of us find ourselves asking as a church family, as people in a
city. Hey, if God is really here
amongst Saints City, if he's really actually with us, what's
that going to look like? What's that going to feel like
and sound like? What does it look like for God
to not just be with us in presence, but for us in power?
That God is behind us, He's the one carrying us forward.
What does that look like? Because like Joshua, I'm sure
many of us are concerned with our life.
Like what does it look like for God to be behind me and my
family? How do we know His hand is upon
us? He's blessing us.
Another word for it would be favor toward us.
What do we know? When do we know, excuse me, that
God is with us? I think Joshua chapter 3 is
going to show us. But before we get into Joshua
three, I just want to take a moment as a church family.
I want to pray. I want to bring our eyes and our
hearts before the Lord and say, God, would you speak to us?
Would you move? So would you join me as I pray
right now, Lord, we believe that you are actually among your
people. You're a living God.
You didn't stay dead, but you rose three days later and you
are alive, ruling and reigning right now.
And you want to speak to your people.
You want to build your Kingdom. And so, God, we are crying out
to you as your people to speak to us through your words, that
we would know what it looks like to have the living God, the holy
God with us and for us, and we'd have that confidence in Jesus
name, Amen. Amen.
Before I read the text, I just want to give you one quick Bible
study tip. If you are reading your Bible,
you're going through your devotional plan and you're like,
hey, how do I like get into the Old Testament?
How do I read a book like this so that I understand what to do
with it for my life? I'm going to give you a quick
little acronym. It's called speak FPEAK, and
it's this. When you're reading the Bible,
you're trying to apply it to your life.
The first one is speak, which is mean.
Hey, is there a sin to confess in this chapter that I'm getting
out of the text? Sin to confess.
The P stands for promise to believe.
That's like Joshua chapter one that be strong and courageous
for I am with you. That's Joshua one.
It's a promise to believe 3, which is what we're in today.
An example to follow. We're going to follow the
example of the Israelite people and of Joshua A stands for
actions to obey. That's like in the New Testament
when it's saying, hey, go love your neighbor.
That's like go do that. You don't have to follow an
example. You just go do the action that
the Bible said to do. And finally a knowledge to grow
in. That's like Colossians 115.
He is the image of the invisible God.
You're learning something about God and you need to grow in
knowledge of God so you can love Him and people more.
So that's a way to read your Bible.
I just want to give you that. Start here before we get into
Joshua one, and then we're going to get into this big idea that
the living God is among his people.
I get that from verse 10, which we'll get to in a moment.
But if you're taking notes and you'd like to take notes, jot
that down. That's this story, chapter 3.
It's what God wants us to know is that the living God is among
his people. And here's what the text says.
Joshua chapter 3, verse one. Then Joshua, the leader of
Israel, he rose early in the morning and they set out from
shitham and they came to the Jordan and he and all the people
of Israel and lodged there before they passed over.
At the end of the three days, the officers went through the
camp and commanded the people. As soon as you see the Ark of
the covenant, go ahead and underline that.
We're going to talk about that in a moment.
As soon as you see the ark of the Covenant of the Lord your
God being carried by the Levitical priest, then you shall
set out from your place and follow it.
Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2000
cubits in length. Do not come near it in order
that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not
passed this way before. 1st 5 Then Joshua said to the people,
consecrate yourselves for tomorrow.
The Lord will do wonders among you.
Stop there. 4 signs that I want to give you this morning If
you're asking yourself the question if God is truly among
us, what will it look like? I want to give you 4 signs today
that you can be sure, you can be certain that God is with us as a
people at Saint City and you personally for your life.
The 1st is this 4 signs that God is with us is set apart lives
you can know, you can trust, you can believe.
God is with you. God is with us when one of the
signs, one of the markers of the people is that their lives are
set apart for God. They're consecrated before him.
In fact, if you're taking notes, write that word now and
consecrate, because that's where it's getting the point.
Consecrated just means dedicating your life to a sacred
purpose. And the Israelites are commanded
by Joshua here to do that, to set their part their lives apart
for him, to dedicate their lives to, for a sacred purpose of
knowing and loving God. And so Joshua, they're about to
cross the river, and the first thing he does to prepare his
people is he says, hey, stop for a second before we do anything
else and let's consecrate ourselves before God because
Joshua's lived through something pretty hard already.
You see, it only took him about 40 days to get out of Egypt,
where he was enslaved, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out
of the Israelite people. Joshua has lived through the
reality of people who will not give their lives set apart for
God, who don't listen to him, who don't take him at his word.
Joshua knows what that's like and he's now leading a
generation of people to once again at the Jordan River, say,
hey, God, we're setting apart our lives.
We're setting apart this land for you.
And what I think is interesting about this is this generation of
Israel, they've heard about the parting of the Red Sea.
Now they did not watch the Prince of Egypt like we did to
experience it. That, you know, 2000 nineties
classic, great soundtrack. By the way, that's an excellent
movie. You should watch that.
Not exactly accurate. Sorry, I digress, but these
Israelites, those were their parents and their grandparents
who lived through that moment of the parting of the Red Sea.
And instead of like a vicarious, hey, I'm going to hear the story
about God being able to part water like this.
God's about to do basically the exact same thing for this
generation, basically the greatest miracle they'd ever
heard of, they're about to experience for themselves.
I think that's interesting. It's one thing to hear about
God's working power. It's another see it with your
own two eyes. When I was a kid, I grew up in
Chicagoland in the 90s. I was born in 93, which means I
missed peak Michael Jordan era. That's what it means I missed.
It means I was too young to fully appreciate the greatest of
all time. If you're a LeBron fan, the
doors right over there. No, I'm kidding.
But it was one thing to hear my dad, to hear my uncles talk
about Michael Jordan and his greatness.
It was another when I got old and I began to be able to watch
highlights of just how fantastic of a basketball player he was.
To hear reports of somebody's greatness is not the same as
seeing it in person. In fact, Job the author of a
book in the Bible, he says my ears had heard reports of you,
but now my eyes have seen your glory.
There is something different on being a visual learner about God
and these Israelites are about to experience first hand just
how powerful and mighty God is. That's why the second-half of
verse 5 says consecrate yourselves for tomorrow.
The Lord will do wonders among you.
That word wonder in the Old Testament, it's just how we
would say miracle there. Whenever they're saying wonders,
it just equals miracles. In the Old Testament they're
saying, hey, when God does awesome miraculous things, that
is a wonder. That is crazy.
That's astonishing. And God's about to part A river
before their eyes. But before he does that, Joshua
leads the people to consecrate themselves, to purify
themselves, because guess what? God himself is holy and pure,
therefore His people ought to be as well.
One of the signs of God being with us is that we set apart our
lives for Him, because guess what?
That's what God is. He is set apart from everything
else and all creation. And God will not be with us if
we do not have the reverence for His Holiness and His purity like
the Israelites did here. He will not be with us St.
City if we do not care about the holiness of God.
And I think I can hear some of you even objecting in in your
heart and your mind right now, if that like hey Brandon, are
you saying that God is not with me if I'm not living dedicated
to him if I'm not consecrated to him?
Not necessarily. Here's what I would say at that.
I would say that the sense of God being with you is what you
would feel. That God is not with you, not
that he's not actually with you, but your sense of whether or not
God is with you changes whether or not you are living dedicated
to him. That if you are drawing away
from God, it's not God who moved, it's you.
That as you draw near to God, he draws near to you.
And you might sense that God is far away, that he's distant,
that he is not with you, he is not among you.
If you are a Christian, you might get that sense, but it's
because you have not had a value for purity and holiness.
It's not because God changed or moved away from you.
It's because you moved away from Him.
We call that wandering in the Christian faith.
We call that wandering because you are moving from the
trajectory in the direction God has set for you, and you're
going the wrong direction for your life.
But there's good news for the wanderer here today.
If you find yourself wandering, if you find yourself lost, guess
what, today you can do this very verse 5, you can consecrate
yourself, you can set apart your life to God and he is right
there with a hug saying welcome home, welcome into relationship
with me. This is God.
He is a loving father who welcomes home every person who
has not lived their life fully to God.
He's saying, hey, guess what, You can live your life fully to
me now. It's OK.
You can turn from that and you can turn towards me.
You can no longer be a wanderer. You can be a worshipper, and
maybe you find yourself here today.
You're not actually wandering, but you're a worshipper of God.
This verse ought to give you gratitude.
Thank God that I know this God, that I love this God, that I can
walk with this God, that I can worship this God.
That's what it pulls out of you Every time you read a story like
this, you're like, wait a second.
I'm among the people who've heard the good news about Jesus.
I'm among the people who God is among.
How can that be? That's a miracle in of itself.
That's a wonder in and of itself.
It would you never lose the childlike wonder of what it is
to be adopted into God's family, worshipper of Jesus, the reality
that you are a son or daughter of God.
He looked into the spiritual orphan and he said I want that
one. And he called you by name,
consecrating yourself, setting your life apart from God.
Apart for God. Excuse me?
It's just a natural response of the grateful heart.
So we don't have to wander. We can worship because hey, we
want to see God with us. And we as God's people will live
lives set apart for him. That's the first thing.
That's the first sign. There'll be people everywhere
set apart for Him. The second one to look for is
spirit LED leadership. Spirit LED leadership.
God is the ultimate leader of his people and he is now setting
the plan for Joshua. In verse 3.
He's setting the plan for how 1,000,000 people are going to
cross the river by foot. I don't know if you've ever been
a crowd of 1,000,000 on foot before.
Crowds like that don't move well, they don't move fast.
They don't move organized. Every single time I see a parade
like that, you know, a victory parade for like the Seahawks, by
chance, shout out, Bo. Bo, where are you?
I don't know. I'll see you.
He's probably serving somewhere, always in the back.
Thank you, Bo. Seattle Seahawks fan,
congratulations. But there's a victory parade
when you're walking in that parade, guess what?
Those people don't move. Well, every time I'm at a parade
like that or see it, I just say man, they need a leader.
They need somebody to help them get through this.
These people need to move somewhere.
God saying, hey, I got you covered, Joshua, here's what I
want you to do. I want you to do 2 things before
we cross the river. First, I want the Ark of the
Covenant to go 1st and I want you Joshua, to know that I'm
with you. Both of them are important.
The first, the Ark of the covenant, verse three, look back
at your Bible with me. He commanded the people.
As soon as you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your
God being carried by the Levitical priest, then you shall
set out for your place and follow it.
Now if you're new to following Jesus, you might be reading the
Ark of the Covenant as Noah's Ark.
Not the same thing. You're like, wait a second, were
they carrying that boat? No, they were not.
They were not carrying the ark that is in Noah's story.
This is a different ark. This ark is only about four feet
long and about 2.75 wide and tall.
So this is much more manageable than a floating zoo.
OK, much more manageable. And they're carrying this ark.
It is made of pure gold and what it represents and what the
Israelites actually believed was it was the actual throne where
God lived and dwelled among them, that this ark of the
covenant was a sign that their God was keeping his promise to
their forefather, Abram, Abraham, His name, it means the
father of many nations. And so they would carry this
with them and where they went as a symbol that we are God's
people and He is with us. He dwells among us.
He is alive. He is not dead.
He is not silent. He is here at this Ark of the
Covenant. So what that meant was the
people of Israel would look at this thing.
I mean, like how Indiana Jones looked at it, right?
I mean, just like, do not touch that.
That's dangerous. That's holy, that is set apart.
The Ark of the Covenant was the greatest artifact of the
Israelite people. It was their holy.
It went into the Holy of Holies. When the temple gets built, it
is their most precious, precious piece of worship.
And God says, hey, I want that to go first into the Jordan,
carried by the worship leaders of God's people, the Levites.
They're going to go first, symbolizing you're not just
following Joshua, you're following me into this river
spirit LED leadership. The Ark of the covenant actually
gets outdated in the New Testament.
Here's why. Because we have a better ark of
the covenant now that Jesus has come.
The reason that's not around anymore, the reason why we don't
need it is because Jesus Christ came to earth.
He died on a Roman cross. He rose again and by grace
alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, guess what?
God can live in you, that God the Father sent God the Son, so
God the Holy Spirit couldn't dwell.
Humans, normal, regular human beings, not just the priest, not
the leader of the people, Joshua, normal, regular,
ordinary people like you and I God can live inside of.
He can dwell among us. Isn't that mind blowing?
God lives in you. The same spirit that raised
Christ and the dead lives in you and is at work in you right here
right now. That is the promise of God.
And now God the spirit isn't just on a leader or on a people.
He is inside of him. He indwells people.
The spirit LED leader is the spirit filled leader.
Keep going in the text you'll see Joshua in verse 6, Joshua
says the priest take up the ark of the covenant pass on before
the people. So the priest take the ark.
They go in front of the people before them.
In verse 7, the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin to
exalt you. I'll begin to lift you up, to
elevate you in the sight of all Israel that they may know, that
the people may know what that as God was with Moses, so I will be
with you. And As for you command the
priests who bear the ark, when you come to the brink of the
waters of Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.
See, Joshua's leading the people now, and the Spirit of God is on
him, that just as God is with Moses now, he is with Joshua.
And the Spirit is not only leading through the ark of the
covenant, He's leading through a leader in the people's life.
And the Spirit LED leader that you need in your life, the
Spirit LED leadership you need in your life is no different.
You need a Spirit LED leader, not a self LED leader in your
life. Self LED leaders, Here's the
Bible's word wording for it. They follow their flesh.
That just means they go at what they feel is best or what they
want most or what they're driven by where their instincts may go.
Sometimes that lines up with God teaches in His word.
Most the time it doesn't win. Some lose most with that kind of
category, right? The problem is with being a
spirit. Having spirit, excuse me, having
self LED leadership in your life is that inevitably that will
point you in the wrong direction.
For example, you're wrestling through a job offer and if you
were to get a self LED leader in your life telling you why or why
not you should take that job, you might be wondering to
yourself, hey, what are they going to say?
How they're going to advise me? And they might be considering
things that the Bible doesn't actually care about.
They might be worried way more about how it affects your
budget. They might be worried way more
about how it affects your status at work.
They might be consumed with, hey, guess what?
That makes you get to here so you can get to there.
The strategy of it, the Spirit LED leader in your life is going
to go, hey, how's that going to affect your marriage in your
home? Is that going to affect your
ability to be a father and a husband?
How is that going to affect your ability to be generous to the
Kingdom? How is that going to affect your
ability to be connected to a local church?
That's what a spirit LED leader considers because the spirit LED
leader considers what God has said matters most.
We all need spirit LED leadership in our life, myself
included. Every single one of us is in
desperate need of real, influential, powerful spiritual
leadership in our hearts because we make decisions every day
about how we're going to parent the kids, how we're going to
love our spouse, how we're going to navigate our dating lives,
our careers. We need spirit LED leadership.
Let me ask you this question, Is the leadership in your life
spirit LED or self LED? Is the advice you're getting for
the decisions you're making week in and week out?
Is it coming from God and His words that coming from somebody
who's just telling you what they think you want to hear?
There's a difference and it can be grave in consequence.
Don't take advice. Don't take spiritual advice from
self LED leaders. Is God with your marriage?
Is God with your parents? Is God with your most trusted
advisor? These are people you get counsel
from, but just because they have a role doesn't mean they should
have a voice. The advice that you're getting
spiritually has to come from people who are grounded and who
are rooted in God's Word. And that's, you know God is with
you because God is with you if you're receiving His words and
applying them to your life through His people.
In fact, that leads us to our Third Point.
One of the best ways to know that they're a spirit filled
person is our God's words with them.
Do they have what I'll call a scripture fed vocabulary?
They're not just a spirit LED leader, they are a scripture fed
talker. Their vocabulary, they're slang,
they're jargon. Is it biblical?
Does it come from the Bible? Is it scriptural?
Like do they feed their reality based on what God has said?
Look at the Bible with me in verse 9.
And Joshua said to the people of Israel, come here and listen to
the words of your living God. And Joshua said, here is how you
shall know that the living God is among you.
He's making it clear. Here's how you know.
He's putting a flashing light and saying, hey guys, tune into
verse 10. Here's how you know God is going
to be with you and that He will without fail drive out from you
a bunch of Ites, Canaanites, Hittites, Hittites, Perizzites,
Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites.
That seven types of people that the rest of the book of Joshua
they're going to conquer. Here's how you'll know before
you beat all these people. Behold verse 11.
The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing
over before you into the Jordan. God's presence is gone 1st and
you are now listening to his words, and you are trusting his
words and acting upon it. You listen to God.
Verse then verse 12 and 13, you're going to take 12 men and
appoint them for each tribe. Verse 13 And when the soles of
the feet of the priest bearing the ark of the Lord, Lord of all
the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters
of the Jordan are going to stop flowing.
He is going to part a river that is a football field wide and say
just walk across it on dry ground and they the waters
coming down from above shall stand in one heap.
God loves to keep His word. He is built different when it
comes to keeping His word. The sun doesn't get tired of
shining. A fountain doesn't get sick of
flowing. God doesn't get exhausted by
keeping His word. In fact, in Jeremiah it says
that He is watching over His word just so that He can perform
it. You might not be a good keeper
of your word. You might struggle to say
something over promise and undelivered.
Never God. Every promise He has made He
will fulfill. He will keep.
He is the promise keeping God. And so when our lives are built
around God's words, guess what? We have God with us because His
words stick with us wherever we go.
It's like He's with us because His words are with us.
That's how powerful His words are.
They never return empty or void. They always have an effect on
the situation. Every single time someone's
words sticking with you like that, it is a unique and fun
experience. I remember the power of
somebody's words. When I was a kid, I was the
oldest of four and at times I would go into the basement
because my brothers were playing NCAA Football 2008 and I wanted
a turn. And so I had my mom keeping a
clock and being the older brother, I had to listen to what
mom said. But it it was a fun moment being
the older brother when he went downstairs and you said, hey,
it's my turn. And what's the question every
sibling asks who said that? Right?
Who said, who said you get to have a turn?
Because if it's on your authority, it doesn't matter if
it's your words, Brandon, they're irrelevant.
But when I had that magical phrase behind me, Mom said it.
Mom said it's my turn. The whole conversation shifted
because her words, being with me, carried a different
authority, carried a different power, carried a different
confidence and comfort for my heart in that moment.
I think God's promises are intended to be the exact same
way for us, that there are promises all over this book
intended to comfort you, to give you confidence that God is
actually with you, that you have power in your life over sin.
You can have faith in the midst of fear.
You can have courage in the midst of hard work.
You have God with you, Christian.
His words are with you. So I'm going to give you 5 quick
promises that should stick with you this week.
OK, five quick promises. I'm going to give you the
references for them and read a few of them.
Isaiah 4110. So do not fear, for I am with
you. Do not be dismayed, for I am
your God. I will strengthen you and I will
help you. I will uphold you with my
righteous right hand. Do you have that promise on your
lips? Do you repeat it in your mind on
the moments where you feel like God has left you?
I am with you, do not be dismayed, I am your God.
Isaiah 4110, Second Peter 1/3 and four.
His divine power has granted to us all the things that pertain
to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called
us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has
granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that
through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.
Have escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of
sinful desire. Second, Peter 1/3 and four, we
have great and precious promises.
Deuteronomy 31 eight. It is the Lord God who goes
before you. Deuteronomy 31 Eight.
He will be with you. He will not leave you or forsake
you. Do not fear or be dismayed when
you're going into that moment, that hard conversation with your
mom. What are you going to say?
God is with me. I do not need to be afraid or be
dismayed. Romans 828 And we know that for
those who love God, all things work together for good.
For those who are called according to His purpose, God is
working out things on your eternal behalf.
Believer, this is all going somewhere good and planned and
perfect. Do you have Romans 828 on your
lips? First Corinthians 10/13?
No temptation is overtaking you. That is not common to man.
God is faithful. Listen to His promise, and He
will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape
that you may be able to endure it.
God is with you in the midst of temptation.
You're going to need to turn to Him for strength and power, but
you have a promise right there as a weapon to wield against the
ways of the world. Do you have a scripture fed
vocabulary in your life? You need promises to have that.
You got to talk Bible. You don't have to talk all weird
about it. You can be a normal person
talking about the Bible for sure, but are they in your bones
that when you're bumped is what spills out of you the scripture?
Finally, undeniable miracles. We have 4 signs today.
Lives set apart for God. Spirit LED leadership, Scripture
fed vocabulary. Finally, undeniable miracles.
Y'all, this is a miracle. And you might have heard this
story before. You might have glanced over in
your Bible plan. You might have never heard this
story. But rivers stopping from
flowing. I've never seen it.
Not just like a snap like that. And God spoke and it stopped.
That is a miracle and undeniable.
No explanation except there is something bigger, stronger, more
powerful than me that stopped that too big, too strong, too
powerful for a river to say no to it.
And that's God. That's a miracle.
I mean, this is a football field wide of a river.
And it stopped, verse 16, towards the end of the chapter,
the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a
heap very far away. Like they're looking down the,
the, the banks of the river Adam, a city that is besides
Aerithan. And they're looking downstream
and like, wow, the river stopped so far that a million people
could get across it. God did that.
And now the priest, verse 17, bearing the ark of the covenant,
stood firmly on dry ground, a place their feet shouldn't have
touched, a land that they should not possess was given to them
because God, who gets to decide where people get to go, made it
happen. They stood on dry ground in the
midst of the Jordan River, which is still there today.
And all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the
nation finished passing over the Jordan.
I want you to underline that word nation.
This is really interesting. I learned this this week in
study that even earlier in the chapter, if you look back at
verse 1 and 2, verse one, they came to the Jordan, he and all
the people of Israel. In verse 2, they're the people
of Israel and verse 17 to the nation of Israel.
This is the first time in all the Bible that they're called a
nation. This is so cool to me and here's
why. Because in Genesis chapter 12,
God promised that they would become a nation.
And up until this point, they've just been a people.
But the moment that they stepped out in faith, the moment that
they obeyed God, that they after wandering the desert for forever
and consecrating their lives, following their leader, actually
honoring him and obeying the words of God, guess what?
Now they are a nation. Israel is passing into the
Jordan, not as a people anymore, but as a fulfillment of God's
promise to their forefather Abraham.
They are now a nation, a great nation, a million people big,
and they're crossing over this river as a nation.
That is a miracle that we who are not a people are now a
people of God called a nation, a holy nation.
First Peter 2 calls the people of God the church.
Now that is us. We are a chosen race, decided
and handpicked by God to be the people of God wherever we go.
A nation waving the flag of Jesus Christ.
And that's why one of the reasons why we're called St.
City, or just one little outpost in this nation saying, hey, you
can come here and you can experience what life in the
Kingdom of God is like. You can experience what it's
like to be somebody who was not a person who lived for God.
And now you are set apart unto him.
You are a St. that you could Once Upon a time you lived a
life living for yourself and for the things of this world, self
LED, self reliant, self dependent, thinking that you
could get yourself to heaven. But there was a moment in your
life you realize Jesus Christ crossed the gates of death to
life for you so you could have eternal life.
And you now follow the leadership of Jesus Christ and
you're saying, hey, he's my new ark of the covenant.
He's the presence in my life that I need and I'm not going to
lead my life anymore. Jesus Christ is going to lead my
life. Not only that, you now have a
vocabulary that has totally changed because you live totally
different. God Himself has given you words
that shape your mind and your heart, and you are living for
Him. This is what it means to be a
part of the Holy nation. We have a tongue, we have a
language that we talk, and it comes from the Bible primarily.
And those are miracles is my point.
The gospel started in the Middle East and you are here right now
hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, that He came 2000 years
ago to die the death you should have died.
He paid for the death of your sin with His blood, with His
life, so that you could have eternal life with Him.
He's the better. Joshua is the whole point of the
book. That name Joshua, the name Jesus
comes from the same Hebrew name, Yeshua.
This is the Bible putting up for you with foreshadowing.
Hey, a better version of this is coming.
And his name is Jesus and he is still going to work wonders and
miracles in the world. St.
City's evidence of that. We're here today as an evidence
that God is still a wonder working God.
This time last year, 37 people were part of Saint City, 37
people who would just come and get in a coffee shop in the East
Valley and say, God, would you do more than this?
Would you meet with more people than us?
Would you shine your light in the darkness of Tempe and look
at us today? God is still doing miracles and
wonders. In fact, just during the meet
and greet just now, I'm hearing a story of somebody who's been
coming to our church since September and God has been at
work in him and changing his life.
In fact, he said God has changed my life completely.
God is still doing that. He's not done.
And if we want to see God continue to work wonders at
Saint City, guess what? We have to be these kinds of
people, people who are have lives set apart from him, who
are led by God's leaders, spirit LED filled leaders, spirit LED
leaders and who teach the Bible who we ourselves are.
People who are feed our souls with God's words.
We want God with us, St. City.
We don't want to be proud because guess what?
God opposes the proud. It's like playing football.
Sorry for sports analogy, Phil, you hate it.
It's literally like lining up against God and you're saying,
you know what? I can get past you offensive
lineman God, and I'm a 5 foot 9 nothing burger of an athlete.
He's going to oppose you. Because if we're proud as a
people, that's what God does. But he lifts up the humble.
So we're not going to rely on ourselves.
What are we going to do? We're going to expect God to be
God. We're not going to lower
expectations. We're going to ask God to still
move mountains, to still part rivers, to let miracles still
happen, to keep his good and precious promises for us.
And so I want to close with this for us today as an undeniable
wonder, undeniable miracle for us is I want to pray for God to
do 1 impossible thing together as a church.
In fact, I want you to right now be thinking in your mind, what's
1 impossible thing I want to see God do in 2026?
And we as a church are going to pray for that together in a
moment. What's the one impossible thing
that you have in your life? The one impossible person that
you're like, there is no way that person could know and love
Jesus or one impossible relationship that you're like,
man, there's never a chance that we could be reconciled that one
impossible thing because what's impossible with man is possible
with God. What's the one impossible thing
you're going to be asking God for in 2026?
Is it a victory over a sin pattern?
It's more than likely related to the prayer request.
You want to pray, by the way, either people or land, because
that's what's happening here. I'm praying.
My impossible prayer request for 2026 is that God would give us
land as a church family. I'm praying that and it's
impossible. Why?
Because I actually think it's impossible.
I actually believe that. But I also believe God is the
God of the impossible, that if he can give the people of
Israel, Canaan, he can give us real estate here in this
incredible city. Do I love this school?
Yes. Will we be at the school as long
as God blesses us? Of course.
But could God give us land? I'm going to pray for it.
So I want you to. I want you to do it if you can.
If you can get out of your seats, turn around and face your
chairs. I always want a moment as a
church where we pray and ask God for the impossible thing in our
life. Yeah, we're having a moment as a
church. Israel had a big moment crossing
the Jordan River. Thankfully, you don't have to
cross the river right now. You got to get up out of your
seat, turn around and pray. I want you to call to mind the
thing that's impossible this year, the miracle, the wonder
that you want to see God do in your life among you this year.
What is the wonder? What is the miracle that you're
asking Him for delivery? Delivery from a diagnosis.
Restoration of relationship, Provision of a prayer that
you've been praying for years but given up on.
Salvation of a friend. I'll let you sit with God for
just a moment in silence, and I'm gonna pray for us in just a
moment. God, here we are once again,
praying as your people for you to do impossible things.
You don't owe us anything else, we know that.
But you delight in doing the impossible, in demonstrating
just how good you are keeping your word.
Not even one promise of yours has failed.
Show us that you're strong. Show us that you're with us.
Show us that you're for us by answering these prayers.
God, would you pour out your grace upon this church, that as
we consecrate ourselves now, will you do wonders among us in
this next chapter at Saint City, Not just as a church, but as
individual people. God, we are crying out to you
with real prayers, real burdens, and for the person Even so beat
up by not seeing you answer the prayer, would they not lose
faith in this moment to pray once again for the impossible
thing? Because God, we can't count on
one thing, that God, you never fail, you've never missed a
promise, and you never will. So God, we worship you when we
ask in faith for you to give us what we're asking for.
And as the pastor of this church, I ask for the impossible
thing of land in 2026. God, I believe it.
Could you do it? Would you do it for your glory
and our good in Jesus name, Amen.