And The Walls Came Down

God has more for you and me than you can imagine. And that's not a big statement about abundance and the way that the world thinks about it. Financial wealth or getting ahead in life, it's about the fullness of life. It's about a free life. It's about a life knowing that God is greater than whatever circumstance you're in right now. and that he has a purpose and a plan for you. And that's where Joshua is going to take us today. If you have Scripture, I want us just to read the first few verses. And then I want to make a few observations. And we've got a long journey in Joshua. And if you don't know much about Joshua,

It's where the walls of Jericho came down, okay? So you remember that story. And Joshua's an interesting book, Moses has died. We're going to see that right in the first verse. And now it's time for the people of God to enter into the promise that God made all the way back to Abraham. And so we're going to see that. They're going to enter this land. The land is amazing, but it also has some challenges. They're going to see God overcome all the challenges. Then for a good chunk of the book of Joshua, they're going to divide up the land of the 12 tribes of Israel. Not the most exciting reading probably that you're ever going to read in Scripture, but it's important.

And then at the end of it, there's some incredible lessons as Joshua speaks to the people at the end of his life. And just walking in at the beginning, this is what we see. After the death of Moses, The servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of none, Moses aid. So this guy has been number two to Moses all of his life.

Moses, my servant, is dead. Now why do you have to say that? Because when Moses died, no one knew it. Moses led the people to the promised land, but Moses wasn't going in. That's a whole different story that you can backtrack and see. Because of Moses' act of disobedience in the wilderness, even though he was the man God chose to lead the people, he wasn't going to go into the promised land. But he could see it. The Lord took him up to a mountain. He saw the promised land, and then he died, and he was beloved by God, Moses, and it says in the scripture that God went and buried him somewhere, and no one even knew where it was.

And so now God is having to announce to Joshua, Moses is dead. Now then you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them, to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the great river the Euphrates, all the Hittite country, to the Mediterranean Sea in the West. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now I want to establish something from the outset today.

This is a word to the people of God. So this isn't a personal message from God to any one of us in this room today. Oh, God's going to give me a word in Joshua. This is God speaking to Joshua about the people of God. So this is a corporate word, okay? But in it, if we're in Christ and in the body of Christ, we can take hold of the promise of this as if God is speaking to us. So he's telling Joshua, I'm going to be with you. The same way I was with Moses, I'm going to be with you. And you can onboard that today as a son or a daughter of God into your story today.

There have been many, many times in my life when I've walked into a circumstance or into a situation and I've heard God saying to me, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

That's the heartbeat of what Josh was all about, and that's the promise today that you and I can take on for our lives. If you were at Trilleth last week, we sort of gave a little bit of a nod to this collection because we were taking new ground at Trilleth. We were moving into a new location that God has provided for Passion City Church on the south side, and it's been a miracle of God all along the way. And we talked about this verse in Deuteronomy chapter 1. And this is where I want us to begin today. This is the end of Moses' life. Deuteronomy is the story of the end of his life. It ends with him on Mount Nebo, but it begins with this incredible call to all of us today.

He says, see, I have given you this land. This is the promised land that Joshua is about to lead the people into. go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore, he would give to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them. And we talked last week at Trilleth, for sure, and now we're bringing the whole church on board to this idea that he says, go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore that he would give. So there's this tension going on, right? The Lord's promising to give this land, but he's saying to the people, go in and take the land. So which is it?

Is God giving it? Or are we supposed to go in and take it? And the answer is yes. God's giving it. but you have to take it. God's prepared a place for you, but you have to go live by faith into what God has given you in Christ. It's the difference between a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and the possessing of faith in Jesus Christ. There are a lot of people, if I can just cut to the heart of it, who raised their hand, who prayed a prayer, who came down to the front of a church, who filled out a membership card, who checked a box and said, yes, I want to put my faith in Jesus Christ.

I want to make a profession of faith, is the word that we use in the church. I grew up in Jesus Christ. And that's important that you profess faith in Jesus Christ. But that's not all there is to walking with Christ. The profession of faith leads to the possession of faith in Jesus Christ. Raising your hand, praying a prayer is the beginning. It's the first step. It's the door opening before you have saying, I'm aligning my life with the saving work of Jesus. I'm confessing with my mouth that Jesus is Lord. I'm believing in my heart that God has raised him from the dead. This is what the scripture says, he who confesses with their mouth, that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead, they will be saved.

That is the beginning of salvation, but it's not all of salvation. God's plan for you isn't to say, oh, when I was in high school at the summer camp, I prayed a prayer. That's how God's plan for you. One of the Sundays that passion said to the church, I raised my hand during the response time. That's not all of God's plan for you. God's plan is that you will profess faith in Jesus and that ultimately you will follow through and possess that faith in Christ, that you'll take hold of what God has promised to you. And it's a both end, it's the give and take of the gospel. It's knowing that we can't work enough to be saved, amen?

But we're saved to do good works that he prepared in advance that we should do. So if you're working towards salvation, that's not gonna work. But if you're saved and you're not working, that's not gonna work either. So if you're thinking your good deeds are gonna get you to God, that's not gonna work. But if you claim that you're in God and you're not doing good deeds, I wouldn't put too much confidence in whatever the decision was when you raised your hand. when you filled out that card. Is that okay if we can just say it that plainly today? Salvation is a living thing. It is a process and it begins with a profession of faith, but it ends with the possessing of faith.

And that's where we are. See. I have given you this land. I'm giving it to you. I'm the one who's giving you the land. Go in and take possession of the land, the Lord swore he would give to your fathers. And this is true for everyone in this gathering today. Jesus has done the work, finished the work on the cross, that you can live in a life that he described as an abundant life. And if you're not living in that today, it's not because he didn't give it to you, it's because you and I haven't possessed yet what God has given to us. Amen? I think the second big thing I want you to see, just for the backdrop of Joshua, why are we here?

Why is this word coming to Joshua now? And why is it 40 years later when God delivered the people of God out of Egypt now they're going into the promised land? In the bottom line, if you boil it all down, I believe, is fear. Moses, when he heard the word of God, I'm gonna set my people free. Amen. I'm gonna lead him to a land that's flowing with milk and honey. Moses ultimately sent out some explorers. We call them the 12 spies, but they're not called that in numbers. They're called the explorers. And Moses sends them out to look at the promised land. The Lord wants them to go and take a look at what he's promising to give them.

And this has got a big question in it that will answer in just a minute, but I want you to see this in Numbers chapter 13. The Lord said to Moses, send some men to explore the land of Cana, which I am giving, there's that word again, to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe, send one of its leaders. Now there were 12 tribes, so each of the 12 tribes sent someone and they were to go for 40 days and to check out this land that God was going to give them, and they did that. So let's just jump down to verse 26, but I want to encourage you to read all of number 13 and 14 at some point today or this week.

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh and the desert of Peron There they reported to them to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. Now, they brought back on a pole some grapes, they brought back some figs, some pomegranates, but they brought this one bunch of grapes and apparently it was so big that it was on a pole that two guys carried. So this was like some serious produce coming from this incredible land. And if you're out in the desert and somebody comes with a grapes that's big on a pole, you're like, wow, okay, that's where we need to be. They gave Moses this account.

We went into the land of which you sent us and it does indeed flow with milk and honey. Now we talked about this last week, milk and honey may or may not ring a bell for you, but for them it embodied everything that was good.

Here is its fruit. But the people who lived there, okay, so the fruits good, are powerful. And the cities are fortified in very large. We even saw descendants of Annac there. the Amalakites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, the Jebiusites, and the Amorites live in the Hill Country, and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan. Now, the sons of Anac will come to that in just a second. And then Caleb, who was one of the twelve who went into explore, silenced the people before Moses and said, we should go up and take possession of the land for we can certainly do it. But the men who'd gone up with him said, we can't attack these people, they're stronger than we are.

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said the land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there, who in the world are they? The descendants of Annak, there they are again, come from the Nephilim. We seem to like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we look the same to them. Now, you remember Goliath, right? The giant. He's one of the descendants of Annak. There were some giants living in this land. They'd come down as descendants from the Nephilim, and there were people who were nine feet tall, ten feet tall, eleven feet tall in this region.

And they said, we saw some of them. Some of the descendants are there. And when we saw them, we realized how tiny we were. And in our own eyes, we were like grasshoppers to them. And they thought we were like grasshoppers as well. And the word spread, and maybe you know the story, but two of the twelve, Caleb and Joshua believe God,

But 10 of the 12 spread a bad report. And all through the Israelite camp, the word was, we can't go there. We can't take that. The cities are fortified, and they're large. The people are huge. Yes, the produce is amazing, but we shouldn't mess with these guys. And that word went out through the camp. And when you go to number 14, It says that night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly said to them, if only we had died in Egypt. Exclamation point. or in this wilderness exclamation point, why is the Lord bringing us to this land, the promised land, only to let us fall by the sword?

Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to each other, can you imagine this? They're on the brink of God's promise. They're just a journey. away from stepping into what God had promised to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. Here it is, guys, I'm giving you this land, and here is their conclusion. They said to each other, we should choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Fear is why we're here. And God wants to extinguish

Whatever fear. is holding you back today from fully trusting him and obeying him. They thought these people are bigger than us. These cities are stronger than us, and they are greater than us, and if we step in, we will be consumed. And at the end of the day, they said, we'd rather go back to the comfort of our bondage. than to take a risk and trust God into the future that He has promised. Is that a word for anybody in this gathering today? It's gotten kind of quiet as we're just a few steps into Joshua, but is that a word for anybody today? How the enemy tempts us to think, I know what it was like back in my bondage That's a known commodity to me and I would rather go back to what I know even though it was terrible than to take a step with God into what I don't know

Because that sounds risky and that sounds scary and that sounds like the future and that sounds unknown and like I'm taking a chance with God. And God is saying again today as I was with Moses, I will be with you. So take a step. Take a step, go forward in faith today into what I promised you. It's interesting. They said, you know, we look like grasshoppers in their eyes,

And we look like grasshoppers in ours. They thought we were grasshoppers, and we thought we were grasshoppers. We didn't think we could do it, and I'm sure they didn't think we could do it either. And it's interesting, when they finally did step over the river into the promised land, Joshua did senspize out to Jericho. And he sent people out to go and survey the city. And they did. And they ended up meeting Rahab in the city, and that became a divine connection. We'll talk about that in the weeks ahead. But I want you to notice what she said.

She said to them, before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, I know this is someone in the promised land in Jericho hearing about the fact that the Israelites are coming. I know that the Lord has given you this land. and that a great fear of you has fallen on us so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you. Do you remember that? When that happened, okay, great miracle when you came out of Egypt. And what you did to Shion and Og, there were two kings that were defeated on the east side of the Jordan River.

The two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone's courage failed because of you. Not really because of you, notice. For the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. and then she goes on to say, show kindness to me and my family when you come here. Do you understand what's happening? The spies 40 years ago came into this land and thought, oh my gosh, they're way bigger than us and way stronger than us. And now we're filled with fear, but the people in the land heard that God dried up the sea so that they could be delivered from Egypt and they were afraid already of the people of God.

So is it possible today that you and I are paralyzed by fear from stepping into the promise, but the enemy in the promise land already knows that your God is God. He already knows not that you are God, but that your God is God. And we're like, I can't do it. And he's like, man, I hope you don't step in here because I know God can do it.

I hope you don't come in and take what God has given you, because if you take it, you're gonna be taking it from me, the enemy, and I hope that you don't do that. I hope that you don't come and take what God has given to you and inheritance to your children and your grandchildren. I hope you don't take a sound mind. I hope that you don't take a peaceful heart. I hope you don't take confidence in God because those are all the tools I'm using to keep you down.

I hope you don't do that because if you do, I'm done. because I know who your God is. And I know that your God is great. Joshua, who God is choosing now to lead the people, he feared God. In Exodus 33, we had that incredible moment where Moses went out to the tent of meeting Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away calling it the tent of meeting and anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And listen to this. And whenever Moses, this is Exodus 33, when out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrance of their tent.

So everyone in the camp would see Moses go out to the tent. And when he would go to the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance while the Lord spoke with Moses. And whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, they all stood and worshiped each at the entrance of their tent. Can you imagine this moment? God's coming down in this cloud. He's meeting with Moses in the cloud. He's speaking with Moses like, oh man, speaks to his friend, the scripture says. And the Lord would speak to him face to face as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses, look at this, would return to the camp.

Moses had to lead the people. But his young aide, Joshua, son of an un, man, none is very happy about all this, by the way. Make your dad proud. Make your dad proud. Do the kind of things and live the kind of life and be the kind of person that they can say, this guy right here, he's the son of none. And none goes, woo, thank you so much. Not, oh my word. Have you seen none, son?

It goes both ways. Joshua did not leave the tent. Joshua was raised in the fear of the Lord. He was raised captivated by the glory of God. He knew what it was like when the cloud came down on the tent. And God spoke to Moses like a man speaks to a friend. And it made such an impression on him when he was sent out to explore the land for 40 days to look across this land. And he saw the nine foot tall guy. He was like, yeah, you're like nine feet tall. Bro, you should have been there when the pillar of cloud came down on the tent.

And one of the other explorers says, man, these guys are huge. These towns are fortified and he's like, oh, our God is huge. And our God is mighty to save. And Joshua and Caleb were consumed with the fear of God. Well, these 10 other guys, and I'm not throwing shade on them because I haven't gotten it right every step of the journey in my life either. I've been at a place and a cross road in life where fear paralyzed me from taking a step into God's promise for my life. So I'm not throwing shade on the other 10 guys. I'm just saying I want to be a Caleb in a Joshua. It says in that same text at number 13 and 14 that Caleb had a different spirit.

And don't you want to be the person who's described like that? She had a different spirit. Everybody else had the spirit of fear of man. She had the spirit of the fear of God. Everybody else had the spirit of the fear of what man could do. She had the

Spirit of the fear of God Almighty. and what he could do in life. The third thing I want you to see in this and it's kind of parallel this idea that your view of you and others view of you needs to be resized by God's view of you

And God's word to you. In Exodus 3 is when God called Moses and we've talked about this at Passion so many different times. This is it right here. And the Lord said to Moses when he was out there with the sheep in Midian. He said, I've indeed, look at what God is saying. See the misery of my people in Egypt. I, there's a lot of eyes in this. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good, say it with me, into a what?

Good and what? Spacious land flowing with Come on, come on, Crowder, we hear you today, flowing with milk and honey. Now you might be going, I'm lactose intolerant, and I don't know if I want to go there.

I'm just saying that tongue in cheek, obviously. But we're living in a new day, right? You're like, I don't know, what kind of milk they got there? I got almond milk there.

It's the honey, local honey. I like my honey and a little bear squeezing thing. Is it farm to table, honey?

Don't get tripped up on the milk and honey. It's a land of abundance. And we're going to see as we journey through this collection, it's a land of rest. It's a land where you can lay down and sleep at night knowing God's God, me.

It's also a home, sadly, to the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parazites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Not great. All these people are not great. The people are fine, but they're warriors. They don't serve God. They don't honor God. They're not worshipping Yahweh. They have idols and they're fierce. So God's letting them know right away. It's a good and spacious land flowing with milk and honey, and there's some challenges there. But I'm gonna give it to you.

And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So Moses, you go. Now I am sending you to Pharaoh, the most powerful person on earth to bring my people to Israelites out of Egypt. And Moses said to God, after all of that, who am I?

Who am I? What? Pharaoh? Me? Who am I? Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And you know, God's kinda like, I don't know. I think I just said, I've seen, I have heard, I'm concerned, I've come down, I'm choosing you, I am going to do this. But Moses missed all that and said, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? And I want you to look at the pep talk God gave him. And God said, I will be with you. Isn't that awesome? He didn't say, you know, come on Moses, I'm gonna send you to this self improvement program. I'm gonna pay for it.

It's 12 sessions. You'll go there. You can get them online if you don't wanna go. And you'll listen to those and then when you get through with those 12 things, you'll be ready to run through a wall. You'll be like, I am Moses and I am somebody bad. Look out, here I come.

He doesn't put his arm around him and say, come on buddy, you can do it. He goes, I'm sorry, I will be with you. the end. The end.

So when you and I take stock of our inability, that's okay and that's good thing. Being self-aware is helpful in life, amen? But when you take stock and say, I can't do this. I can't change the destiny of my family. I can't break this generational curse. I can't be different than my dad or my mom. I can't be a different kind of person than my family shaped me to be, or overcome the circumstances that I grew up in. That's okay. To say that I can't do this, I'm not able. I don't have what it takes. I'm not enough. That's okay. Be honest. But put a comma there and go, but you are.

I can't do this, but you can. I can't make it through this situation, but you can. And I know that you will. If you're calling me to it, you're gonna do it. Faithful is he who calls you. He also will do it.

And what God is wanting to say as we step into Joshua and into this thought of abundance and promise and what God wants to set you free to live in, is that when you come to realize I'm not enough, you have to be able to say, but God is enough. I heard someone say recently that when you buy in to what others say about you, it's like buying a stock.

You own it. And when it's up, things are good. But when it changes and goes south, you go south with it.

And God is wanting to free you today from the opinions of other people, even if you made up the opinion in your mind, because the opinion of the people in the Promised Land wasn't that they were grasshoppers, their opinion was, their God is God in heaven and he is God on this earth. And our hearts are melting with the thought that that same God is gonna lead them to take our cities and to take our land. But when you buy into your thinking about what people say, or you buy into what they actually did say about you, you own that stock. And when it goes up, you go up. But when it goes down, you go down with it.

And God is saying today, buy into what I have said about you. And buy into what I have spoken to you about your life. Buy into that. and let that be the guide of your story. Caleb and Joshua. Anybody know a Caleb, by the way, Brad? You know a Caleb? Got one in your house. Anybody know a Caleb? It's your hands. I don't know for real. Anybody know a Caleb? Anybody know a Joshua? Maybe you call him Josh. Yeah, few. Does anybody know a, and I know if we were in the Middle East, it might be different. This is probably not a fair Q&A. Anybody know a Shamuah?

Chamberlain? Trillis, coming through for us? No, okay. Anybody know what Shafat? I just call him Shah. What's up, bro? Does anybody know Egal?

Pultie? Oh, you're scratching your nose, okay? Sorry. Gadile? Gadile? Emile? Cether, Nabi, Nabi. Again, no shade.

Gheel. No. There's 10 guys. They all saw the same land as Joshua and Caleb. You don't know anybody named after them

Because they were more concerned with what they thought, people thought about them than they were with what God had spoken to them.

Before we get too far in Joshua, I want us to see number four that obedience is better than sacrifice.

In verse six of chapter one, God says to Joshua, be strong and courageous. This is one of the verses that maybe you've memorized from Joshua from way back in your journey with God. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land. I swore to their ancestors to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you. Be careful too. Can you say it with me to what? obey. Be careful to do what? To obey. All the law, all the law, my servant Moses gave to you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful wherever you go.

Keep this book of the law always on your lips, meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Here's the underlining, thought again, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Be careful to obey all the law. It's interesting that if you go and just go and Google it, and look at the journey the Israelites went on when they were delivered out of Egypt and they went into what is now Saudi Arabia, and they're out in a desert for 40 years.

Part of the place they went through is actually called the wilderness of sin. Not sin as though I disobeyed God, but that was just the name of it. They're going through the wilderness of Sin. Why? Because they weren't willing to obey what God had said. When he said, go in, look at the land, and then go into the land. Now, you know, going back to that question, why did God send the 12 explorers into the land? Why didn't he just say to Moses, hey, tomorrow, go in? Why did he say Sin 12 guys in and then take a vote? because he wanted to know if they were willing to participate in faith and by faith in the promise of God.

And he wants to know that from you today. So he's not just going to come with a silver platter and say, here it all is. He wants to know if you believe what He has said to you. If I believe what He's spoken to me and if I believe it enough that even though it looks like there are some challenges there, I'm going to take a step and I'm going to go into what God has promised me. Why? Because God wants us to trust and how do we trust Him by obeying Him?

That's how you trust God. You don't trust God by coming to church and singing a full-throated emotional worship moment. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. But that's not what God's after today. Come in and sing me a big song. You get 10,000 times 10,000 angels around him right now.

What he's asking of you and me is do you trust me enough to obey me? That is worship. Amen? That is what honors God. And some of us, like these ten people that none of us have ever heard of, are asking God for clarity. I just need some clarity. And God is like, no, you don't need clarity, you need courage.

Be strong and courageous. Why? Because Joshua didn't need clarity. Go in, cross the Jordan and take the land. Take possession of what I've given you. That's the clarity. So he didn't need 12 guys to huddle up and go, Lord, we just need a word. No, I'm giving you a word. Take the land. What you need now isn't clarity, you need courage, and sometimes we get those mixed up. Some of you do need clarity today, and there's nothing wrong with coming to God and saying, I have a decision, I need wisdom, I need clarity. There's nothing wrong with that. But a lot of us in church today already have all the clarity we need. We just need the courage to do what God has invited us to do.

And to remember that sin is not just when I do something wrong, sin is when I don't do what is right.

James said to the person who knows what is right to do and doesn't do it to him, it is sin. So if you know God's called you to the land and you know He's called you to promise and you don't walk into that promise, you're in the wilderness of sin.

Got to wrap up a few thoughts, but I want you to see and know about your life today that God keeps His promises. All the way back to Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, God spoke to Abraham and said, I want you to leave this land. I'm going to lead you to a new land. And on this day that we're standing in right now where God says, Moses is dead, Joshua, and you're my guy, you're going to lead these people into the promised land. He's fulfilling something that he's spoken to Abraham in the 12th chapter of the Word of God. This is the moment. So if it looks like in your story today that God isn't in it anymore, I'm here today to encourage you and remind you that God's promise for your life if you're breathing today is not null and void.

God is still on the scene and He still has a plan for you, amen? He still has a plan for you. If you fast forward to the end of Joshua, Joshua was speaking to the people and look at what he says. So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it. See, there it is again. He swore to give it. They took possession. Do you see how this is going to happen as we play out this collection?

And they settled there. The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he'd sworn to their ancestors to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob. He'd been saying this for centuries. Not one of their enemies would stood them. The Lord gave all their enemies into their hands, not one of all the Lord's good promises to the Israel

Failed. Everyone was fulfilled. I just want to remind you that God has got a plan for you. And maybe you didn't come from a lineage of faith. I know everybody in this room did not come from a place of faith. But many of you did. How many of you could say to them? My grandmother was a woman of faith.

Thank you, people raising their hand. Beautiful, isn't that amazing? How many of you believe she prayed for you?

How many of you believe that she called on heaven for you? No, you don't have to keep raising your hand, but thank you.

My mom was a woman of faith. Even toward the end of her life, her

Bath was her altar. She'd get in that tub and she had her spiral notebook. Anybody had all the names of the women that she'd met in a ministry in town that she works with who were coming out of human trafficking. She had all their names written in her spiral notebook.

And she prayed for them every night in her tub. Who knows? She might have prayed for some of y'all. She had a lot of names in there. Not that you were coming out of human trafficking. That was just one page. If she met you at Passion City Church and you told her about your situation, your name went that spiral notebook. I know my name was in there.

Yeah, man, I wish I had had a grandma like that or a mom like that. My mom was a wreck. My grandmother, I don't know.

Well, the scripture says that Jesus intercedes for us. And the Spirit of God prays when we don't know what words to pray. You've been being prayed for since the moment God created you and your mother's womb. And you've been spoken to you by this precious word of God

Since the very moment you could understand it. And there is a promise over your life. And the enemy today is saying to you, not you, no promise land for you. And God is saying, the promise is still good because I keep my word. You're like, yeah, but you don't know what just happened. No, I do know what happened. You don't know what they said. You don't know what decision was made. You don't know what circumstance I mean. You don't know what I'm up against. You don't know what I've been through. And he's like, I know

That even if you've been 40 years wandering in a desert, I still can cause you in faith to take a step into the promised land that I have for you.

And here's the biggest news of all. I'm sorry, I'm a little bit out of time, way out of town. But here's the biggest news of all. And I want to see this so that as we go forward next week into this collection, we'll all be on the same page. Here's the big story today. You are not Joshua in the book of Joshua. So you don't have to think today, oh man, I gotta go in and take Jericho. I've gotta go in and conquer all these cities. I've gotta go in and possess this land. And I don't know if I can really do that. Here's the big story in the most amazing thing. I think the most powerful word.

Maybe in the book of Joshua is at the header in my Bible when it says Joshua. That's probably the best word in Joshua is Joshua. Can we just say Joshua together? Joshua. The best word in the book of Joshua. His name was Hoshua, Hoshua, which means salvation. Awesome, but Moses changed it to Joshua, because he wanted him to know you're not salvation. I'm changing your name from Hoshua to Joshua,

Because Joshua, slightly different meaning than Hoshua, which means salvation, Joshua means Yahweh, is salvation. Hello? Isn't that awesome? So Moses is dead. It's your time. You're going to need the people. You're going to possess the land. You're going to be the one to fulfill the promise. Oh, by the way, I need you to know that your name is God saves. Yahweh saves. I want you to take the step. I want you to trust me. I want you to move today, okay? But I want you to know as you move today that it's not you, who is the star of the show in Joshua, you don't have to go in March around Jericho. Jesus is telling you I already did that.

My faith, you have to step into what Jesus has already done. Jesus is Joshua in the book of Joshua. Jesus is the star of this story that we are reading. And Joshua means Yahweh is salvation. And it is where we get the word Yeshua, which is Jesus. who is the deliverer of God and as God and Jesus is God. He is salvation. He is the one who saves. He is the one who delivers. And when you and I take hold of that and trust and obey Him, guess what? We can leave the rest to Him.

Did you see that play on words? Josh was all about rest. That's what he said at the end. Rest on this side, rest on that side, rest from these enemies, rest from those enemies. Isn't that what you want today more than anything else is to lay down in your bed tonight to rise up and walk into your day tomorrow with rest? What kind of rest? Like I'm asleep? No. The rest of knowing that Yahweh is salvation. Jesus is my deliverer. Jesus has already taken the land and already conquered every fear that I'm gonna face today. Jesus has already done it all. I just have to trust him and obey him. Trust him and take a step of faith.

Trust him and align my life in my actions with who he is and what he has said. And when I do that, I can leave all the rest to him.

It may work out in my favor in this life and it might not if I trust and obey Him, but I'll tell you what. It's going to work out ultimately if I trust and obey Him. And that's where my rest comes from.