Expansion Destroys Fear | Frank Castrejon

Hallelujah. We just thank you, Lord.

We thank you God for what you are continuing to

do in our minds today and in our hearts. Lord,

I pray that there is a transformation, even radical transformations.

God of the mind today, Jesus, Father, renew it, renew it,

renew it. And Lord, I thank you God. We we

give you our hearts today.

Father.

Uh, I know that you are the only one who

we can trust with our heart. And so God, I

pray that you would you would continue to mend the

hearts of the people, to continue to encourage the hearts

of the people today through this word in Jesus's name. Amen, Amen, Amen.

All right, Wow, there's a big topic for me. It's

a big topic for me. Uh. The Lord gave me

this word while I was having a conversation with Pastor Duane.

Shout out to Pastor Dwayne. If he's out there listening,

I know he probably is. We love you, Pastor. This

is something that that has been kind of been downloaded

to me, and I think part of it is because

the scriptures that pertain to the to the Word also

have been very changing and transforming for my own life

and have led me to where I'm at and so

this is like a very near and dear subject, right

because I think I'm I don't know, I just I'm

so passionate about this word expansion. Maybe maybe you guys

can catch it this this this day, let's put up

the title expansion Destroys Fear.

And Joshua Chapter one.

Moses had died and he left Joshua basically as the leader.

He was his assistant. And so we're going to start

reading the word at verse three Joshua chapter one, Verse three.

Every place that.

Just keep going as I'm done, Just keep going, every

place that the sole of your foot will tread upon.

I have given you, as I said to Moses, from

the wilderness, and this Lebanon, as far as the Great

River and the River Euphrates, all of the land of

the hit Sites, and also the Great Sea towards the

going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No

man shall be able to stand before you all the

days of your life as I was with Moses. So

I will be with you. I will not leave you

nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage. Say,

be strong and of good courage, For to this people

you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I

swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong

and very courageous, that you may observe to do according

to the law which Moses, my servant commanded. You do

not turn from it to the right hand or to

the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.

This book of the Law.

Shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate

in it day and night, and that you may observe

to do according to all that it is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then

you will have good success. Have I not commanded you

be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid

nor dismayed, For the Lord, your God is with you

wherever you go. At the beginning in Genesis, you know,

he says that you should fill the earth and subdue it.

He gives a command to mankind. Amen.

Okay, so we're gonna go with this thing in mind.

Expansion destroys fear. He told him three times to be

strong and courageous. Do you think that someone who's having

this conversation with somebody else maybe know something about Joshua,

that perhaps maybe he's a little bit afraid that maybe

he needs a little bit of encouragement. So he had

been walking around a mountain in the wilderness for forty

years with a lot of disobedient people that were just

slowly dying off, slowly dying off. He was living among

a people who were just trickling down right because God

said that they would not enter into that promised land

because of their disobedience, because they feared the inhabitants of

the promised land. They feared what was coming, they feared confrontation,

and God didn't appreciate their lack of trust in him

because it was God who gave the command. It was

God who was leading. It was God who would go

before them and not leave them or forsake them.

Amen.

Okay, let's let's see when we need to be courageous

and strong in this in this uh, in these verses

in verse six and verse seven and verse nine, there

is definitely lack in what Joshua may be feeling, or

doubts may be swimming around in his head, or maybe

there's even outside sources that are telling him that you know,

you are you sure this is what you're going what

you're going to want to do? And what I mean

by that is it could be the voice of the

enemy coming against him. You know, it's not just his

own inWORD man speaking. It could also be the voice

of the enemy coming against the word of God. Right,

And I want us to apply this to our own lives. Okay,

this is why it's been taught. I want to apply

it to our own lives, individually and corporately. Okay, all right.

So in the middle of each moment where God asked

Joshua to be strong, he shows him when he will

need strength. Right, I said that the first one is

about provision. The first time that he speaks to him,

God actually reveals to him I will provide something that Joshua,

you cannot or will never produce for the people of

Israel on your own. In other words, God brings provision,

the provision of the land which Joshua had never known.

Joshua was born in slavery. Joshua was in the wilderness

all of his life, so he never owned a piece

of land. He never was a homeowner. He was probably

the most unqualified person to parcel out land that he

has never experienced in his old entire life. So the

most unqualified of people are being asked to be the

ones to parcel out and divide land for over two

million people. Wow, that's a I'm gonna need some strength

and courage. I don't know about you. I'm going to

need strength and courage for him, you know.

But you know he tells him.

He's like, I'm going to I'm going to give you

that strength and that courage so that that way you

can divide it to this great peace people.

Amen.

So number one is provision number two. The second time,

God tells him that he will need to be strong

and take courage and when he needs to honor the

word of God, who was that was handed down by

his servant Moses. How well are we honoring the word of.

The people of God? Right?

How well do we honor up to the next generation.

You need strength and courage to be able to trust

that they want what is best for you, that they

are leading you and directing you in the right direction.

You need to have courage and strength, and God provides it. Amen,

this is what he's saying you must have, and this

is for us. You must have conviction that this is

ultimate truth in our generation. You must be fully convinced

that this gospel that we teach and we preach is

the ultimate truth. You need strength to uphold it as

ultimate truth, and you're going to need courage to live

it out. That's why he says, do not depart from

it to the left or to the right, but do

everything that is written in it, and then you will

have good Successah. Finally, the third time that he tells him,

he says, you will need strength and courage when you

feel fear and dismay. The answer to fear and dismay

is the knowing that God will never leave you.

Nor forsake you, and that He will be with.

You wherever you go.

That's the word.

Yeah, the elimination of fear is what we're after. Fear

of the unknown, fear of lack, fear of uncertainty, the

fear of challenges and distractions which so easily can ensnare

us right, the unknown. Fear of the unknown might be

the most triggering thing of your imagination. Then you might

know you might get most imaginative with the fear of

the unknown then than any other time in your life. Yeah,

you start to get really creative with what with with

what might happen that hasn't even taken place. Yet I

can only imagine exactly what those people, when they were fearing,

were actually thinking. Man, I'm about to get torn to

pieces from those giants. They're gonna cook me and they're

gonna eat me. Instead of going like Joshua and Caleb,

these people are our bread. Come on, he prepares a

meal for you in the presence of your enemies. He

sets a whole table. Will the enemy be your bread? See,

Joshua received strength and courage simultaneously. When the command came,

he had already obtained it on this side of the Jordan,

in the desert, in the wilderness. However, Joshua did not

experience this until he crosses the Jordan. So God waits

for the ark to go before him to stop the

waters all the way to the city of Adam, right

where Man ends, God begins come.

That's Kye.

So God takes them through that river and they walk

on the other side, and when there's these great walls

in front of him, he goes, Okay, I have no

idea how I'm gonna get past these walls.

But God knows He's with us. Amen.

So it was during the expansion time that Israel. It

was the through the expansion of Israel, that Joshua experiences

victory and the conquest over fear.

See, there's a there's a there is.

A victory, and then there's victories.

After the first one.

So you first conquer it a little out of time,

step by step, city by city, nation by nation, people

by people. Right, fill the earth and subdue. It is

what we're commanded to do. It is in our dna,

it is our makeup, and as the children of God,

it is it is the kingdom of Heaven that we

want brought down right. So something that he told me. Actually,

also as I was thinking about today, we oftentimes speak

about God's will being done on earth as it is

in heaven. But it happens after you begin conquering fear

and moving into the promises of God for your life.

You bring about His will through your actions. As you

discover the will of God in prayer, your life begins

to reflect that you understand that will by what you

do next true true. So he takes that step, and

he goes across the river, and they take Jericho and

all of the enemies in the surrounding region. No, yeah,

this is what and they say this, this is what

Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai Wow, and they

greatly feared. Oh God, I think an excuse me if

this is going to sound a little bit you know,

too manly or whatever you know, but it is what

it is, Kay.

Listen.

A man can only know what it's like to win

when he engages in combat or competition. David only knew

how to kill a giant through the experience of fighting

a giant. I think sometimes we get so afraid to

move forward because of the fear of the unknown, rather

than using the fear of staying exactly as you are

to propel you into the direction that God has carved

out before you. When he shows you the promise of

things to come. It is not our job to respond with.

What if good? What if you don't provide? What? What

if the enemy defeats me? What if.

You know?

What if you're not there with me?

We need that exact fear of staying and exactly as

we are to propel us into killing that which is

in front of us. Right, And it says, and here's

the thing about the word. They stayed for forty days

in that valley, looking fear in the face and being

completely stopped an entire army of men who were backed

by God. They said that it was the army of

the Lord was completely stopped in fear, and that fear

never departed until after that giant was overcome. Then they

all charged into combat and battle. But it takes faithful

action forward by even just one man of God. Imagine

an army of God who would take a step forward

in what God has called them to do, to fill

the earth and subdue it, to edenize the world, to

establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, to expand beyond

what we think we are able to even do on

our own. So we have a church, now we're expanding it.

So it's growing, why because we need it for capacity.

What happens when that one grows too big? Come on,

come on. It's one conquest after the next until we

fill up this earth and sub it until every single

place looks like light and glory. We grow so that

God can continue to pour in more glory, so that

he can continue to fill it with more presence, so

that he can continue to draw in the loss, or

draw in the believer, so that they can come here

and learn the word of God, so that they can

be activated into the promises of God, so that they

can be taught and brought and sent out into the

pilot gad station, into Uganda, into Texas, into the prisons,

and pulling out that which the enemy thought that he had,

and driving them from darkness into God's marvelous light. And

we can only do that through expanse. This has been

the whole entire process of God from the very beginning.

Do you know when he said to tend and to

keep it, he was actually expanding, eat it. It continued

to grow and to flourish. After the curse came, he said,

he said, lets the wilderness overtake you, you know, so

that way you can grow outward. You can grow outward.

The intention is to grow in numbers, to feel it

and subdue it. This applies to our own personal ministry expressions.

This applies to what you do in your every day life.

This applies to what you do in volunteering here. This

applies to you in what the Lord has called you

to do. As far as apostolic leadership in business, you know,

there's a bunch of people of you who are in business,

who owned businesses. And guess what if you know that

that's your call and you know that that's part of

you building the Kingdom of God. Then expand thedn't grow.

That's good.

Be more afraid to stay the same. I love it.

Be more afraid to stay the same because we preach

a gospel that is continued all the time. It is

always moving, it's always it's always changing us, transforming us.

Right.

He's the foundation. Right, He's the cornerstone of our of

our faith. Jesus is right. And we never expect Christians

to stay exactly as they came in. We never expect

that people say, come as you are, but allow God

to transform you into he has called you to be.

Don't come as you are and stay as you are.

That don't work. Wow? Yeah, Yes, stay humble, Yes, stay contrite, Yes,

stay stay raw in your heart for the Lord. Yes,

stay stay in that posture of gratitude.

Yes, stay in those things. Everything else though.

Okay, let's push those weeds out. Yeah, let's let's plant

a new garden, let's lay a new foundation, let's scrow. Aymen,

I'm preaching today. I don't know about you, guys. I

feel like I'm preaching today.

H Mmmm.

Okay, let's go to let's let's use Zerubbyl as another

example of this, because he was a man that had

to expand something that he was coming up up against

a whole bunch of opposition, and I got to hurry up,

come on, let's do this, okay. So let's see ZERUBBYL

was building and constructing the Second Temple after they destroyed

the Temple of Solomon, after the Babylonians came, they leveled

it out, and everything happened.

Then Cyrus comes in, he freezes the Jews.

Then Zerubbyl is now in play, Neamiah is now in play,

Ezra's now in play, and they are going to start

to rebuild the temple. But then say but then the

naysayers show up, the complainers that live in the surrounding area,

and they're like.

You can't build that temple.

Then the harassments show up. Oh, we're going to fight

you over that. You guys got to stop building. And

then the worst come out of all that group. The

worst show up, say the lawyers. I'm sorry, if there's

a lawyer in the building, they're redeemable to They're redeemable to. Hallylujah.

We love our lawyers. They're the ones that are going

to fight the fights that we need them to fight.

Amen. Amen, Amen.

After a while, they simply grew weary, and then they

started to build their own homes. They started to build

up their own lives, and then they forget to build

the House of the Lord. For ten years, it's.

Just just sitting.

House of the Lord's just sitting. You know, we face

obstacles here too. They faced obstacles. They had to cast

out basically numbers of demons just to get this church

Bill Pastor Dwayne and Joel and the people that were

with him. So hallelujah, Amen. Giants had the fall just

for this place. We face challenges now expanding it, just

like Rubable did. He faced challenges trying to just get

that foundation finished. But here's the word of the Lord.

For now and for then, let's go to Zachariah four

six through ten. So he answered and said to me,

this is the word of the Lord, tis Rubabyle, not

by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says

the Lord of Hosts, who are you, o great mountain

before zerubebyl you shall become a plain, and he shall

bring forth the capstones with shouts of grace.

Grace.

Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

the hands of Zerubabyl have laid the foundation of this temple.

His hands shall also finish it. Then you will know

that the Lord of Hosts has set me to you,

for who has despised the day of small things. We

have small beginnings, even for the size that we are.

We have small beginnings. We have to look up and

look further, and look bigger than this place. We have

to broaden our vision. We can go further than Jericho

and Ai. Yeah, for these seven rejoice to see the

plumb line in the hand of Zerubabyl. They are the

eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout

the whole.

What earth, Come.

On, we are we are, We have set people out,

we have we have been into other countries, into other

cities in the United States. Here right, we're going into

dark places and bringing light. But this is expansion season.

I think this is the word of the Lord for

this season, is that it's an expansion season. Amount of time.

Mm hm hmmm. Let's let's shout grace to some things

you ready, black ops to goals, difficulties, naysayers, opposition lawyers,

the unknown, the enemy's lies, fear, grace, grace, hallelujah.

Come on, let's stand up. Let's pray.

Father, We thank you for today. We thank you for

your word.

God.

Lord, I pray that everyone received this personal invitation God

to shot, grace, to.

The mountain that stands before them.

God in the personal, in the family area, God in

the finances area of God, in the area of business.

Lord, in the area of ministry. God.

I pray that there's new ministers, even being birth right.

Now Lord, impart it to them. God, give them a

new vision. Lord. Let their eyes see how far you

can take them and how fear has no place in them,

for your presence goes with them. Lord, a thank you.

We bless your holy name. Lord in Jesus, might nay amen.