Stop Letting Your Mind Drive

Because in order for God to bring something new, he

has to disrupt something normal. When I was saying position

for a miracle, I can almost feel you shouting through

the screen. You're like, yes, Lord, pay it off, take

it away, do it God. But this passage is going

to show us a different way to look at it,

that as we're coming into one new thing, we're leaving another.

And I want to read the scripture to you.

Starting in verse one, it says, early in the morning,

Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shitam. That's

a long eye. Stop playing pastor, appreciate the worth. Let

me start over. Y'all know I love you. Right early

in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out

from Shitam. So they're going somewhere. Somebody say, I'm going somewhere.

I'm going somewhere.

Say it in the chat, say it in the comments.

I'm going somewhere. I'm going somewhere. I'm going somewhere. I'm

going somewhere. God's hand is on me. I'm going somewhere.

God is taking me somewhere. God has not left me.

God will not forsake me, God will not abandon me.

God will let me see the kay.

He will never leave the righteous forsaken or see begging

for Brad. God will feed me and lead me and

guide me and protect me. He said he would, He

promised he would. That's what he does.

Okay.

This God is our God, forever and ever. He will

be our guide, even to the end. Holly was preaching

the other day on Facebook. She said, we want God

to be our ride, but God said he would be

our guide. And I was like, girl, that doctor susse

annoying looks sexy on you. That is so good because

we want God to be like an uber, like Hey,

I'm gonna get back here, and I don't want to

talk to you. I just want you to take me here. Now,

here's where I want to go. I want, I want

a new job. I want I want my wife to

start respecting me. I want my kids to get straight

a's A plus. Why not just go for it? God,

get him into Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Harvard undergrad and Yale

for the doctor God, And we want God to just

get us there. But we're going to see something today

about when God says stop okay, And one thing we

need to stop doing is looking at God. As a

means and starts seeing that He is the end his presence,

to know him, to be strengthened by him. And even

though I'm going somewhere, it's not so important. Just about

where God takes me is what he shows me along

the way. And this is a pivotal moment in my

life and your life, because we're not really sure about

the destination or how long, you know, how long is

the coronavirus going to dominate our headlines? And then even

after that, how long is it going to terrorize our economy?

And we don't know.

And it's interesting because the Bible says, let me just

read the scripture.

I'm so excited. Can you tell? The Lord has really

been speaking to me?

And God's word never stops, it never returns void. So

it's almost like the more trouble we get in, the

more of God's presence and more of God's grace and

more of God's work, he just makes it available to us.

And so the Lord has really been overflowing in my heart.

It said early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites,

somebody say, all the Israelites, put a couple extra a's

in the chat. Just say all the Israelites. I'm gonna

check on y'all and make sure y'all are doing it.

Say all the Israelites. Come on. It doesn't cost you

nothing for an extra vowel on YouTube. Just say, oh,

this is real life. Oh man, this is good because

the first thing that God said stopped to me. He said,

stop acting like you're the only one, like I'm the

only one, like I'm the only one scared right now,

like I'm the only one struggling right now, or even

for America, like we've got a global fam We call

it etham. It used to stand for extended. Now it

stands for everywhere because we're all etham. Even our local

congregation is having to experience God's word kind of from

a distance. But one thing that people keep saying that

bothers me is like, well, we're all in the same boat.

No we're not. We're not all in the same boat

this storm that we're going through.

If I can use that analogy, it affects all of

us in different ways. So while one man in my

church right now might be.

Kind of thinking, well, this is good for me.

I get a break, you know, I get a break

from the stress of life, and maybe the shutdown of

commerce and industry to that man represents a break or

sense of relief, or a welcome interruption of the rhythm.

About the time he's feeling relief, somebody else in my

church just laid off one hundred and fifty employees. And

that happened this week. This is not theoretical hypothetical. As

a pastor, I get to see how something affects all

the people, okay, And I think it's really arrogant when

we put ourselves at the center of a struggle. And

another thing that it does is it increases our anxiety

because we start thinking we are the first ones to

ever go through anything. And then if you get that

self centered, you get short sighted. So then you start

thinking like, this is the only thing that I've ever

been through like this.

I heard someone say that the other day.

They said, uh, We've never been through anything like this before. Hello,

nineteen eighteen the influenza that killed Look somebody from nineteen

eighteen is watching us from heaven right now go through

this and not understanding our frame of reference can be

detrimental to our revelation of God's power because when we

think we're the first ones who ever went through anything before. Long,

we start thinking that this is unlike anything else that

we've ever been through. And so I want to remind

you today that you are not the only one. I'm

not the only one scared. I'm not the only one uncertain.

I'm not the only one with questions. And we are

going through this together.

Now. Here's what's interesting.

We are all always going through something, but right now

it kind of feels like we're going through the same thing.

And yet although we're going through the same storm, we're

not all in the same boat. Some people are going

through this current crisis in like a I don't know,

like a battleship, barely feeling it. It's like, oh man,

you know, you can almost see them on Instagram all

the time.

They make you sick. They're like, I'm all out.

Of Cheetos, got to move to Doritos now, quarantine problems,

you know what I'm saying? Like WHOA Somebody else is

in a kayak going through the storm and they're like,

I'm thinking about feeding my family on minimum wage and

what this opportunity. When I said we're positioned for a miracle,

I think that God is positioning us for the miracle

of empathy to really be able to stop for a

moment disagreeing about petty stuff, stupid stuff, stop arguing for

a minute about stupid stuff, because they all had to

go through together. Now, this is the passage to the

promised land, right, And we're not going into like a

geographical land here. We're don't about the promises of God

everything that he's promised you, peace, provision, protection, all the

stuff we want.

Right, But they all had to go through together.

That really touched me, man, It touched me because I

have three kids.

This is two million people.

I can't even get my three kids to get in

the car to get across South Charlotte to get to

school before seven thirty am. Together, and now Joshua has

to lead. It says in the scripture, all all the people. Well,

this is a miracle. I can't even get my kids

to agree on what show to watch, and Joshua has

to get all the people across This is a miracle.

And you know, Graham asked me the other day, this

is funny. Actually this was several months ago. He came

up to me.

He was in a Bible class.

He goes to this Christian school and he was asking

me a theological question.

He goes, Dad, why.

Do you think God stopped doing so many miracles like

he did in Bible times?

And I don't know. Why do you think? He said?

Maybe because he was younger back then and had more energy.

I love it. This is the Old.

Testament, right, And we're all like, oh, God, I know

this story. Joshua three got part of the waters and

all the people went through. Why doesn't God still do

miracles like that? And yet you are holding a phone

in your hand right now, or you are watching on

Roku or Apple TV or some new fangled technological device.

Thank you, Steve Jobs for making this moment possible. But

yet we will sit in a miracle and not recognize

it as a miracle, because see, we have a very

difficult time appreciating a miracle when we're in it.

We have a very.

Difficult time appreciating a good moment when we're in it.

So then we start looking back at old times.

Oh, those are the good old days, you know, flashback

Friday and throw back Thursday, and it's like we want

to be anywhere but here, And then so God gives

us a moment where we have to stop and be

here because March Madness was canceled. The whole NBA just stopped.

That's when I knew this was bad. When the NBA stopped,

I was like, Oh God, this is real. Somebody put

in the comments it just got real and put it

like that too. It just got real. It just got real.

And there's a moment in this scripture. I was reading

it just word for word. It's amazing how the little

things in scripture come alive when you stop and think about,

you know, just go through them. And since this message

is called when God says stop, I want to stop

on something as significant. Early in the morning, Joshua and

all the Israelites there you go. All the Israelites set

out from Shidam and went to the Jordan, which is

the place where God always reveals identity. You remember, that's

where Jesus went to be baptized the Jordan. This is

my son, That's where God always shows you who you

really are by what he brings you through.

That spoke to me.

When we're going through something, the goal isn't just to

get through it. The goal is for God to show

us something in it that will make us better.

On the other side. I'm going to be better on

the other side. I'm going to be better on the

other side. It may look different. It's not going to

be normal. It's not.

We're not going back to normal, but but I'm going

to be better on the other side of this. You

got to go in with that assurance or else you're

gonna stand like the Israelites stayed for forty years on

the wrong.

Side of the Jordan. And I'm gonna tell you something else.

God didn't stop them from going into the Promised Land.

God didn't stop them.

I used to preach that they got stuck in the wilderness,

and how some of us get stuck in temptation, or

we get stuck in unbelief, or we get stuck in fear.

And one day I was preaching that and the Lord

slowed me down and said, they didn't get stuck, they stopped.

There was nothing keeping them in. There's nothing keeping us

right now from being grateful.

Well, well, you hadn't seen my bank acount.

I'm going to talk aboutr bank account and talk about your

belief system. I'm talking about you believe that God is

good at the bottom, and you have this hope as

an anchor for your soul. That's a rock, that's a foundation.

It can't be shaken by a storm. The winds can come,

the streams can rise, beat against the house, and it

didn't fall. It only showed the foundation for what it was.

And so when they crossed the Jordan, they were doing

what the previous generation could have done.

But they stopped. They stopped, they stopped.

Sometimes we tell ourselves that we're stuck, when the fact

is we just stopped. Oh man, I've just been depressed lately,

Like just like everywhere I look is bad news. Stop

watching it. I feel an anointing on one word because

I praise so many sermons on go go. You know,

God told Abraham go to the land I will show you.

He said, go and make disciples. That was the great commission, Go, go, go.

But what about when God says stop stop?

I believe God is issuing, Like like I yelled at

the top of my lungs the other day, stop stop scrolling.

Oh I wonder why I don't have any peace. God

give me peace. But you got a leaky bucket that

you're asking God to put peace in because you won't

turn off your phone. It needs to charge. It's getting hot.

It's burning your hand, so you're gonna feed yourself fear

and then pray for more faith.

God said, stop stop, yeah, will the need to be informed.

Hey, nobody knows right now, nobody knows.

I mean you know everything. Everybody knows right now.

You know enough, you know enough, you know enough, and

I'm wanna tell you something else.

You know enough about.

God to get you through this valley we talk about

going through.

I know I'm gonna get through this.

And I don't say that in a callous way or

a cliche way or a hash kind of faid. I'm saying,

the Lord is my shepherd. I know that he's my guide.

I know that I shall not want. Hang on a second,

there's a weird part of this passage. It says, the

Lord's my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me

lie down in green pastors. It's like you're saying, God

will guide you, guide you, and sometimes in order to

get you to green pastors, he has to give you

a red light.

He makes me.

Lie down, he makes me lie down, And it's right

there in Joshua three.

He's right there.

How God is leading his people, He's led them forty

years in a wilderness. They've been through things before, but

now they're standing at something new, just like we are.

Some of you. God has seen you through divorce. He's

seen you through a miscarriage. He's seen you through a

suicidal impulse that you almost took your own life and

then you didn't. He saw you through the worst decision

of your life. He saw you through financial mistakes. He

saw you through all of that. And now you are

standing at this and you're like, I've never been here before.

And it's like, but in that moment, what you know

has to take over what you feel. And that's what

I want to illustrate in the text. When God says

stop living by feelings and start living by faith, stop

living by sight, I feel the Holy Spirit when God

says stop is so important that we listen to the

Holy Spirit. When he says stop, stop, stop playing out

all the worst what if scenarios in your brain.

You've gone way past planning. I'm just gutting. A plan

is so what you call it a plan?

When you're projecting every possible scenario trying to predict, you

think you're miss Cleo or something like that.

You ain't a prophet and give.

Yourself an ulcir, I prophesy peptobismal in your future every

night before you go to bed if you don't stop it.

And I love what God gave them, and how the

presence of God sometimes will tell you to stop. Give

me verse one again, all this in verse one, and

don't y'all get scared.

But I got like seventeen verses.

Okay, but I will stop at some point so the

next service can run. But it says early in the

morning Josh, when all the Israelites set out from Shitham

and went to the Jordan, the place of identity, and

the instruction was camp before crossing over.

And that cool.

How God was bringing them into something new, and before

he could bring them into this new space, he told

him to stop and camp. And what he tells them

to do next. I want to give you as a

prophetic word for what God might be saying to you

for this season of your life. We're all going through

this at the same time, but we're not all going

through the same thing. Some people are making real decisions

right now, Like our church. All week, it was just

decision after decision after decision.

And the problem is, you know, we're all trying to. Okay,

I'll go ahead and give you the next point. You're ready.

Stop wasting today's strength fighting tomorrow's battles.

Stop stop.

Stop trying to stop trying to defend yourself against doomsday

that may or may not happen.

Make decisions, Make decisions.

God will give you the wisdom for the decisions you

need to make right now.

I believe that he will. I'm believing that for every

healthcare worker. I'm believing that for our leaders.

I'm believing that God is going to bring our country

together in a way right now.

That we're going to figure out some stuff.

That we needed to fix for a long time, and

your nation and God that's gonna bring us together.

We're positioned for a miracle, but we gotta go through together. Hey,

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