Prepare to Possess

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Joshua, chapter one.

Let me pray for us while you're turning.

Father God, we thank you again for calling us together, for

constituting us as your church, as your people, and gathering us

together around the fire of Your word.

And we pray, Lord, that you would send your Spirit and that

He would be our teacher so that we could understand the things

freely given to us through Christ.

We pray that you would open our eyes and open our hearts and

sharpen our minds so that as Aaron pray that we would be like

these tribes, that we would respond to the leadership that

you have put over us in the Lord.

That we would respond with with willing and ready obedience to

the things that you have commanded us to the mission that

you have sent us on. So we pray, Lord, for for humble

hearts as we come to your word and that you would teach us so

that we might treasure Christ all the more.

And we ask it in his name, Amen. So a quick word before we dig

into this text, we typically practice something called

expository preaching in our church, which means we just pick

a book of the Bible and we go chapter by chapter, verse by

verse through through the book. And so during the during the

holidays, we typically set that aside and we preach according to

the church calendar and look at content that goes through the

life in the ministry of Christ during the starting an Advent

and going until until Pentecost. I'm not sure we're going to do

that every year. Typically.

I've been here for almost 17 years.

We've just picked a book of the Bible and we go chapter by

chapter, verse by verse. And one of the things that I

want to say in praise of just working through books of the

Bible is, is text like this. If if you told me, hey, you've

got one last sermon to preach, one last text, what are you

going to pick? It's not this text, I can

promise you. Could you look at it and you go,

OK, it just looks pretty straightforward.

What are you going to say about that?

It doesn't necessarily seem as glorious as the Commission of

Joshua in verses one through 9. It doesn't seem even remotely as

fantastic as Rahab the prostitute hiding the the spies

in chapter 2. So there's just this sandwiched

text that that doesn't really excite the preachers fire, at

least at first look. And what I love about the

Scriptures we are told Paul tells us that all Scripture is

God breathed and profitable, including this text, one that I

would never pick. And I dig into it this week and

there's just absolute glory in these verses.

And so it's so encouraging to see again and again just the

beauty of God's word that he has given us and that it's deserving

of our attention. And so the, the, the big idea

here, Joshua has been commissioned to take the

children of Israel over the Jordan and take possession of

the land that God has given them.

And now Joshua is going to start.

It's the very first thing that he does to, to prepare for, for

that endeavor. And he gives the people of God a

command and then he sort of shores up the army.

And I want to show you these things as they, as they come.

So the first thing I want to show you is the is the command,

the theme of command in this text.

We're going to start in verse 9 and read through verse 11.

So I want you to take note of all the different times somebody

has commanded God says to Joshua in verse 9, have I not commanded

you? Be strong and courageous, do not

be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God

is with you wherever you go. And Joshua, so there's no break

there. It just goes straight on.

And Joshua commanded the officers of the people pass

through the midst of the camp and commands.

Do you see this? God commands Joshua.

Joshua commands officers and he commands them to pass through

the midst of the camp and commands the people.

Prepare. This is the command.

Prepare your provisions for within three days you are going

to Passover, this Jordan to go in and take possession of the

land that the Lord your God has given you to possess.

So there's this divine chain of command.

God commands Joshua, who comes to the leaders in Israel and

commands them. He doesn't suggest.

He says go do this and they go do that and they command the

people. They don't suggest they do not

take a vote. It is not democracy.

It is God is in control and he has raised up his leaders and

they're leading the people of God.

And what's really interesting if you, if you don't, if you

haven't read through carefully the book of Joshua, you may not

know, but what what Joshua commands the leaders to command

the people to do is totally impossible.

Did you know that this is not like a, hey, make sure your,

your, your, your, your car has a full tank of gas or something

like that. He says, pass through the midst

of the camp, command the people to prepare provisions for within

three days, you are going to cross over this Jordan to go in

and take possession. Nobody did that.

We're going to see, we're going to see in Chapter 3 when they

cross the Jordan, the description of the Jordan is

that it was at flood stage and was jumping its banks at this

time of year. And they're just going to cross

through what Joshua tells them is God is about to do something

miraculous. And I don't know what it is yet,

but you need to obey and you need to move forward.

And this is leadership among the people of God that we have the

word of God coming to the officers of God's people who are

to take that word to the people and say, look, this is what

we're doing, to which the people should normally respond.

We can't do that, right? Go disciple the nations.

And what do you want to tell me? We can't do that?

Like it's just we're little old Muldoon.

OK. Well, there is an ecclesiastical

chain of command that this verse teaches us that there aren't in

our congregation. There aren't a bunch of pastors.

And so I'm, I'm sort of maybe talking to the wrong crowd, but

it's important for all of us to understand what is going on in

this text that we pastors are to take the promises and the

commands of God through his word and in love require obedience of

the congregation. That's that's my job.

That's the elders job is to take the commands and the promises of

God's word and to lovingly, not dominating you, but to lovingly

require obedience from the congregation.

Churches are not and have never been democracies.

Like where do we want to go? Let's all take a vote.

That's not what we do here. That's not what we do here.

We want God to speak and we want leaders to, to take that word

and mandate and for congregations to willingly give

themselves. Here's the problem.

In American church, we have something called membership,

which by the way, we're, we're trying to think through what

membership should look like and ought to look like.

And we're in the process of, of working through some of those

things. I'm in the process of

researching them so that our elders can come to A, to a more

full understanding of what church membership is going to

be. But the, but the problem in

America is you just, you have an individualistic Christian

mindset that says, look, the pastor can do and say whatever

he wants to do, but at the end of the day, I have walk out

power. I can just say I, I don't want

to do that. And we leave.

And so we view churches like the difference between Walmart and

HEB. Sometimes you go here, sometimes

you go there and listen to me that that mentality.

Most pastors know that I know that I know that I could say

something to offend some of you that you would and and some of

you might leave. But what that will what that

will do with that mindset does to pastors is it cripples them

because they're afraid they're afraid of saying anything that's

going to run people off out of the congregation.

So when we were going through teaching on eldership, we lost

people saying like this is the standard of God's word.

And some people said we've never done that here and we're not

going to do that here. And they and they and they left

and many pastors have have said, look, I know that that's the

requirement, but my people would never go for it.

And so I'm not going to teach on it.

I that's, that's the most unbiblical mindset for for a

leader of God's people think about Joshua.

I get a command from God to do that, which is impossible.

I'm not sure they're going to these people are going to

follow. Did they follow Moses perfectly,

yes or no? No, they did not.

They threatened to stone him all the time.

So he's like barely hanging on by a thread.

And now Joshua was supposed to take the helm and think like,

wait, you want me to tell them to do what now?

Right. Listen, here's the problem when

when our churches are not rightly aligned according to the

mind of Christ and when we don't joyfully embrace the beauty of a

hierarchy in in the people of God, that always has a trickle

down effect into the family. Where husbands are supposed to

lovingly lead and protect their wives and their children who are

supposed to joyfully submit to their husbands into greater

levels of familial Christian obedience.

Meaning like a husband doesn't have the right to just lead his

wife any old way to lead her into rebellion against God, but

a husband is there to say, babe, this is the word of God.

This is where we're going as a family, but when you don't see

that in the church, then a husband tries to do that in, in

his home and the wife says, well, I don't want to submit to

that. And now we're at a, we're at a

stalemate. And I, I know many, many

Christian men who just say, like, my wife has never seen a

church submitting to leadership. And so she's not very keen on

submitting to my leadership. And you just have a family

that's that's disordered. So listen to me, the world hears

of biblical authority and they only hear abuse.

They hear, oh, you're in authority over me, you're going

to abuse me. The scriptures hold out

authority as a blessing for the people of God.

I just we're going to we're going to skip and I want you to

look at verse 18, how these people who've been how the we're

going to I'm going to show you Reuben and Gad in the half tribe

of Manasseh. Joshua gives them a very

particular command and they say in verse 16 through 18, all that

you have commanded us, we will do and wherever you send us, we

will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all

things, we will obey you and and I'll explain that in a moment.

That's not we're not supposed to laugh at that.

That's a meaningful thing that the the generation of the exodus

that rebelled against Moses, they're all dead.

This is their children who have not perfectly but sincerely try

to obey Moses and all that, then all that he has done.

And so they're saying to Joshua, we're the same.

We're the same way with you only.

And watch the encouragement that they give Joshua only.

May the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your

words, whatever you command him shall be put to death.

Only be strong and courageous. So they come to him and they

say, look, we want you to lead us.

We will gladly get behind you. And so there's not this

dominating, domineering subjugation of a congregation.

It's willing leadership and it's willing submission.

We will follow wherever the Lord leads.

Just be strong and courageous, ladies, just as a word in

passing, you think about do you want your husband to lead you

well and to lead your family well into biblical fidelity?

If you do, then take every opportunity to gladly embrace

any leadership that he gives. That's not evil.

Anytime that he says, hey, I think we need to, we've been

doing this wrong. I think we need to do it this

way. Jump, jump on board there.

Encourage him in that so that he can lead.

OK, so you have commands, commands to prepare, get

yourself ready to go up and take possession.

And then Joshua comes to and you have to know some biblical

background here. So if you write in your Bibles

out beside verse 12, write Numbers 32, the book of Numbers

32. That's the back story to this

command. But he, Joshua comes very

interestingly to the Reubenites, the Gaddites and the half tribe

of Manasseh. And Joshua said, remember the

word that Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded you.

So again, we're on this theme of command.

There's 7 commands here. It's a very important number.

They've been commanded. Remember what the Lord commanded

you through Moses saying, the Lord your God is providing you a

place of rest. That word for rest is not where

we get our word for Sabbath. It's the word where we get the

name Noah. You remember when Lamech named

Noah, he said out of the out of the dust that the Lord has made

this one will give us rest. And it's it's where we get our

word Noah. And it's used twice in this

text. It's very interesting.

He says he's provided you a place of rest and he will give

you this land. Your wives and your little ones

and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you

beyond the Jordan. But all the men of valor among

you shall Passover armed before your brothers and shall help

them until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to

you. And they also take possession of

the land that the Lord God is giving to them.

Then you shall return to the land of your possession and

shall possess it, the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord

gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.

So the, the background here, if you don't know this story, the

children of Israel, I, I probably should have got a map

for you so that I'm not doing it backwards.

But the children of Israel had gone from Egypt.

They'd wandered in the Sinai Peninsula and they had made

their way to the east side of the Jordan.

And they were attacked by two Amorite kings, Sihan and Ogg.

Both of them were called Refeim, which means they were giants.

Ogg in particular, the text says that he had a, he had a bed that

was 13 foot long. That's how giant this man was.

And the, the children of Israel said, hey, we don't want any

fight with you. We want to pass through.

We'll pay you for water, we'll pay you for passage.

We're just passing through. And Sahan and Ogg attacked them.

And so in self-defense, Israel annihilated them and they did

what God commanded them to do. And so they have this beautiful

land on the east side of the Jordan that was not part of the

possession, part of what Israel was supposed to possess.

And it was really good for livestock and for, for, yeah,

for livestock. So Reuben, Gab and the half

tribe of Manasseh, they come to Moses and they say, hey, we

don't want to go into across the Jordan, into the land of

promise. We want to stay here and

inherit. And Moses in #32 takes that as

they don't want to go to war. They're trying to rest early.

And he rebukes them. And he says, do not do this.

Do not discourage your brothers. And so he rebukes them.

Well, they come to him and they say, no, no, no, we're not

trying to get out of the fight. We will absolutely.

We'll build sheep paddocks for all of our livestock.

We'll build temporary dwelling places for our old men and for

our wives and for our children. But our armed men will go with

the children of Israel. We will fight to to maintain a

possession. And so they make this promise

years ago and Moses dies and now Joshua is about to rise up and

take over the land. And he goes to them and he says,

remember your word. Remember your word.

So I just want to to invite you to put yourself in that

situation where you see a great opportunity and you make a

covenant to to where? OK, listen, we will take this,

but we promise in the future to rise up and to go to war.

But now the guy that you were talking to has died.

And if there's ever a time where you could say, you know, we kind

of spoke out of turn, we're not really sure if we want to do

that. We have this land.

We're looking at still remaining giants in the land.

And maybe we should. Maybe we should renege on our

word. You can imagine a situation

where the promises you made yesterday look really

terrifying. Today you've got the hazards of

war. People are really going to die.

There are legitimate giants in the land.

There's all kind of risk and Moses had died.

And so if ever the Reubenites, the Goddites, and the half tribe

of Manassa should say like, hey, we're just not going to keep our

word, it would be right now. But Psalm 15 asks this question.

I want you to just listen to listen to Psalm 15-O Lord, who

shall sojourn in your tent and who shall dwell in your holy

hill? And it lists all of these

qualities that are perfection that are only perfect in Christ,

but that good men sort of approximate.

And one of the things that he says here is that the one who

can sojourn in the tent of God and dwell in his holy hill is he

who swears to his own hurt and does not change.

You ever done that where you've said, hey, I will, I will do

this or I'll help with this or whatever.

You, you, you make a promise. And then when it comes down to

it, it's like, oh, that's really going to hurt.

Well, blessed is the man who swears to his own hurt and does

not change. And to their credit, they don't,

they don't renege. They stay, they stay faithful.

But I want you to watch this cool detail in verse 14.

He says, your wives, your little ones, your livestock shall

remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan.

But all the men of valor, all the mighty men among you shall

Passover armed before your brothers.

And that word before sometimes people take it as they're

supposed to go first or take like the front lines.

That's not what it means. The Hebrew there is before the

face of meaning you. Moses concern was that these

tribes and not going to war would discourage the hearts of

their brothers. So imagine if all the men say

we've got to fight and we've got to go.

We actually have to go get into a war and some of us are going

to die. And I don't know what percent 3

of 12 is, but it's a big percent.

But a bunch of the men in the congregation say I'm not doing

that. Then the rest of us are like,

well, should we go? Should we?

It's a it's a discouraging thing.

So he says, I want you to go before the face of your

brothers. I want them to see you armed for

battle and going with them so that they will be of good

courage. But you need men of valor armed

before your brothers to help them until the Lord gives rest

to your brothers as he has to you, and that they take

possession of their land. So you have 3 tribes that have

already received what is theirs, but they are commanded to

continue to work so that their brothers and the Lord can

inherit what God has given them. So Passover armed before your

brothers. And this is there's a really

helpful principle here and it's the covenant nature of the

people have gone that we are together in this and we want not

only to have our own blessing from the Lord, our own

inheritance from the Lord for me, for my house, for for our

family, but. Faithful Christians also look to

other Christians and say you are my brother and I want you to

have inheritance from the Lord for you and for your household.

And we need to work together to make sure that those things

happen. And so are you.

Are you praying and are you actively seeking the good of

those in the body of Christ? We should be.

Now in verse 16, you have the response and we read it, but I

want to read it again and make a couple of observations.

He says they they so this is the command that you need to go in

and help your brothers and they answer Joshua, all that you have

commanded us we will do and wherever you send us, we will

go. That's I think it was Chuck

Swindoll that said whenever he was preaching and somebody,

somebody would shout out and they would say preach it.

He's like that's like saying sick him to a bulldog.

Be careful doing that because I'll just take your whole

afternoon. Imagine you're the leader of

Israel and God gives you this command and you're wondering

then, how are the people going to respond to this?

And you give them an impossible invitation, an impossible

command. And they say whatever you say

we're going to do. We are with you to the end.

We're with you to the death. You just tell us where to go.

And anybody who disregards you, we will put to death.

You are our guy. Just lead us.

Just be strong, be courageous. That's the most encouraging

thing that leaders of the people of God could ever hear.

Wherever you send us, we will go.

Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you and

I. And I mentioned that that's not

to make you laugh. This was a faithful generation.

And they generally speaking, were, were very obedient to

Moses and then to Joshua later on.

They had their mistakes for sure, but generally speaking

they were obedient. And then they say, only may the

Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

Remember, God who promised Joshua, as I was with Moses, so

I we will be with you. And they give this, this

pronouncement, this blessing over Joshua.

May the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

Whoever rebels and disobeys, whatever you command, he shall

be put to death. And then they give him the same

invitation that God, or the same invitation and command that God

had given him three times. Only be strong and courageous.

They want him to take the lead and judges and judges 5 After

Deborah and Barack had had thrown off their enemies and

jail had nailed Cicero's head to the floor to the ground with a

tent peg, Deborah and Barack sang these words.

They they started their song of victory.

And with these words that the leaders took the lead in Israel

and that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the

Lord. Brothers and sisters, I would

submit to you, this is the reason the church in America is

so damnably weak is that leaders will not lead and people will

not give themselves to the leadership that that we just

will not do this. Pastors will see which way the

wind is blowing, how the congregation wants to go.

And they'll be, they'll happily lead them where they want to go,

but they will never say we're not doing that.

And so the people don't know what it's like to submit and

obey the leadership that God has provided.

So the biblically speaking, the pattern is when God speaks,

leaders lead and the people are to follow.

And then when we do that, the nations always fall.

So if we want to win the mission that Christ has sent us on, this

is what we need to embrace. God has spoken already.

And so the question is, what are your elders going to do about

that? And then what is a congregation

are we going to do about that? And let me say, I'm preaching to

the choir. I don't have anybody in the

crosshairs. Like man, this family over here

is just super rebellious, nothing like that.

I just want to remind us of these things.

OK, So let me work through a couple of applications how we

could how we could apply these things.

First off is thinking about the idea of a command.

I think it's helpful for all of us to take this moment to ask

ourselves a question and nobody can answer this but you.

And the question is, what do you want from from church

leadership? What do you want from your

elders? What do you want from deacons?

What do you want from participation in the body of

Christ? Do you want to be entertained?

Do you want me to throw a sword at you and say, are you not

entertained? Like so many churches, that's

what pastors engage. Like, I've got to make sure I

have 27 funny stories so that I can slip a little bit of Bible

truth in there. Do you want to be entertained?

Do you want to be nearly comforted sometimes even in your

sin? Like I'm doing this sin and I

just want you to comfort me. I want you to affirm me.

I want you to tell me that this is OK.

Is that what you want? Or do you want church leadership

to love you enough to be a sanctifying influence towards

obedience to the Lord Jesus, to sanctify yourself and your

family? Here's what we want in the

church. We want leadership that is

qualified according to Scripture and functioning according to

scripture. Those two things, qualified and

obedient functioning. OK, so I have a good friend in

town whose church is a hot mess. And he, he called me the other

day and he was laughing. He was like, you're not going to

believe this. So our, their elder body is, is

a mess and they keep getting keep having problems with those

in, in leadership. And so they've got a, a new

election cycle of officers of, of elders.

And he said at the meeting, they're, they were talking

about, man, how do we, how do we keep getting all these bum

elders? Like we need some good elders in

place. And then somebody came up with

this really great idea. They said, you know what we need

to do, we need to come up with some qualifications we should

get a think through like what kind of men should be or well,

they wouldn't say men, what kind of people should be leading and

elders. It's almost like we need a list

of things that somebody wants. This office needs to meet these

qualifications as though God's word has not already given them

to list in first Timothy and then Titus, but they're going to

create their own because they're seeing all these problems.

Well, listen, it's very, it's just obey, obey what God's word

has said. And so we want qualified

leadership, men that meet those qualifications of eldership and

people, men and women who meet the qualification of deacons and

then that they would be functioning, that those leaders

would be functioning biblically. And there's there's a million

texts I could read to you, but this is maybe the cheap one.

When I think about what, what my office as a as a teaching elder

with the office of eldership is supposed to look like.

The qualifications are in first Timothy and Titus, but the

function is in first Peter 5 most explicitly.

It's also in Ephesians 4 and some other places.

But listen to listen to Peter. Peter says, I exhort the elders

among you as a fellow elder, which is marvelous.

He's going to demonstrate what he's going to require.

Peter does not come and say, listen, Christ gave me the keys

of the Kingdom. And so you got to listen to me,

he says. I exhort the elders among you as

a fellow elder. He embraces A lesser office.

He doesn't say I'm the chief apostle.

You have to listen, he says. I'm a fellow elder in the church

and I'm a witness to the sufferings of Christ as well as

a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.

And he exhorts the elders to do these things.

One, to shepherd the flock of God.

It means to pastor Shep pastor is a verb.

It's not a it's not a noun. It's something that elders do.

They shepherd the flock. They take care of the sheep that

Christ has made his own. So shepherd the flock of God,

knowing them, protecting them, leading them, feeding them,

watch over. And then he says exercise

oversight. So, so, so lead the people have

gone. You can't let flocks and sheep

just kind of do whatever they want to do because they're going

to eat themselves to death or find themselves in wolf infested

territory. You have to watch over the

people have gone. So biblically qualified and

biblically functioning. And he tells them this.

And, and I want you guys to understand this is these are

texts that we take seriously as elders.

He says, do these things not under compulsion, but willingly.

Not, he says not under compulsion, but willingly as God

would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly.

And then not domineering over those in your charge, but being

examples to the flock. So don't.

And, and, and please tell me if you ever smell this on me where

I'm staunchly commanding you to do something that you've never

seen me do or that, you know, it's hypocritical, like, please

pull me aside and say you're violating this and you need to

repent. And if it's true, I will gladly

repent or explain why. But that so, so biblically

qualified elders, functioning biblically is what we want.

And then we want a congregation that is prayerfully and

peaceably and practically and then joyfully following that

leadership. Let me while I'm while I'm

reading texts, listen to listen to the author of Hebrews talking

to the congregation. He says obey your leaders and

submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as

those who will have to give an account.

Why do we do membership? Why is membership so important?

Membership is important because Jesus knows by name the sheep

that are his, all of them by name.

And your elders will give an account by name for the people

that were shepherding. And that's terrifying, brothers

and sisters, it's totally terrifying.

And so he says when, when you, when you obey your leaders and

submit to them, you're doing that because they are keeping

watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

And then the command is let them do this with joy and not with

groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

If every time the the elders come and say, hey, we really

feel like the Lord would have us do this.

And we just hear the collective sigh of the congregation.

Oh man, which again, we don't from our church, our church.

You guys are amazing. But again, I just want to state

these things so we all know the types of things we should be

embracing. Ask for counsel, ask for prayer,

be open for correction, be open for reproof.

Secondly, we need to prepare right?

It's a it's a the the the keywords in this text command 7

times possess I think was was mentioned five times that that

Joshua commands them to prepare to possess what God has given

them. And so the question is, how do

we as a congregation prepare to take possession of what Christ

has given us as an inheritance? If the nations are his and he's

commanded us to go take them, how do we prepare for that?

How do we do as Joshua and and the children of Israel did?

Well, it starts with self government that every single

human being that is in the Lord is to walk by the power of the

Holy Spirit and exercise self-control.

Proverbs say that that a man who lacks self-control is like a

city that has no walls. You have no protection.

Whoever comes in gets to live there.

If lust comes in, he gets to live there.

If greed comes in, he gets to live there.

If if worship comes in, he gets to live there.

You just can't. There's no discerning, There's

no, there's no discriminating what comes in.

Just whatever comes to your appetite, that's what you're

going to do. We have to have self-control

that's given by the Holy Spirit to say no, I'm not going to give

vent to that. I'm I'm going to be a city with

walls that can say you are welcome to enter.

You are not starts with self government and then family

government that you have. You have husbands that are

supposed to lovingly lead and nurture and cherish their wives

in the Lord, sanctifying them with the Word and wives that are

to submit to their husbands and everything.

As the church submits to Christ, so wife is to submit to her

husband. Children are to obey their

parents and the Lord parents are to lovingly discipline their

children. Whoever spares the rod spoils

the child. He who spares the rod hates his

son. We are to, we are to to have

good order in our family. And it's supposed to be

beautiful, not dominating and domineering.

So there's self government, there's family government.

And then as we've been talking about, there's church

government, eldership, deacons, congregations that that submit,

elders that lead lovingly Christ like leadership and

congregations that respond, brothers and sisters, These are

what I would call home field advantages, right?

This is our stuff like we are Christian individuals, we are

Christian families. We are a Christian Church.

We can, we can obey God without anybody's permission.

Typically what happens is churches that want to take a

dominion in the places where they live, they start with with

secular government instead of starting with themselves,

starting with their families, starting with their churches.

You cannot do that. We can't get off the ground

because here's what would be happening.

It would be us pride personally and in our family and in our

church, totally disregarding the word and the will of God and

then going to the world and saying you guys got to submit to

Christ. That's ludicrous.

We show them the way. We submit ourselves, our self,

our family, our church, to the government, to the Lordship of

Christ. And then we must.

Having done those things, we must live and prepare to take

local government and command that they do the same thing.

Our Constitution, the Constitution and our land made

local government the most powerful over the people so that

the people could more readily protect themselves from tyranny,

right? What goes on in Washington is

supposed to be very small compared to what goes on in at

the courthouse, in our local, with local leadership.

So if we were to establish liberty locally in Christ's

name, it would reverberate across the entire nation.

But in order to do that, in order to do that, we need three

things. We need faith to believe that it

is something God intends us to do.

And I'm not sure that we're all on the same team there that we

might, some of us might say, I don't think that's what God

would have us do. And so we're going to have to

agree to disagree. But that is what Christ, when he

said go disciple, not people in nations, but nations that have

been given to me. This is what he meant, that we

are to announce that Christ has crown rights in Fayette County.

Can you Amen that? You should be able to Amen that.

So we need faith to believe that this is something he intends us

for do to do. Secondly, we need to, we need

the wisdom to wage war according to biblical ethics.

We're talking sermons, not swords primarily.

We're talking prayer more than protesting primarily.

We need to wage war according to biblical ethics.

We need to take the weapons of our warfare and wage war that

way. And then thirdly, we need the

courage to step out and try that we, that we believe this is what

he has called us to to do. And we're going to do it the way

he calls us to do it. And then we're going to actually

try. We're going to attempt this.

This is how we prepare. And lastly, the exhortation is

that we need to aim to possess all that Christ has given us to

possess. OK, We need to aim at possessing

everything that Christ has commanded us to possess.

Think about this, right? Christ has given us as a

possession forgiveness of sin and a clean conscience.

That's what he's given you in himself, full forgiveness and

and access to a clean conscience.

He wants you to be shame free and guilt free because on his

cross He once for all dealt with your sin.

And so beware, brothers and sisters, of throwing past sin

and guilt and shame on people that Christ has forgiven,

because that's giving your brothers ground back to the

enemy, right? We sin.

We all have skeletons in our closet.

We all have guilt and shame and we repent and we, we, we trust

the Lord and we're fighting to, to walk in the freedom that

Christ has given. But then we have brothers that

throw our sin back in our face again and again and again.

And what that does is it just gives ground back to the enemy.

We cannot do that to one another.

He has given us participation in the body of Christ as an

inheritance. And so let's beware of keeping

in particular and, and we're growing in this.

We're doing much better in this. But like as as a church in

America, we tend to keep our children, the very children that

Christ said, let the children come to me.

We, we, we keep them away from baptism.

We keep them away from the Lord's table.

We need to beware of keeping repentant sinners from the

table. We need to beware of keeping new

believers at an arm's distance. If you want some homework this

week, go find Kanye West's song Hands On and listen to it.

You've got this total buffoon lost guy.

And God sovereignly, I believe, saved him eternally saved him in

Christ. And he is not perfect.

And this is not an endorsement there.

Everything he says or everything he does by any stretch.

But he wrote a he wrote a album, series of songs called Jesus is

King. And there is glory there.

It's amazing. And one of those songs is a song

called Hands On. And it's a prayer.

And he's talking about coming to Christ.

And some of his worst critics are the Christians.

What have you been hearing from the Christians?

And there's this, there's this bridge in the middle where he

where he sings and it's a request.

Somebody pray for me, lay your hands on me, pray for me like I

I repented of the world and the devil and I'm trying to count

for Christ and for his Kingdom. The world hates me.

And now the Christians won't won't love me, right.

He's a new believer for crying out loud, like receive, pray, be

patient, pray for him. And so we need to be as we, as

we think about endeavoring to help brothers and sisters,

possess the full measure of what Christ has given us to possess.

We need to know how these things matter, that we don't, that we

don't hold unforgiveness over people, right.

So he's given us forgiveness of sin, participation in the body,

and then he's given us the world, the world.

He's given us the world. It belongs to Jesus, and he has

given it to his people. And so Can you imagine an idea

more ludicrous than Old Testament Joshua being strong

and courageous, while the New Testament new and better Joshua,

who was crucified, who was risen, who has ascended and

what's enthroned and was given all authority in heaven and on

earth, that the new and better Joshua somehow lives and leads

in weakness and in trembling intimidity?

Can you imagine such a thing? For God tells Joshua, I've given

you this land, be strong and courageous, go take it.

And then he tells Christ, I've given you all authority in

heaven and on earth. And Christ says, oh, I don't

know if I can be strong and courageous and go take it.

It's ludicrous. It's ludicrous.

As if the Great Commission read, all authority has been given to

me in heaven and on earth. But I don't think we can do it.

So just try and endure until the world burns.

Well, Can you imagine? A greater strategy of our enemy

than to convince us that some of the things that Christ has

really given us are not actually given or not yet given.

Joshua has been given the land, but he still must endeavor by

faith to possess it. And it will take years of

diligent preparation of hard mental effort by faith.

People are going to die in this fight.

Even though it's a gift, even though it's grace, even though

God promises victory, it's still going to be hard fought.

They still must endeavor by faith to possess it all, and it

will take years of diligent preparation and hard mantle

effort. But what if, before the fight

starts, if Satan can convince Joshua that what God has given

you is actually not the land? He's given you a spiritual

reality. He's given you a sense, a lovely

warm feeling in your, in your soul.

That's all He's given you. He hasn't really given you the

land or in the land, He's only given you certain mountain peaks

or he's only given you the valleys.

He hasn't given you all of it. Well, God dictates to us what He

gives us as an inheritance and we are to take possession of it.

God told Joshua, this is what I've given you and Joshua takes

it. God tells us in Christ, this is

what I've given you and by faith, brothers and sisters, we

are to take it. And the best place for us to

come and strip away all of our unbelief in all of the satanic

unwriting of the lines of our inheritance is the Lord's Table.

This table is the table of fullness, of the fullness of

Jesus Christ. You can't come here and get some

of Jesus. It can't be done.

You come here and you receive the whole Christ, and the whole

Christ that brings with him absolute power, unqualified

lordship over all things, crown, authority, and mercy that is

made just by His own blood. Your sins, if you have repented

of your sins, confess them to the Lord.

Your sins are really forgiven, and this table is for you.

You have hope, your family has hope, Your church can be

sanctified and powerful, and your community can be

transformed. If and when the people of God

prepare to take up all that the king intends to give them, the

foundations of this nation will tremble.

And no, this is not health and wealth as it's traditionally

meant. But I ask you now, think about

this with me. Who is more wealthy than he who

possesses Christ as his own? Can you improve on that wealth?

No, you cannot. Who is more healthy than he?

Who is the beloved patient of the great Physician?

Worldly health and wealth. You can keep all of that stuff

Ioffer you at this table, real health and real wealth, because

all Ioffer you here is Christ himself in all his fullness, and

therefore all Ioffer you at this table, brothers and sisters, is

all, all that can be offered. Heaven and him who reigns there,

earth and him who brought bought it with his blood, Eternal life

and him who makes it worth living.

Joshua was given a small piece of land and told to rise up and

take possession to you. Ioffer this day Christ himself.

Now rise up by faith and take him as your own because he has

given himself for this very purpose.

So come beloved brothers and sisters in Christ and welcome to

Jesus Christ. Let me pray for us.

Father God, we, we want you to speak loud enough and clear

enough to us and give us the faith to comprehend the things

that you have freely given us in Christ and make us faithful and

bold, strong and courageous as we rise up in this world and

take what Christ has given us in the manner in which Christ has

told us to take it. We need grace, we need wisdom,

we need faith. God, we need the power of your

Spirit to accomplish these things in US.

And so we pray that you would meet with us at the table and

that you would give us these things, the preparation that we

need to take dominion and to take the inheritance that you've

given. So we ask you to come and

minister to us at the table in the name of Jesus, Amen.