Departing and United | Joshua 22

Good morning. How are we feeling?

Thanks, Bryce. Hey, my name is Preston.

If we haven't met yet, I get to serve on staff with this church

as our college ministry director called the salt company and guys

this is kind of we had kind of had last salt this Thursday and

really kind of putting a bow on it.

So going to be saying bye to some college students here for

the summer coming up. It'll be exciting, but it's kind

of part of it. And so I don't know about you

guys. Like if you think about the

season of our church, the type of church that we're a part of

and the fact that we live in Arizona and this might be the

worst place to be in June and July, there's probably some

summer plans starting to brew. Like this is the last week of

probably below triple digits perhaps.

Sorry to say it. You know, you guys, it's like

it's warming up. But it's interesting to think

so. Today's May 3rd, 9 months ago,

August 3rd was our first like Sunday service as a church.

Isn't that crazy? Yes, I think it is.

Some of you guys felt like three years.

In some ways it has, but it's just been really, really

exciting and God's done a lot And you know, something

interesting whenever we open up God's word, something that I

always was taught when you get an opportunity to teach it,

which I actually think this is a great principle for us any day

is to answer to ask the question like pray to God, ask the

question like God, what do you have for us this morning?

Like what is it in We're about to read Joshua 22 and guys, this

is a text that a lot of times during a sermon series, they

just like skip over Joshua 22. And so it's like, God, what do

you have for us this morning? What do you want to teach us

today? And not that it that we get to

tell the Bible what it teaches us.

But no, there's all the principles, there's the story.

And understanding it in their town helps us apply it to our

town in Tempe and where we Live Today.

And we live in a very transient city with, with a transient

church where we got college students, right?

We got young adults, we got families.

And we're about to enter into a transient season, meaning this

summer, like this is a time where we have travel plans, set

internships, you're going on all these things.

And so things will start to, to change because we're going to be

departing either to home for, for school or, or for

internships or onto vacation. There might even be a Sunday

that you miss, which is OK, by the way, you don't have to do

that. But this.

So here's here's the big question today.

So we'll be in Joshua 22. Like I said, the big question

today is how do we be a departing people fully united to

him, a departing people. Like I said, we're in a

transient city. We have this church with a lot

of people that have travelled in or here for school and things

are going to change over the summer.

Not that we're not going to have church over the summer, just

saying we're going to have church.

We will be here. OK.

We're open every Sunday, 10 AM. Right, Pastor?

OK, yeah, that'd be news for me. Hey, this is this will be

helpful for us. But there's an over first quick

overflow of the sermon. There's kind of three flows this

morning. There's a context we'll talk

about. There's a conflict and then

there's a challenge at the end. So these are flows and ours

aren't necessarily points. But within each of these flows,

we'll answer, find an answer to our question.

How do we be a departing people fully united to him?

And so there'll be plenty of principles in our text this

morning. And so if you're taking notes,

here's a tip for you. Write down the stuff that's

helpful and just don't write down the stuff that's not.

Is that simple there? You don't have to write down

everything. Write down what's helpful for

you. Sound good?

OK, let me pray for us, Father, we are thankful.

We're very thankful for the word of God.

We're thankful for the church God that we can come, we can

gather together. God has one body with one hope,

with one spirit, and learn from you, learn from your word.

And so God, we pray that you would reveal to us what we need

to hear this morning. God, in this chapter, it's so

significant that even for our lives as a church in a transient

town with some transient people where there's change coming,

that's just natural and part of the rhythm.

God, as we see that in Joshua 22, would you help us understand

God that we can be fully united to you and fully united to one

another in the body of Christ as we pursue in it all?

So God, would your spirit do what your spirit does?

Would you convict us? Would you teach us and call us

to new life in Jesus name? Amen.

Amen. All right, Joshua 22, verse one,

we'll read a couple verses. We won't read the whole chapter

today, but we will bounce around and I will navigate us, which

makes sense. That's kind of my job this

morning. Verse one At that time Joshua

summoned the Reubenites in the How should I practice Jadeites?

Jadeites in the half tribe of Manasseh, the whole half tribe

of Manasseh. Verse 2 And he said to them, You

have kept all that Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded

you, and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you.

You have not forsaken your brothers these many days down to

this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of the Lord

your God. And the Lord your God has given

rest to your brothers as he has promised them.

Therefore, turn and go. You can underline that I have

that underlined in my Bible. Therefore, turn and go to your

tents in the land where your possessions lie, which Moses the

servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan.

That's important context here. The other side of the Jordan,

verse 5. Only be very careful to observe

the commandment that the in the law of Moses, the servant of the

Lord commanded you to love the Lord your God, to walk in all

his ways, to keep his commandments and to cling to him

and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

So Joshua blessed them and sent them away and they went to their

tents. OK, so here's the context here,

right? Verse one through 6.

So what happened? If you've been with us in this

Joshua series, they've just been on this conquest of land.

They've crossed the Jordan and they've conquered all this land.

They've gone to battle together, they've built things together,

they've captured land together. There's been all these things

that God has done, all these things that the work of God has

done. They've been together and all of

it. And now they're about to depart,

they're about to scatter, and some of these tribes are about

to go back to the land that was promised to them.

And specifically, as we saw, some of that land is on the

other side of the Jordan, this, this river that got actually

parted for the people that walk through this other Red Sea

moment, this Jordan, this significant place, they're about

to go across it. And so they're about to go do

that. Sorry, I'm figuring out where

we're at. Well, this, this matters because

if you think about it, they've just been in battle together and

they're about to cross the Jordan.

They're about to go live on the other side.

There's probably people, if you think about battles, if you

think about war, if you think about these things, there's

probably people that didn't don't like Israel.

And so these people, they're about to go back across the

journal, back across this physical landmark, they're about

to be separated from the rest of Israel.

You got these two tribes. You even got this whole half

tribe of Manasseh. And so they're about to go over

there. And so Joshua, as he thinks

about these things and you can think about this tribe, there's

concern arising up. They're like, hey, we're about

to be separated from the rest of the pack.

You know, what happens when we get separated from everyone

else? What happens to us on part of

our church, you know, as we depart for internships, for

travels, for, for these things, what happens when we depart?

And so Joshua has a great leader.

He gives them some commands. He says, hey, we're about to go

scatter. We're about to be separated from

one another. But let me give you a few

things. And so look with me at verse 5.

I want to show this to you because Joshua, he's not as

concerned about the physical attacks as he is the spiritual

attacks. He's less concerned about enemy

people trying to come in and get them.

He's more concerned about, hey, what's spiritually going to

happen when we separate? And if you remember, this is a

beautiful list that Joshua gives his people in verse 5.

It says only be very careful. He says, hey, you're about to

scatter. You're about to go to the other

side of the Jordan, but be very careful to observe the

commandment in the law that Moses, the sermon of the Lord

commanded you to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his

ways, to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve

him with all your heart and with all your soul.

And so why is this so significant that Joshua gives

him these commandments in verse 5?

These people are about to scatter, right?

They've just done all these things.

And and so Joshua reiterates, because Joshua knows the most

dangerous attack that could happen to these people as they

depart apart from one another. It's not physical, but it's

spiritual that they might go off and and go after unknown gods or

forget what God has done that in this season of separation,

they'd forget all the things that God's called them to do.

And so this is what I wanted to see is that a lot of times

separation can lead to isolation.

Separation can lead to isolation.

So when you separate from the battlefield, when you separate

from the mission field, it can often lead to an isolation,

isolating yourself from God, isolating yourself from the God

who led you through all the things.

Especially when you start to think about our church, how

we've done God's been doing these crazy things in the past

nine months, building this up and people come to faith,

baptisms, all the celebrations. It can be easy as we separate or

scatter just because of the natural flows of the summer that

we can forget about all that God has done.

And so Joshua, he knows that Israel, part of their part of

the nation is about to be separated from the rest,

possibly even isolated. And so when it but when it comes

to us, when it comes to us being obedient to Jesus, this is

always harder when we're separated from one another,

especially if you think about this group, this community that

we've just gathered together with, done life with, confess

sin with followed Jesus with. When you separate yourself from

that community, it can be much harder to be obedient to Jesus.

And so again, when you think about our church body classes

are finishing up high school and middle school.

We're coming to an end. Summer's coming, summer's

coming. Write that one down.

Summer's coming. I mean, no matter the the age

group here, like we, we probably have different flows within the

summer. We have vacations with the

summer, We have a natural departing in the summer, But

even with that separation can lead to isolation.

And so here's as we get to the a point within this part, if

you're going to intentionally depart, right?

Because God, he tells, he tells Israel, he's like, Hey, this is

your land. Like God's not intentional about

them. Hey, going, it's not like he

forgot about these tribes. God was intentional about

allowing them to depart from one another to have certain parts of

land that there there's a little bit of separation here.

That was intentional by God. And just like in God

intentionally sends them. There should be intentionality

behind us as we depart for the summer or things change or this

rhythm of life comes into play. But if we're not intentionally

departing, right, if we're not intentionally going on vacation,

if we're not intentionally going to our internships, if we're not

intentionally here, we're going to have a hard time

intentionally being obedient to Jesus as well.

So just like Joshua says for us, I think a big miss that we could

have is that when we look at a season in front of us, when we

think about our vacations, when we think about our internships,

that we we think that this is just an opportunity to put a

pause on our faith. Like we compartmentalize our

faith to a Sunday. We compartmentalize what God

wants to do in our life to just our small group.

But we don't realize the intentionality behind God not

only to send these tribes throughout the land, but also

the intentionality from God to send us throughout the land,

that our vacations could be more like mission trips, that our

internships could be a way to honor God and bring Jesus to

that workplace. And so for us, like as we

scatter on these things, just like God was giving Israel rest

in the land after their hard work, I think God wants to give

us rest as well. And so Joshua, he gives them

this command right in verse 5. You can look back at it.

He says, hey, be very careful as you depart to observe the

commandments to observe the law of Moses.

Be very careful to love the Lord your God.

Be very careful to walk in all his ways to keep his

commandments, to cling to him, to serve him with all your heart

and to serve him with all your your soul.

Because here's the reality. It's in this isolation when sin

can easily creep in in our lives.

And so for not intentional and obedience to Jesus, we're going

to we're going to be obedient to something else.

And so I love how Moses, the writer of some of the Old

Testament, he writes this in Genesis, Genesis 4.

This is talking about sin. This is actually gone talking.

This is just the back half of this verse.

It says sin is crouching at the door.

This desire is for you and you must rule over it.

There's a whole scene there between Cain and Abel going on

God's talking about sin and how it creeps in.

And then in first Peter, right Peter, another author within the

New Testament, talking about sin, talking to the people he's

he's talking to in first Peter in the letter, it says be sober

minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls

around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

When we separate, when we depart, it's it's not that

separation or, or, or going on vacation.

Those aren't bad things. Those are really good things.

There just needs to be intentionality there because

it's easy for that to turn into isolation.

And when we get isolated, this is where sin wants to creep in.

That's where the enemy wants to get us.

This lion, or if you're like my daughter Monroe, she's a

cheetah, I'm a lion. She always says that she's

still, we're starting to role play.

She's starting to get these things in her head, make relief.

Lions roar. OK, I'm a lion.

You're a cheetah. That's like a terrible thing

because the devil's the lion in this text.

So Yikes. You see what I'm getting out

here? Part of Israel was separated

from the rest by God's design, with intentionality from God.

Yet in separation, it can lead to isolation.

We're potentially setting into vacations, stepping into like

leaving all these things. It's going to feel different.

In this separation, there can be isolation and we don't want

that. It's in our isolation where the

enemy wants to attack us. He wants to separate us and

isolate us. So we must be intentional that

as we depart, we're very careful to be obedient to Jesus

observing the scriptures. Here's here's the thing about

vacation and and Bible reading. I think there is some of us are

you're like, dude, I love reading the Bible.

I got the best Bible reading habit.

Just you're just always waiting for someone to ask you about

your Bible reading habit. Nothing wrong with that.

I, I might actually fall in line with that one, but it's like on

vacation, the expectation is that you're going to read your

Bible the same way you've always read your Bible or, or on

vacation, you're like, I'm just not even going to bring it

because I know I'm not going to get to it.

I actually think both of those are bad expectations.

I think when we go on vacation, man, we ought to honestly put

together a simple Bible reading plan that we can have the right

expectation to get in it. You know how restful that would

be if you just had a handful of verses that every morning you

just got up 30 minutes before the kids, 30 minutes before

everybody else, and you just spent a little bit of time with

God. I mean, you're away from the

stresses of life. Hopefully you can turn off the

emails and work and stuff. That can be pretty hard

sometimes on vacation. But to have that, that simple

bite of God's word, the bread of life, to get some of that in you

every morning on vacation, all the stresses of life are put to

the side and you're just having fun.

You know how fulfilling that would be.

That would fill you up well. And so read your Bible on

vacation for real. Make a simple plan, love the

Lord like marvel over his creation.

Oh, man, asking people, what do you do here in the summer?

Like, oh, we go to the mountains, man.

When you go to the mountains this summer, dude, look at his

creation. What a great opportunity to

marvel, to depart and fall in love with Jesus even more.

And, and I'm thinking about, I mean, it's so easy for us to

fall into substances, drinking, smoking, whatever on vacations.

That's a lot of times in our country, our culture.

It's like that's what you do. You consume alcohol, you do

this, you do that, man, Don't let vacation be a time that

changes the way you follow Jesus.

Man, fight those sins now, but also fight those sins on

vacation. And I'm thinking about this too.

Like for anybody that's going on an internship this summer or

things like work is going to change this summer.

Man, what a great opportunity for you to grow in your

character to serve your workplace.

Like perhaps your your boss somehow takes a sabbatical.

Maybe your boss is like Aceo is never present in the summer.

Man, what a great opportunity for you to step up and to serve

your workplace and not necessarily make a great name

for yourself. But ma'am, what if that's

something that God wants to do to bless you, to bless your

family? Perhaps there's a promotion

there and it would actually bless your workplace to bring

the Christian values in to the place you work.

Like God's intentionally doing things this summer.

That's what I want you to see. And so to conclude this thought,

how do we be a departing people fully united to Him?

We are intentional about our obedience to Jesus.

We're intentional about our obedience to Jesus.

Not very profound sentence, very practical sentence, not the

easiest sentence. So there's some incredible right

principles here. Joshua gives us their reply to

our lives. But that's not it.

That's not all that's here. There's some, there's some

conflict arising. OK, buckle up.

Here it is, verse 10. So here's the scene, right?

Remember with me these tribes, they got done fighting, they're

ready to go to their their land. Part of these people are going

off and some of it it's on the other side of the Jordan.

So there's some fears like, all right, we got some separation.

Are they going to forget about us?

What should we do? What's happening here?

Here we go. Verse 10.

And when they came to the region of the Jordan that is in the

land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad in

the half tribe, the whole half tribe of Manasseh built there at

an altar by the Jordan. That's important.

They're an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size.

I can't help but hear Donald Trump's voice in there, an

imposing size, verse 11. And the people of Israel heard

it, heard it. So they heard about this

happening, the imposing size. And behold, the people of Reuben

and the people of God and the half tribe, the whole the whole

half drive of NASA have built the altar at the frontier of the

land of Canaan in the region about the Jordan on the side

that belongs to the people of Israel.

And when the people here's the conflict, when the people of

Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of people of Israel

gathered at Shiloh to make war against them.

OK, I have I have this word written next to this it says why

question mark? So these guys are get, you know,

they get sent off to the place where they're supposed to go and

they're like, hey, what's hey, let's build this, let's build

this altar. And so they build this altar and

the rest of Israel hears about it and they're like, well,

that's not good. And so they gear up, they get

ready for war, what they had just been doing.

And now there's this civil war that's about about to happen.

Yikes. Like that's not good.

They were used to have, they had war against the enemy.

Now they have war against themselves.

They're departing people. But how can they be united

together? Well, here's the thing we need

to understand about altars. I don't think we have them

really today, which is probably good.

But altars, they're synonymous with sacrifices.

You don't build an altar if you're not going to make a

sacrifice to it. And so Israel, they're like,

whoa, whoa, whoa. You're about to build this altar

then of imposing size, and you're building this thing.

That only means that you're going to be sacrificing things

on it. You're making sacrifices there.

And so they're like, dude, this isn't great.

You're over in this land that used to belong to the

Canaanites, where they had these gods that they'd make sacrifices

to. Are our brothers and sisters

these other tribes? Are they about to separate from

us and now in their isolation, about to make sacrifices to

false gods? That's the question, that

they're actually like whole oh, no, Like, has the enemy come

within exactly what Josh Joshua feared about the spiritual

attack? Is it happening?

And they're like, Oh, no, we need to go confront this, our

friends, you know, these other tribes, they're about to

separate from us, but also really separate from us.

And so you're like, why would they wage war against himself?

Well, to them, man, war was necessary in this situation

because they're like, man, dude, following God's A-Team sport.

If you guys go down, we're going down.

We, if you break the covenant, we break the covenant because

Israel as a nation, they have a, a covenant with God that he is

theirs and, and, and they are his.

And so when one of the team, part of the team goes down, they

all go down. And so like, dude, we can't let

that happen. And so they suit up for war and

they go confront him. And so to summarize a big chunk

of texts here, verse 13 through 20, Israel, the rest of the

nation, they're like, dude, we got to go check out what these

tribes are doing. They're building this big altar,

imposing sides. And so they go and they're

suited up and they're their spiritual leader, Phineas, the

son of Eliezer, the priest. He goes with them to confront

him about this altar. And so they show up and they're

like, it probably sound a lot like this.

It was like, hey, bud, what are we doing here?

Like, what's up with this, you know, kind of altar thing, You

know, kind of crazy, huh? Altars are kind of crazy.

And he's like, you know, altars are for sacrificing.

This probably what Phineas sound like.

Altars are for sacrificing. Do you guys remember where we

make sacrifices? Not at this altar.

We got another one. And so they kind of come up and

they're like, dude, you guys are, are, are doing a big no, no

here. And and not only that, he brings

up people, he brings up situations.

Said he'd remember what happened at pure where the sin entered in

and a plague came. He's like, you guys remember

that. You remember Aiken?

Aiken was this guy who helped take down Jericho as earlier in

Joshua, he took some of the spoil from within.

He wasn't supposed to. And then not only did Aiken die,

but the rest of Israel suffered. It's a team sport.

They're like, dude, if you suffer, if one of us breaks the

covenant, we all break the covenant.

So before that happens, either you're with us or you're not

with us. There's this conflict that's

arising. Really what they're saying is

what, you know, Israel, Phineas, these guys are saying to the

rest, it says do not make misguided or make sacrifices you

don't need to make. They're saying, hey, you're

making the wrong. If you're building this altar,

that means you're probably going to make sacrifices to it.

So don't make it wrong to sacrifice, Don't make sacrifices

God never called you to make. That's what these people are

saying. So this conflict right the

application for us, especially when you think about sacrifices,

especially when you think about following Jesus in the same way

they're saying, hey, don't make sacrifices God never called you

to make. For us today, we don't want to

make sacrifices. God's never called us to make.

We don't want to be people making sacrifices of our sexual

purity on the altar of lust, or sacrificing our family on the

altar of work, or sacrificing integrity on the altar of money,

or sacrificing the character of our spouse on the altar of

pride. We don't want to be people who

are making sacrifices God never called us to make.

We don't want to make the wrong sacrifices and it's often times

in isolation, this one, we make those, not only are we do we get

separated, but we get isolated and it's in those isolations we

make the wrong sacrifices. And so for Israel, the covenant,

right, the one they hold with God, it's a team thing.

It's a team sport. To be faithful to God for them

was a team thing. So if one teammate goes down,

the whole team goes down be all. It's the same thing for us, like

following Jesus. It's a team sport, like we're

together in this Paul, he's a he's a writer in the New

Testament. He talks about this a lot in in

the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 4 one through 5.

I want to read it for us, help you see this.

This is a beautiful reality of the church that we're all part

of the same body that he is a vine.

We are the branches. We're all part of the same body

of Christ. This is what Ephesians 4 says.

I therefore, a prisoner talking about Paul, urge you to walk in

a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience,

bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the

unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

This is what I want you to see. Verse 4.

There is one body. 1 Spirit, just as you recalled to 1 Hope

that belongs to your call. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one

God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in

all. Not to go crazy deep here on

this theology of being a part of the body of Christ, but it's a

team sport for us. We're all in this together.

I think there's a Disney song about that.

Molly loves Disney. I've heard.

I've heard a preacher say this once.

There's no such thing as personal sin.

There's no such thing as personal sin.

Think about that. It's like I thought all sins

personal. This is what that means.

There's no sin that only effects you every time you make a wrong

sacrifice. Every time you sin, not only

does it affect yourself, it's going to affect other people.

It's a team sport. Because in reality, every time

we sin, right, it's not just us. I got at the least of it.

Maybe my sin doesn't directly affect you because I didn't

directly sin against you, but it doesn't directly affect me.

And so you get less of me because of that.

Like our sin always effects each other.

So in the sense, there's no such thing as personal sin because

following speak, following Jesus is a team sport.

And so to conclude this part of this flow of the conflict, how

do we be a departing people fully united to him?

Will we keep ourselves from making the wrong sacrifices?

We don't want to make sacrifices God's never called us to make.

So there's a lot there. And come back into the text.

Israel, they're dressed for war, baby, The civil war.

It is a Bruin. And So what, what happens next?

Well, in verses 21 to 25, when they confront them about this

altar, right? We have these few tribes that

have come off on their own. They've built this huge altar.

They come to confront them with real evidence.

They're like, dude, it's a team sport.

If you go down, we all go down. We got to figure this out.

Well, turns out perhaps this is a application to most civil

wars. There was a big entire

misunderstanding of what this altar was about.

There's this huge misunderstanding.

And so these tribes, the Reuben, Gad, Manasa, the whole, the half

tribe, but the all of it, the whole half, they respond,

they're like, Hey, actually, guys, if we're actually breaking

the covenant, if we're breaching the faith with God, if we're

going after false gods, literally what the Scripture

says, it says, let the Lord himself take vengeance.

She's like, no, no, no, If this altar was meant for sacrifices,

if it was going to go after, if these were going to be wrong,

sacrifices here, let the Lord come take vengeance on we're,

we're with you guys. We're still in this coveted.

And so they tell the rest of Israel that like, Hey, actually,

this altar, this altar is to be a witness.

This altar is not for sacrificing.

It's a witness for all who can see it because it's you know,

I'm imposing his eyes. He said we're with the Lord

everybody who sees this altar. It's a witnesses go, hey, we are

with the Lord our God that this altar would represents the works

of God, all that he's done. And so when the rest of Israel

hears this, they're like, hey, this report, it's good in our

eyes. Let me show you verse verse 33.

Verse 33 says they tell them all this verse 33 and the report was

good in the eyes of the people of Israel and the people of

Israel blessed God and spoke no more of making war against them

to destroy the land where the people of Reuben and the people

of God were settled. Verse 34, the people of Reuben

and the people of God called the altar witness.

Witness. That's an important word.

It actually is in some of this other texts we didn't read

witness a witness for they, they said it is a witness between us

that the Lord is God. So this altar, it's not meant

for sacrifices. This altar is meant to be a

witness, a witness to all that God has done.

And so why is this important? Well, like I said earlier, we

have the context, the OR the, the, the conflict.

Then we have a challenge. Well, the challenge is this in

the in the New Testament, God calls us a witness that there's

no longer this altar of a witness, but us as humans, we

are witnesses. Actually in Acts 1, Jesus says

this Acts one verse 8, it says, but you will receive power when

the Holy Spirit comes comes upon you and you will be my witnesses

in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria to the end of the earth.

You will be my witnesses. And then so in in the same way

that this altar was built in Joshua to tell the world of the

works of God, our lives in our lips are meant to tell the world

of the works of God. That's what it means to be a

witness. In this witness, this altar is

actually the thing. Sure.

You're like, dude, that that created conflict.

It's like no, no, actually this witness was the thing that God

wanted to use to unify the tribes all together under 1

nation. That the witness, the telling of

the works of God is actually what unifies the people of God

on the deepest level. And so the question is, or the

challenge even, does your life tell the story of Jesus?

Do your lips tell the story of Jesus for us today?

Like if you've experienced the works of God, if you submitted

your life to Christ, if you believed he lived the perfect

life, died the death, rose from the grave, does your life model

that? Do your lips proclaim that And

so there's something that's that's honestly interestingly

sad. And obviously I'm not I didn't

like survey this room. It's interesting barn a group

they do studies and surveys and stuff.

They found that 55% of born again believers.

So people who would say, yes, I've truly placed my faith in

Jesus. 55% of them say that yes, I have talked about my faith.

I've talked about Jesus with at least one person in the last 12

months, 55% that's above half, right?

But if you think about it, that's 45% of people that

haven't in the past 12 months. Like that's a long time.

Like 12 months is a is a long time.

And, and guys, as a church, I think we can normalize talking

about Jesus. I think we can be a people that

are winsome with our witness, like we can be a people that

unified together by the way we witness to other people about

Jesus, by our lives and our lips, the works of God.

I think we can be those people. I think that statistic doesn't

have to be true in this room. I think we can be a church that

normalizes what it talks about. And actually, I think that's

going to be something that God uses to unify us.

And here's the reality too. You don't have to bring to

someone to faith in one conversation.

If you know how to do that, let me know.

I will take notes. I'll tell everybody, it's a lot

of times, guys, it's simple conversations about who God is,

what he's done in your life, what he's doing in your midst,

Those small conversations, the normalizing of communicating

your faith. That's often what God uses to

bring people to faith. They get people interested in

Christ, but that's what the Spirit uses to do it.

And so here's a common like response I get.

It's like, bro, wait, people don't actually want to know

about Jesus. Like I would talk about my faith

if people actually wanted to hear about my faith.

It's a reaction that I honestly hear a decent amount.

Well, don't worry, there's another group called Lifeway.

They did a survey on Americans like, hey, how interested would

you be to talk about someone else's personal faith or Jesus?

And 66% of people of Americans are open or interested in

hearing about other people's personal faith. 66%.

So that means if you've got three people you talk to about

Jesus that you witnessed to, two of them are going to be like,

oh, dude, I'm kind of interested, at least open to

that. That's crazy.

So, and, and here's the thing too, I think a lot of skeptical

people, it's like they don't want to hear anything I have to

say. Actually, I think skeptical

people don't really care what your church institution has to

say. They might even care what the

Bible has to say, but they really care about what you have

to say. People care actually about what

you believe the works of God that you've seen, that you've

experienced, that you've been a part of.

People really care about what you, what you personally

believe. So hopefully that encourages

you. So yeah, this is the challenge.

Be a witness for Jesus this week.

OK, so here's the conclusion, right?

We're coming to a close conclusion of this challenge.

How do we be a departing people fully united to him?

We witness to others about Jesus.

It's very simple. We witness to others about Jesus

and now I could give you tactics, tips, tricks, whatever

to be a witness, but I'd rather just tell you the story of the

greatest witness I've ever experienced in my life.

So if you know my story a bit, we didn't grow up going to

church, didn't really know God. Jesus didn't really have

anything against him. Wasn't like angry God.

None of that bless you. So for me, in high school, I had

a friend named Hank Evans. And So what I didn't realize is

that Hank had been following Jesus.

And so Hank and I were kind of reuniting our friendship

messaging over Snapchat. That's what you would do to do

that. And and so I'm like asking him

like, Hey, do you, you know, you party do this, do you that?

And he's like, Nah, bro, I don't, but I'm pumped to hang

out. And so Hank and I were actually

never able to hang out because a few days after that, Hank ended

up passing away. So he passed away.

His heart stopped while he was longboarding.

But it was his parents that I think had the greatest witness.

So that happened almost a year. Would it be 2014, May of 2014?

And so his parents, what they started to do, I mean, you think

about the situation, how easy it would be to isolate yourself,

separate yourselves from everybody else.

What they did was is like, you know what?

There's a lot of hurting people, not just us.

And so as they're trying to lead their family through the

siblings, Hank siblings, they have started inviting all of

Hank's friends over to their house.

They can't. Once you come over, I'll share

with you where my hope comes from.

And so they start inviting his friends over and it's kind of

like you go there to like for you, pay your respects or

whatever. And eventually it turns into a

Bible study. They start telling me, hey, this

is where our hope comes from, that there's a God who does

miracles, that even though God didn't bring our son back to

life, he brought his son back to life so that we could live

forever. And I don't even know that this

was a Bible study. I ended up just going just

because nothing against God, nothing against Jesus.

They start reading the Gospel of John.

They get to this story about this man who was born blind, one

of the greatest witnesses, and this man is like, man, I don't,

I don't know anything about Jesus.

They put this man on trial. He's like, I don't know much

about Jesus. I just know that once I was

blind, but now I see. And through the witness of my

friends, parents and the witness of that scripture, man, God used

that to open up my eyes. These are just faithful people,

broken people, man. I could tell you stories and

stories and stories that they told me in that basement that

God used to open up my eyes. I mean, that's a prayer for our

church. We might be like, man, why does

God have this for me? Why is he separating me out?

Why am I the only Christian at my work?

Man, God's intentional about sending you there.

He wants to do something there. He wants you to be a witness

there. God's intentional with

everything He does. I've heard it said if God puts

you where you are with intentionality, you should live

where you are with intentionality.

Maybe you've heard mission is movement.

This is how God works. He moves us around from place to

place. And the altar of your life is to

be a witness of what God has done through your life and

through your lips. So let me pray for us.

Yes, Jesus is our prayer. Not even now would you help us

see, Lord Jesus, that you were the one who came down.

God, you came down to put yourself back up on an altar, an

altar of a cross. Got to be the sacrifice, to be

the one true sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice.

God that we don't need to make sacrifices to anything else.

There's no other God that we need to submit to, but you're

the only God that we ought to submit to.

And so God help us now see that that there's no other sacrifice

worthy of having God which help us not sacrifice their family

forever. These false gods, whether it's

lust, money, work, whatever. Lord God, help us see that

you've been so good to us, that you've been faithful to us, that

this is a A-Team sport. God, there's no such thing as

personal sin all over. Every time we sin, it affects us

and somebody else. So God help us fight that.

Help us not be isolated. But intentionally departs, God

to be with you tomorrow at your creation.

God, ultimately, I pray that you would raise up witnesses within

this room, God, that you would open up the eyes of the blind to

see once again. Do we see that, God?

Jesus, you, you're the one who can change us.

God that you rose again so that we could live with you forever

and ever and not just have heaven, but have you.

So help us see it. Jesus, his name, me bro, Amen.