When Assumptions Start Wars | Joshua 22:1-34 | Pastor Diego Mesa

All right, Well, I don't know about you.

I want to have a PhD In giving, not an

elementary school certificate or a high school diploma in giving.

I want to have a PhD. That I have mastered

what giving is really all about, and completely generous. You

know what amazing set of songs that was. But I

appreciate the last song about trusting in God. I've never

sensed it more the need to trust God than ever before,

not just because of the volatility of the times that

we're living in that fluctuate like the wind.

Everything could be great today.

But tomorrow it could just go haywire in the world

and in your personal lives. And trusting God is the

ability to trust God no matter what at the end

of the day, and your greatest pain and loss is

the ability to trust God. So I really want to

encourage you. You know, we have our dollar bill or

our money, and what's on the top of it it says

trust God. But the reality is is that we trust

in that document more than we really do trust God.

And I'm not a glooms.

Day person, but I'm just here to tell you times

are not going to get any better, So say goodbye

to them. You'll have good moments, you'll still have fun,

you'll still go on vacation. But this world, the two

worlds are colliding the world of darkness and the world

of light. God's agenda versus Satan's agenda, and it's causing

this tension and friction that's going on.

And so I'm just.

Trying to tell you you're leave it to beaver days

are gone, Your Brady Bunch days are gone, your cosy

days that grew up.

They're gone. We haven't We.

Lost our We've lost our patriarchs. We've lost our matriarchs.

We've lost our morals, we've lost our values, we've lost

our respect for mankind.

We've lost all that. I don't know that we'll.

Get that back before Jesus comes, But I'm just telling

you the way you and I are going to overcome

not survive.

The world survives.

They survive with Jack Daniels, They survive with immorality jah

At hide the pain that's in them. We don't survive.

We thrive. And that's what makes us the light to

this world.

That says, how in that heck can you act the

way you're acting when everything around you is going so

crazy and so I prophesy that the church, the body

of Christ, all around the world, as well as this

local church, will become a haven, more important now than

it's ever been before. And people will come running in

with desperation, destitute because they've tried everything that the world

told them to try, and now they're empty, and now

they're hungry. And the reality is is that we need

to be ready when they come.

We need to be full of faith. We need to

be people prayed up.

We need to be Christians that have been delivered and

set free so that the anointing through Jesus Christ can

flow through you to minister to their hurts and pains.

Amen. All right, one more thing.

I like us to pray before I start this message today.

It's going to be a good message on Joshua twenty two.

But one of my heroes, one of my friends, one

of my colleagues, Andrew, Nunya's deputy, got.

Killed on Monday and I got the call.

First it was to come to the station, and then

they told me to go to Arrowhead and said that

the wife only wanted to see you out of all

the chaplains.

And I showed up and.

I walked them Mama in and I walked Yolanda and

I walked, walked Roxy in and we saw Andrew who

had expired all of just a domestic call and someone

shot him in the head. We need to pray for

our brothers. We need to pray that this family as

they walked through the days to come, leading in a

couple of weeks to the homegoing service. And you know

Pasca any better than us, It's beyond that the days

that we have to walk with them. So Father, we

just lift up the Nunyaz family to you today. And

this tragedy that has taken place, would you bring some

level of peace and safety to our city that's grieving

and maybe people are now fear Father, the enemy is wicked,

and we bind and rebuke this murdering spirit, this assaulting spirit,

destroying spirit.

That makes people fool.

Irrational in their thinking, Oh God, and violent, violent. We

take authority over that spirit in Jesus' name, that murdering spirit.

In Jesus' name.

Father, we ask O God for the divine protection of

our children, our families. As we drive the highways and

byways of life, O God, that nothing could.

Hurt or harm us.

But now come alongside this family. I thank you three

months ago, if not more, Andrew came into a service,

and I smile with the biggest smile on my face

that he was the first chaplain that we were able to.

Influence that came o.

God. I thank you that he's in glory now and

he will embrace his wife one day, his two year

old daughter, and his unborn baby.

That's in her womb one day, Oh God.

And so I just thank you Lord for giving them

amazing grace during this season as this congregation praise in

Jesus' name.

Amen.

So if you'd be so kind as to just hold

up the nuniest family and your devotions every day, that'll

be pretty awesome. That's what we do.

In Joshua twenty two.

I want to just share a word from you and

piggyback off of all our great communicators as we've been

preaching Joshua. You guys only have two more chapters and

then we're going to wave goodbye to Joshua and we'll

see who the next book is or the next person

that we take on. I pray that you have learned

a lot through the Book of Joshua about how to

have courage and how to be a conquer and how

to inherit the promises of God, and all that God

has challenged.

Us in this series. So let's stand.

We're going to read a few verses. It's a long chapter.

I won't navigate through the chire chapter of reading it,

but I'll try to highlight some points. The Rubenites, the

goad and half the tribal Manassa left the Israelites at

Shiloh in the land of Canaan to return to their

own land of Gilead, which they took possession of according

to the Lord's command through Moses. When they came to

the region of the Jordan, the land of Canaan, the Rubenites,

the Gadites, and half the tribal Manassa built a large,

impressive altar there by the Jordan.

The Israelites heard it and said.

Look, the Rubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribal Manassa

built an altar on the frontier of the land of

Canaan at the region of the Jordan, on the Israelites

side last verse. And when Israel heard this, the entire

Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and said, it's time to

go to war again. You may be seated. They're about

ready to kill their brothers. There's serious business. They're about

ready to go to war. I want to have ask

some opening questions to you today, because that will be

the thing that we will navigate through in part in

a few moments. But have you ever thought you were

right only to find out you were wrong about something?

By have and when you found out you were wrong,

did you apologize?

Did you admit it?

Oh?

That's another subject. Let's move on. Have you ever been guilty.

Of misjudging someone's intentions, or their actions, or their motives?

You were absolutely sure you knew what their motive was,

only to have to eat your words to find out

it wasn't really the way it looked I have Have

you ever been guilty of overreacting to something someone did?

I remember there's a classic story in the Bible of

David overreacting to Neyball.

And if it wasn't for the council and.

Wisdom of Abigail to come alongside and say, wait a minute,

you're a king.

This guy's a fool.

Why would you jeopard the anointing in your life to

kill someone just because they don't treat you right. Sometimes

we have to learn from each other. You know, I

don't know about you, but I am a if you

ever get my number, you ever want to communicate with

me through texting, I just want to apologize up front.

I am a lousy texter. I do not text in sentences.

I do not text in paragraphs.

I just I just text in one word from yeah,

good thank you, goodbye, have a nice day. So if

you're looking for that you get your text is like

twenty nine thirty words.

Mine is about three.

And you're thinking, man, I put all this effort and

thought into texting diego and he just gives me four

words or just an emoji, Hi, thank you, God bless you.

May the Lord take a liking to you. I don't know,

but you know, but you know, we've grown it. We

come from a generation that used to talk over offence,

or drive to someone's car to talk to the drive

from a car to their location. We become a generation

that we then move to the phone. We pick up

the phone and we communicate that way. Now we've come

a generation where we communicate through texting and emailing, and

you and I recognizing that texting can can sometimes screw

screw misc screw yeah, screw yeah, it's good miss screw.

Your intentions, your motives. Because we can't see each other,

we don't care.

We don't see body language, we don't see facial expressions,

we don't we don't hear the tone of someone's voice

in that And so you look at it and you're

offended by it, but nothing offensive was meant by it.

But because you couldn't see it. That's what we're going

to talk about in a few moments. But I want

to open up with these thoughts that we read about.

First of all, they're going to show us a map.

Hopefully we'll get a good map. You knew what I

did right there or whatever. You guys are smart congregates.

Oh no, passer Diego's up there. Good luck for the

power Pois team. You know what? This is where all

the tribes in Joshua settled. Okay, this is the land

of Canaan. Okay, but you'll notice right in the dab

in the middle is Shiloh. Shiloh at this time is

the capitol and that's where the tabernacle exists, where the

altar of God's presence is.

Okay, it's right there in the middle. There.

But notice to the right of this, now you get

nations that are on the side and nations on that side,

and then the middle of there you can barely see

it is the Jordan and the Dead Sea. So this

separation began to take place, and the Jordan began to

divide the western tribes from the eastern tribes.

Say, with me west and east, the west side the

east side, they can't get alone.

And so that's what's going to begin to happen in

the story that you just got. There's this Jordan that's

going to separate them. And the Bible talks about the

three tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manassa are

living now on the eastern coast, where all the other

tribes which are called the Israelites, even though they're still recognized,

that are now on the western side. Okay, so what

happened was is these two and a half tribes fought

for their brothers. Moses said, we're going to go to war,

and I want you to fight for your brothers to

gain their land.

Once they're done.

You could go back and inherit your property, your real estate.

You could go back to your family. So all these

say this with me.

Men.

Okay, I'm not trying to say anything bad, but I'm

just saying these were men warriors. There were no women

warriors here in this story.

Okay.

These were men fighting the battle. These were men leading

their household. The women were at home and they were

taking care of their children and the elderly and so

forth and so on. So these men were fighting a battle.

The battle was over. Now it was a time of peace,

and now they could begin to go back across that

Jordan and begin to inherit their promise. But the Bible

brings out the overwhelming character of these individuals that I'd

like to highlight for a few moments. And so to

get to understand this, we're going to go to verse

number one and read through verse number four. Joshua summoned

the Rubenites and the Gadites and have to tribal Manassa,

and he told them, you have done everything Moses, the

Lord's servant, commanded you, and obeyed me in everything I

commanded you. You have not deserted your brothers even once

this whole time, but have carried out their requirements and

the command of your lord. Now that he has given

your brothers rest now there's no more fighting.

They have their land, just as He promised them. Return

home in your own land.

That Moses, the Lord's servant gave you across the Jordan.

I love this point because.

It's going to magnify the characteristics of these men that

went and fought for their brothers that are now going

to come back to their families and inherit. I think

there's a strong character for men, husbands and fathers to follow.

But I think they inspire everybody else that's in this

room because the Bible said this about their character. And

let it challenge you that they had done everything that

God had asked them to do. They'd done everything the Bible.

They finished it. They did everything. The second quality they

obeyed in everything. The third quality. They never once abandoned

or deserted their posts, their brothers, their assignment, their calling,

their duty, their expectations. Never, not once these men did

the fourth characteristic. They carried out the directives, the orders,

and the expectations that were placed upon them. They carried

them out. That don't inspire us in our lives. I

don't know about you. I don't want to be a

DNF and a DNF in running situations that I'm sure

in other sports when I used to run, if you

get a DNF next to your name, it means this

did not finish the race. Because everywhere in life there's

a lot of enthusiastic, motivated starters.

Oh, I'm gonna have a.

Great marriage, for better, for worse, for richard, for poor

and sickness, And how did that go?

What are the marriage statistics of the dropout?

I'm not trying to bring any condemnation, but I'm just

trying to tell you what's the dropout rate of marriage?

How about New Year's resolutions? How about losing weight? How

about fitness?

How about getting out of debt and starting to manage

your money?

How are you doing? How about cleaning out your garage?

How are we doing? Now? We're all challenged.

We're all challenged by this, and we need to be

inspired by these men that we're about ready to see.

And you're gonna see why.

It is so inspiring for them to be people that

complete and finish, people that are highly trustworthy and faithful,

and people that can absolutely be counted on versus starting

my commitment with Christ, starting my commitments with others, and

d and EFT and did not.

Finish what I said I would do.

The second characteristic, I think is a huge one too.

It's found in verse five. Only carefully obey. This is

after now.

So now they're going to be released, but they want

to commission them with something.

So this is what's given to them.

Only carefully obey the command of instructions that Moses, the

Lord's servant, gave you to love the Lord your God,

walk in all his ways, keep his commandments, be loyal

to him, and serve him with all your heart. Guys,

this is more than a placard that we put in

our in our homes, on our walls. This is more

than we something we recite. I'm gonna trust God. I'm

gonna love the Lord with all my heart, with all

my soul, and all my mind. This is something that's

lived out, and it's God to constantly be reminded in

our minds every day. And so Joshua felt to bring

it back.

To their attention.

You heard this under the leadership and administration of Moses.

You've gotten some victories. Now, you've gotten some successes.

Now now I want to recommission you to say this

to you.

What does that mean?

It's the warning that after your success and now you'll

enter into a season of rest.

Keep the first things first.

I believe, as I've studied my life and the lives

of others, and the lives of the Bible, that there

are two times in which we are testing in life.

We are tested in our struggles and we are tested

in our successes. And many people in their struggles will

cry out to God in desperation.

I need you.

I'm gonna do right now, go start going to church.

I'm gonna start treating my wife. I'm gonna start giving God.

Why because you need a miracle. But once your marriage

gets back together, and once you get a promotion on

your job, and once you're not in that battle anymore.

We kind of let go and let kick back.

And are not as diligent as we ought to be

to need God like we needed him.

In our desperation.

And so Joshua's warning them, now we're not battling anymore.

There's rest now in the land. So now when you

go back, and you'll see what he's talking.

About in a few moments, I want you to remember God.

And here's how I want you to remember God. He says,

you remember to love your God every day. It's not

something we automatically do. You've got to put in the

forefront of your mind. He says, here, walk and live

in the ways God wants you to, because you can

love God but not walk in the ways he wants

you to.

Then he says, to love God's word. Again, I can

love God.

It's an oxymoron, but people are saying they love God,

but they don't love his word because they pull pages

out of the Bible and won't live out the hard scriptures.

In reality, you can't love God and not love his word.

But he challenges us to love him, love his ways,

love the Word, and then be extremely loyal and dedicated

to him. Then always be in service to him. This

is what you just read, and then always give your

best and extra for the cause of Christ. That's what

he's challenging us with.

Again.

It's the story of David. When men go off to battle,

this guy does not go off to battle, and he's

sitting in a comfortable kingdom where he does not have

to fight as much as any more. There's success and

rest in his kingdom. And so that's when he starts

messing around with Bathsheba. So watch out for these times

of leisure and pleasure and success. I've been mindful of

that through this beautiful transition of succession. I had to

be prayed up because I had to preach so much.

I had to depend on God because there was vision

in this house. I had to be close to God

because I didn't know what I would encounter as to

lead pastor. But I'm not the lead pastor anymore. I

think you're getting what I'm feeling. So now I could

pick kick back as a sixty four year old man

on my laurels. I don't have to work as hard.

I've got a retirement check coming in. Now I get

to pick and choose. But I felt like the Lord

challenged me as I was preparing for that a year

and a half ago, that I needed to depend upon

Him more in this next season than even I did

in the season that I walked through. And that's why

I believe humbly God is using me greater in this

season than he did in the last thirty season years

and my prayers, my latter d will be greater than

my former.

Because in that year and a.

Half, he said, I used to give about it half

an hour every day to prayer, this last year and

a half, he bumped it to an hour without excuse.

You would think I have.

To give lesson prayer, because that's what most people would

have that have this think.

But it's not. It's not that way.

And so this is a great example that Joshua gives

them to challenge them on to remember these important things.

Then we get into this amazing verse. I just love

all this, it says in verse seven B and then eight.

When Joshua sent them to their homes, he blessed them. Okay,

this is all coming together now, and he said, return

to your homes. What's this If you want to shout,

run around the room and claim it, name it whatever

you want. Return to your homes with great wealth, huge

number of cattle, silver, gold, bronze, iron, large quantity of clothing.

Share the spoil of your enemies with your brothers. They

were blessed, They lived a blessed life. So my question is,

my question is what does a blessed life look like,

a god blessed life? And how do I receive a

blessed life? Again, we have placards. We say to one another,

God bless you. And again some of us understand what

we are saying some of us have no comprehension.

Of what we're saying.

When we say the word bless it just becomes a

ritualistic word of exchange. But He blessed them. He blessed

them because they did something. Always remember this. Heaven is free,

forgiveness is free, salvation is free, but rewards are not free.

A blessed life is not free.

You're gonna have to merit that, and you have to

earn that through obedience. All you have to do is

except Jesus Christ is your Lord and savior, and you

get heaven for free, you get salvation for free, you

get forgiveness for free. But if you want to bless marriage,

and you want a blessed job, and you want blessed health,

and you want to bless finances, and you want to

bless mind, you're gonna have to obey God, merit that,

and earn it. And at least in my generation, we

had a bunch of Christians that were just name it

and claim it and prophesy to themselves that they were

blessed with Heaven's best and expected nothing less and.

Living like a junkyard dog.

They weren't tithing, they weren't walking in forgiveness.

They weren't obeying God. It's voided out.

Come on.

Let's not being so spooky.

So this amazing reward is bestowed upon them. So reality

is this is the word blessed, because again Psalm's won.

The first Psalm starts off with the word bless Then

you get into Psalms thirty three. It'll read on the

screen Psalms thirty three and verse number happy Happy, that's

the word Blessed is the nations who God is the Lord,

They're blessed. If we honor God in our nation will

be blessed. You do honor God, then we're not going

to be blessed. You want to honor Buddha, then we're

not going to be blessed. You want to honor Mohammed,

We're not going to be blessed.

This is Jehovah God here.

Happy is the nation whose God is their lord, the

people who has chosen to be His possession. And then

we get into the beatitudes, and a lot of the

beatitudes just simply start off with blessed are the poor

in spirit? Be attitudes be ated. That's Matthew beatitudes, beatitudes be.

There, we go blessed.

Are the poor in spirit? For theirs is the kingdom

of God. Enlist all those things. So the word blessed

means to be happy, have good fortune, forward going, living

a straight life, to be envied, My God.

Does the word world? Envy? Does the center? Envy? Does

the celebrity and you? Envious? Does a mogul envious?

To be prosperous, to have joy and satisfaction and salvation

in our lives. That's what the word blessed means. And

it's a broad word that it's talking about spirit. It's

talking about emotions. It's talking about your mental health. It's

talking about your soul. Is talking about your relationships. It's

talking about your career. He's talking about your finances, is

talking about your vocation. God wants you to be blessed

in all spheres that are your life.

But it's key here. How are these tribes blessed? How

are you.

And I going to walk in the blessings of God?

Well it's absolutely here in Joshua, as it reads, Number

one was this, you are to give where God tells

you to give.

You're never going to be blessed if you don't give.

If you're a hoarder, you're selfish or stingy, you walk

in fear, you're a tight wad. Then you're gonna be

blessed by your hand, not by the hand of God.

And it will be a limited blessing. It will be limited.

You'll probably have your mortgage paid off, and you'll probably

go on vacation.

You probably a lot of money in your bank.

I don't know what your marriage is gonna look like.

I don't know what your kids are going to look like.

I don't know the health of your spirit. And I

could go on and on. So they lived a blessed

life because they gave where they should have given.

Number two, you do what you're supposed to do.

You do what you're supposed to do, what God commands

you to do, living out the Bible. And then you're

gonna be what God asked you to be, holy, righteous, integral, honest, faithful.

And then you're gonna share what you have. God will

put needs in front of you. Yeah, sometimes you need

wisdom to know how to do that and how much

to do it. But I want to share. I want

to share. And again, I'm not a rich man.

I've stewarded.

I've stewarded my finances I'm a little bit of a

tight wad. So you know what, I didn't spend it,

uh whatever little I had on flamboyancy.

I live very clean.

I'm very short, very I don't know what the word

I'm looking frugal wise, I don't know what the word

I want to use right now. And so the little

extra I have I bless people with. I'm not here

to brag. I'm not here to brag. I'm here to

inspire you that I put a lot of kids through UCA.

I wrote out their check. You say, man, I want

you to write out mine. No no, no, no, no no no, no,

no no no. I've bought in cars for people. I've

bought in refrigerators for people. There's so many whatever, just

led by the spirit of God and need comes in

front of me, and I do it.

Because I want to.

I want a rich reward when I get to heaven.

I don't care if I don't get it in this lifetime,

but I know I'm going to get in the next lifetime.

And it warms my heart, not out of pride or arrogance.

It just warms my heart because God's been so good

to me. This Mexican from Montabello that out at one

point a GPA that thought he never ever owned his

first home if it wasn't for Joe Nasser putting down

the deposit on it.

And my life has.

Been a living, breathing miracle of God's goodness. Couldn't making

three hundred dollars a week for my family as a preacher,

would never be able to afford a home. Wanted to

take my young little family to Disney World. Couldn't afford

to go to Disney World until someone came to me

and said, here's ten thousand dollars, take your kids on

a vacation.

He didn't know.

He didn't say Florida, but he didn't know that I

wanted a vacation, not just God and I could go

over testimony after testimony after testimony. Couldn't afford to to

eat at at Disneyland. You know, Disney's kitchen, Goofy's kitchen.

I looked at Cindy and I said, what the heck?

I can't even remember what it was like thirty nine

ninety nine, back then when they were a little kid.

I said, I can't afford Nathan, he eats a lot out,

Caleb me bankrupt me I said, I guess we gotta

use the credit card. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Little did I know that a member went there and

p had paid for the meal.

The blessings of God. Let me tell.

You, you know, you don't have to believe me, believe

the word.

The blessings of God will find you. You don't have

to worry about it.

God's gotta take care of his righteous children. God's got

to take care of his covenant of promises.

You don't have to worry about that.

Your job is just to get your ten percent and

put it in the Kingdom of That's all your job.

That's the biggest test of your life. God will do

everything else. I didn't mean to do that. I don't apologize,

but we'll keep on. And then they shared everything they had.

And then that you keep and remain consistent, constant, and continued.

These are the rewards that God gives us.

The pairl of the talent proves that the things can

be earned and things can be merited. The fourth thing,

with the three minutes that I have left, will go

something like this very quickly.

We got to work through this. We got to work

through this.

So it's found in the Bible here where we started.

So these two and a half tribes on the east

now are going to build an altar, okay, And so

all the other tribes get mad, and they say, you're

trying to duplicate the tabernacle and there's only one altar

for sacrifice, and you're trying to create your own religion,

and you're trying to create disunity amongst the tribes. And

so what happens is they send the priest Phineas, and

they send leaders of the tribes to go and meet

with the leaders of the two and a half tribes

to find out their intentions of building this altar, because

remember where we left it in the beginning. They're about

ready to go to war with them. This is serious business.

The God that delivered us out of Egyptian bondage and

allowed us to conquer all this land, and now you're

gonna forsake him by building a calf, or building a

false altar, or trying to separate from us.

We won't tolerate that.

Look at their stout holiness of righteousness.

If we would hold each.

Other that accountable, we live blessed better lives. So they

go there and basically the two and a half tribes say, oh, no, no, no,

we're not building an altar of sacrifice.

We're building an altar a memorial.

For our further generation because we're so far away from you,

because the River Jordan has divided us. We remember who

we are as a people and the God that delivered us.

But there are our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren

that won't know the story. And we want to build

our altar resembling the point of not sacrificing, but a

memorial into God, a witness of who he is, so

that our generations will worship the one and only God.

When they went there, they said, dang are bad. Shoot

put down your sword, man, your knives, your guns. It's

all righteous, it's all good. We misread your intention so

you could read it. But it's amazing how and with

this our perception and our interpretation and our assumptions can

sometimes be right, but they can also sometimes be wrong.

And if they're wrong, they lead to our offense.

You're becoming critical, judgmental, and having a negative emotion towards somebody.

And again, the western tribes thought that the Eastern tribes

were in rebellion and disrespecting the altar of God, and

it created this suspicion of them and this speculation of them.

But when the truth came out, then they repented and

there was unity in solidarity. Sometimes we definitely need to

seek clarity and we need to have great conflict resolutions

in our marriages, on our jobs, in our friend and

in our church family.

And the problem is is we don't do that. Right.

Let me give you a quote. It'll go on the screen. Please,

let's give him the quote. People today don't know how

to reason together. They only know how to react or

retaliate against each other. Here's my secondary quote that I'd

like to give you. We'd rather talk about someone than

talk to someone. You know that guy Sammy, I know

about him. You ought to wear a suit ever once

in a while, see, rather than going to Samy and say, Sammy,

you love your wardrobe? Do you ever think about dressing

up and wearing a suit. So I'd rather talk about

him than talk to him with whatever offends me. And

we lack that maturity. That's why we don't trust each other.

That's why our churches, this one is choosing to be different.

But that's why churches are more assemblies than communities. So

this is a place so I attend. I have no

relationship with anybody. I'm not accountable to anybody. I don't

talk to anybody. I'm the last to come to church

and I'm the first to leave. I'm preaching better than

you're amening me.

Here tonight.

Again, Pastor Adam did an amazing job on Revival. But

he talked about the principle.

Of Matthew eighteen, and I'm.

Just gonna throw it on the screen just so that

you know he didn't read it, so.

I want you to see it.

It says, if your brother sins against you, just simply

means someone hurts you, someone offended you. Here's what the

Bible tells you do. If you're a Christian. If you're

not a Christian, do whatever you need to do. Cut

their tires, I don't care. Go on social media and

lam bast them. Lie about that.

I don't know.

But if you're a Christian, here's how you live. If

your brother sins against you, in other words, you hurt me,

you do something wrong, go tell him his faults between

you and him alone. And then it says this, if

he listens to you, you want a brother, you have

unity again, fellowship, friendship.

Let's go on, let's move on. It not done yet.

Don't claup. It's not done.

But if he won't listen, how many of you know

people like that, They're not gonna listen. He says this,

here's the next step. Here's all you handle it. Take

one or two others with you. Okay, Now there's reasoning,

there's counsel, there's somebody to protect you, there's someone to

speak into them. And so it says that by the

testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact will be

established or true.

So they can't come back. You said this, No, I

didn't say that you meant to do.

No, you that witness will now back you up.

Let's go on.

If he doesn't pay attention to them, tell the church.

Go public.

Now, if we you and I went public, half this

church would leave me.

They're not a Christian church. How they there?

Did they embarrassed Brother John right there? Well, we need

to embarrass brother John if he ain't listening listen.

Yeah, if he's not listening to Sister Salad, he need

to be embarrassed.

But we hear that at his age he wants to

go find him a little twenty year old and start

hooking up and grow along ponytail.

You know how they do it, Grow.

Along ponytail, buy him a corvette. Want allows everybody. I

want to present Brother John. He's no longer Brother John anymore.

But let's pray for brother John. Let's intercede for brother John.

But I don't want to see any of you having

fellowship with him, because he needs to be convicted. And

let God use that conviction to say I've lost my family,

I've lost my community. We'll pray for him, we'll tell

him we still love him, we'll tell him that.

There's a place of restoration. We'll tell him how to be.

But we don't do things like that.

So let's move on while time has elapsed. So here's clarity.

Don't do things hasty. This is what this is going

to teach us. Don't do things in a quick hurry.

Make sure you're emotionally sound, not all your evidence facts.

Don't do anything hasty. Don't judge a matter until you've

heard everything. Number three, Believe the best of each other,

their motives and intentions.

That's Bible.

Seek unity, not division, and give people an opportunity to

explain and defend their actions, really have a listening understanding heart,

don't ignore the conflict confronted with meekness and humility, be

teachable and learnable. Number next, whatever it is, I don't

even know, find the right place and the right time

to do it, because that the setting means everything. Then

the right people that you're gonna bring with you, As

the scripture says, ask first and notify first, and including

first can avoid a lot of misunderstanding. So now I'm

gonna put it on these two and a half tribes.

They should have let them know ahead of time. They

would avoided it. Now they weren't asking. They don't necessarily

sometimes need to ask permission. I just want to make

you aware of something. X's can get along better if

they just say I want to make you aware of something.

Kind of thing, so you could protect yourself.

And just notifying somebody ahead of time, you know what

changes are going to be made or what you're going.

To be doing differently.

And last of all, be strong enough to hold under

your strong convictions based upon the Bible, and don't conform.

To the pressure or to the fear.

And I could imagine these two and a half tribes

seeing all these boys come and toward them with their

swords and hands.

But they held to their conviction. We're right, We're not wrong.

And it's not a sacrifice of altar for a sacrifice, it's.

For a memorial. So they didn't cave in.

They held to their conviction that they believed that what

God had told them to do, that it was biblically sound,

their integrity and their heart was right, and they held

to that. And so don't give in to the pressure

around you that you change your values of what God

told you. How Ma, have you recognized that there's sometimes

a generational gap between the silent generation.

The baby boomers and.

How they communicate or how millennials or gen Z's interpret

what they say. We do it our beautiful families on

a group tex and we get reminded every time when

we are thinking and processing and talking like baby boomers.

And so sometimes.

In this church, I've had to deal with employees that

had conflict, and I realized that there could be no

resolution until confrontation took place.

In my family, we've.

Had to confront things to try to bring out resolutions.

We had a parent in our school that just lambasted us,

and we had to go in there with love and

just say you.

Can't talk like that anymore. Either this school you like it,

or take your kid out.

But your nine thousand dollars tuition is not worth us,

you know. Having to have to put out all these

fires of rumors and speculations, he got a broader perspective

of what he was doing, and he actually repented, and

now it's turned to be a beautiful relationship. We could

have talked continued to talk about him rather than talk

to him. We could have went in there already saying,

you know what, we're going to just terminate the relationship.

It's over. But we went in there with a plan

of resolution.

If you can hold to this promise, then we're willing

to allow this to continue. And it's turned out to

be a beautiful relationship. Father, I don't know where we

land this plane now, but I pray that it ministers

to people from this beautiful book of Joshua. God so

much to learn, Lord, so much to take away about

the character of these men that inspire us. O, God,

to not be passive during the times of our success.

So God to continue to remember who you are in

our lives. So God to seek resolution for the conflict

that's in our lives, and not always be quick to

judge someone or judge something until.

We've heard the matter.

God, thank you for this wisdom that we can walk

into protect our lives, and thank you for what a

blessed life looks like. God. We want to walk in

your blessings. God. Your blessings can out do for us

then what a man can give us God, or a

job can give us or any other person. Your hand

is a rich hand. We want your blessings in our lives.

Oh God.

Money is so limited, Oh God, but your blessing is unlimited.

Help us to walk in obedience to what your word says,

and live out your word and accomplish what your word

ask us to do, so that we'd be in a

place where the blessings of the Lord would follow us

and overtake us. O God, I thank you for that.

I thank you for people today grabbing hold of that

that they work, and they work, and they earn, and

they earn, and they steward and they steward, and then

God comes in and blesses, and he multiplies and he

brings favor and he brings increase into their lives. I

pray for that fruit to.

Happen in their lives.

In Jesus name, Amen, we're gonna walk out of this

church together in a matter of moments.

Thank you so.

Much for coming to church today. But nowhere in the

Bible does say if you go to church, you go

to heaven. Show me in the Bible where it says

if you go to church, you go to heaven. Nor

in the Bible does say if you don't cuss and

you don't drink, you.

Go to heaven. Show me the Bible where it says that.

No where in the Bible does it say if you

pray the Rosary, and you pray to crystals, and you meditate,

you'll go to heaven.

Show me where it says that.

No where does say if you're a moral person, you're

a kind person, you're a nice person, you'll go to heaven.

Doesn't say nowhere does say if you're a veteran, and

you're a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, you'll go to heaven.

It doesn't say that all those are works, And I

to go on and on and on. You can't work

your way into heaven, and you can't work your way

out of hell.

I want you to.

Realize that hell, no matter how hard it is to hear,

Hell is full of a lot of good people. But

the reason why they're in hell is not because of

their badness. They're in hell for one reason, because they

reject Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior and

in their heart, either in their heart or with their confession.

I don't need a savior.

I don't believe that Jesus died on the cross from

my sins. I don't believe that he is the only

means of salvation. That's what sends someone to hell, and

the opposite, what sends you to heaven is not your

good works. I don't cuss, I don't drink. I'm good

to my wife, I'm.

This, I'm that.

Now, it's one decision. You've accepted the savior of your life,

Jesus Christ, and you believe that his blood washes you clean.

That's the simplicity of the Gospel. Match that against the

religions of this world.

You need a PhD To understand their theories and their philosophies.

And at the end of the day, they don't make sense.

They counterdict each other.

But yet the Bible says the gospel can be understood

by a child. You watch seen it because I was

a children's pastor.

I've seen it. You go to children and you tell them,

I don't know.

Two, three, four five?

Are Are you a sinner? Do you have sin in

your life? Do you need Jesus to forget?

Yes? But then there's some time when they got to

be like fifteen and twenty five and thirty five, you

go to them and they say no. See, children know

that they need a savior. Children know that they need

to be forgiven. It's adults that have a hardened heart today.

Will you turn your life over to Jesus today? I

want to see you heaven. I want to see you

have eternal life. I don't want to know. I won't know,

but I don't want to know today that you reject

Christ and that you're going to suffer in hell for

eternity and everything you love it will be gone in

your worst days of your life are in your future,

not anything you lived upon this earth. Give your life

to him.

He loves you today. He loved you to die for you.

Or you need to rededicate your life because you're not

serving the Lord as you should. Or I love God

and everything is great, but I feel like I'm missing

something and I want to get filled with the Holy Spirit,

with the evidence of speaking in tongues. For any of

these three things, you raise your hand like this, or

we're going to pray for you. One two, nice and tall,

be both for Christ. Here we go one two three,

raise your hand all across this auditorium wherever you are.

Just say this prayer with me. Say, Dear Lord, jeez,

you know who I am.

You know everything about me. I can pretend I thank

you today. I recognize I need Jesus to be the

lord of my life. I need to be forgiven of

my sins. I need heaven, I need the strength to

serve you, and I need the power of the Holy

Spirit in my life. Give it all to me as

I surrender my life in Jesus' name.

Amen. Yeah, Brow, Amen.

You know me and Pastor didn't. We didn't coordinate this morning.

We're just both in the spirit and we showed up here.

We're in the shirts. Yes, Sue, that's true. He got me.

He got me if you said that prayer.

We want to give you some next steps you can

go to grow dot faith and you'll be able to

download a book which is just a resource written by

our founding pastor, Pastor die go On. Just what do

you do now that's you're a Christian, Now that you

said Jesus is your Lord and savior, what do you

do now? And I want to encourage you and even

challenge you. November ninth is our mass baptism, and so

if you made a confession of faith just now, just said,

you know what I believe in Jesus now and I

want to go to heaven. All of those things come

and get baptized with the November ninth, and you're not

going to regret it. Make a public declaration here and

we're all going to rally around you and celebrate you together.

We're all gonna leave here together in the courtyard and

in this room, let me pray for us, and then.

We'll be going.

God, we come before you right now, and we just

thank you, Lord for bringing us to this moment. God,

that you destined us to be here. God, we thank

you for what happened in our hearts, which you stirred

up in our hearts in this place, we pray that

we're able to take it home with us. In Jesus's name,

we pray Amen Amen, hope to see you soon. Family,