Through It Again - Pastor Robin Allen

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We hope this powerful word from City Center Church transforms your mind and grows your relationship with Jesus Christ.

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Thank you for joining us, and let's get into the word of today.

Let's get into the word this morning.

I'm excited because we are in week two of Built Through It.

So if you've got your Bible bags, you've got your notebooks, your pants wave at me this morning because we're gonna get ready to learn and grow in the Lord.

This Built Through It series is designed so that we might reflect.

Say reflect.

We need to reflect sometimes on what God has done in our lives so that we can actually begin to speak from testimony.

Did you guys watch earlier as we began to worship the Lord and that last song?

And Emmanuela stood here and she led us into the part of the song that tells us that I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered.

Were you here?

Okay.

And I felt in the moment that Emmanuela might be singing from experience.

Can anybody testify to that this morning?

Did you watch the way that she ministered through that bridge?

That she it began to personally impact her, the words that she was singing.

That she's not just singing a song that was written by someone else, and then we sing it over here that we might also, you know, glorify the Lord through that same testimony that somebody else experienced.

But Emmanuela was standing on this stage and she was singing to us from experience with the Lord, from testimony with the Lord, that she had walked through something, maybe I'm speculating, but I know her pretty well to know that she's trusted the Lord in time and time and season and season, and that he has heard.

We know it from scripture that he said he would hear us and he would answer us.

I need somebody to reach back to me this morning.

I feel like if we can get ourselves to a place where we remember what he did.

When I stand before the Lord and I worship, I don't need somebody to give me a hype session and cheerlead me into the throne of the Lord because the Bible tells me to enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

I gotta have thanksgiving because I know who he is and what he's done in my life.

Thanksgiving comes from a place of gratitude.

And so I just felt this morning as she was leading us, that she was singing out of a grateful, thankful vessel that she had sought the Lord personally, and that he had heard her, and he had answered, and that's who I want to preach to this morning.

If that's you, will you just lift your hand to the Lord right here?

Leave it up for me.

If you have sought the Lord in a season, you have heard him answer you, you know him by his goodness.

Then Lord, we come to you this morning and we ask that in this space that you might speak so clearly to our hearts, Father, that you might be able to erode away the things of life that have so easily tried to beset us.

But Lord, you would come alongside us this morning, and you would quicken our memory that we might be able to remember where you have found us, where you have redeemed us, what you have brought us through, Father, and that it would fuel our faith.

We are moving forward.

By the grace of God this morning, I thank you that every hand raised is your child, and they have a destiny, they have a life and a purpose and a design, and I rebuke every lie that would tell them otherwise.

Father, we thank you, Lord, that in this room you speak Holy Spirit.

Come on, quicken yourself right now to listen to the Lord.

Father, no matter what's happened this week, no matter what's been said about us or to us, I thank you that in this room this morning, the Holy Spirit of God would speak and divide a truth from a lie.

And that our story becomes your story.

And that you be lifted high in this place in Jesus' name.

Now, all over the room, can we give him thanks?

Come on, all over the room, give him thanks.

I have to tell you this morning that I'm really excited to preach today.

I'm not always excited to preach.

Mostly I'm nervous about preaching, but this morning, I just feel like I can preach this to you easy.

Because we're talking about stories, and I got some.

I'm not gonna share them all with you this morning, but I've got some stuff that if it had not been for the Lord and Him on my side, I just don't know if you would see me the same way you see me right now.

See me and the Lord, we go all the way back.

And so I need you to know this morning I'm not standing here preaching about somebody you told me about, I'm preaching about somebody that I know about.

See, it doesn't matter who I know, it matters no, it matters who who knows me.

And see, I believe that the Lord has heard me banging down his door quite a few times, and he knows me by name.

And because of that, I can stand here today and I can preach this to you easy.

So you're ready to you ready to take notes easy?

You ready to listen easy?

Come on, let's lean into the Lord.

Listen, this morning we're on week two for Built Through It, and I and I'm excited because as I began to think through this word, I remind I was reminded, and you guys know I was raised as a pastor's kid and and in ministry.

My parents were in ministry my whole life growing up.

Just in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna go be with them and get to actually preach their pastor's appreciation service where they've been at this church for 25 years.

So it's incredible legacy.

And and my dad had this state, this saying when I grew up, and and you probably heard it, he didn't coin the phrase, but around our house, Jeff Stanford coined the phrase, and he said it like this he said, leaders are readers.

Leaders are readers, and and he decided, I don't remember being consulted, but he decided that Robin was a leader.

So on the flip side of that, I was naturally gonna going to be a reader.

So I'll have to tell you that that meant that while my friends were reading Goosebumps, I was 11 years old, and I'm reading the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

I just have to tell you how many sleepover invitations never showed up.

And I remember just being so fueled by knowledge and my dad being so encouraging.

He even does this today.

He still sends me books, he now writes his own books, and it's incredible because I've learned to enjoy reading.

So I read because I want to grow, but I also like to read for fun too, right?

And and what I love is a really good story, okay?

When I'm reading just for fun, I like to read a really good story.

And I think that we all do this.

If you think about it, long before we were sitting, you know, around screens watching stories, people sat around fire, you know, bonfires telling stories.

And then we will hear the same story seven different ways, and then everybody wants to hear it again one more different way.

And it's amazing what stories can do, but one of the things that we have to admit is that although books are great and TV's great, Hollywood really has a specific formula to draw us in.

Girl meets Guy, she doesn't like him.

Y'all know y'all seen that movie?

Uh honestly, she really can't stand him, right?

And then the circumstances sort of force them together, right?

There's a work project, you know, there's a road trip, there's a snowstorm, there's a fake engagement, and then wouldn't you know they fall in love?

We've all seen this story.

And then about 20 minutes before the end, there's a misunderstanding.

It's a completely avoidable misunderstanding that one honest conversation would fix, and all of the married people said, Amen, you probably had one on the way to church this morning.

And and so nobody talks, though, of course, because that would not make a fun story if they just forgave each other and moved on with their life.

So nobody talks and then they break up, right?

And then somebody runs through an airport, or they show up in the rain, or and nobody, and then somebody stands in the middle stands up in the middle of the wedding when the minister asks, does anybody have any objections?

And then all of a sudden they end up together.

And here's the thing, church.

We already knew, we knew from the poster, we knew in the first five minutes, and then we watched that movie anyway.

And some of you have watched that same movie 11 times.

Here's the thing we don't love those stories in spite of knowing the ending.

We love them because we know the ending.

We sit through that misunderstanding because we know that the airport scene is coming.

Wait on it, Meg Ryan.

It's coming.

Predictable can be super fun when it's somebody else's story.

It's different when it's yours.

Sometimes life starts to feel too predictable and not in the fun way.

You look up and you're you're passing some of the same scenery again and again and again.

You're having the same prayer time, and maybe you're having that same argument with your spouse, and you're experiencing the same kind of disappointment or the same kind of waiting season and the same questions that you've been asking God about longer than you'd like to admit.

And nobody handed you the poster.

Nobody told you how this part ends.

You just know that I've been here before.

I got anybody in the room that I'm talking to.

And some of you have walked in here this morning and you haven't necessarily stopped believing in God, but somewhere along the way, you began to believe that maybe God was done writing a story for you.

You've read all the pages.

And listen, church, you have too much history with God.

Pastor Tommy talked about it last week.

You have too much history with God to act like this chapter is where he suddenly stops being faithful to you.

Last week, Pastor Tommy took us into the book of Joshua.

Won't you open your Bible for me right here?

The book of Joshua, chapter four, is where he took us and he told us that Israel had crossed the Jordan River and they were on dry ground.

This is the second time that waters have been parted for the people of Israel.

And God told them to take 12 stones from the riverbed and stack them up at a place called Gilgal.

Say Gilgal.

Those stones told a story.

And when their children would eventually ask, What do these stones mean?

This is where God brought you through.

I need somebody with a praying grandmother who's heard a couple stone stories.

You call you heard a couple times where your grandfather, your grandmother, your mom, your dad said, baby, you don't remember it.

But God did it.

And it had not been for him, I don't know how he would have made the rent.

I don't know if I'd even be here today.

Some stone stories.

And listen, I want to pick up right there because Pastor Tommy really challenged us last week.

And I it was amazing actually to be able to hear your stories in the lobby after service.

I want to remind you, church, that this series we are encouraging you not just to sit and listen to stories from the Bible, but to share the story that God has put and put in your life.

What has he done for you?

What has he brought you through?

And there's a couple of ways that you can do that.

You can visit our video booth in the lobby after service today and share a short story, friends.

Share a short story about what is God brought you through.

And then you can also email it if you're like, I don't want to be on video.

That's awesome.

No problem.

Email it to this mystory at citycenterchurch.com.

I want to pick up right there where Pastor Tommy took us last week, where he left us.

Because Israel stacked these stones at this camp in Gilgal, and then he looked toward what was next.

And and Pastor Tommy sort of alluded to it last week, but we're gonna really dive into the story of it today.

And that's the city of Jericho.

Say Jericho.

This was a fortified city surrounded by a wall.

And Joshua, listen, he had been here before.

If you don't know the stories, I'm gonna paraphrase it for you.

But Joshua chapters four through six, even you could back up, go one through five, one through six, and you'll learn all of these stories that I'm gonna paraphrase for you today.

But Joshua had been here before.

40 years earlier, he had been one of the 12 spies that was sent into this land, and he had watched an entire generation become so intimidated by the walls of this city.

Now Joshua is standing in front of the wall again, and this is the same kind of obstacle.

This is the same God, this is just a different Joshua.

Are you hearing me, Church?

Same obstacle, same wall, same situation, same God, different Joshua.

So I love that picture because going through something again doesn't necessarily mean that I've gone backwards, church.

Right?

There are things that you face differently now because you have some history with God.

You've got some stones now, you've got some stories now.

You can look back and say, I've seen God sustain me, I've seen him provide, I've seen him carry me through things I didn't know I could survive.

And now Joshua hears from God concerning Jericho.

So open your Bible, we're going to Joshua chapter six.

We're gonna actually read verses one through five.

Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites.

No one was allowed to go out or in, but the Lord said to Joshua, I have given you Jericho, its king, and all its strong warriors.

You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for si for six days.

Seven priests will walk around or walk ahead of the ark, each carrying a ram's horn, or other translations see, say a trumpet.

Let's continue because I'm reading it from the screen here this morning.

Thank you.

On the seventh day, you are to march around the town seven times with the priest blowing the horns.

When you hear the priest give one long blast on the ram's horns, have all the people shout as as loud as they can.

Some of y'all have a problem with that this morning.

Have all the people shout as loud as they can, then the walls of the town will collapse and the people can charge straight into the town.

See, when God gives Joshua these instructions, Joshua knows something the people walking behind him don't know.

Did you catch it?

Did you catch it?

That God didn't say, Hey, everybody, listen up.

This is what we're gonna do.

This is the plan, here's the strategy.

He didn't do that.

He told the leader, he told Joshua.

Joshua knew he saw the poster, he knew how this movie was gonna end.

But the people following him only knew what Joshua was telling them.

So Joshua has heard from God and he knows what God has promised and the strategy that God has given him.

But the people walking behind him don't control the outcome.

Listen, their responsibility was simple obedience.

And Joshua tells them what to do.

He says, walk.

So what do they do?

They walk.

Day one, they walk, they pass the wall and they return to camp.

Same wall, no visible change.

And when the day's walk is finished, on the next day they return to Gilgal, where all their stones are stacked up.

They go back to camp, back to the stones.

I want you to see this, see this this morning that every day they're walking around something that God hasn't done yet.

They're walking around something that God hasn't done yet.

And then every night they're sleeping beside the evidence of what God has already done.

Did you catch it?

They don't know how many laps are left, they don't know when everything is going to change, they just know what obedience requires of them today.

And some of you know exactly what that feels like.

You don't know how this chapter of your life ends, and just know that every single day you wake up, you know that faithfulness is all that's required of you.

So you pray again and you show up again and you trust the Lord again and you sing songs about it and you obey Him again.

And after a while, you start asking, God, why am I going through this again?

And that's what I want to preach to you about this morning.

If you're taking notes, write it down.

Our title this morning is Through It Again.

Through it again.

What do you do when you feel through it again?

Because there's something almost funny to me about this story.

It's almost funny to me that the strategy for Jericho was to do something that the Israelites actually had a lot of experience doing.

Walking.

Are you with me, church?

These people had been walking for generations, they had walked through the wilderness for 40 years, and they had already walked through the Red Sea on the dry ground, and they had just walked through the Jordan River on dry ground.

And if there was one thing Israel had some experience doing, it was putting one foot in front of the other.

And now they finally arrive at Jericho, ready to take on the promised land, and then God gives them some instruction and He says, just keep walking.

Not dramatic.

This is not the part of the story that everybody skips to.

This is the same thing we've been doing, Lord.

So that's our first point this morning.

I want you to write this down.

Say, walk through it.

Walk through it.

If you don't understand yet, God's telling us to keep walking.

He's telling these people to keep walking.

That we prayed yesterday and nothing changed yet.

We'll keep walking.

And if you're doing the right thing and you haven't seen the fruit of it yet, he's saying to keep walking.

You don't know how this part of your story ends yet.

That's all right.

Keep walking.

Church, faith isn't always dramatic.

Most of the time, the stones that you will stack up were because you were faithful to do things nobody else was willing to stand around and do.

There is such an incredible empowerment that will come to your life as a believer in Jesus Christ if you'll be faithful to stick around.

Faithful to show up.

Faithful to just do the thing that nobody else wants to do.

Faithful to serve when nobody else wants to serve.

Faithful to pray when nobody else wants to pray.

Faithful in the time when you want to do what everybody else is doing and sit back and complain, to say, if the Lord is with us, we can do it.

That's what Joshua and Caleb said when they were sent into the city, and everybody around them complained and said, We don't want to go.

We can't conquer that.

The people are too big, the walls are too tall.

They said, If the Lord is with us, we can do it.

That's how you create stones.

That's how you create stories of God's faithfulness, of God's redeeming power, of God's deliverance.

I'm gonna preach all by myself this morning.

There are days when faith simply looks like getting up on Tuesday and doing the same thing you did on Monday.

If we're waiting for flashy faith, church, our faith will fizzle.

If you're waiting for every time that you come into church for somebody to call you out, tell you your address and your birthday, so they might prophesy something over the over you.

You are not serving a Lord who is going to be faithful to you.

You're serving some side of some sort of transactional God, and that's not what we have.

We have relational Lord, we have intentional Lord, and intention means He wants you to wake up on Monday, do the same thing you did on Sunday because he's worthy every day.

Too many times I have seen people's faith quickly fade away when it is dependent upon dramatic, supernatural moments with the Lord.

And yes, I put quotations around that because we don't get to determine the supernatural church.

We don't get to see something happen and some sort of outward expression and say that was supernatural.

That is God Almighty's job to decide what is supernatural.

When he moves and how he does it.

That's the sovereignty of God in our life.

We can't predict what he does and we cannot label what he does.

We have to have faith that what he's doing is what he's supposed to be doing in this season because he knows the best the best part of my story.

He knows what chapter I'm in, he knows how many chapters I've got left.

So I'm gonna encourage you this morning.

If it feels boring, if it feels mundane, if you feel like you've lapped this one thing before, trust God.

Keep walking, keep walking because you never know how close you're getting.

The people of Jericho or the people of Israel had no idea how close.

Every day they woke up, they got all their things and they got in their line, their procession.

What were they supposed to do?

Put the ark of the Lord in the middle, and then we walk.

And that's it.

I passed that window before.

I passed that cactus before.

I'm just my imagination.

That's the same stone that was here yesterday.

And I, you know, I've seen all this stuff.

I I don't know, Lord, what you're doing, but I I've seen all this.

I don't understand why I have to keep seeing the same things over and over and over and over.

And the people of Israel had no idea that the amount of times that they were walking around this city was adding up.

They had no idea.

They weren't counting one, two, three.

They had no idea, church.

Sometimes I really believe the Lord keeps us in the dark on purpose.

I imagine that if the people of Israel knew how many times they were gonna have to circle this wall, I just feel like the perspective would be different.

I just feel like they would take this challenge on a little differently.

They might be a little more motivated.

They might walk that third, that fourth, like we got it, y'all.

High fiving.

We got this.

Couple more nights at Gilgal, and we're gonna conquer this city.

We're gonna be famous, we're gonna be known, it's gonna be awesome.

Come on now.

The last day, day seven, maybe they would have done a little hip scop jump in there.

They might have danced before the Lord a little bit.

Here's what I think is interesting is because they didn't know.

All they had was obedience because they didn't know all they had was the word from the Lord and the faithful heart to be a servant of the Lord to do whatever He tells me to do.

So I'm gonna get on this path and I'm gonna walk, and I don't know why I'm walking, and I don't know how long I'm gonna walk.

I just know that God told me to walk it.

I'm telling you from a testimony this morning, church, I've been walking some things, and and I don't know why I'm walking, and I'm thinking, Lord, I know I've already dealt with this thing.

I know I've already experienced disappointment like this.

I know I've already experienced hurt like this.

I know I've already had that conversation with my kids.

Come on, somebody.

If you got toddlers in the room, let me give you a fun fact.

Bottle it up right now, and then when they're teenagers, pull it back out.

Same stuff works.

I don't know, Lord.

I don't understand.

I know I've already done this, I know I've already worked on this.

Keep walking, keep walking.

I want you to write this down because I felt the Lord say that some of us, our responsibility this morning is to walk through it.

Because we're built through it.

Because he's doing something, he's doing something in these people as they're walking around.

He he he's he's doing something maybe they don't even fully understand.

And let me also remind you that just because they got to day seven doesn't mean they would understand everything he was doing.

Sometimes it takes me like seven months to figure out what the Lord's doing.

I'm on some sort of delayed revelation over here, and that's fine with me because I understand that I just kept walking through it and he kept teaching me, he kept guiding me.

Oh, I feel good when I get to the end of it because I know that I was faithful to the assignment.

Although I may not see all the fruit of it yet, I was faithful to the assignment and see if I can stick with the Lord, my story looks like his story.

But then there's some other people in the room, and you don't need to just keep walking it, you need to break through it.

I want you to write that down.

That's my second point this morning.

Break through it.

Because these people of Israel, they actually teach us a lot of lessons.

I am certain that while these people of Israel were living here on earth, there's no way they could have known how many times we would preach about them.

There's no way they would have known how many times we would have talked about their complaining spirit.

Somebody's building a testimony right now for your child.

She's like, Oh yeah, when I'm in therapy when I get older, I'm even talking about my mama's complaining spirit.

That's all right, you're teaching them something, giving them an opportunity, break through it.

I felt like the Lord said, you know, the people of Israel, when they were walking through the wilderness and they're complaining and they're look, he is literally providing manna from heaven.

Literal bread from heaven, sand down.

Okay.

Let me break into my okay.

Literal bread from heaven is falling in the wilderness just enough to feed them for one day.

And then they go to sleep, and then they wake up, and they got Panera bread sitting out everywhere again, fresh from heaven.

And I'm telling you, it's interesting that that still calls them to be discontent with the blessing of God.

That the circumstance that they kept lapping, this this journey that should have taken them, I don't even remember the approximate amount of time.

I'm sure there's some sort of scholar in the room who could remind me about the actual approximate amount of time it would take them to get through the wilderness, but they took 40 years.

So their GPS was absolutely broken, and they're just walking and they're complaining.

And I felt like the Lord was saying that it's interesting that in those places they weren't circling something out of obedience, they were cycling something.

Psalm 78.

Have you ever read it?

It's very long.

Psalm 78 is a recounting of the lamenting that the people of Israel were doing.

It's essentially telling us that the wilderness was hard and they wanted everybody to know about it.

It describes it over and over and over again.

They would, they were in this cycle with the Lord or the cycle with themselves where they would rebel against God and they would experience the consequences, and then they would cry out to him, and then they would experience his mercy and eventually find themselves right back in the same pattern.

The problem wasn't necessarily the desert that they were in, the problem was the cycle, it was the pattern.

And being in a wilderness didn't mean that Israel was outside of the will of God.

See, listen, God led them there and he fed them there, he provided for them, but their patterns that they carried into the wilderness, listen to me, church.

God never intended those patterns to be carried with him into the promised land.

I'm talking to somebody this morning because you might feel like, you know, most of my story has to do with me feeling very distant from the Lord.

It has to do with me feeling very empty, it has to do with me feeling very um disconnected, it has me feeling very rejected in some ways, or maybe there's some abandonment that I haven't dealt with yet, or whatever it could be.

But those things have brought me to what could be considered a dry place, a wilderness, a desert.

It's impossible this morning, church, that the Lord is not allowing you out of that chapter of your story yet because there's a cycle that needs to be broken that you cannot take with you into the next chapter.

You can't take it with you, and and and I see that in the people of Israel.

Like there's so many things that God was trying to work out of it, out of them, and and the same is for us.

I I wonder about people who deal with anger, people who deal with bitterness that you've begun to even justify.

I gotta spend a moment right here, church.

I was gonna say something to the church before I began, and I'm not gonna go through all of it, but I felt the Lord pull me back to one thought of it, and that is John chapter 1, where the Bible says that God that God was sent so that he might be the light.

John 1 · chapter mention

He overcomes the light, right?

He over, I'm sorry, he overcomes the darkness because he is the light.

And and and it's interesting to me how I feel like that in the world today, just in our world, we don't have to look very far for darkness.

We we can scroll real quick on, you know, on you can watch your TV, you can scroll on your phone, you can you can you can have a conversation right here after church.

Please don't.

But you could about the darkness that is surrounding the church.

And I would even so much to say the amount of division that darkness is compelling the people of God to join into.

And I I'm sometimes I'm a little bit like grieved over the amount of bitterness in the church that we justify, and we call it righteous anger, righteous indignation.

We feel called to hold on to that bitterness.

We feel called to put ten toes down.

This is my position.

This might be the last time I get to preach, y'all, so I'm gonna say whatever I want to say.

I'm just kidding.

I love City Center Church.

Listen, City Center Church is my home.

I've almost been attending this church as long as I attended my dad's church as a grown adult, and that's huge.

That's why my heart hurts.

Church, we have got to make sure that we are listening to the Holy Spirit.

Listen, your friend who you love so much, you go to a small group with them, you know, maybe you go out on Sunday lunches with them, and their influence in your life is really strong, and that's awesome.

If it's good.

If it's good.

If it's not good, if we're not experiencing fruit, we need to be really careful.

We also might even need to bring that stuff and shine it under the light of the Lord, so He could actually like unfold that thing, peel some layers back, and help us see how maybe their hurt became our hurt, their anger became our anger, and their disappointment became our disappointment.

And now I feel righteous and indignant to stand up for my friend.

You better be careful, church.

The enemy loves moments like this in the church, the enemy loves opportunities to find what we maybe don't even realize are just vulnerable crevices within our walk with God where maybe we've stopped leaning on our not on our understanding, but we've we've actually started to really lean on my understanding.

I am not acknowledging the Lord in this area anymore.

I'm just, I got it, Lord, okay?

They're hurt, I'm hurt.

Everybody else out there, they're the ones who need to get it right.

Can we do something right here, church?

I know this is not what we normally do.

Let's just, if you're okay with it, lift your hands to the Lord.

We are in a unique season city center church.

And I believe that the Lord is not just asking more accountability and more responsibility of our church staff, our pastors.

I believe he's asking it of our church.

And when I say accountability and responsibility, I mean of your spirit, of your soul.

So Lord, in this posture of surrender, Lord, I pray, Father, that you would expose.

Lord, that you would expose the places of our hearts.

Father, the secret sins.

The shameful acts, Lord, the shameful thoughts, the shameful patterns.

Lord, that you would expose the woundedness of our hearts.

Lord, that you would expose even the things that maybe we don't understand.

We don't even see the ways that we have been affected by others, by actions, by circumstances, by opinions, by very loud opinions of our culture, of our society, Lord.

Of others, those that we've trusted, Father, those that we've given away time and attention and we have given away respect.

And Lord, in turn, we have been wounded.

We have been led astray.

And in this very raw moment of repentance, I pray, God, that you would call us back.

Father, that you would speak truth into every dark corner of our hearts.

Lord, that you would allow us, Lord Jesus, to see ourselves and others the way that you see us and them.

Birth, true forgiveness in this house.

Birth, true repentance in this house.

Lord, I pray, Father, for those that we are unable to understand forgiveness for.

Supernaturally, God, do something only you can do and begin to reveal the possibility of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control.

And we choose to surrender to you.

We choose to trade our sorrows for your joy.

We choose to trade our pain for your love, for your peace.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I was reminded this week, and at this point, I'm gonna I'm gonna continue with my sermon, but I I feel like the Lord's taking us in a different place this morning.

Is that all right?

I was reminded this week that the Lord was always interruptible.

That Jesus was always interruptible.

You know, I have three children and I have a husband who needs a lot of attention.

And sometimes I don't like being interrupted.

I I I've told you guys this before.

I'm a little of a type, type A, whatever it is.

I've taken I've taken many personality tests, and um, my strongest, I don't know, like trait is that of an achiever.

I need to achieve a certain amount of things a day to feel like I've contributed.

It's exhausting, bro.

Yet I do it again and again and again and again.

I'm like, I've been here, I've been through this again.

And I felt like, Lord, that really challenged me that if Jesus, if we strive to be like the Lord, if we strive to be like Jesus, then we should be interruptible.

And that doesn't mean that you just like give give away any structure of your life to like, okay, Lord, I'm gonna sit here on my couch, wait till you know someone knocks on my door and tells me what to do today because I am interruptible.

No, I it means that you have flexibility.

You are you're you're open to Lord, if you mess, if you you step into this situation, if you if you pull me in a different direction, then I'm not gonna resist you, I'm gonna go with you.

I'm gonna I'm gonna be in the flow of the river with the Lord.

And so I I believe that God is sort of interrupting some of the things that we have held on to.

And just like the people of Jericho, as they're lapping this wall, they have no idea what's ahead of them.

That on day seven, when they raise a shout to the Lord, the walls will come down.

And I'll be honest, every single Jericho wall um message.

I've ever listened to in my life is really centered around the walls being our problems and we are the Joshua.

I mean, okay, somebody wave at me if you ever did a Jericho march in church.

There's not enough of us, so we won't be able to do that this morning.

But Jericho, that's what that's every message I've ever heard about Jericho is that we we march around our problems and then they're gonna come down.

And we place ourselves in those those stories.

And here's the reality of it, church, is that sometimes that's not the formula that God is giving us.

That's not the strategy that God is giving us.

The strategy can actually be found a little before we get into Joshua or the Jericho story.

I want to take you through it.

There's a scripture, and uh I believe it's in Joshua.

I don't know if I gave it to you guys because I'm a little, I'm a little off my notes now, but there's a scripture, um, Joshua, um, I believe five, towards the end of chapter five, where after the people, the people of Israel have passed through the Jordan River, and now they're they're standing here on the other side.

They have all of their stones, they've built this memorial uh for the Lord and what he's done in their lives.

These are the stories they're gonna tell their children, and they're standing there, and then Joshua looks up and he realizes oh, but we also have to conquer Jericho.

He sees someone which could be described as the commander of the Lord's army, is what the Bible calls it.

Most likely an angel, and he sees this, and and this angel of the Lord says to him to take off his sandals, that he's standing on holy ground.

This is a really small part of scripture.

This is a really short, like two verses two uh in in the story here where we stop and we see that that Joshua just overcame this big thing, that he just led these people through on dry ground.

This is a huge moment, and and then he looks up, and this angel of the Lord tells him, you know, that you have entered a holy place, and the Lord is going to deliver the city to you.

But first, you need to take off your sandals.

So he unleases his sandals, he falls down on his face, and the angel of the Lord tells him that this is holy ground.

That's the strategy.

See, this is before God said take the people of Israel and walk around the walls for seven days.

This was before you make action, before you go and try to accomplish this thing, before you get out here and you come up with all the plans and the procedures, before you talk to anybody else.

The strategy is get in the Lord's presence, get in the Lord's presence.

The strategy is that this is a holy place.

Worship the Lord, worship the Lord, and then the Lord will reveal the strategy.

That is the strategy.

Finding the Lord is the strategy, trusting the Lord is the strategy.

That's my third point to you this morning.

Say trust through it, trust through it.

That's the strategy, trusting the Lord through whatever it is, no matter how many times you've been through it, no matter how many times you've seen this, as the Lord begins to deal on cycles that need to break in your life, you trust the Lord through it.

You keep walking, you keep trusting because I'm gonna come to your feet first, Lord, to hear what it is that you have for me and for my life.

Will you stand to your feet all over the house?

The Lord's telling us this morning to walk through this.

Don't give up now.

Don't turn back.

Keep walking through it.

Some of you in this room, I feel like the Lord really ministered to you in that moment that there's some cycles that you might need to break in your life this morning.

That in order to move through this, you've got to break that cycle.

And we all know that we need to trust the Lord, that trusting him is the strategy for whatever it is that we're going through.

And then listen, the people of Jericho, they get to day seven.

And you can find this in Joshua 6, 16, where the priests blew the trumpets, and Joshua told the people to shout, for the Lord has given you the city.

They weren't shouting to convince God in this moment to move, they were shouting because God was moving.

This wall was falling.

They shouted because God had already spoken to Joshua and told him what to do, and then the wall came down.

But listen, church, I want to remind you that Jericho isn't the last trumpet in this story.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, 52, and there is another trumpet coming.

The Bible says it will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown.

For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to life forever, and we'll be living with him and transformed by him.

And this is where I can finally tell you how your story ends.

I can tell you that this is the this is it.

I can't tell you how your whole chapter ends right now, and I can't promise you that the thing that you've been praying for is going to be resolved tomorrow, but I can tell you how the story ends because Paul says the last enemy will be destroyed, and Revelation says that God will wipe every tear from our eyes.

There will be no more death, there will be no more sorrow, there will be no more crying, there will be no more pain because there's another trumpet coming.

And when the trumpet sounds, death does not win, grief in your life does not get to win, sin does not win, the grave does not win because Jesus does.

Come on now.

I'm telling you, I love my story.

I love having the opportunity to share my testimony, but there's something that happens inside of me when I think about his story, and part of his story is rescuing you from sin, death, and the grave that he came to redeem, to give you life, and to give it to you more abundantly.

And that's why Paul finishes 1 Corinthians 15 by saying, So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable, always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.

Your faithfulness this morning is not wasted.

Not because I can promise that your wall is gonna fall this week, that if you just keep walking, that thing that you've been asking the Lord to do, it's gonna change this week.

I don't want to make that promise.

I don't want to stand up here as a minister of the word and try to make a promise like that about your life because I am not sovereign over your life.

God is sovereign over your life.

So if I gotta walk another lap, I'll walk another lap.

And as I walk the lap, I remember God, I choose to trust you through it.

I'll choose to walk through it because one day you will come and deliver me from it all.

That's where we have to keep our focus, church.

If we are not careful, we will look too much out on the outside walls of this church for the help, for for looking for our help to come, looking towards a person or a personality or or a system or a government to come and redeem me.

Only God Almighty can redeem me.

Only He can make a way for me.

We gotta keep our focus on the Lord.

People will fail you, church.

Systems will fail you, church, churches will fail you, church.

Fix your eyes.

Fix your eyes.

That means I don't look to the left or to the right.

I'm fixed.

I'm planted, I'm waiting for the trumpets.

I understand that my help is coming.

I don't know what your life looks like this morning.

I don't know what you're going through.

Maybe something that was said today did minister to your heart and helped you see that a part of your story maybe still needs to be surrendered, or a part of your story might just need a bit of encouragement to keep walking, some encouragement to keep trusting the Lord.

Either way, I just want to pray for you, and there was somebody in this story that I did not mention, but I just have to tell this her story for just a moment.

And if you've ever read in Joshua chapter 6 or Joshua et al, you know this person by name.

Joshua 6 · chapter mention

Her name is Rahab.

Listen, go home and read your Bible.

My dad used to say it like this get you one of those books and read it.

You need to read her story.

Her story is so good, and I just have to say that when this story began, Rahab, she was inside of Jericho, she was living inside the walls that they were walking around.

But Joshua 2 tells us that Rahab was actually a prostitute, that she was a Canaanite, she was not part of the Israel people, she didn't have their history with God, she'd only heard their stories, and what she heard was enough for her to believe the Lord your God.

This is what she said.

He is God in heaven above and in earth beneath.

Listen, when the walls of Jericho fell, God spared Rahab.

She was rescued.

Her story didn't inside leave end inside the walls of Jericho, and neither does ours this morning.

Then maybe you've heard other people's stories about Jesus your whole life.

Maybe you've been living through some of those stories.

You've been living through grandmother's story.

You've heard it over and over, and you said, God always showed up for her.

It was wonderful, it was a testimony, and I'm saved because I've seen the Lord do it for other people.

Listen, God wants to do it for you too.

He wants to do the same stuff for you that He's done for your parents or your friends or for people in this church.

This morning, I believe there might be people in this room that you do desire for God's story to become your story.

You want to start having some of these stones that you can stack up and you can say, God was with me, and and you want to be like Rahab, you want to, you want to hear and believe.

With every head bowed, every eye closed this morning.

If that's you this morning, if you say, I want to meet the Lord, I want to know the Lord, I want to find Him like people around me have found Him.

I want to feel God with me, all around me, and guiding every single one of my steps.

If that's you, if you want to meet Christ this morning, would you just lift your hands and I'll recognize you this morning?

Short and simple, thank you.

Yes, yes, amen, hallelujah.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Praise God, yes, thank you.

All over the room, can we all lift our hands now?

We're gonna pray together to end today.

Lord, I thank you for what you're doing in this space.

I thank you, Lord, for how you've spoken through your word, and Lord, how you have healed through your word, Lord.

We have submitted our hearts to you in this space.

We've looked to you today, God, and I just I thank you, Lord, for the understanding, God, that you are calling us not just to faithfulness, God, but for deliverance, Lord.

And I pray in the name of Jesus, supernaturally, God, you would begin to deliver hearts and minds in this house this morning.

Father, I thank you, Lord, even for generational, generational struggles and cycles and patterns to be broken over this generation, Lord.

I thank you that we can tell stories of how the cycle ended right here.

And Lord, I pray for those, Lord Jesus, who desire to find you as Lord.

And can we say this all together, one prayer to the Lord, all together?

Say, Lord Jesus, I surrender my life to you.

I believe that you died for me, I believe that you rose again, and I believe that you're coming back, that you're gonna sound the trumpet, and I'm gonna be united with you, Lord.

But I'm in need of your grace.

Wash me this morning, help me, God, help me to live for you every single day as you show me how.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Can we celebrate the Lord this morning?

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